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Vintage film cameras

Here is what I'm using at the moment.

1970 Nikon F with F 36 motor and Nippon Kogaku 24mm 2.8
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1974 Nikon F2 with MD 1 motor, MD 1 battery pack and 35mm 2.0 Nikkor O
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1968 Nikon F w/FTN finder and Nippon Kogaku 50mm 1.4
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1980 Nikon F3 HP with MD 4 and Nikkor 50mm 2.0
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1960 Leica M2 with 35mm Summicron
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I also have a really nice Nikkor 85mm 1.8 HC and a 50mm Summicron and Voigtlander 21mm for the Leica. Love old film cameras.
 
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My Horseman FA with new Fujinon 150mm lens.
 
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ic-racer said:
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My Horseman FA with new Fujinon 150mm lens.
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I used to shoot with Fujinon lenses on my Wista SP. Lost all of that when I was burglarized 12 years ago. I had a 210, 135, and a 90. I miss those lenses. I bought them when everyone was using Rodenstock or Nikkor lenses. I now have a 210 Nikkor and a Caltar S II 150mm. I sure miss my Fujies. :tears:
 
pioneervato said:
I used to shoot with Fujinon lenses on my Wista SP. Lost all of that when I was burglarized 12 years ago. I had a 210, 135, and a 90. I miss those lenses. I bought them when everyone was using Rodenstock or Nikkor lenses. I now have a 210 Nikkor and a Caltar S II 150mm. I sure miss my Fujies. :tears:
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You'd appreciate my latest lens for the 8x10 camera. I finally picked up a Schneider 210mm Angulon (not Super Angulon). 210mm was the longest of the Angulon series lenses.

I'll post some pictures, but it is a very moderate sized lens for a #3 shutter, but it has a good 360mm image circle. Basically is a perfect wide angle for an 8x10 field camera.

The picture is from the fleabay ad. I'll have to post another when I get it mounted on a board (still waiting for a mounting ring.).
210mmAngulon.jpg
 
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ic-racer said:
You'd appreciate my latest lens for the 8x10 camera. I finally picked up a Schneider 210mm Angulon (not Super Angulon). 210mm was the longest of the Angulon series lenses.

I'll post some pictures, but it is a very moderate sized lens for a #3 shutter, but it has a good 360mm image circle. Basically is a perfect wide angle for an 8x10 field camera.

The picture is from the fleabay ad. I'll have to post another when I get it mounted on a board (still waiting for a mounting ring.).
210mmAngulon.jpg
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Yep, some of these Schneiders were very sharp. I have a 65mm stored away somewhere (barely will cover 4x5 with no movements at all) that is pretty sharp. I'm going to have to look for it now that I think about it.
 
I recently started collecting them. In the past year I've gotten a bunch, learned how to use them and fix many of them. From my VERY limited experience fixing 10 or so 60s and 70s SLRs, Pentax's are the easiest to fix. I've been working on a Konica Autoreflex A2, but the viewfinder mirror movement is somehow disassociated from the timer/mechanism for the shutter, and the timer/mechanism for the shutter is separated from the shutter release. It's really odd.

Anyway, I've sold a bunch from my collection to fund a new Pentax K-x DSLR, but here's what I'm keeping.

Two Minolta srT101s, one was my grampa's at the Agency decades ago. It's been to the middle east, the USSR/CCCP, Antarctica and every other continent. Some of his pictures from Iraq and such in the 70s are in the CIA factbook. The other I found at GW.

Konica 265 rangefinder

Olympus Is-1. Cool camera from the 90s, takes good pics.

a couple of vivitar lenses for Nikon.

Pentax-M SMC f4 200mm that I use with my DSLR
Pentax-M SMC f2 50mm that I also use with my K-x

Pentax SV with 80-210 1:4.5 Sun Optics M42 mount zoom.

Konica Autoreflex A2

"vintage" Canon rebel G. Decent camera.

Random Pentax point-and-shoots. One has a detachable remote lol.

vivitar flash.



The ones I used to have were a Pentax Spotmatic with 2 super-takumar primes, Pentax ME Super with ME II autowinder, flash, zoom lens and 28mm f2.8 SMC prime, and a Pentax ME.


Old cameras are awesome.

Here's a pic of some of them and a pic of the Goodwill Minolta in my lightbox
 

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Steve's HS photo teacher "gifted" him with a Canon TX a couple of weeks ago (sort of college graduation present, I guess) and a Vivitar Series One macro zoom. I don't remember this camera; clearly entry level. Seems to work fine.
 

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Austi15: Sounds like you got the copal square shutter back into the body of the camera without having every part synchronized. As I recall (long time since I've done this stuff) its possible to cock and release various parts of the sequence seperately, so you have to envision how they all fit into the body with that wind rack and get it all set correctly. Good camera, but particularly if you are used to standard focal planes, kind of difficult to wrap your brain around.
 
When I scraped enough together to go the the New York World's Fair in 1965, staying at the "Y" in Manhattan, two German mechanics who worked for my Dad at a Mercury shop said "you've got to have a decent camera!" and one said "take mine!" I knew it was a nice camera, but had no idea how much it cost. I think they deliberately didn't say, so I wouldn't be nervous about it. Anyway, the thought occurred to me recently that even with a vague recollection, I should be able to find it on the internet these days - and I did! It was a Voigtlander Vitomatic IIa with rangefinder and built-in match-needle exposure meter.
http://www.camerapedia.org/wiki/Voigtländer_Vitomatic_IIa
I think the design is gorgeous.

According to the website Photo Ethnography, the Voigtlander Vitomatic II retailed for 53 British Pounds in 1959. The IIa must have been an updated version of the II. Using the 1959 exchange rate of $2.80 US to the British Pound, the Voigtlander would have set you back $148.40, and with inflation, that would be about $1125.00 today.

The match-needle operation in my unexperienced hands was not as accurate as I could wish, especially using slide film, but it was definitely leagues ahead of the usual snapshot box. I got a number of outdoor shots that were overexposed to some extent, but this camera with high speed slide film also got interior GM and RCA shots that would not have been possible with a simple camera. This is the camera that took the pictures in my avatar.
 
I think I still have a Vito II in the pile. It has a Skopar with Copal shutter and of course like all of that vintage the shutter has frozen from old oil. A heavy and somewhat bulky camera that felt so wonderful to the touch and the results were fantastic. I have found the Skopar lens on to be extremely good. The results seem less less cool than the Japanese formulas. I especially found the camera to compliment portraits very well without being a soft lens.
 
@Hoffius, that is a fantastic collection of Nikon film cameras, if you don't mind me asking, how much did you pick up each one for?
 
old_tv_nut said:
When I scraped enough together to go the the New York World's Fair in 1965, staying at the "Y" in Manhattan, two German mechanics who worked for my Dad at a Mercury shop said "you've got to have a decent camera!" and one said "take mine!" It was a Voigtlander Vitomatic IIa with rangefinder and built-in match-needle exposure meter.
http://www.camerapedia.org/wiki/Voigtländer_Vitomatic_IIa
I think the design is gorgeous.

The match-needle operation in my unexperienced hands was not as accurate as I could wish, especially using slide film, but it was definitely leagues ahead of the usual snapshot box.
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Well, I couldn't resist buying a refurbed one off ebay. And after experimenting, I found out some of the problems I had with the exposures.

1) if you hold it with your finger in front of the meter, it overexposes (DUH!)
2) after learning lesson #1, I took it to the Botanic Garden. Nearly all the shots taken looking into shaded areas were underexposed by one or two stops. (But the shots in full sun were fine.)
3) I then took the Vitomatic and my Canon 50D in center weighted mode and compared indicated exposure at ASA 100, and verified that the Vito meter was indeed indicating one or two stops underexposure.
4) After a little head scratching, I tried aiming the Vito way down at the ground in the shadows - aha! the reading was much closer to correct. Then I tried shading the meter with my hand - also improved things.
5) I discovered that if I held the camera with my finger below the meter, skylight reflecting off my finger would give a false reading.
6) I took the camera indoors and aimed it at a light bulb to see how wide the meter field of view is - it's realllly wide -much wider than the viewfinder field and much wider than the normal 40 degrees or so of the usual reflected light meter.
7) I made a little "snoot" of black plastic to restrict the meter field of view. Then, back outdoors to compare to the Canon - Voila! the Vitomatic meter with the stray light shield agrees with the Canon in all situations.

So, my problem using the camera in the first place was not due to inaccurate needle matching, but due to not knowing how the meter would respond to unusual situations with far-off-center stray light. (And occasionally getting my finger in the way).

After 45 years, I feel much better!
 
The finger in the way is actually a standard technique for compensating for filters without having to calculate the correction, and with auto exposure cameras like the Retina Instamatic Reflex, it was the only way to compensate, so, if memory serves, Kodak suggested it in the manual.
 
I recently inherited a Nikon F from my in-laws. It was purchased new by my wife's Grandpa and it's absolutely pristine. Everything about it is perfect as far as I can tell. It came in a nice leather case with a 28mm, 55mm (I think, maybe it was 50?) and 105mm lenses, a number of filters (4 at least), some other accessories that seem to be for magnifying, all of the original documentation (manuals, catalogs, receipts, warranties) and a flash unit that still had batteries in it that has heavily corroded the contacts. I have to clean them up and I hope it still works. I believe it has the photomic FTn, but an earlier post makes me question if that is the case. I'm not sure what identifies one from the other.

In any cases, no pictures of it yet, but it has me excited about cameras for the first time in a while.

My other film cameras include a pair of AE-1p's. One with the canon squeal and the other without so far. I have a motor drive MA, the normal 50mm 1.8 lens and a couple of garbage aftermarket lenses that have serious issues. I had it put away for 3-4 years, but when I got the nikon, i pulled it out again. Some day, i'll get another lens or two for the AE-1P because if nothing else, the motor drive is hilariously awesome sounding even if completely useless to a hack like me.

I'll get some pics posted in the next few days.

BTW, I am a horrific photographer with absolutely no artistic skills whatsoever. I have been told that I don't deserve the F and I believe that to be true. :)
 
Nat, that is the first I've heard of the technique. Quite interesting. Inherently it sounds like it would not work but, I'd so tired I can not get my head around the reason it is raising flags. I used to have strips of gel that were the same as my filters and when I used the filter on a camaera with a non-through the lens meter would lay the gel over the meter to comensate if the metering was automatic such as with the PEN E series.
 
dnewman: The FTn meter finder has the shutter speed and meter needle visible in the finder and from the outside you can tell because the aperture coupling mechanism has f stops written 1.2 -5.6 above the slot so you can easily check to make sure the lens has coupled properly.

Brian: obviously placing a filter in front of the meter gives the most accurate correction, and if memory serves, the original Nikon F Photomic, which didn't meter through the lens had little filters that screwed onto the meter window for exactly that reason. But if you are using glass filters, its pretty cumbersome to have two, or to swap back and forth. If using gelatin filters, an unneeded section can be cut off and used, but its still kind of slow work. And most film has pretty decent latitude, so the lazy photographer probably did just fine with the finger.
 
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