Articles Written By: Bubble Level

Mir With The Crazy Flare

2013 10 13 JMZ Boat mir Pentax Spotmatic Kodak Portra 400 02350036
Pentax Spotmatic, KMZ Mir-1B 37/2.8, Kodak Portra 400

This has to be the most extreme example of lens flare that I
have personally achieved in a photograph.  Even J.J. Abrams would be proud!

I see at least a dozen distinct flare elements, and that is
counting the stars as just one each rather than once per point.

One of my reasons for getting a vintage Pentax Spotmatic
35mm SLR was to try out some older lenses with character.  When I read up on the KMZ Mir-1B on Vintage Lenses for Video it was
described as having out-of-this-world flare under the right circumstances.

The front of this lens needs to be wielded with care as I found that having the front of the lens pointed anywhere
near the sun resulted in at least one circular flare somewhere in the frame.

I am sure there are creative ways to use it though, so whenever I need lens flare I know just where to turn to.

Framed Tree in KEH Blog

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Rollei 35S, Rollei Retro 80s

I made it into KEH's Photos of the Month for October with the above shot.

This tree is in a park where our boys have tennis lessons nearly every Sunday.  I have taken shots of it before, but this time the framing and lighting/shadows worked out pretty nicely.

The Rollei's 40mm lens has a narrow enough field of view that I had to back up almost all the way to the street on the far side of this open grass area to capture the whole tree.  And after shifting around for a minute or two I found a nice framing by the branches in the foreground.

While I love the Rollei cameras, I am not sure I a convert to the current Rollei-branded films (actually made by Agfa).  Retro 80s film does have a classic B&W look to it, but it has a very speckled grain at full magnification that I have yet to come to terms with.

Did you know that Rollei 35's are still manufactured today?  After the parent company went brankrupt in 2009 some of the employees launched a new company DHW Fototechnik and still make digital and analog SLRs as well as some classic TLRs and the 35.

They offer the Rollei 35 in some crazy looking special editions.

Oh, and this was the second time I made it into the KEH blog.  The first was back in their February photo post and was a picture taken of my Rollei 35S previously featured here.

KMZ Industar-50-2

2013 09 20 JMZ Swim Pentax Spotmatic Kodak Portra 400-8628-0020
Pentax Spotmatic, KMZ Industar-50-2 50/3.5 (wide open), Kodak Portra 400

The first soviet lens I have been trying out is an Industar-50-2 made by KMZ.

KMZ was one of the most prolific of the soviet camera and lens manufacturers, and the Industar-50-2 was one of their more common lenses.  I think this was "The People's 50mm" for many back in the day.

It is incredibly compact and so some call it a pancake lens, but I find its sloped edges more reminiscent of a squat nuclear cooling tower.

As with many of the older M42 mount lenses, the Industar-50-2 features a smooth (if not loose) aperture ring with no stops, meaning that it rotates smoothly from f/16 up through f/3.5.

You focus the Industar wide open and then stop down to the desired aperture in order to meter.  This can be tough to do by touch given the lack of clicks, but on the other hand there is nothing preventing you from dialing in any intermediate aperture to nail exposure just where you want it.

The relatively slow maximum aperture means that this is not a good lens for low-light situations or minimizing the depth of field.  However, I have found that I can shoot wide open even in daylight and still get nice, rounded out of focus elements in the photo.

Rejuvenating Yellowed Lens Glass Via UV Light

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UV rejuvination in progress

There is a curious phenomenon which affects some older lenses as
they age: the cement used to bond glass elements together can turn yellow.

While comparing two of my recently acquired M42 lenses with each other,
a 50/1.4 Super-Takumar to a 58/2 Helios-44-2, I was puzzled when meter
readings from the Super-Tak called for a slower shutter speed on the same
subject with both lenses wide open.

I also noticed the view through my Spotmatic's finder was yellow-ish
with the Super-Tak.  Some research on this topic turned up that this is a
common issue afflicting these lenses.

Others report success bleaching the lens back to clarity using ultraviolet
light, either from direct daylight (window glass blocks UV) or via a strong UV light
bulb.  I decided to try a CFL party black
light and heat lamp fixture from home depot.

After merely 24 hours of exposure to UV there was a noticeable
difference, and by 4 days later it appeared cleared up to the naked eye.

My meter readings now called for a one-stop
faster shutter on the Super-Tak so I figure I am done with the UV light treatment.

Before and After: Helios 44-2 on the left and Super-Takumar 50/1.4 on the right

DSC_9255

DSC_9601

As an added bonus I now have a black light at my disposal just in time for Halloween trick-or-treaters!

Happy 10th Anniversary

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Pentax Spotmatic, Asahi Super-Takumar 50/1.4, Kodak BW400CN

Today my Dear Sweet Wife and I celebrate our ten year wedding anniversary.

I took the above photo of my DSW using my first M42 lens, an
Asahi (Pentax) Super-Takumar 50/1.4 shot wide open.

It was just one of two shots taken for fun while at lunch the
other day, but I think it captures her beauty and charm quite nicely if I do
say so myself.

Happy anniversary my love!

Thanks for all the good times: the family, home, travel, and
all sorts of fun and adventure.  But
mostly thanks for doing it together with me.

Here is to the next ten years and beyond!

Jamie

Spotmatic Overview

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The majority of Spotmatic controls are right here

After a few weeks
playing with my Pentax Spotmatic camera I find shooting it a blast.

It is a fully manual SLR
with typical layout of the controls.  You won't find much more on this
camera than shutter speed dial & release, film advance level and a
self-timer.  Aperture and focus is of course controlled via the lens.

The Spotmatic has
through the lens (TTL) metering, but unlike newer cameras there is a switch
near the lens mount to enable the meter.  This engages an automatic
diaphragm release on newer M42 lenses to stop the aperture down for metering.

The documented usage
model is to first compose and focus with the aperture wide open and then engage
the meter and adjust exposure as needed.  The image through the viewfinder
darkens during metering as the lens stops down to the chosen aperture.

Personally I found
myself metering first and then disengaging the switch to perform final
focusing; either method works fine.

The only quirks I have
encountered are

  • It required an PX-400 mercury battery, but I used the
    replacement WeinCell instead
  • The battery chamber prong had to be pried up a bit to
    get the meter working
  • The fresnel focusing screen in the viewfinder requires your eye to be dead center to work

Taking a Spin with a Spotmatic

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While I use a variety of film cameras, my SLRs and interchangeable
lenses so far have been mostly Nikon.

I wanted to branch out and try an older interchangeable lens
system and decided on the M42 mount.  There
is some pretty nice M42 glass with unique aesthetics, often available at affordable
prices.

M42 is a thread mount where you literally screw the threaded rear
end of the lens into the camera body.  M42
is sometimes known as the Praktica or Pentax thread mounts as those were two of
the most prolific camera makes to use it.

After some research it seemed that the original Pentax Spotmatic was
one of the best camera bodies made to use M42 lenses.  It has TTL metering, a reputation for quality,
and a pleasing design.

It has a few quirks for those used to more modern SLRs; primarily
that you often have to focus and meter as separate steps. But now that I have put a few rolls through one it has a certain
charm to it that I find hard to resist.

Schrödinger’s Photography

JZ-5K-NM04-10-SunsetYellowA-raw
Nikon F100, Fuji Velvia 50

You have heard of his cat.  But have you heard his stance on proper tripod use?

Google is celebrating Erwin Schrödinger's birthday today with their doodle.  Schrödinger's famous cat paradox has been used to illustrate the limitations of practical interpretations of quantum mechanics for almost 80 years.

However, reading up on him just now I was fascinated by the end of his original paradox statement:

"There is a difference between a shaky or out-of-focus photograph and a snapshot of clouds and fog banks."  —Erwin Schrödinger, Die gegenwärtige Situation in der Quantenmechanik

Clearly he was well versed (as you would expect from the 1930's) in the proper use of a tripod to capture long exposures!

The above multi-second, tripod-rooted shot of my own was taken over nine years ago in the mountains just north of Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Erwin would have been proud that the hills in the distance are nice and sharp.

12 of 17 Signs

BeachComber
Nikon FA, Nikkor AF 85mm/1.8 D, Kodak Portra 400

Consider yourself an analog photographer?  Take a spin through this list and see how
many items you can identify or honestly claim to have used.

I was able to recognize 12 of the 17 items.  I think a few were not too fair or common in
the first place, so I think that was a pretty good score.

And honestly I use 7 of them even to this day, and desire to
pick more up again sometime in the future when I have the time to play around
with a darkroom and/or large format.

Lifeguard Tower

2013 06 JMZ Beach Lego FA Portra 400-0001
Nikon FA, Nikkor Ai-S 50/1.8, Kodak Portra 400

We spent some time in southern California earlier this summer, on the beach or at the poolside.  It was mostly just family fun, but we did enjoy a few sunset photography opportunities.

Even though we headed south right after last school year ended, the next year is starting in just two weeks.  Even if the summer heat is going to last longer, it feels like it is over once we get back into the elementary school scene.

My Nikon FA is really my go-to casual camera these days, and more often than not my Nikkor Ai-S 50/1.8 is attached to it and it is loaded with Portra 400 film.  This is quite the winning combination and I have gotten quite used to it.