Vintage film cameras

[Kenzie]

If you look at some of my latest camera portraits on Flickr, you will see the lens and bezel are in sharp focus but the body is just outside the zone of focus.

Sent from the darkroom

[johnnyrod]

Ah I see, yes I have done that. At close range the DoF is small anyway, and if you use a wide aperture you get almost nothing. 1m at f1.8 is something like 2-3cm DoF, which is obviously less than a folding camera with a 75mm lens! f11 at 1m gets you 0.9-1.2m - you always get more behind than in front. If I'm relying on DoF then I use the camera to measure the front and back distances, then use the DoF scale on the lens. to see what aperture I need to cover the whole range, and leave the lens set so it is all covered. I usually add a stop as when I've done it before, it's a bit close to the knuckle really and you need a bit more DoF than the scales say. I had thought the expected DoF was wider on older cameras based on lower expectations of quality (bigger circle of confusion i.e. unit of resolution) but they seem to be the same, more or less.

Getting it right:
Gate by John Rodriguez, on Flickr
Getting it wrong:
Certo Super Sport Dolly by John Rodriguez, on Flickr

[Kenzie]

Did your new toy arrive yet Yoko?

[johnnyrod]

Finally checked the shutter speeds of the Contessa, slow ones are good, fast range are bit slow (1/100 is 1/59) so will try adjusting them up, top speeds of 1/250 and 1/500 are 1/154 and 1/250 respectively, which are as good as it gets really. Bit of a large gap between 1/59 and 1/154 so will close it up if I can, otherwise good to go! Need to give the lenses a clean and the rest is done.

[Kenzie]

How do you go about adjusting shutter speed? Finished the Nettar and most of the way through the Akarette but I seem to misplaced it.

Sent from the darkroom

[johnnyrod]

Well I thought I understood but it's not going very well! The hairspring in the escapement can be re-set, but it has to be off the back plate, so any timing settings are gone if you do that. It looked about right anyway. There is also a spring for the retard lever in the escapement; this sits in one of a few notches on the base plate of it, so you can adjust its tension by changing its position. Finally both ends of the escapement can be moved in or out, which broadly (I thought) adjusts the high and low speed ranges. I succeeded in making it slower then put it back, but no quicker. The top speeds aren't adjustable, and both don't use any timing of the escapement, but a little of its momentum of its parts. Basically they run as fast as it can, but the higher 1/500 has a second spring to boost it, same as on your Certo, you can feel how much harder it is to cokk. I'll use it as-is if I have no choice (de facto I guess!) but maybe I can do something about it. I read stuff about bending one of the pins - I'd rather overexpose a bit!

[yokohama]

Aye. The toy arrived today. I only ordered it yesterday morning.
There's a family resemblance.

[Kenzie]

Nice. Not jealous at all!!! How is it weightwise against an slr?

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[yokohama]

I might have to buy a couple of adaptors for it. A little Rokkor or a Zuiko prime wouldn't look out of place.
I took it out this afternoon to experiment. There's a 170 page instruction book which I can't be bothered to read yet so I just left it on intelligent auto mode. The images look fine and it does do a few tricks from what I can understand so far.
I took 72 shots - and 4 on the Pentax MX and then only after I'd seen what the image was like on the Olympus. Is this why I got it? A tester for film cameras? I think I'm old school with photography. Size something up, think about it and take one photo. I'm pretty much the same when I use the Panasonic TZ too; one shot or maybe another on a different setting or from a different angle. I really noticed it in Shanghai when my friend and I went out. I took less than 20 photos compared to the 200 plus she fired off on her Nikon, most of them multiples of the same thing. I suppose statistically, she's a higher percentage of getting good ones.

[Kenzie]

I had my D3200 out today as well as the film shooters. I fired off 124 frames without thinking about what I was shooting. That would have been 5 rolls of film and only a few worth keeping.

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