Bike Forums - The C&V Camera Thread

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Since I had the gear all out I decided to do something I've been thinking about for years. Had this old china cabinet with just stuff in it that was decorative and had no purpose. Took all that crap out and put in all the old camera's on the top shelf. The next shelf has all the manual focus lenses I use now days on my Canon DSLR's. Most of them where kept in a large and very heavy camera backpack. Now I can grab what I want for just that day and pack a smaller, lighter bag. We'll see how this works for me. I've still got the 600/4 with a 7D MKII in it's own dedicated bag. Then the 5DSr with a few A.F. lenses in another bag and another 7D with my 400/5.6 and 200/2.8 in another bag.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...57a63ea37c.jpg
Cark Zeiss and Contax Zeiss lenses
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...0cd0344b9e.jpg
Leica R Lenses
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...73507c78cd.jpg
Mamiya 645, Vivitar Series One, Pentax, and a couple of Olympus Lenses
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...ca6dd783cb.jpg
Plenty of room to easily get to the lenses I use regularly
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...f9fcc37c30.jpg
This should keep them relatively dust free.

Kodak DCS 460 & Nikon F5

I got this a few years ago, it's got a dead battery that I will eventually replace so I can shoot it!
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...c5233105d.jpeg
I still shoot with this when I get the urge.
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...631e49f8a.jpeg

Well today's plan to do some morning photography was cancelled waiting for a buyer to come get the Panasonic Team bike. But I spent the hot midday time updating my lens database. These are all the current manual focus lenses I use. All are pretty old except for the two modern Zeiss ones. Spent some time yesterday working my technique again with the Mamiya 645 200/2.8 on my Canon 5DSr. The resolving combination of these two is insane when you nail focus.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...c6253de379.jpg

Spent some time yesterday working my technique again with the Mamiya 645 200/2.8 on my Canon 5DSr. The resolving combination of these two is insane when you nail focus.

Full image no processing
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...d5542401a8.jpg

Now full size crop of the tower from the picture above. No post processing and according to google I was 2.41 miles away from the tower. Bear in mind I've got a heavy lens using a ballhead on the tripod. Not the sturdiest, plus it's over 90 degrees out while doing this test so heat distortion is a real thing. Aperture was set to 5.6 and focusing done via the viewfinder without using my magnifier.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...ecce4af4d3.jpg

Some of this old glass is just so stinkin' good! I did some further shots of the mountain tops using liveview to get critical focus spot on. When I nailed those you can even clearly see the fenceline posts at the top of the ridge on the peak, crazy! A cool clear morning would yield way better results even with no thermal distortion in the air.

Years ago I shot this scene using the Contax Zeiss 100/2.0. This is several images combined to make the pano. Full size you can easily see each individual on the slopes of the ski resort in the background. You can even tell what color clothes they were wearing. And the slopes are over 8 miles straight-line from where I shot this.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...ce90df2961.jpg

That Lord IV B is neat... British?

--Shannon

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShannonM (Post 23591980)

That Lord IV B is neat... British?

--Shannon

Made in Japan by the Okaya optical company. A beautiful looking camera with a great lens. But it has a quirky, double-stroke winding system, which often doesn't properly reset after winding.

Black paint Nikon SP! With the 35/1.8!
Phil

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhilFo (Post 23592042)

Black paint Nikon SP! With the 35/1.8!
Phil

I have another one,

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...cdd4e1c43.jpeg

Quote:

Originally Posted by 50PlusCycling (Post 23591967)

I have lots.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...b029393528.jpg

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...1368eeaf1a.jpg

I love the wear that many of these cameras show !
Beausage = beauty from usage, a term I first heard here in C&V. Are you a professional photographer?

.

50PlusCycling , are you on rangefinder forum? Just curious. There's not too many keepers of black paint Nikon and Leica rangefinders out there.
Phil

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhilFo (Post 23592121)

50PlusCycling , are you on rangefinder forum? Just curious. There's not too many keepers of black paint Nikon and Leica rangefinders out there.
Phil

I used to be on Rangefinder Forum, you’ll see the RFF softy on one of the photos of my Leica M4 MOT. I got that from Tom Abrahamsson when he and is wife visited me in Tokyo some years ago. My account got wiped when the forum was updated. I’m a sometimes photographer, and an avid collector. I have many more cameras.

Tom and Tuuliki bent over backwards to ship me M2 rapidwinder #003 back in 2004 when I was deployed to Iraq. Tom was an amazing person!
Phil

Bought my Nikon FE around 1979 (maybe 1980). Still have it.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...4598cf0322.jpg

Mama don't take my Kodachrome away!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saudadeii (Post 23592495)

Bought my Nikon FE around 1979 (maybe 1980). Still have it.
Mama don't take my Kodachrome away!

Unfortunately, one of the business decisions that Kodak had to make.
Beautiful all around film that made some fantastic imagery.
Unfortunately, the convoluted and complicated processing was far too expensive to make any profit on at all.
The last roll I had done by them was fairly steep in price for mounted slides, and I think that was pre-'80. Shortly after I had heard that it had been discontinued.
I liked the FE a lot, and shot a heck of a lot of Tri-X and FP-4 in mine.

-D.S.

Time for more photos!

First up, some shots from a roll of Ilford FP4, taken with the Minolta XRT Super with the 50/1.4:

This is out my room window. I shoot this with the lead-in of every roll I load in my room. It makes for a quick assessment of the film / camera whatever. Since I see it multiple times a day, it's easy for me to evaluate, kinda like using songs you know really well to audition audio gear.
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...8f7b481ffd.jpg
Lake Merritt:
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...0d63ebd918.jpg
This little guy didn't get very far...
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...52cedf138e.jpg
Only in Berkeley:
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...f0d1decc82.jpg

The roll of Film Photography Project Jiangshi 400 got me crossways with the Yashica Model M's weird and error-intolerant film advance and rewind mechanism. I forgot that it was a 24-exposure roll, so I stripped the film out of the canister. Oops. And then, while showing the very nice young woman at the camera store how the film back release works, I managed to pop the latch. Which was enough to fog several images, mostly from a "ride BART at rush hour and take one shot per station as the commuters get on" little project I tried.

Only one of those shots was usable:
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...4f464c4897.jpg

On a trip to the City, I got really into textures, and how they'd look in B&W. It was midday on a very bright day, and with that and the water scattering the light, and my still learning the camera, and Jangshi's rumored exposure pickiness, these are overexposed by about 1/8 stop. (At least that's what looked right to me when I was playing with exposure correction in GIMP.) The corrected images (-.125 exposure, +.001 blackness) look better, but you can still see the texture in the mooring lines even in these:
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...7df74f3795.jpg
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...c043207354.jpg
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...5df25a7ba2.jpg

Still, the Yashica is a neat camera that takes great pictures. If I don't screw up too badly... compare the last image to this version, with the horizon straightened, and exposure & blackness level corrected by eye as described above:

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...510ca1bf4f.jpg
Even at email resolution, that's good enough to ride the river with, I'd say.

The Film Photography Project films are fun, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what "The Mummy" 400 does, I'm thinking that HP5+ and/or Tri-X are still gonna be the go-tos, unless the roll of FPP's Derev Pan 400 that I'm running through ends up kicking lots of arse. Which it might... it seems to have a pretty good rep online. And, at 9.99 / 36, there's no price penalty.

Next up in the film rotation will be one of the 6 36-shot rolls of expired-but-cold-stored Kentmere 100 that I got for 5 bucks a roll on the List of the Craigs. Probably in one of the Minoltas... I'm still learning the Light Value exposure system on the Yashica, plus the ISO dial is unreadable; I've got it set at 400 because that's the last number on the dial, and I can tell it's a number even though I can't actually read it. I've read that the Kentmere works well at ISO 200, which I can for sure figure out on the Yashica, so that might be my first experiment in pushing film. Which I've always been curious about, but have never tried. (Note to self: ask photokid about this.)

--Shannon

ShannonM Do you have a lightmeter? I found one was really necessary for getting the exposures right when dealing with a bunch of older film cameras. Especially since I mainly shot Velvia back in the day. I still use the same Gossen Digipro F I bought a long time again. It's still a great value to me as I shoot all the adapted lenses on the modern bodies. With no lens to body communication with most of them the metering can be quite different lens to lens.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jamesdak (Post 23592747)

The only one I have is LightMeter Pro on my phone. I've used it to sanity-check the selenium meter on the Yashica. They seem to agree, at least as much as I'm qualified to assess. I've experienced the different lens / different metering thing before, but the Yashica is fixed-lens, so it's not that. I really think it's almost all me, and that more rolls will make it better.

--Shannon

Just a sort of OT comment that others may find helpful/interesting. As I mentioned in earlier posts, I mainly shoot modern DSLR's with vintage adapted lenses. As my eyes aged and reading glasses became necessary I started having more and more trouble seeing to manually focus. This even with the diopters on the viewfinders adjusted to their strongest setting. Heck I even have a replacement matte screen in the old Canon 5D to help since it's my primary camera for this purpose. I also will use the magnified capability of live view via the back display to do critical focusing. Anyway, I finally decided to step into the dark-side and check out mirrorless. Specifically an first version Leica SL (Type 601) because of it's supposedly awesome EVF. The camera came in yesterday and initial impressions are that I am blown away but the EVF. It's so bright and clear. I have the diopter dialed in about 1/2 of it's + range and everything is super sharp. Plenty more to go if my eyesight continues to deteriorate. Plus you can magnify it to really nail your point of critical focus. It's also much easier now to see that your exposure is correct. A lot of the adapted lenses did not accurately meter on the body so I was always dealing with manual metering and exposure compensation. I am so stoked to start using this. As with the other cameras, I'm using an adapter to match up my old Leica R lenses for use on this. It's been raining since I got it (needed drought busting rain) but a few test shots gave me easy focusing with super sharp details and great color. I feel like I'm back in the game again! Woo Hoo! Several years ago I broke down and got several AF EOS lenses to cover most of the range I needed and now I wish I had been smarter and gone this route instead. Anyway, just wanted to share this little bit of info in case it's helpful to anyone else. I will say this camera is one heavy beast of a body. I may be able to stop carrying bear spray in the wilds and just use this camera to bash any charging grizzly bears. It's sure to knock them silly, LOL!