Remembering Japanese cars from the past

Tag: vintage camera

Domo arrigato Mr Burglar


Four weeks ago a burglar broke into my house and nicked my camera bag. I haven’t seen anything turn up on the local auction sites, nor in the secondhand stores and even though the vintage lenses probably ended up in a dumpster I’m still hoping it will return eventually…

Lucky enough I cleaned up all my cameras a few weeks before and stashed some of them in the attic, including a vintage russian Zenit-E camera with a spare zebra Helios 44-2 lens. It has become my daily companion since.

I already shot two rolls of film since the burglary and developed one of them myself this weekend. Everything that could go wrong went wrong, nevertheless I’m still pleased with the outcome!
My boy racer
My boy racer

That’s my son Oliver acting as a boy racer.

In the meanwhile I bought a vintage Praktica FX camera with a 12 blade Carl Zeiss (aus Jena) Tessar on it:
Praktica FX with Carl Zeiss aus Jena Tessar
Praktica FX with Carl Zeiss aus Jena Tessar

The lights were dim, so I underexposed this photo. I like the way it turned out: just like it would have been shot somewhere in 1954 when the camera was new. 🙂

And last but not least: a self portrait at the heath:
Self portrait at the heath
Self portrait at the heath

I take an occasional stroll on the heath every morning and In the early mornings the sun is really low and the shadows become very very tall.

Thank you mr Burglar for reuniting me with the analogue cameras again! ^_^

My Canon EOS 350D camera and m42 lenses got stolen

My Canon EOS 350D camera got stolen last weekend:
My Canon EOS350, adapter ring and Helios 44-2
Someone broke into my home during the night, grabbed two phones and my camera bag and ran off thinking they got some big loot. Instead they got a six year old camera and a bunch of irreplaceable vintage lenses and a backup harddisk containing a lot of photos I don’t have on my computer anymore…

This was in the bag:
Canon EOS 350D camera (Serialnumber 1530709971) modified with a matte prism focus screen, a Nikon DK21-M occulair and a Hama M42 to EOS adapter.
Lenses:
Canon 18-55mm kit lens (EOS mount)
Zenitar 16mm fisheye (EOS mount)
Helios 44-2 58mm 2 (zebra) serialnumber N0000525 (m42 mount)
Helios 44M 58mm 2 (m42 mount)
Carl Zeiss Tessar aus Jena 50mm 2.8 (zebra) serialnumber 8500624 (m42 mount)
Mir-1B (MNP-1B) 37mm 2.8 (m42 mount)
Mamiya 28mm 2.8 (m42 mount)
Panagor 80-200mm 3.5 (m42 mount)
APS Teleconverter
Accessories:
Remote control for Canon 350D
Cleaning wipe with the new “Spil Games” logo
USB Harddisk Western Digital 750GB

As you can see most of it is pretty worthless on the secondhand market but very hard to get by if you want it. Also the Helios and Mir lenses became my two favorite lenses over the past few months…
I’ve decided to give a 100 euro reward for the person who will return the camera and lenses to me!

On a side track: lucky enough they did not steal my analogue cameras and I did have a spare Zenit-E camera with *another* zebra Helios 44-2 lens and bought a new black and white film last Saturday. So this is my current photographing gear:
Zenit E with Helios 44-2
It is about three times as heavy as my EOS 350D used to be, but IMO certainly three times as much fun!
I also ordered more black and white film and a batch of Rodinal to process them.

Oops I did it again: Mamiya MSX-500 vintage camera

Some weeks ago I decided I had enough of digital photography. Well, maybe I should state it differently: yet again I failed to get a good picture out of my EOS. So I decided to get an old fashioned film-roll camera from the 70s to start learning photography once again. 😉

I was seriously tempted when I saw an ad of a complete Minolta X700 with motordrive and about everything you ever wanted back in the 80s! But I stuck to my plan and placed a bid on a few older vintage cameras. One of them reacted on the bid and we agreed upon everything. So, last Friday this arrived:
Mamiya MSX-500 with a lot of lenses and stuff!
Mamiya MSX-500 with a lot of lenses and stuff!

A Mamiya MSX-500 from the mid 70s! Most probably just as old as I am. And if that isn’t enough already: it is loaded with lenses and other useful stuff!

Mamiya MSX-500 with a lot of lenses and stuff!
Mamiya MSX-500 with a lot of lenses and stuff!

It came along with a nice box and a lot of stuff:
PANAGOR 80 ~ 205mm F4.5
HANIMEX 400mm F6.3
HANIMAR 200mm F4.5
PALLAS 135mm F2.8
PALLAS 35mm F2.8
MAMIYA/SEKOR SX 50mm F2
APS auto plus teleconverter 2x
PALLAS auto teleconverter 2x
Several macro rings and four different purpose flashlights
Several filters (UV, yellow, orange, purple, glare, etc)
And as a bonus: a nice smell of tabacco 🙁

As you can see it wasn’t the cleanest set I could find, but for that price I was happily cleaning everything. 🙂

Mamiya MSX-500 after clean up
Mamiya MSX-500 after clean up

So this is how it looked after cleanup. You can’t see much difference due to the image sizes, but believe me: there was a lot of crap on it! (including the smell)

Mamiya MSX-500 after clean up
Mamiya MSX-500 after clean up

There is still one problem with the camera: under 1/15th of a second the shutter timing gets unreliable. I tried to get the lubrication a bit loose with a hairdryer and it worked perfectly… right until the camera cooled off again. So I guess I need to find a guide how to take it apart and lubricate the shutter.

Mamiya MSX-500 after clean up
Mamiya MSX-500 after clean up

I’m very happy with it so far and I can’t wait till I’ve solved that shutter problem and get started with taking cool pictures again! 🙂

Why old cameras rule: Nissan Sunny B110

Before I bought my Canon EOS 350D (also called Canon Rebel in the US) I used to shoot all my photos with my trusty Minolta X300. I’m still sorry I sold the camera shortly after I bought the EOS… I probably thought I would eventually get used to the EOS and actually put effort in shooting pictures with that camera. After 4 years I’m still not used to the EOS and still do the click-clack-lets-do-another-ten-and-choose-the-right-one like I did with my first digicam. Damn, I miss analogue photography! 🙁

Lately I become more and more interested in photography with the good old analogue cams and I was quite happy to see this beautifully shot Nissan Sunny GX B110 at beeoneoneoh’s blog:
Nissan Sunny B110 GX 5 speed
Nissan Sunny B110 GX 5 speed

Now that’s an image you can hardly shoot with a digital camera!

Nissan Sunny B110 GX 5 speed
Nissan Sunny B110 GX 5 speed

Very beautiful shot of the rear of the Sunny. Almost impossible with the sharp and crispy lenses of the new digicams!

Nissan Sunny B110 GX 5 speed
Nissan Sunny B110 GX 5 speed

I love it! 🙂

These pictures were shot with this vintage camera with a Leica Summilux-M 50/1.4 lens:
Vintage camera with Leica Summilux-M 50/1.4 lens
Vintage camera with Leica Summilux-M 50/1.4 lens

I’ll definitely start looking for a secondhand vintage camera tonight! 🙂

© 2024 Banpei.net

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑