Last week on Thursday afternoon I took delivery of a Contax TVS 35mm film camera. I bought it as a replacement for my out-of-order IIIf and broken GR1.

I bought it online from Adorama.com. It was ranked as “E+ = Excellent - Very clean”. I’ve realized that, unfortunately, “Excellent” in America is somewhere around “Average” in Japan. When I first opened it, there was dust on the lens. Upon closer inspection I’ve found scratches around the body, and the button around the lens that controls zoom, is a little stiff. Also it only came with its case & lens cap- no box and no manual. 

At any rate, I put a quick roll of Superia through it and all seems to be well. I will post some results of when I get back to Japan.

And then there was one

Originally uploaded by City Upon a Hill

I brought three cameras with me to Boston this summer. A Leica CL for slides, a Leica IIIf for black & white and a Ricoh GR1 for general shooting like out the plane windows, etc.

A few days after getting here I found my GR1 broken. The camera powers up and the lens extends, but the shutter will not open. I’ll have to return it for repair. Again.

Then I noticed, to my disappointment, my IIIf was acting up. Specifically, the film advance knob was slipping about 3 to 4 times out of 10. I will have to have this camera repaired upon returning to Japan.

I’m down to one camera. My Leica CL. I can only hope it holds out until I get back …

  

Nagoya skyline

Originally uploaded by City Upon a Hill

Last week on Thursday I decided to finish up a roll of Fomapan I had put in my IIIf. Since walking around and taking pictures has become a chore in light of the recent heat wave, I decided to go up to the Midland Square building instead. The observation deck at the top is called the “Sky Promenade”, it’s ¥700 (around $6) to get inside, but the view is spectacular. It is also really the only place to get a good view from now, since the JR Towers observation deck closed a few years ago (actually it’s been turned into a spa, and it’s not free.)

I brought three lenses with me: a Color-Skopar 21/4, Color-Skopar 35/2.5 and a Nikkor-Q.C 135/2.5. The first two lenses, being Voitlander (Cossina, really) were very cheap. The Nikkor was cheap only because 135mm is not a popular focal length anymore. It is arguably the highest quality of them all, and being made around 1951 it is completely made out of chrome. It is also VERY heavy and has “Made in Occupied Japan” stamped on it.

This was also my first time using Fomapan, a black & white film made in Europe. I bought a roll sometime last year and although I meant to use it, it stayed in my fridge. Now that I finally see the results, I quite like it. I developed it in ID-11 (D-76) and I noticed it has rich blacks like Acros, but isn’t as grainy as Plus-X 125.

Click on the photo to see the rest of the series.

Vacation

From July 23rd until the end of August, I will be in Boston, so there will be no updates until then, as well as no uploads to Flickr. See you in September! Have a great summer!!

Olympus Pen EE-3

Originally uploaded by City Upon a Hill

This is my Olympus Pen EE-3, the cleanest of the six cameras I got last Saturday. I ran a roll of TMAX 400 through it today to test it and it seems to work just fine.

The lens was originally very dirty; there was lots of spider-webby fungus inside. Upon closer inspection I found two holes on the small ring just inside the main ring that says “Olympus D.Zuiko …” on it. After unscrewing and removing that ring I was able to remove most of the lens elements one by one and clean them with Q-tips and alcohol.

To clean behind the shutter I used a PDA stylus. I tripped the shutter at 1/40 and quickly inserted the stylus and gently pried the blades open (this camera does not have a ‘B’ setting.) Then with Q-tips and alcohol again, I swabbed the lens down.

This camera makes a nice addition to my collection. One thing that makes is very easy to use is that it is fixed-focus. All you do is point and shoot. If there is insufficient light, the shutter locks and a red flag pops up in the viewfinder (the Olympus Trip 35 has this feature, too.) Rotate the ring around the lens to a different f-stop and you’ll be able to take the photo at 1/40 of a second, at the f-stop you chose.

You can see photos from my test roll here: Olympus Pen EE-3 set

I took two quick pictures of my Pen D, so you can see the condition it’s in …

This is the top/front. You can see how bad the corrosion is around the name and the rewind lever. The plastic name plate is also a little scratched.

Here’s a close-up of the lens. This is after I cleaned it: before it was like looking through a jungle. There are still some dodgy spots but they don’t seem to show up in photos.

And yes, this camera has an f1.9 lens. Three years ago I bought a Nikkor AF 50/1.8 lens and it cost just under $200. This camera can be had for about $20 and has almost the same lens, but with a whole body included. This is why I laugh when I see horrible dSLR kits lenses, dark ones like f4.5 to f5.6 selling for $300 and up …

 

old van

Originally uploaded by City Upon a Hill

In my previous post (from this morning) I mentioned I put a roll of Tri-X in my Pen D. I ran through that film today as we drove around doing errands, and developed it when we got home. One good thing about hot, humid weather is that negatives dry faster (one bad thing is trying to keep developer temperatures down.)

I was pretty excited about this camera when I played around with it yesterday. The meter still works, which is surprising to me since it’s selenium (they have a bad habit of going dead.) Judging by the photos, it’s also still accurate.

The lens elements needed some cleaning, so I took out the alcohol and Q-tips, stripped the camera down as far as I knew how (without any manuals) and got to scrubbing. It’s not completely clean now, but it’s much better than it was before. Peering inside with a flashlight there are still spots and bits of (I guess) fungus, but judging by the test roll I shot today, the lens is clean enough.

The next test will be color film.

Yesterday my wife’s uncle gave me all these cameras (for free)

First off, almost all of them are in pretty bad condition cosmetically. Most show signs of corrosion and have fungus in their lenses. Let’s look at them one by one, starting from the top left:

A Canon 110 ED (which I already have) with case. The inside is clean but the outside lens cover has fungus. The viewfinder is very cloudy and has fungus in it. The rangefinder is off vertically (this may be a common problem.) On top of all that, I’m not sure how to open the body so there’s nothing I can really do. It also came with an exposed roll of Fuji SuperHG 100 in it, which I am going to have processed (hope there aren’t any crime scene photos on it … ) I don’t think I’ll be using this camera (the other one I bought a while back is in much better condition.)

Underneath that is an Olympus 35 UC. From a little poking around on the internet the UC seems to be a rare, or at least difficult to find, camera. After fooling around with it, it seems to be working fine- even the meter works with a battery adapter. The spot meter button on the back is broken however, and an internal lens element has haze on one side. I need a new, thinner spanner wrench to get at the insides (the chamber is very narrow.) The viewfinder is clear and the rangefinder spot is bright and perfectly aligned. It has an Olympus G.Zuiko lens, 1:1.7 42mm. The shutter speeds are B to 1/500, f-stops from 1.9 to 16. Supposed to be a very nice and sought-after camera.

Below that is an Olympus Pen EE-3. The Pen series of cameras are all half-frame. That is, they take 2 pictures in the space of one 35mm negative. That means you get 72 shots from a 36 roll of film. It is cosmetically the best of the bunch, but the lens has lots of fungus in it and the top plate shows minor signs of rusting or corrosion. It is a point and shoot camera- there is no focus ring, just set the ISO speed and shoot. To use a flash (or to choose an f-stop manually) you turn the ring on the front. It has a hinged back, as opposed to the removable back of earlier Pen models. The EE-3 has a D.Zuiko 1:3.5 28mm lens. It appears to be fixed focus.

Directly to the right is an Olympus Trip 35. If you regularly read this site then you’ll know how much I like this little gem of a camera. I’m still stumped as to why they sell so cheap- like $10 at camera fairs if you root around the junk tables and push all the old men out of the way. The Trip 35 has an excellent D.Zuiko 2.8 lens. YES. F2.8. On a $10 camera. Do you know how much an f2.8 lens usually costs? Anyway, this is Trip #4 for me and I am especially excited because it has its original carrying case, complete with “Olympus Trip 35″ stamped on it The meter works, as do both shutter speeds and the aperture blades. The body is a little corroded but the inside is nice. The red flag, the low-light warning in the viewfinder, seems to pop-up consistently! I’ve noticed that to be a problem on other Trips I’ve picked up. Fixing that problem means taking the camera apart which I’m not motivated enough to do …

Above that is an Olympus Pen D with case. This seems to be one sweet little camera. It has a selenium meter on top (that works!) that is uncoupled and the shutter speeds and f-stops are manually selectable. As if that wasn’t enough, it also EV markings! The lens is an F.Zuiko 1:1.9 32mm. Yes that’s right: f1.9!! The focus distances (in meters on mine) are engraved on the left side of the lens: 0.8, 0.9, 1.0, 1.2, 1.5, 2, 3, 5 and infinity. There are two click stops, one at 1.2 meters for close-up, and one at 3 meters for general shooting. The meter goes from EV 7 to EV 17 and can be set under the lens for these ISOs: 10, 16. 32, 50, 100, 200 and 400. The viewfinder has parallax correction lines. The top plate is moderately corroded but the inside is nice. The lens had lots of fungus on it which I managed to swab-away for the time being. Removing the elements from the back is impossible(?) so I went in from the front. In unscrews and comes apart easily. I have a roll of Tri-X 400 in it now and can’t wait to see the results!

Last but not least, on the far right, is an Olympus Pen EE. This one isn’t in cosmetically nice condition either: the top plate is corroded, the lens has lots of fungus in it and there’s a large dent over the left side strap lug. The EE stands for (I read on the internet) Electric Eye, which refers to the selenium meter around the D.Zuiko 1:2.8 30mm lens. Around the ring of the lens are f-stops for semi-manual control and flash, and ISO settings for the meter. You also set the focus on the lens itself. There are 3 symbols: a mountain, 3 people and 1 person for the preset focus distances. I’m guessing- since I can’t find a manual for this camera- that the focus zones are the same as the Trip 35, which has the same symbols on its lens.

The EE comes in two flavors: old and new. The old EE has only one shutter speed of 1/60. The new one has 1/125 for regular shooting and 1/30 for flash. By outside appearances they are both very similar, and I don’t know which one is which.

I will have sample photos from some of these cameras after I’m done shooting with them.