New Members of the Family

Amazing $70 eBay find, a 1950s Graflex Pacemaker Speed Graphic with a Kodak Ektar 127mm f/4.7 lens



early 1970s Canon Canonet G-III 17 35mm rangefinder, given to me by a friend





early 1980s Minolta X-570 35mm SLR and Minolta 35-200mm f/3-5.6 lens, given to me by a friend.

Canon 5D
Canon 24-105mm f/4L lens

Self Promo #6

Mamiya C220
-original 80mm f/2.8 lens
-original waist-level viewfinder
-original twin-lens cover

Mamiya 645 AFII
Leaf Aptus 17 digital back
Mamiya 150mm f/2.8 macro lens
(lots of) Adobe Photoshop CS3

Self Promo #5

PAK Slide Viewer
made by Le Belle Industries
Oconomowoc, Wis.

It holds 8 mounted slides that it ratchets-out onto a small groundglass, that sits below an adjustable loop, that folds inside the body. The mechanism is simple, pulling the silver tap returns the current slide to the bottom of the stack inside the "clip," pushing the silver tab back in loads whatever slide is on top of the stack into viewing position. the viewer can point the groundglass at any nearby light source to illuminate the slide. There is a switch on the bottom of the device that allows the silver tab to be completely removed in order to load/unload slides.

It's a clever little device, but I imagine designed to handle slides mounted on more sturdy material. If the slide is not sitting correctly on the ground glass it can jam as it's returned to the "clip," resulting in bent mounts and/or slide damage.

This is the image being viewed through the loop.

Sinar F1 4x5 view camera
65mm f/4.5 lens
Phase One H10 digital back
Capture One Pro
Broncolor Primo powerpack

-diffused strobe under translucent plexi
-medium softbox strobe ~2-3' overhead

composite image through Photoshop CS2

Kodak Retina IIa

A new toy.











Canon Rebel XT
Canon 35-128mm f/3.5-5.6 IS lens
ambiate lit
-overhead tungsten

My uncle made a decent Goodwill find of this antique rangefinder camera. He bought it, took it apart, cleaned it up, put it back together, and tried to sale it on ebay, but couldn't get the $50 he asked for. So, he gave it to me.

It's a German-built Kodak, a 35mm folding rangefinder camera with a Schneider Xenon 50mm f/2 lens and 1/500s-max leaf shutter.

It was produced between 1951 and 1954 and sold for about $170 (about $1100 today). It competed with other German and Japanese rangefinders as a simpler, more user friendly alternative.

At some point between ending up at Goodwill and being disassembled by my uncle, it lost its original cold-shoe (but still has a working X-sync socked), lost the original lens aperture lever (requiring a small tool/pointy object to change the f/stop), and when opened the lens sits less than parallel with the body (probably causing some scheimpflug-ish focusing issues).

But it still functions well (except for a little sticking in the 1s and 1/2s shutter speeds). It doesn't appear to have any light leaks or lens defects, and also came with its original Kodak FVII/32 UV filter (also made in Germany).

I ran a roll of Ilford Delta 3200 through it, but won't be able to process it for a week or two.

more info about the Retina IIa can be found here