Τρίτη 31 Δεκεμβρίου 2013

More from the Konica Revio CL

The Revio is a small APS film camera that delivers excellent pictures.However, the flash cannot be switched off, making it useless for street photography.



The camera needs good light, or uses flash:
 




 

Wirgin Edixa, a good manual rangefinder

I was able to find a trick to make the advance lever to have some friction and advance the film, so I put a roll inside to test the cameras capabilities.
The camera has manual settings, aperture from f2.8 to 16 and shutter speeds and shutter speeds from 1/25 to 1/200 + B


The lens has a normal to wide field of view, a focal length of 43mm.
The dual viewfinder is an incovinience but it is used by time.

The back of the camera with the two viewfinder windows, one for focusing and one for framing, and the tiny exposure counter:

The sample photos are here:

Some underexposure at sunrise



 Very sharp in bright sunshine
 At the Sunday's flea market


 At the tunnel while driving





Παρασκευή 20 Δεκεμβρίου 2013

Chinon CM-5, manual SLR

I found this camera in our warehouse, resting unused for many years. I put the LR 44 battery and the lightmeter was ready. There are 2 red leds and a green one in the viewfinder. When the green led lights the aperture/shutter set is ok for a correct exposure. The upper red led indicates overexposure and the lower one indicates underexposure. Shutter speed can be set from 1/1000th sec to 1second + Bulb.
The camera is a standard SLR of the time, medium sized with average ergonomics.
Mine has a 35-100mm zoom lens with maximum aperture from 3.5 to 4.3 depending of the focal length set. It has a Macro feature for picture taking till 1/4 lifesize.

I put a roll of Fuji film 100ASA to test it. Film sensitivity is set on the shutter speed dial. The camera has a split screen viewfinder and is very easy to focus and choose the exposure but lacks a Depth-of-Field preview, so it is impossible to judge the blurred areas of the picture.

Here are some samples from a walk in the flea market area:

 
 
 


Τρίτη 17 Δεκεμβρίου 2013

Konica Revio CL, tiny camera with high quality pictures

The Konica Revio CL is a very small camera of the APS film format. It is small with a nice design and easily slips into a pocket.

It has a 25mm lens, that is equivalent to approx. 35mm in the 135 film format. The max aperture is 6.7 and there are shutter speeds from 1/80th to 1/250th sec. There are 3 ASA film speeds available, 100, 200 and 400. The camera therefore needs good lighting to take pictures, or flash.
Flash is enabled automatically, this is not good for street photography, and there are the auto-flash, red eye reduction and forced flash options.
There is also a timer option and a self portrait one. The camera can be fitted with a small mirror for framing while taking selfies but mine is missing.

I have loaded the camera with a 200ASA APS Fuji film.
The resulting images come out very sharp.

 A self portrait on the moto
Another self portrait
With the self timer
and two pictures with a cinematic look
Church box - memorial of an accident by the road
 
Old car

Τρίτη 10 Δεκεμβρίου 2013

Kodak Starflex, simple, cheap and good

The Kodak Starflex is a very simple camera of the Star cameras that take 127 film

I used a Bluefire Murano 160 ASA, 127-type film. The f11 and f16 apertures together with the 1/50 shutter speed need good light conditions. no focussing is required.
The plastic lens of  the Starflex delivered good pictures.

As the lab cannot scan the film, I rephotographed the negatives and inverted in Lightroom 3.

A loader
 A frozen foods shop
 Town Hall of Acharnes
The film slipped in this one, resulting in overlapping exposures.
Academy of Athens, Socrates and Plato watching
 A beetle car
 At a monastery
 Entrance of the monastery
At an air show
 At the air show
Jumbo shop, the Greek Toys'R'Us version


Kodak Star 127 cameras

I have acquired some Kodak 127 cameras from the Star series. The Starflex, the Starflash and the Starlet.
They use the same film box and lens while the top is different. The Dakon lens is a plastic, rather wide angle lens, a 35mm focal length equivalent, with two simple apertures, one around f11 and one around f16.
There is only one shutter speed, around 1/50th sec.

The Starflash has a large reflective disk that takes a flash lamp,
the Starflex has a waist level viewfinder that makes it look like a Twin Lens Reflex,
and the Starlet is a small point and shoot cameras.

The cameras are very simple, plastic made and consequently very cheap at their time but have a design that make them look like more capable and expensive cameras.

Τρίτη 3 Δεκεμβρίου 2013

More with the Canon Ixus M-1

The Ixus M-1 is small, handy and produces very good pictures.

It was cheaper than other Ixus cameras at the time, as it is made of plastic and has only a fixed focus lens

The APS cameras also have panoramic and 3/4 picture format settings but the whole of the frame is exposed. Format selection was made at the lab for printing.
Here are some more samples converted to cinematic look.