Testing a Konica Autoreflex TC (Part 1)

Sometimes my interest is sparked in some way when I watch Youtube videos. A few weeks ago, I watched a video called «Konica Autoreflex TC – The poor mans OM-1». To me, this title did not really make much sense. In my opinion, the Olympus OM-1 is extensive value for money and indeed very affordable both when it comes to lenses and camera bodies. They are also accurate like clockwork, and relatively hassle-free to service and maintain. I have shot a large number of rolls through my OM-1 and it has never given me any problems even in very cold winter days. So if there would be a cheaper camera that reliable, that had to be a gem for this blog indeed.

My lovely Konica Autoreflex TC with its marvelous Konica Hexanon AR 50mm f1,8 lens

I searched briefly online, and I actually found one incredibly cheap on a local Facebook sales page, and I got it for about 200 Norwegian Kroner (about 20 GBP) with shipping included. A real bargain there indeed. For the first tryout, I loaded it with a roll of Ilford FP4 plus that I shot at ISO50 and developed with Ilford Ilfotec Perceptol. I find that Perceptol really helps me get the winter tones I want for my shots, as well as a very fine grain.

The Konica turned out to be a lovely camera to work with. It is indeed a bit heavier and more bulky than the OM-1 but it fits my hand very well and everything is where you expect it to be, and it all seems to work rather well. I did not try the Aperture priority setting on the camera, but shot it on a variety of shutter speeds and aperture settings with a wide range of filters I found to be helpful for me at this location, which is an old museum. However, I do not see this camera and the Olympus OM-1 to be comparable as equipment.

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The Olympus OM-1 is a far more accurate camera with a broader selection of shutter speeds, all the way from a whole second to 1/1000th of a second plus BULB-mode. On the Konica, there is nothing between 1/8th and B, and the longer shutter speeds on my one «drags» a little bit. This could be the particular camera.

Konica Autoreflex TC w Konica Hexanon 50mm f1,8 lens. Ilford FP4 plus@50 F8 1/25th Yellow filter – Ilfotec Perceptol

Also in the perceived build quality, the Konica is clearly a cheaper and less sophisticated camera than the OM-1. But if you forget about the irrelevant comparison to a clearly better camera, the little Konica is a very pleasant camera to work with, and the 50mm Hexanon Lens, is just outstanding. It gives a really nice sharpness, even at wide apertures and it is easy to focus.

*Konica Autoreflex TC w Konica Hexanon 50mm f1,8 lens. Ilford FP4 plus@50 F2.8 1/8th Yellow filter – Ilfotec Perceptol*

Through my about 60 minutes photo-walk today, the Konica performed rather well for the first 20 minutes. After that, it coughed up a nice selection of issues and creative problems that I guess is it reacting with the cold weather. The temperature was about -12 degrees and some if these issues might be due to that.

Nr 1. Sticky shutter: After some shots the shutter started sticking every now and then. It did not matter which shutter speed the camera was set to. The only thing to do, was to tap the camera slightly so that the shutter would go off, and then shoot another frame to get one without immense camera shake.

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Nr 2. Slowed focusing. After a while out in the cold, the focusing ring got very slow, almost as if the lubrication thickened and became a gooey syrup.

Nr 3. Camera refused to rewind the film back into the cassette and ripped it instead. When I manually retrieved the film, it actually broke on another place as well. Luckily, I did not lose more than four shots, and all of them were bad. (happy days)

*Konica Autoreflex TC w Konica Hexanon 50mm f1,8 lens. Ilford FP4 plus@50 F11 1/25th Graduated Magenta filter – Ilfotec Perceptol*

All these issues aside, I like the Konica Autoreflex and the Hexanon lens. A ripped film could very well be my mistake and the other issues could be weather related. My next test out of this camera will be with a colour film, trying to capture some lovely, bleak winter colours.

*Konica Autoreflex TC w Konica Hexanon 50mm f1,8 lens. Ilford FP4 plus@50 Ilfotec Perceptol*

Trying out Delta 400

When I first tried out Ilford HP5 plus, I completely fell in love with the film. I just loved the amazing latitude and the rich feel it gave my photos, and since then, I have mainly used HP5 plus whenever I needed a 400 or even a 200 speed film, which the occasional use of Tri-X-X when I want to push the film slightly, or just want to have a yellow cassette in my camera instead of a green one. At box-speed the two films are interchangeable in my humble opinion and I challenge you to spot which photo was shot with which of these two if I put up a selection.

A While back, before Covid and quarantines were an issue, I was in Aarhus in Denmark visiting a friend and enjoying the lovely Danish landscape and all the lovely pastries and coffee shops they have. I also visited Mimosa Photo shop in Aarhus city center, and picked up some rolls of film. Since I only had one roll of HP5 plus left, I needed a 400 speed film, and the only one they had in at that moment was Delta 400. I bought three rolls, and since then they have just been sitting around in the fridge, and not been tested. The other day, I went out for a little outing in the misty Norwegian winter-weather, and I decided to shoot with Ilford Delta 400.

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I put one of the rolls in my Minolta Dynax SPxi, and screwed on the yellow filter and went for a spin, trying to find black and dark grey contrasts against the misty, white skies. I have often found the yellow filter to help me get the results I want in winter time, lifting the darks, while helping me retain detail in the very bright whites. I was curious how this film would be different from the HP5 plus, but after only one tryout, I can obviously not say that I have the knowledge to make a comparison nor a good enough photographic bank of results to base any personal judgement on. But I do know what I would expect from HP5 plus in these situations. An my prediction was more or less the same, but with finer grain.

Minolta Dynax SPxi w Minolta AF Zoom 35-70mm f4,5 Yellow filter – Ilford Delta 400 professional Ilford Ilfotec DD-X

The grain on this test-roll was actually finer than I expected, but I did not get the same contrast boost that I would have expected comparing FP4 plus and Delta 100 which I know both of very well. But all in all, I do rather like my results. The Minolta Zoom lens is not by any means the sharpest of lenses, but I tried out different aperture settings and even at some points used «Aperture priority» mode to get the most out the lens that I had on. The camera has a few functions that I find to be very helpful.

First of all, I like the two sensors on the right hand handle that will automatically focus when you touch them. In rainy weather; however, it turned out that these sensors were actually reacting to the rain touching it as well as my fingers, to the AF went berserk a few times. Also the AF tends to select different spots and, as visible in the images, it back focuses somewhat. It would be interesting to try this camera out with a different lens, to see whether this is a camera or lens-issue.

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Second, I like the way you set the different parameters on different places on the camera. However, I do find it a bit fiddly and that you very easily forget which knob does what, and hence, shooting this in fully manual mode, is sometimes really exasperating. But the idea of having the controls on knobs and not on wheels, is something I really like. If Minolta only would have been friendly enough to mark these knobs with what they do.

Even with the AF on, as you can see, the focus gets very soft, and I suspect that there might be an issue with the AF system on this camera. But at the same time, I think that some of these photos gets some additional mood with that soft focus.

I chose to develop with Infotec DD-X which I know is made for the Delta series. I got the developer from Bjørn Joachimsen in November, and I would recommend you to look through his amazing catalogue of photos both here on WordPress and on Flickr.

Capturing the winter colours

Shooting in winter time can sometimes be very uninspiring and difficult. There are no vibrant colours in the nature, and the weather is sometimes really and truly nasty. Therefore, I have made myself a project this winter. To capture the mood of the Norwegian winter with analog photography. I have not limited myself in terms of films, developers or styles. The goal with the project is to convey the Norwegian winter mood through my photography.

This is the second entry in the project, and in this one, I am working with one of the days where the weather is nice and where there are colours to work with.

To capture the colours, I chose to go with a very under-rated film that I find to work very well with the Norwegian winter tones. The Kodak Pro Image 100. I have used some rolls of this film previously, ordered on eBay as it was not sold in Europe. From what I have gathered online, this film was originally introduced in South America and Asia as an entry-level professional colour negative film. Based on the Kodak Gold, it was then altered, tweaked and improved to produce better skin tones, but keep the warm Kodak colour palette that the Kodak Gold is renown for.

Olympus OM-1 Zuiko Olympus 50mm f,18 w 1,6 stop Circular Polarizer. Kodak ProImage 100

When you google this film, you get a lot of «so-called experts in the field» who has written some kind of a review of this film based on their experience after shooting one roll of film. All of these conclude with something like «This film is so cheap, why would Kodak brand such a cheap film professional, Ektar is far better». I find this to be unfair to the Pro Image. KODAK Ektar is a brilliant film, and a film I use a lot myself, but I find it to be too vibrant for my winter shooting. I also mean, that you can never judge a film just by shooting one roll of it, and choice of film is a personal choice and relies heavily on personal preference. after fifteen rolls (three five-packs) of Pro-Image, I have found this film to work brilliantly for my preferences.

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One of the lovely things about working in Norway in the winter, is that morning light happens at more comfortable times than in the summer. My «early morning shoot» started at 09.30 with a cup of coffee and ended around 11.00 with me rewinding the film back into the cassette and traveled home for development. Even so, I did not meet as many people as I expected on my little outing into the lovely lights and colours. And I find that I was able to capture the mood of this morning.

A sunny, cold winters day after many grey dull days, with some lovely almost purple colours in the skies and a yellowish tone on the ground near the lake.

I then ended my day with doing a C41 process. I had fresh chemicals which were mixed right before, and the cycle went like a dream. I see a slight cyan-cast in the scans. This could be because I had to pause the development between the Developer and the Blix due to a temperature fall in the Blix. I then left the films in the tank with some 38 degrees clean water for some minutes, while the Blix heated up again.

Capturing the mood

Some days ago, I was tidying up my darkroom, and I found what I assume to be a previous test-roll. I assumed that the roll was around half, but it turned out to be around 24 exposures of HP5 plus. I then got the Idea of trying to capture the miserable weather we have had in the area lately. I figured HP5 plus would be brilliant at that, it has grain, but not too much and coarse. I also chose to go with Ilford’s Perceptol developer, to reduce the grain in the whites a bit, but not eradicate it.

My aim was not to get razor sharp images, but rather to capture the feeling and mood of this time of year. I am thinking more in the direction of a charcoal drawing than a crystal clear image of the mood. I know some photographers would have gone with a Holga or something similar to that on an outing like this, but I have never really befriended my Holga camera, and I prefer the effect the Petri Racer gives.

Snowy and wet December day – Petri Racer w Ilford HP5 plus@250. F8 1/60s – Ilford Perceptol stock

For that reason, I chose to bring along the Petri Racer. For long term readers of this blog, you know the Petri Racer camera very well. It was the first camera I bought for this blog, and the camera that inspired me to make a blog about cheap cameras, hence CCadventures – Cheap Camera Adventures. Not that all cameras featured on this blog is «Cheap», but they are reasonable and affordable alternatives that in some way sparks my interest.

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The day was very snowy and it was unpleasant walking around in the snowy weather. I also had to wipe and dry the Petri a few times during the outing, to make sure it was not soaking or that the lens got fogged up. The camera had been in the car for a few hours before the shoot to «climatize» somewhat, but the wet snow and humidity made it fog up slightly anyway. I therefore let the film reach room-temperature before developing it. I often do this when the weather is cold to avoid swift temperature changes during the process. Not that the weather this day was very cold, only around -2 degrees, but it never hurts to be on the safe side.

Even capturing the snow falling – Petri Racer w Ilford HP5 plus@250 f8, 1/4 sec – Ilford Perceptol stock

The whole outing took me around half an hour, and I was soaked afterwards after wading in deep snow to reach a dam with view over the little lake Skumsjøen close to Gjøvik.

For the images, I am quite satisfied with the images as I find that they convey the mood and feeling I was aiming at conveying. These are not my strongest photographic moment by any means, but in terms of conveying the unpleasant Norwegian December-wet snow, I think I did a decent job.

Petri Racer. -Ilford HP5 plus@250 f8 – 1/60 sec. Ilford Perceptol stock.

Emptying the roll of RPX25

In my last entry, and video, I tried out the very slow Rollei RPX25 film. I shot it with my Olympus OM-1 and I used a yellow filter because of the lightning conditions that I found to be ideal for yellow filter. Also, I must say that I got images that I am very pleased with. I only shot half a roll of the film, and cut it out of the camera, much because I was not sure what to expect in terms of contrast and metering.

Today, I rolled up the rest of the RPX25 in the OM-1, and went for a little outing to shoot the rest of the roll. The weather was absolutely horrendously nasty, with snow/rain blend and temperatures around 0. A typical nasty early winter day in Norway, and I went to a location I know very well. A little lake close to where I live, Skumsjøen, and looked for something that would allow me to shoot wide-open, at f1,8 with the 50mm Zuiko lens.

Tree root abstraction – Olympus OM-1 w Olympus Zuiko 50mm f1,8. Shot wide open f1,8 with Rollei RPX25. Semi-stand development Rodinal 1+100 70 minutes, agitated beginning and midle of cycle.

I went for some very abstract close-ups of tree roots near the frozen water. I even took the risk of walking on the newly formed ice, as it felt safe, to get the best angles. Luckily I did not fall through.

From my last outing with this film, I remembered that I got very hard contrasts in the negatives, and I gave it a whole stop of over exposure to retain more grey-tones in the details. Another measure I chose to reduce some of the contrast while retaining the sharpness, was a cycle of stand-development with Rodnial 1+100. This is not a type of process I often use, but for slower films, I have found it to work well with my style. It also gives a certain «character» to the shots, that I find to suit my eye.

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I am not in anyway competent to comment on the performance of this film, nor its abilities. I have not used it enough to know how to handle it properly yet, and I am no film expert. However, I find it rather enjoyable to play with this filming trying to rethink my exposures to get the results I want. Also, I have only shot the film in dull, overcast weather, but I find that the Rollei RPX25 gives me a fun challenge to work with. In short, this film is fun to work with.

*Olympus OM-1 w Olympus Zuiko 50mm f1,8. Shot wide open f1,8 with Rollei RPX25. Semi-stand development Rodinal 1+100 70 minutes, agitated beginning and midle of cycle.*

A video will be available on Youtube soon. Search for Ccadventures.

Trying again with the Condor

A few says ago, I wrote about my new camera. A 1947 Condor I. Mine was sold without the Ferrania logo, and from my research online, I see that these cameras were sold like this in 1947. This means that the camera is 73 years old, and was sold two years after WWII ended in Europe. In the early stages of the European healing time. In Italy, this is two years after Mussolini died, and Germany was still referred to as «Handelsschiffe» and completely divided into four sections by the allies. From Germany came the Leica IIc, a camera that is way above my budget, even today. And from Italy came Officine Galileo with their Condor I.

The Condor I is a relatively simple camera in many ways. 100% manual with shutter-speeds on a wheel around the lens, aperture settings on a lever and a coupled rangefinder with two viewfinders, one for sharp focussing with some magnification, and one for a preview of the whole Image. On mine, alas, the range finder is too dim to be of any help when focussing on my particular camera.

The beautiful Officine Gallileo Condor I

Operating the camera is a little fiddly, especially because of the very hard mechanics. It does not seem to have been used and looked after for some time, and it would not object to a little lubrication and a little clean. Other than that, it seems to work pretty well.

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Walking around with a camera like this, makes you think more than if you walk around with a fully automatic digital camera, where you know that what you see is what you get. An old, vintage, piece of equipment seems also to put a smile on people’s faces. When shooting this today, I was asked by several elderly people about the film I used, what camera it was, and what I knew about it. I also had to tip some of them about my blog, where some of the images would be posted.

Another interesting thing with this camera is that it gives med 40 images on a 36-roll of film. This is because you stick the leader properly in place, and can close the back before you start advancing it. The lens is relatively sharp, sharper than I would expect from a camera this age, and way sharper than my Argus camera. On the down side, I am limited by having to «guess-focus» and I can’t really see its potential before I have some kind of rangefinder to help me. It also seems like the lens has a little hazing on it. Not that it is a dealbreaker for me, but it is something to consider then using it, as it gives very hazy results when there is some backlighting in the image.

Officine Gallileo Condir I, Ilford FP4 Plus, Kodak Xtol 1+1

Even so, the camera is fun to shoot, and I will probably use it for a few outings in the future. After all, it cost me close to nothing, and It is fun being so bound to your own skills.

Silky water with Fomapan 100

I have written a lot about Fomapan 100 on this blog. This is a film I absolutely love shooting, and that I have found to have some really nice qualities such as insanely fine grain when developed in Xtol stock, a rich and wide exposure latitude, that makes it very pushable and pullable. An obviously, the fact that this film is an absolute bargain with its low price.

Back in the beginning of May 2020, when Norway woke up from lockdown, I brought my Zeiss Ikon Nettar 6×6 camera out to a location, to test longer exposures with Fomapan 100. To really get the longer exposure times, I brought with me what I thought to be a four stop ND-filter, but what turned out to be a three stop red filter.

My Zeiss Ikon Nettar Medium format 6×6 bellow camera.

Having already made the effort, and trotted myself a path towards the three waterfalls I wanted to shoot, I decided to go with the red filter, and see what results I would get in the darker forests in the early morning in May. The Nettar was placed on a tripod, and I had a cable release to avoid camera shake on longer exposures. I did some metering, and used an app to calculate the correct exposure times. For Fomapan 100, the Schwarzschild effect becomes important from shutter speeds at 1 second. Since I shot most of mine at longer times, I used the cable release all the time.

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I had some happy time shooting this roll, and I struggled my way through tree roots and forestland with threes that had fell down over the winter. But when I went for the last three pictures, on a little view-point above the biggest of the water falls. I noticed a «marked» path around the whole area. At least I got some unusual angles in my shots. I cannot imagine that anyone else have been where I went that morning.

Zeiss Ikon Nettar w three stop red filter, f22, 4 seconds exposure time. Fomapan 100 Xtol Stock 5 minutes

When I pulled the developed negatives out of the tank, I was surprised to see how «normal» they looked. I had pictured a more contrasty result from a red filter than what I got in this shoot, and I did not really think a lot about these images before I started working with them in the darkroom a few days ago.

I realized that they were actually quite interesting, and that the three stop red nearly gave me an «infrared» look in my shots. I have no huge experience with infrared photography, but I do like the effect it gives, and I will most likely do more of that in the future.

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I also love the way the greys and whites create a dramatic scene and that it puts its emphasis on the silky water effect, creating a more dramatic look than I expected. Maybe the misplaced «red filter» was actually a good idea for this shoot. I do at least see this as a happy mistake. And I got to see a side of Fomapan 100 that I did not expect. The Infrared-ish side.

Zeiss Ikon Nettar w red filter, f22, 4 seconds. Fomapan 100, Kodak Xtol 1+0 5 minutes

Contrast and foggy landscape

Today was a wet, unpleasant and foggy day in Norway. No real need and point in going out, but there was some interesting fog, and a very white sky that lured me out anyway. The conditions were almost black and white anyway, so I chose to go with a Black and White film. Because of the verylow level of natural contrast, I went with a slow film. Ilford FP4 Plus. I also chose to stand-develop the film in Rodinal 1+100 for an hour, to get some extra contrast and find some beautiful grays.

I chose to use the Bronica ETR, because I wanted to do medium format and that it would give me 15 frames to a roll.

Bronica ETR w 50mm Zenzanon f2,8. Ilford FP4 Plus@125 Rodinal Stand-development 1hour. Scanned with Epson V600

I also got to test out my new scanner. Thank you for the friendly photographer who pointed out to me that my old scanner was probably shot. My new one is far better and gives me lovely scans.

Winter is coming

Late autumn in Norway is always beautiful. Thin layers of snow and frost on the ground makes it nearly look like someone has decorated the landscape with some icing sugar. However, today I was not really thinking I would get any of this magic in my shots. When I woke up this morning, it was a foggy and grey morning, and I decided to go for some contrasty shots with fog and artificial lighting from street-lights and and shop windows. I brought with me a selection of films, but planning on using Japan Camera Hunter, Street-pan 400, to get the deep blacks and some find Rodinal grain.

When I got to my chosen location, I had to rethink my whole idea and plan. just next to where I parked my car, and five minutes away from a cup of coffee, appeared this wonderful little lake, and the weather cleared beautifully.

Instead of using JCH Streetpan 400, I went for a roll of Kodak Ektar100. Ideally I would have shot this location with Provia, but since I am nearly never using slide-films anymore, I did not bring any. I rolled the Ektar into the Bronica and quickly came back with some compositions.

The beautiful view I found. Shooting a location like this with a fresh cup of coffee in my hand has to be considered luxury. (Phone-photo)

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I have never shot colour film with this camera before, since it is a fairly new addition to my collection. So a new experience for me there. Kodak Ektar 100 with its vibrant range has been my go-to film for colour landscape photography the last years. It gives me nearly the tones of a Slide-film, and the convenience of a negative film when working.

What I would have wanted for this shoot; however, would be a short telephoto lens or maybe just a 75mm. Currently I only own one lens for my Bronica ETR, a 50mm (35mm equivalent in 35mm). This lens becomes too wide for many of my shots, and does not give me the bokeh I want for closer shots.

Bronica ETR w 50mm Zenzanon f4 1/4sec. Kodak Ektar 100, developed in Tetenal C41. Slightly edited in photoshop

For the shot above I would have wanted a longer lens. I lived the way the snow made the colors soft around the tree stump, however, I got too much clarity in the background for my liking.

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For the shots over the view of the lake. The 50mm was perfect. And for the last shot on the roll, I saw some beautiful grass that moved in the running water. I took a shot of those as well.

Bronica ETR w 50mm Zenzanon. Kodak Ektar 100, Tetenal C41

The late autumn in Norway is beautiful and can give you anything. Today it gave me these lovely shots (among others) next to a place where I could get a coffee. Tomorrow it might give me the foggy conditions I expected today.

Zeiss Nettar and color film?

One of my absolute favorite cameras is my Zeiss Ikon Nettar. A little German bellow-camera from very long ago. I am not sure about the real age of this camera, but I know that it is from the late 40’s early 50’s. Being a bellow-camera, the shutter is mounted in the lens, and you have no range-finder or any focus help other than your eyes or some clip-on range finder system if you want to use that. Personally, I don’t use this camera for any work that would require the most precise focus, and I usually go without measuring or using «safe» aperture settings.

My Zeiss Ikon Nettar, and a box of KODAK Ektar

Because of its age, the Novar Astigmat lens was probably never meant to deal with colour films, and especially not high saturation films like the Ektar. I was therefore curious to try it out and see how an old lens and an old camera would perform with a film like this.

To help the camera a bit, I used an UV-filter. The Nettar does not have a filter ring that can support any of my filters, so I used a cheap 52mm UV-filter and held it in place with my fingers while shooting.

The images are taken while waiting for a ferry at Forvik in Vevelstad, Northern Norway in the region Helgeland. It surprises me how well the Nettar deals with colour films, and I find the images to be really high quality.

Results from the roll. KODAK Ektar and Zeiss Ikon Nettar.

Images are developed at home with the Tetenal C41-home system using a Paterson tank and a cheap eBay reel. Since I do not own a medium format scanner, I used my Epson Perfection V370 and scanned them in sections and glued them together in Photoshop.

I have not done any colour corrections here, what you dee is what I got, but I have removed some dust and scratches.

Thanks for reading.