Of all the film formats, for me 35mm is the most fun to use. It can be spontaneous and quick, it can be carried without burden, even when taking an extra lens and film and because the film is the least expensive of any, I can be more aggressive when something catches my eye than I might be with a TLR or 4X5. I can use it even when I’m taking our dog Bella on a long walk, as long as I pay attention to her and let her know to sit and wait.
As my shooting is not limited to family gatherings and special events, or to put it positively, as I am always on a quest for a new image, throwing a 35mm camera over my shoulder when leaving the house is more the norm, “just in case.” If I decide to carry a Mamiya TLR and a tripod, on the other hand, it is because I have something specific in mind, i.e., I am going to a particular place with a photo or photos in mind. The opportunity to switch film formats in such contexts is a real blessing.
So has been my ability to try out a variety of 35mm cameras and I will offer some things I’ve learned in doing so. There are, after all, so many used cameras available one way or another that it can be a kind of adventure to try them out.
I bought a Realist 35 on eBay for about ten bucks a couple years back and did my usual cleanup when it arrived. It was made in Germany, very early 50’s. It’s a rangefinder camera with a fixed lens in the between the lens shutter. The lens does pretty good but the rangefinder image is rather dull. So one roll through was enough.
A student gave me an AGFA Karat, a pretty little bellows 35 a bit like the Kodak/Nagel Retina, with a very nice and bright rangefinder, and although this one does not have a Tessar lens it does just fine, single coated, made in about 1951. The Karat is really nice to use, especially with its great rangefinder. My version does not have any issues with gummy rangefinder shaft that some of them have. I was walking downtown with it around my neck and some guy starts smiling really big and stopped me, saying, “That’s a rangefinder!” . He was an Associated Press guy from the Spokane office and when he looked closer he said, “Man, that was my first 35mm camera.” These kind of fun things happening carrying around nearly 70 year old cameras.
Another of the rangefinder cameras that was given to me is a Petri Super 28 with a pretty blue-coated lens that looks suspiciously like the Zeiss Tessar 28s, and on its first run it produced flat dull negatives. I got ambitious and pulled the front off the lens. It too has a built in shutter on the front with a fixed lens. When I looked close with a loupe I found an interior lens element thick with dirt and what was probably grease. Though I know you are not supposed to do this, I got deeper into the lens and by holding the shutter open with B I was able to clean the lens element with a Q-tip and some lens cleaner, reassemble it all and shoot a roll with fingers crossed that I hadn’t upset the delicate and precise lens setup. Bang, nice sharp, contrasty negatives! So the Petri is a keeper, like the AGFA Karat 35.
Kathy and I bought a Minolta SRT set from a couple who were junk collectors several years ago and thrown in the bag were a couple Contaflexes, SLRs from Contax, both with fixed lenses and as they were pretty early neither had an instant return mirror. Press the shutter and the viewfinder goes black. Wind the shutter knob and it comes back. What initially struck me about the Contaflexes was that the cameras finish was perfect, no scratches, no dull spots, as if they were brand new. Both cameras have 2.8 Tessars with a blue/purple lens coating and one of them came with another front element, a 35mm Tessar. For this camera the lens was designed to change focal lengths by unlocking, removing and replacing the front elements. Though I was skeptical, I found both to be very useable lenses. Though both Contaflexes have built in light meters I get much better results using my hand held meter.
I did an equipment swap with a friend a couple years back and ended up with a Minolta ST 202, a SRT 101 and lenses, good lenses. The 135 Rokkor is excellent as are the two 50mm and the 28mm Rokkors. Kathy uses the 101 with the 25mm Rokkor non-focusing auto-bellows lens on her copy stand work and results from the Minolta equipment have been outstanding. My camera repair tech did a clean-up on the 202 body and was very enthusiastic on the Minolta equipment in general but especially the SRT series.
Finally, There are the Leica screw mount cameras, interchangeable lens rangefinder cameras produced after WWII and based on the pre-war and postwar screw mount Leicas. There are the Russian cameras, some of them made on the same tooling snatched from the Leica factories. I ended up with a couple for under 20 dollars apiece with mixed results. The better way to go is with the Canon cameras from the early 50’s. I had bought the IVSB2 with the Leitz Elmar but like most of my equipment it was burned up in a fire in 1992. Much later we agreed to help a lady inventory the equipment her father had collected over a lifetime as he was suffering from Atzheimers symptoms. We had just volunteered but when she saw I had some nostalgia for a CANON III she gave it to me as a present. The shutter was shot but I sent it off to get new curtains and 400 dollars later had a very beautiful rangefinder. The really nice thing, and the reason I am highlighting it, is the availability of LCM lenses, including Nikon, Canon, Leitz, and Minolta, all compatible with the rangefinders of the various cameras. The color image at the close of the last blog was made with the Canon III and Serenar 50mm 1.8 lens.
The photo of Larry and his Sax was made with a Leica III from the late 1930’s with an uncoated 50mm Elmar, wide open at 1/25thof a second in a very dark club.
I got that Leica III from a friend who had been born in the Phillipines just before Japanese occupation and the camera had been his Dad’s, a civilian working for the U.S.government. It was old and dirty and had some of the internal signs of salt air. The peepholes on these older rangefinders are very small by contemporary standards and take some getting used to. But isn’t that part of this great adventure?
That concludes the series on film formats and their effect on the way we photograph. Here’s to Good Shooting.
Bill Kostelec
May 2018
Photo Notes 