Tele-Takumar, 200mm, f 5.6

This is not a fast lens.

This lens is sharp, but not sharp like a modern lens.

So what is the fuss about? Ok, here we go then, let’s see if I can explain well enough.

First let me say that I am not such a big fan of long lenses usually and on the LUMIX GX 85 I used this on, it has the field of view of a 400mm lens. Pretty long!

So what I do like however, is quality manufacturing, the lens is kind of heavy, smooth operating and reassuring to use, albeit with a rather too long focus throw, for me.

On a sidenote, it's hardly the kind of set up which allows you to disappear, its far from big for a 200mm, but it is long paired with digital and the required adapters. This is lens attached to a M42- EOS adapter which in turn is attached to an EOS to Micro 4/3 adapter and on to the Lumix gX85. This is still a kind of small setup, straight onto a Canon 5D is interesting too though, utilising full from and bringing the field of view down to the 200mm it was always supposed to be.

What I like even more, is unusually nice focus fall off (or bokeh), and on this one it is really nice. It is soft and watercoloury, melting the background into a great big pool of smudgey goodness! The number and shape of the aperture blades is what does this, open that sucker right up and shoot!

What I like most of all is how the lens renders the colours, truly gorgeous when the light is right! Now we come to the caveat.

Shooting into the light with my version of this lens makes the image muted and lacking contrast, even shooting under strong sunlight did the same. You need to shoot it into the shade, then it rocks! 

But how about I just show you some images instead?

Cheers

L

Ultrafine Ortho Litho Film

 This film is orthochromatic, which means it is not sensitive to red light, this means that it can be handled under red safelight which is awesome. It is a Kodalith style of film, which was originally used to produce highlight masks for fine art printing. It is a quite unusual film, if you want to shoot the high contrast images like the on es below then it needs to be rated at 8 - 10 ISO, if you want to shoot more conventional tone negatives then rate it at 10 - 25 ISO. For this test, I shot at 10 ISO.

Even in tropical sun, it can be problematic shooting this low ISO, but not so much, you just have to shoot in good light, it's only just over 3 stops less than 100 ISO.

With film, development matters too. This roll was developed in HC110 dilution B , and it was developed for twelve minutes which was probably a little over developed. It is possible to use paper developer as well, and don't forget it is not sensitive to red light, great!

I think the bloom we see on the blacks may be because of over development.

This is really a cool film, but you do need to think carefully about what you shoot.

These shots were all the middle of the day, around EV 17.

To try this film in Cambodia, you will have to order through one of the ebay ordering services, it comes in rolls of 20 exposures for about 5USD.

Try it.

Lucien Grey

Canon Canonet QL 17

 This is a camera I was looking out for quite a while. I have always loved rangefinders, in fact one of my first cameras was a rangefinder, an Agfa Super Sillette automatic back in the late seventies. 

These cameras are quite legendary, they are smart, high quality and still affordable for now. They are slightly unusual in that they are shutter priority, this would not be my first choice really but it is certainly something I can work around.

So, first of all, the viewfinder is quite big and nice and clear, they can get a little dull over time but they are very easy to take apart and clean. Like with any delicate piece of equipment you must be careful, tutorials exist on you tube to show you how. The rangefinder patch is not the brightest I have but it is pretty good, the focus snaps nicely, my Fuji g690 may be a little better and I have no Leica to compare to, but it is very good. 

I tend not to shoot automatic so much, I tend to do it manual, and the workflow is nice and smooth. Manual focusing is quite easy on this, it makes for a good walk around/street camera. 

The lens on this is nice. It is fast at 1.7 and it is sharp, the 40mm puts it clearly as a standard lens and it is not possible to change the lens. 

The QL stands for quick load and it really does it's job, it is so easy to load this camera. A roll of 400 ISO film and a bust city and you will have no problem shooting off the rolls quickly.

These photos are shot on HP5+ on manual using an external meter, the following are a few more from the same day.

These shots are at the factory Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It is an interesting area which has many different views and contrasts. 

I love the form factor of this camera, it is a beautiful little camera which does it's job very well. It makes for a great street camera as long as you are ok to focus manually, there is always hyperfocal distance right?

Of the rangefinders from this era with fixed lenses, this is one of the standout cameras. Leica produced some amazing machines around this time as well of course, but the fact that they cost so much more than the Canonet is a factor.

So what is this camera suited for? Street photography is an obvious answer, although I would prefer aperture priority, shutter priority works just fine. The lens is fast, so you could work in low light, especially shooting manual with a fast film like Ilford Delta 3200. This is never going to be a sports camera, even though it is shutter priority, but I love using this for environmental portraiture and it is also superbly suited to documentary work with the right film.

Like most of the cameras I write about here, this is a great camera, and it is gorgeous!

Lucien Grey

Life in Half Frame; Olympus Pen EE

 The Olympus Pen is more than a camera, it is a line of cameras which have become iconic, and have even spawned a line of digital based on them. This is mine. It is a very small, compact camera but is is built of solid, heavy metal. It really feels strong and solid in the hands, a little beast.

The controls, those that exist at all, are around the lens and they are very simple, providing automatic exposure based on a very limited range of ISO choices.

It's a beautiful little camera, the design is delightful, but how does it shoot? Well first of all, it's a half frame camera, so the orientation is portrait and takes exactly half of the frame of a 35mm, that is to say 18mmx 24mm.

Being half frame means that a regular 36 roll of film will give you at least 72 exposures, which is an advantage and a disadvantage at the same time. It can take some time to expose 72 frames and the negative is really small, actually pretty much like an APS-C sensor really.

Being auto exposure, it has a novel system for preventing you from shooting if there is too much or too little light. A red flag pops up in the viewfinder if the light levels are bad, although on my model if I keep pressing, the shutter will release anyway.

This camera is seriously unobtrusive, although it is pretty so people may notice you simply because of that. This camera could lend itself well to street photography but you must remember that the orientation is portrait. A very common thing people do with half frame cameras is to shoot 2  images which work together as a dyptych, a little bit cliche but fun, you could go for similar images or even images which contrast each other.

Light and Darkness.

Stairs up and down.

One high contrast shot bleeding into a dark frame.

In all honesty, I don't even remember if the dark frame was intentional. Making dyptychs, almost as pretentious as Lomography (I have four Lomography cameras, so I really don't hate them).

Seriously though, this is one of the cool things for me. Having to think about how to set up shots to work like this forces you to be intentional, this is a really good thing. You do not need to stop at two, you could actually shoot a whole series of images, you could make a narrative from frame one to frame seventy-two. That does sound quite involved, but I think there is the kernel of a good idea in there.

Like all analogue photography, the aesthetic choices start before you even shoot, with the choice of film, this was Ilford Pan F. I like this. Then you shoot to your own brief, intentional, deliberate. I like this too. Then you make choices of how to develop, in this case HC110 dilution B to temper the contrast slightly, I imagine to myself that that is correct.

Just being experimental does not mean that your results are guaranteed to be good of course. Intentionality is great, but there are no guarantees. The top frame of these two is two frames next to each other which were like that in real life as well, not as neat as I thought it might be.

In conclusion, I think the strength of this camera is that it is a small, stylish camera that you really can have with you all the time. It is solid and has no electrics, both great points for a street camera and it does give you a lot of frames per roll of film. I feel there are two many frames for my part, but maybe that's just me. The negs are small, but that doesn't really need to matter that much, just don't expect to enlarge to wall sized prints, although with the right subject matter maybe even that could look good?

It's truly a neat camera, possibly not an allrounder of course, but which camera really is?

I would say if you want a film street camera and you see one of these at a good price, go for it, might be tough to find filters for it though. It does take either 22.5mm which does not cover the light meter or 43.5mm which does. Neat!

The meter on mine does meter a bit hot, so I have to scan the images and adjust slightly, or use ISO 100 film and meter at 200. This works quite well, after this many years the meter in mine is not totally accurate, but this gives me nicely exposed shots outdoors most of the time. Only most of the time because the meter only meters up to EV 17, I feel sometimes it's brighter than that here. I should mention as well that the ISO scale only goes up to 200 which is a shame as it largely rules out lowlight work, or even indoor shots. 

So is it worth it? Sure it is. If you could find one for the right price that is, I probably wouldn't pay a hundred dollars for one, fifty would also have me thinking but forty or less for a working copy would work for me. As they say on three blind men and an elephant, your mileage may vary.

Lucien Grey

Diana Edelweiss, exposure test.

 

If you have ever shot a Diana camera you will know that it is a lesson in relaxation, an exercise in not worrying about the settings, just get out there and shoot.

 

This sometimes gives me goosebumps as I don't want to waste film, not only is it expensive but it's not so easy to get hold of, especially here in this corner of South East Asia.

 

So I thought I would get out there and test shoot my Diana Edelweiss medium format toy camera with some Fomapan 100 ISO film and bracket using the aperture switch on the bottom of the lens.

 

If you are not familiar, the Diana has four settings on the bottom, represented by symbols. There is sunshine which is about f22, then there is partly cloudy at f16 and cloudy at f11. There is pinhole too which is around f150 but I have never used that.

 

So the weather was very bright sunshine, tropical sunshine, and although I started at nearly 9am, the EV was already 17@100 ISO. The grid of images is below, on the right we start at f11, then f16 and finally f22.

 

Vietnamese monument@08:44

Bright sun EV 17@100; 15@400

1. cloudy  f11

2.partially cloudy. f16

3.sunny. f22

 

The first location is the Cambodian Vietnamese friendship monument in Phnom Penh, and the second is Tuol Tom Poung pagoda, also in Phnom Penh.

 

This next grid was shot later but the weather had become slightly overcast at EV 15, so still bright, but not so much.

 

Tuol Tom Poung pagoda@12:39

Overcast tropical sun EV15@100;13.3@400

4.cloudy

5.partially cloudy

6.sunny

 

The confounding part of this is that the results are not consistent. For me when the sun was brightest the best shot was set at partially cloudy, when the weather was overcast I thought the best shot was when set at sunny.

 

Just like toy cameras themselves, it makes no sense.

 

So I guess there is something else going on here, the shutter speed is variable maybe, whatever it is it would seem that the best thing to do is just to stop thinking and get out there and shoot.

 

Lucien Grey