Spartus Box Camera

Strangely, I don't remember where I bought this camera.  I know I got it last summer and I would guess it was at a garage sale.  Until the last few days it sat on a shelf mostly ignored.  When I did take a good look at this Spartus Camera I was surprised that I found it to be a fairly attractive camera. It could use a little cleaning, however its simple clean lines look good to me. 

The features of this Spartus box camera are the standard ones for a box camera of the 40's and 50's. There are two shutter speeds, instant and time. The instant speed is probably 1/30.  Two good things about this camera are that the viewfinder is actually usable and it uses 120 film. With most of the cameras of this type I have found the viewfinder, even when clean, to be difficult to use.  The one on this Spartus, while small, is bright and clear. 

I couldn't find anything on what year this Spartus camera was made. I would guess the late 1940's to the mid-1950's. Spartus was a company in Chicago that made a great variety of inexpensive cameras during this era. My guess is that these cameras were kinda like the inexpensive point & shoot cameras made by companies like Vivitar in the 1980's and 1990's.

So far I haven't taken any photos with the Spartus. Although since it uses 120 film I will do so when the weather here is more compatible with the leisurely pace of shooting that seems called for with this camera from what many think of as a slower time.

Kodak Retina Reflex III

I bought this camera last summer for 50 cents at a garage sale. Back during the early 1960's the Retina Reflex III sold for the equivalent of $2000 in today's dollars. Today that same price would get you an entry level full frame DSLR from Canon or Nikon.  I imagine that you would either have to be a fairly serious photographer or have a lot of spare change to have bought a Retina Reflex III when it was new.

The Retina Reflex III is certainly a nice camera to look at even after all these years. When the shutter is pressed it is one of the most quiet, vibration free SLRs that I have used. Part of that is because the mirror doesn't return automatically.  Like many other SLRs from this period the mirror doesn't return until the film is advanced. Overall the Retina Reflex is a fine specimen of a high quality German made camera. That being said I don't think I will ever take pictures with this camera. The main reason for that is the very limited options for exposure.

The Retina Reflex III uses one of the selenium meters that were popular in the early 1960's. You made your exposure by turning a ring on the lens until a needle in the viewfinder was centered. Probably in 1961 this was quite a feature. Unfortunately in my Reflex III the meter is dead. Still there is the option of selecting your own shutter/aperture combination.  When you move the ring you can make various selections of shutter/aperture pairings. Each shutter speed is paired with one aperture.  Like if you want to use f/8 the shutter speed is 1/30.  Now the bad part is 1/30 is the only shutter speed you can use with f/8.  There appears to be no way to decouple the shutter/aperture combinations. And that is a killer for me as far as this camera is concerned. I could probably figure out a way to make this set-up work, however it is more figuring than I want to do to get pictures from this camera.

I kinda wonder if this lack of flexibility didn't help to kill off the Retina Reflex line.  Probably there were other factors, however like today I think that a photographer laying out some serious cash for a camera would want at the least the ability to make his own shutter/aperture selections.

So for me the Retina Reflex III falls in the category of interesting and nice to look at, but not for taking pictures.  Which isn't bad for 50 cents.

If you want more details about the Kodak Retina Reflex here is the entry from Kodak Classics.

Canon EOS Rebel GII

• Autofocus: TTL with 3 selectable focusing points
• Focus modes: One-Shot AF, AI Servo AF, Manual Focus
• Light meter: TTL Evaluative, Centerweighted average, Partial Metering (approx. 9%)
• Exposure: Intelligent program AE, Shutter priority, Aperture priority, Depth-of-Field priority, Full auto, Picture modes, Manual, Auto exposure bracketing, and Exposure compensation
• Built-in flash, 1/90th sec. sync 
• Shutter speed 30 seconds to 1/2000

2014 was different for me as far as the cameras I saw at garage sales, thrift shops etc.  The main difference was that I saw very few of the cheap plastic point & shoots that were so common in years past. Not sure what happened to them. The cameras I did find were mostly decent cameras for good prices. The find that surprised me the most was a nice Kodak Retina Reflex III which I got for 50 cents. 

I found this Canon Rebel GII last summer at a church sale for $4.  There also was a Speedlite flash included. Introduced in 2003 the GII was one of the last film cameras that Canon made. Pretty much if you have used Canon digital SLRs you will be at home with the GII.  My biggest impression of the GII is that it is the lightest SLR that I have ever used.  It would be easy to carry this camera around all day.  Still as can be seen in the list above the GII is a very capable camera. 

The GII came with an EF 35-80mm kit lens.  Now I don't have the blanket dislike for kit lenses that some seem to have.  However this kit lens does seem a little soft although the contrast seems pretty good. It certainly is a usable lens and it appears that the softness isn't so great that it can't be fixed somewhat by a sharpening filter.  Still when using the GII you might be happier with a different lens.

The GII runs on two photo lithium batteries. I'm adverse to paying more to put batteries in a camera than I paid for the camera. So I was happy to find that I can get photo lithium batteries at the local Dollar Tree store for $1 each. So far these batteries have held up about as well as the more expensive ones.

It is a funny thing that even though the Rebel GII is a very good camera I doubt that I will use it much. I think my irrational knock on it is that it is too much like my digital camera experience.  Now I have nothing against digital photography, however when I am using film I want it to feel like a different process. To me film feels like it should be used with a camera that can live without a battery.

So I get one more post in before the new year.  Thanks to all who have read my efforts this year.  I wish each of you the best in the coming year.  I leave you with a few images made last summer with the GII.

Street Photography

 I started on this post sometime ago and didn't get it finished. Figured as I restart this blog for the winter I might as well make this the first offering.

A few days ago I was reading this post and got to thinking about street photography. I imagine there are some definitions for what street photography is, however I tend to think of it as photos of people out in public going about their business. My version of street photography doesn't mean that the subjects have to actually be along a street.  And around here as in most places streets aren't what they used to be. There are a lot of cars, however not many people walking on the sidewalks.

So I got to wondering about the photos that I have taken in the last few years that might fall into a broad definition of street photography. What I found is that most of my pictures of this type where taken at events like festivals and flea markets.  The one above is from a flea market. I took it using a Canon 50-250 lens on one of my Canon digital SLRs.

The ones above also were with the Canon 50-250.  I think I get the best results with this lens since it lets me get close without sticking a camera in someone's face.

A couple more from when I had a phase of liking to put frames around things.

The two below are with a Holga lens for Canon.  Since this lens is around 50mm it makes me get closer.  I like the soft look of this lens.  I wish I could remember where I put it.

The last one is with a Sony DSC TX7.  I usually carry this one in my pocket. I took this one at Flesor's Candy Store in Tuscola IL. I thought it looked much better converted to B&W. Hope that no one is offended that my first post in a while is digital. Plan to be back with more film cameras soon.

Minolta SR-T 201

Every since I again took up film photography I had wanted to get my hands on a classic 1970's Minolta. The easy way would have been to look on Ebay, however I figured I would go local for this one. I remember back in the 1970's that Minolta was a common brand of SLR in this area. I think I saw them almost as often as Pentax. So I didn't think it would be long until one showed up in a garage sale, thift shop, or etc.. While that line of thought turned out to work for Pentax it wasn't true for Minolta.  A few years passed until recently I came across this nice Minolta 201 for $10 at a garage sale.  My ideal choice would have been the classic SR-T 102, however after all this time I am happy with the SR-T 201.

The SR-T 201 was lower priced than the SR-T 102 and SR-T 202 and lacks some of their features.  However it does have the two features that I most wanted. The first is CLC metering.  With CLC Minolta used two cds cells to combine spot and center-weighted metering.  The second is the MD 50mm f/1.7 lens which is one of the classic lenses from the 1970's. The great metering system and lens combined along with an economical price made the Minolta SR-T series one of the best-selling cameras during the 1970's. 

 In just a brief experience of the Minolta SR-T 201 I can say that the exposure system lives up to its reputation. Pretty much every image I took was spot-on as far as exposure. The lens also lived up to expectations. Overall a very good camera. If you go looking for a Minolta SR-T 201 look for the letters CLC on the front.  There was a late version of the SR-T 201 that only one cds cell and these do not have the CLC marking. 

Right now I am in the middle of switching to a new ISP and it isn't going so well. For some reason the connection is very slow and that doesn't make blogging much fun. Hopefully another call to support will get things working. 

 

Kodacolor-X 616 film

Last week I found these two rolls of film at a garage sale for 50 cents.  I had never seen actual 616 film before. I don't remember the format although it was still for sale when I was first into photography. 616 film was introduced by Kodak in 1932.  It is the same size as 116 film, however the spool is smaller.  The idea was that the smaller spool would let cameras be smaller also. As it was most commonly used 616 film made 8 images that were 2 1/2 inches by 4 1/4 inches. Prints from 616 film were usually made by the contact method.  That is why it is fairly common to see prints of that dimension from the 1930's and 40's. By the 1950's 616 film was in decline although Kodak continued to make it until 1984.

The rolls that I bought both expired in 1972.  By that time Kodak only offered 616 film in Kodacolor-X. Kodacolor-X was introduced in 1963 and discontinued in 1974.  I believe it was the last of the Kodak films to use the C-22 method of processing. If this film could still yield some images it still would be a challenge to get it processed.  There are still a couple of places that say they can do color processing on this film if the dyes have stayed intact.  If not B&W images are still possible.  Also if you are a DIYer then I have heard of people being able to get B&W images from Kodacolor-X. 

I do have a Kodak Senior 616 camera that uses this film, however I don't think that the results I would get would be worth the trouble.  So probably I will put this out on Ebay. 

First garage sale film find of the year

The last few years I have had good luck finding slightly expired, but usable film at garage sales.  However so far this year I had found no film.  Then a couple weeks ago the bag above caught my eye beneath the table of a garage sale.

When I looked inside I saw that it was packed to the top with old film.  Most had expired in 1993.  Since most of it was B&W I figured it was likely that some of it would be fine to use.  Also since there were several boxes of sheet film I figured that the source of the film was probably sophisticated enough to have done a good job storing the film.  Anyway for $5 I didn't have much to lose.

For my $5 I got several 5 pack boxes of T-MAX 100 and Tri-X 120 film.  There also were several boxes of Vericolor and Ektachrome 400 120.  In the 4x5 size there was a hundred sheet box each of Ektapan and Plus-X.  There also were a couple of 25 sheet boxes of Ektapan and Plus-X.  And lastly there is a 100 sheet box of HP5 and LP4.  None of the boxes had been opened.

So far I have only done a couple rolls of the T-MAX.  It seems to be in good shape.

If all this film has held up as well as the T-MAX this will have to be by far and away my best film deal ever.