Archive for August, 2008
I’ve tested the Yashica J-7 for one day in Stockholm. The camera came with Yashinon DX 50mm/1.7 (radioactive thorium-lens) so I choose that one, nice to try the kit. I used Kodak Tri-X film which had 400 ASA. These are some of my favorites from this one roll (
I will probably choose this camera for Epic Edits $50-dollar film camera project. That makes step 1 and 2 finished.
Google has published the book The DAM Book, by Peter Krogh, about work flow for digital images. Could be interesting even for us manual focus geaks. I got the tip from swedish photographer/bloger Magnus Nelson.
There’s a lot of talk of Takumars and old Pentax-lenses. Old ones can go for quite a lot of money sometimes. So what’s so special about them? I got a 35mm (maybe not the most famous of the Pentax-lenses, but still…), lets find out how they work.
Pentax Super Takumar 35mm/3.5, an m42 lens.
The purchase
I purchased this lens from a friend on the net for 200 swedish kronor (about 20€). He keeps nagging about these Super Takumars, so I wanted to see what all the fuzz was about ;) He said the lens was worn, but it was just some external colour disappeared, everything else feels very good. Most of the time, the Pentax lenses go for some money both in Sweden and on ebay.
When you use a digital single-lens reflex camera (DSLR) with modern lenses, you can always go back and look in the Exif to see what lens you used for each picture. But with the manual, old lenses there is no Exif-data from the lens. So if I use my Canon EOS 350D on a photosession, and 3 manual lenses – how do I remember which one I used for a single picture?
Well, I have come up with this rutine. Simple, I know – but useful. Take a picture of the lens before you mount it. If you use some kind of filter, take a picture when you mount it and when you dismount it and put it back in the bag.
Heres from my session the other day… I started with Pentax Super Takumar 35mm/3.5. Added macroring to shoot some flowers.
Add macroring
I took my flower-pictures. Removed the macroring.
Remove macroring
Took some pictures without the macroring. Then changed to Yashica ML 35mm/2.8
Change to Yashica ML 35mm
Brian Auer on Epic Edits has started a photo project, The <$50 Film Camera – read up on the rules on his blog an participate! The project is sponsored by ILFORD Photo and Lomography, and you can win nice prizes… and fame perhaps? ;)
These are the rules in short:
I will try to participate. Now I just need to choose which camera to use from my shelf! After all, most of them costs less then $50. I’m leaning towards a Yashica rangefinder or SLR, Zenit SLR or Minolta rangefinder.
Minolta Hi-Matic F
Need a battery for you Yashica Electro? Yashica Guy makes an adapter so you can use modern batteries in your Electro-camera. I guess in the long run, it’s easier then to try to find replacements.
For my Yashica Minister D I found the right batteries (PX 625) in a swedish officeshop, I think they also used this model to calculators and stuff.
Oh, and for Yashica owners I added this page to the links the other day.
Yashica Minister D
135mm seems to have been a very common focal length of lenses. There are many to choose from. Because there was fierce competition, many of them are of good quality. Let see if this lens is one of the good ones…
Pentacon Electric 135mm/2.8
My purchase
I bought the lens on Tradera (swedish ebay) for SEK 57 (about £5) + shipping, without seeing much of it in the images of the ad. I was lucky, it is in good optical condition and only fault is that it is sometimes a little stuck at the aperture. Good ones is seen on ebay almost every day, so it’s a quite common lens.
Sure, we retronuts like to take pictures with old mechanic cameras. But this guy don’t need a camera at all
[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAfaM_CBvP8 w=425 h=344]
Have a look at Stephens website.
These Leica-images was shot by Hans Jonsson, father to a collegue of mine. A Leica III S was used and the motif are from Dottninggatan (big street in Stockholm) 1958 and on our prince Bertil – a man very interested in cars. If you would like to show some old images, please let me know :)
Opel on Drottninggatan 1958
Prins Bertil
