PHO-TAK Traveler 120

 

Looks like I haven't made a post here in almost five years. For various reasons I got away from doing the film photography that mostly was the subject of this blog, however recently I decided to do some film again. My first attempt was with the PHO-TAK Traveler 120. The Traveler was first made in 1948. PHO-TAK seems to have existed from the late 1940's until the mid-1950's. In Chicago IL they made mostly cheap box cameras for the mass market. The Traveler is distinguished by being the heaviest box camera that I have encountered. It is entirely made of metal and could probably be used for self-defense. The camera is simple with to shutter speeds, 1/50 and time. The aperture is f11. So this is a camera made to be used in bright light. Although it does have an option for using flash. The Traveler used 120 film and yields 8 6x9 images. I was pleased that in my tests the Traveler gave me 8 usable images with a nice vintage look. 

Start of a New Season

I imagine the image above may hurt some people's eyes. Still if you have read some of my past posts it does seem I have an occasional fondness for often ridiculed cameras. Last year I didn't see many such cameras. For a long time I could count on the cheap plastics being present at garage sales and thrift shops. However last year it looked like people must have finally cleaned all these cameras from their drawers and closets.


So at the start of a new season I was surprised to see a whole bin of these cameras at a thrift store that I visited on Saturday. I decided just to take the ones which were not grey or black. The five cameras above are the result. The Pink Eyelash camera says it has a 28mm lens. Other than that they are fairly ordinary.  I don't remember ever seeing anyone use one of this type of camera back in the years when they were prominent. From what I understand many of this type of camera were used as promotional items and often ended up tossed in a drawer. I actually have another of the Lexxus camera. The pictures it takes are not bad. They are consistently fairly sharp in the center and soft on the corners.

I don't feel in a big hurry to take pictures with these new finds. Although in the past I have found that a few of this type of camera, will take surprisingly nice images. And even some take bad images that are nonetheless interesting. Anyway at least they are some nice colors for the Easter season.

KODAK BROWNIE JUNIOR SIX-16

I saw this group of cameras in an antique shop last week.  They are the 1930's equivalent of the more recent point and shoot cameras that are a staple of many garage sales.  I believe the guy was asking $25 for the SIX-16 cameras and $15 for the plain boxes.  Considering their very rough shape I imagine they will sit there for a very long time. 

The KODAK BROWNIE JUNIOR SIX-16 was made from 1934 to 1942.  It is a typical box camera of the time with one set shutter speed and an option for a timed exposure. The ones that I have seen more often have an Art Deco metal plate on the front.  I am not sure why the ones here differ.  The KODAK BROWNIE JUNIOR SIX-16 made six 2 1/2 x 4 1/4 images using 616 film. Kodak introduced 616 film in 1932. 616 is the same as the older 116 film, however it comes on a slimmer spool.  By making the spool slimmer Kodak hoped to be able to make smaller cameras. 

The large negative produced by cameras like the KODAK BROWNIE JUNIOR SIX-16 was popular up until the 1950's because it seems that it was more economical to make contact prints than enlargements. At one time there were some amazingly large versions of roll-film out there.  For example I was surprised to find that the original 110 film, discontinued in 1929, was 5" x 4", and the original 126 film, discontinued in 1949, was 4 1/4" x 6 1/2".  Unfortunately today 120 is the largest roll-film format you can get.

616 film was discontinued in 1985. It takes some doing, however you can use 120 film with a camera like the BROWNIE JUNIOR SIX-16.  I did it a while back with the Kodak Senior Six-16. My guess is that it wouldn't be worth the trouble with a camera like the BROWNIE JUNIOR SIX-16.  Especially since there are a lot of cameras of the same vintage that use 120 film and likely would produce similar results.

The best I can tell the GE console radio above was first made in 1933.  So maybe a BROWNIE JUNIOR SIX-16 once sat upon it. More than likely it played some of the second season of the Jack Benny show. Jack Benny had one of the most popular radio shows starting in 1932 up until TV become dominate in the 1950's.  The peak of popularity for radio shows like Benny's parallels the popularity of film formats like 616 or 620.  Although that parallel seems to be a coincidence more than the result of any relationship between radio and film formats that I can figure out. In today's antique shop the radio and the cameras are in the same booth. Unlike the cameras the radio seems in good shape and it is claimed that it works.  Also unlike with the cameras it is never a good idea to try to see if an old radio works by plugging it in. I suppose the big difference is that no old camera that I know of needs to be plugged into electricity, and therefore it isn't like to be damaged, catch on fire, or shock you.

More on a vintage theme than a photography one are these Christmas lights which I think are from the late 1930's.  Who knows, they could have been on a Christmas tree in the 1930's in the same room with the GE radio and a BROWNIE JUNIOR SIX-16 camera.  I got the lights for a couple dollars at a garage sale last weekend.  Ignoring the caution that I usually have with old electrical things I plugged these in and they did light.  And from the heat they generated I would guess that given time they might have set this box on fire.  I imagine that you would be asking for trouble if you put these lights on a less than fresh Christmas tree.  I suppose the lack of fire threat may be one advantage of collecting vintage cameras.

Meikai 4351

Meikai cameras were actually made by a real camera company in Japan called Tougodo.  The first Meikai was the Meikai EL made in 1963. The Meikai EL has about the same capabilities as the Meikai 4351, however being part metal the Meikai EL looks better. It looks like Tougodo continued making cameras at least up until the late 1980's. They also made flashes and other camera accessories.

Comparing the Meikai 4351 with a camera that I wrote about earlier the, Meikai 4353 SSN , showed me that Tougodo was constantly working on improving their line of Meikai cameras.  That is if by improve you mean to make your camera be a better fake looking SLR. Judging by the numbers I would guess that the Meikai 4353 SSN is a later version than the Meikai 4351.  And the later version Meikai 4353 SSN does look to me more like an SLR.  I do wonder if anyone was ever really fooled by these cameras.  Although when I think of the kind of people we elect to public office, and the kinds of advertising campaigns that people fall for, I wouldn't be surprised if there were at least a few people who thought these were real SLRs.

Still even if they were fooled they would be, unless seriously deluded, unfooled when they got their first images processed.

And if they wondered why it took so long to finish their roll of film they would be enlightened when they saw images like the one above.  Now some cameras like the Meikai 4353 SSN have the tendency at times not to advance the film a full frame on occassion.  This often seems to happen near the end of a roll of film. The Meikai 4351 is the only camera that did this through an entire roll of film. Fortunately I only bulk loaded ten frames to test this camera. I am not sure if this is something that the Meikai 4351 does all the time, or if I may have had the film inserted too loosely.  Still I would guess that if images like the one above are what you have been seeking from a camera, then the Meikai 4351 might be the answer for you.

I wonder if Tougodo was the company that made a lot of the other fake SLRs that now fill up space in thrift stores and garage sales, or did they just stick to their Meikai brand?  If quality is a word that can be used with such cameras I have found some fake SLRs that were better than the Meikai.  The Time Camera that I used last summer probably could even be used for real photography under the right conditions. Anyway you have probably now read more on the Meikai 4351 than has been or ever will be written again.

Lavec LT-002

I didn't want to let another week go by without a post, however some may wish when they see the Lavec LT-002 that I had.  I had a case of the Lomo Bug and put some film in this camera that had been sitting around for a while.  I think it came from a garage sale last summer.  It was still in its box wrapped in plastic.  So likely it had never been used.  That seems pretty common for these cameras. A lot of them were give-aways that people didn't want to waste film on.

The Lavec LT-002 has apertures of 5.6,8,11, and 16.  Instead of a round opening for the aperture the Lavec LT-002 uses a rectangular slit.  I think that is what accounts for the vignetting at the smallest apertures.

I suppose that the standard that I use in judging these 35mm cameras for their Lomo qualities is the Holga. By that standard I think the Lavec LT-002 has some potential.  It even has some light leaks and occasional flaring. Although it is not usually as extreme as in the image below.

I have wondered why from time to time I chose to run good film through these cameras that are disdained by most photographers and humanity in general. My best guess is that after so many years of doing photography I know enough to have very good control over the results that I get when using my better cameras.  With a camera like the Lavec LT-002 there is a lot of uncertainty about what results I will get. I can chose my subject and make some attempt at composition(which isn't easy since the viewfinders usually show much less than the camera sees), however much of the result is beyond my control.  And there is something about that which I enjoy.  Although I imagine that the same experience would cause much discomfort to some. 

Anyway the Lavec LT-002 looks like it has some potential.  Although it probably won't be the first camera that I pick up the next time that the Lomo Bug bites.

Praktica

The Praktica was a very early SLR first introduced in 1949.  The best I can tell the one here was probably made around 1951.  I imagine that at the time it was introduced that being able to see the same view as the lens was still sort of a wonder.  Although the view through the Praktica's waist-level finder for me leaves a lot to be desired. The only way I could hope to focus was by using the built-in magnifier.  It wasn't a quick process to compose and focus an image with the Praktica.  I imagine that with practice it would get better, however looking down at such a small image in the viewfinder would take some getting used to.

Another thing that might be unfamiliar to someone who has only used more modern SLRs is that the Praktica does not have auto mirror return.  After taking a picture the viewfinder goes dark until the film is wound. That could be a problem in trying to follow continuous action. The shutter requires that you make a choice of using either the fast speeds or the slow speeds.  Unlike on more modern cameras there isn't a continuous progression from slow to fast. I would also guess that like with most older cameras that you need to make sure that the shutter is cocked before changing shutter speeds.

I would like to be able to say that my experience with using the Praktica was a pleasure.  And at least I might have been able to say that if the camera hadn't torn my film toward the end of the roll.  It did this so smoothly that I didn't suspect that it had happened and only found out when I opened the back of the camera and saw my film exposed to the light.  Unfortunately, I had violated one of my usual practices of only opening these old cameras in a dark bag.  Anyway I do not have pictures to show from my time spent with the Praktica.  And my level of enjoyment of the camera wasn't such as to make me want to quickly repeat the experience.  

I am glad that I have this early Praktica.  It is certainly interesting to look at. And the Praktica does have a place in history as the first camera to use the M42 mount.  When it comes to lenses my Praktica came with a very good one, the Meyer-Optik Görlitz Primoplan 58mm f/1.9.  So far I have only used this lens on digital which I wrote about a while back.  I thought the results were excellent and I remember at the time I said I was looking forward to trying the lens out with film using the Praktica.  I still am looking forward to using the Meyer-Optik Görlitz Primoplan 58mm f/1.9 with film, however I think that when I do it will be with a different M42 camera than the Praktica.

Yashica ML 50mm 1:1.7

A couple of years ago I bought a Yashica FX-3 Super at the Parke County Covered Bridge Festival.  The FX-3 came with a Sakar 35-200mm lens which I wasn't real impressed by. So I had been hoping to find a Yashica lens in the C/Y mount.  I found one last fall at the same Covered Bridge Festival.  It came on a Yashica FX-2 for a price that I would have been happy to pay for the lens alone. Then for some reason I forgot about the purchase till a short time ago.  Once the Yashica ML 50 f/1.7 again came into my awareness I decided to give it a test. Now the snowy, cold conditions here in Illinois don't make it as pleasant to pop out and take some photos as it usually is.  For some reason I don't feel very creative when walking in a foot of snow with wind chills near zero. Probably the milder winters here in recent years have spoiled me.  Anyway my experience taking these photos has put me off doing any camera testing until the conditions outdoors improve.

One new thing that I did learn about this lens is that there may be two versions. The older version says "YASHICA LENS ML 50mm 1:1.7 YASHICA MADE IN JAPAN".  This version is probably a Yashica DSB lens.  The newer version says "YASHICA LENS ML 50mm 1:1.7 MADE IN JAPAN".  That lens is said to be made with a Zeiss design and glass.  Now these two versions might be the reason why there seems to be such a different in experience that people have with this lens.  It looks like my version is one of the older design.

The image above is the only one I was able to get with the lens wide-open.  It may not be as sharp as it could have been since I may have been shaking from the cold.  Despite the cold it does look like the Yashica ML 50mm f/1.7 is a competent lens.  I probably will use it again when the weather is fairer. I also think I will be on the look-out for one of the newer versions to make my own comparison.

Yashica Electro 35 GSN

Back in the early 1970's the concept of the discount store was fairly new. I can still remember when the local or chain department store was the dominate force in retail. Where I grew up there was a small discount chain called K's Merchandise Mart that was very popular.  They had a catalog which would show the normal price for an item and then show K's discount price.  In a more trusting time and with a lot less price info available than today, K's prices looked pretty good. And I did find when I went looking for my first serious camera that K's prices for cameras beat the local merchants.  They actually compared well with the big mail order camera stores once shipping was considered.  So K's was the place that I hoped to find a camera that I liked. The selection was somewhat limited in that they only carried Yashica and Minolta. Still I remember being enamored with the Yashica Electro 35 GSN. I was fascinated by the low light potential of the Electro 35's f/1.7 lens.  That seems funny when looking back on it, since the kind of photography that I grew to prefer seldom needed a large aperture.

In the early 1970's there still was some debate in 35mm circles about if a rangefinder or an SLR was the better choice.  As far as cameras that professionals were buying the SLR had already won. Leica was the only company still making a rangefinder aimed at professionals.  Still there remained a market for fixed lens rangefinders for the consumer that wanted something better than a Kodak Instamatic.  The Yashica Electro 35 GSN and the earlier Yashica Electro 35's were in this class.  And the Yashica Electro 35 was very successful. Around 8 million were sold from 1966 to 1977. The Yashica Electro 35 GSN automatic exposure worked great for the casual photographer, however its lack of a manual option and fixed lens didn't appeal to my photographic ambitions. 

So as I learned more about the limitations of the Yashica Electro 35 GSN I decided to pay a little more and go with an SLR.  And with that I forgot about the Yashca Electro 35 GSN.  That was until a few years ago when I got to looking at film cameras on Ebay.  It is pretty hard to look at the film cameras on Ebay and not come across one of the versions of the Yashica Electro 35.

Seeing one bought back the memories of pondering that camera years ago.  When I saw how cheap they were I had to get one.  I think it may have been my first Ebay camera purchase.  The one I got seemed almost brand new and it included a battery adapter.  I believe that I may have experienced as much pleasure in getting my hands on this camera as I have with any camera that I have acquired since then. 

Which is why it came as a surprise to me to find that I had not written anything about the Yashica Electro 35 GSN.  Probably this was because by the time I started doing this blog I no longer was using the Yashica Electro 35 GSN much.  While the camera gives excellent results, along with being mostly a pleasure to use, I found that when it came to rangefinders that I preferred the more compact ones. Still I do believe the Yashica Electro 35 GSN is a film camera to be experienced.  And there are not many 35mm film cameras that can give such good results for so little money.  If you do look for one be picky and look for one in excellent condition that the buyer will guarantee to work. It shouldn't take long to find one for a good price.

If you want more details on the Yashca Electro 35:
Yashica 35mm Rangefinder Chronology & Specifications
From Matt's Classic Cameras

Lastly some pictures. One thing I have to add is that the colors that the Yashica Electro 35 GSN gives are some of the most true to what I saw of any lens that I have used.

Spiratone Portragon 100mm f/4

I found this in a box with a bunch of filters that I got a while back.  What it turned out to be is a lens that seems to be aimed at doing portraits.  It only has one aperture f/4, and only keeps some focus toward the center.

The Portragon is a T-mount lens.  The one here had a adapter for Olympus. So a couple of days ago when we had some temperatures close to freezing I mounted the Portragon on an OM-1 and popped out for some quick pictures.

From what I could find the Portragon appears to be a single element lens.  It doesn't necessarily feel cheap, however it seems to be all plastic.  One source said that it originally sold for $19 back in the 1960's and 1970's. The lens is so simple that I can't think of much else to say about it.  I did like the initial results enough that I will probably give it another try.

Spiratone, the company that sold the Portragon is an interesting story.  I imagine that anyone who was doing photography 30+ years ago has heard the name.  Spiratone was a large mail order seller of mostly photography accessories.  A lot of their stuff was aimed at the amateur market.  They usually had large ads in the major photography magazines. I can remember reading their ads in Popular Photography and Modern Photography.  The company has been gone since 1990 although it had been run into the ground before that by companies who had purchased Spiratone earlier.  Anyway I found some links if you are interested in knowing more about the seller of the Portragon lens.

The New York Times Obit for the founder Fred Spira.

A Facebook page with a lot of info about Spiratone.

Ricoh 35 FM

I couldn't find much info on the Ricoh 35 FM.  At first glance it looks like it might be one of the compact rangefinders that Ricoh made throughout the 1970's, however a closer look shows that the Ricoh 35 FM is a much simpler camera.  The single person to mountain symbols on the lens shows that the 35 FM is zone focusing.  A search of the camera shows that there are no manual controls. The Ricoh 35 FM only offers auto exposure controlled by a cds meter. To take a picture with the Ricoh 35 FM you first enter your film speed on the dial on the front of the lens. The speed range is a narrow 25 to 400 ISO.When you partly press the shutter button a needle in the viewfinder will show you what aperture the meter has selected.  The camera doesn't tell you what shutter speed has been selected, however it looks like there is only one speed and that is 1/125.  The day I did my testing was sunny with and most of the ground was covered with snow.  So the 35 FM had plenty of light to use with the Arista.EDU 100 film that I loaded.

The Ricoh 35 FM uses a 40mm f/2.8 lens made by Ricoh.  It would make sense that this is the same lens that is used by the more advanced cameras like the Ricoh 500 G. The lens is the strong point of this camera. It allows this simple economy level camera to give some respectable results.  The meter on the example that I have appears to still be working well.  It handled the sometimes difficult light of a sunny snow-covered day well.  It is also a plus that the meter uses an SR44 battery instead of the mercury ones that were so common in its era. 

And mentioning era I would say that the Ricoh 35 FM was made sometime in the 1970's.  I never could find a definite date or original price for the Ricoh 35 FM. 

I admit that fairly often as I am thinking about a camera while I am writing a post that my esteem for the camera becomes greater than it was when I was actually using the camera.  Once I have some results and have done some research and fit the camera into its time my respect often grows.  That happened with the Ricoh 35 FM.  For an inexpensive camera aimed at the casual photographer the 35 FM does pretty well.  It is simple to use, and the Ricoh 40mm f/2.8 lens gives results that are better than most of the economy cameras of the Ricoh 35 FM's time.

Three under-rated cameras

Back in the mid-seventies when I was first getting into photography most photographers would buy into one camera system and stick with it. For the most part lenses and accessories would only work within their camera system.  So for most people it was too expensive or inconvenient to maintain more than one camera system. I early on bought into the Canon system and pretty much stuck with it even until now. In recent years however film camera prices have fallen so much that it is possible to experiment with cameras and lenses that wouldn't have gotten much consideration from me if I had to pay the original price. From the experience of trying out a lot of cameras I have found there were many cameras that would have met most of my needs.  The three cameras here particularly surprised me because they were not from the big names like Canon, Nikon, Pentax, or Olympus.  In fact I don't remember ever hearing about them when they were first sold. I think all three would be good cameras for someone wanting to get started in film again.  They all are reliable durable cameras that can be purchased for very little. Like the more famous Pentax K1000 they have all the basics and don't need a battery for anything other than the meter.

I have used this camera fairly often for the last few years and still have a high opinion of it. It probably helps that the Sears Auto f/1.4 lens is one of the best that I have used. It appears that this camera was made by Ricoh and was rebranded by Sears.  Unlike current day retail giants Sears did seem to value quality in what it sold. Although at the time being a store brand camera probably did cause some photographers not to take the Sears TLS seriously.

 A couple of years ago you could find a Sears TLS with the f/1.4 lens for around $20 on Ebay.  Now it appears that the same combination is going for between $40 to $60.  Still a good bargain in my opinion since you are getting a solidly made camera with one of the best standard lenses made.

I wrote more about the Sear TLS a couple of years ago.
Sears TLS
Here is a good forum post about the Sears TLS at Photo.net
I also made a gallery for the Sears TLS.  The B&W images are from the f/1.4 and the color are with the Sears 28mm f/2.8.  Sears TLS Gallery

Pretty much everything that I have said about the virtues of the Sears TLS can also be said about the Argus/Cosina STL 1000.  I have encountered several of these in the past few years and have yet to see one that isn't still very usable.  That is a rare experience for cameras of this age. Like with the Sears TLS the standard Cosinon f/1.8 lens is a big selling point for me with this camera. The Cosinon lens renders color with a subtle warmth that I enjoy.  As a bonus the lens is one of my favorites to use with an adapter on digital cameras.

I just noticed that it was exactly one year ago that I wrote more about this camera. Argus/Cosina STL1000

The Mamiya/Sekor DSX 500 was one of the biggest surprises of the cameras I have tested in the past few years.  One surprise was to find that the DSX 500 offers both spot and averaging metering.  Another pleasant surprise was that it uses an SR44 battery.  So having some versatility in metering powered by an easy to get battery is a big plus for me. Like the other two cameras the auto Mamiya/Sekor sx f/2 lens is very good.  There is a DSX 1000 model which is pretty much the same as the DSX 500 with the exception of the top shutter speed of 1000 vs 500 for the DSX 500.  On Ebay there isn't much difference in price between the two cameras. 

I wrote more about this camera last summer.  Mamiya/Sekor DSX 500

So if you are looking for a solid basic film SLR that doesn't cost much I don't think you would go wrong with any of these three cameras. And regardless of price all three can hold their own in the quality of images they are capable of making.

I would like to know of any other cameras that you have used that you feel are under-rated.

Spartus Folding Camera Model No. 5-500

Back when I was in the deepest grip of camera mania I bought this camera off Ebay.  The main attraction was its Art Deco design.  I didn't pay much for it and I had it for a while before I started to appreciate it.  So far my experience has been that while not being a very good picture taker it is great to look at.  It helps that the camera was in like new condition.  I don't think that it was used much.  I imagine that it sat in its box for years. Probably the Spartus Folding camera was designed in the late 1930's. It started out as the Falcon Folding Camera in 1940 and shortly after the design was taken over by the Spartus Company of Chicago.  Spartus continued to make the Spartus Folding Camera up to the 1950's.

One of the things I like most about old cameras is that they can give me a feel of having a link to an earlier era in photography.  Sometimes that feeling is ruined by a camera that is so decrepit that it is hard to get a feel for what it must have been like when it was in its prime.  The Spartus Folding camera was in such good shape that it was not hard to imagine what it would have been like to use it when it was brand new. 

As you can see from the image above the Spartus Folding Camera is very simple.  About the only choice you have to make is to select an aperture of either f/16 or f/22.  There also is a choice of instant or timed for the shutter. Since there is no option for flash, the best time to use the Spartus would be on a sunny day.  That was a common limitation for cameras of the time. And since people back in those days seem to have spent more time outdoors this would not have seemed like a great limitation.

As far as the pictures it makes, well they aren't too great. Although I think the results would have met the expectations that most people would have for such a camera at the time. For a price of $7.95 the Spartus Folding Camera must have satisfied the needs of many picture takers back in the 1940's.  That is evidenced by its long production run, and by a fair number of these cameras still being around.

The Spartus uses 127 film, which was fairly popular for amateur picture making up to the 1960's.  Today with the demise of Efke, the last maker of 127 film, it appears that making use of cameras like the Spartus Folding Camera will be more difficult.  For the image here I took some 35mm film and put it on 127 backing paper.  That works reasonably well, however I don't think that I often will be willing to go to the trouble for the images that the Spartus Folding Camera makes.  Still I think the Spartus Folding Camera is very worthwhile for its design alone.  My advice if you are planning on getting one is to hold out for one in very good condition.  I would guess there still are a lot of good ones out there.  And having one in excellent condition adds much to being able to appreciate the non-picture-taking qualities of the Spartus Folding Camera.