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.

Playing with a Point and Shoot

The market for film cameras has changed substantially over the last two-three decades. In the 90s there were a range of very simple easy cameras that you could use to get some pictures without knowing anything about photography nor wanting to learn about it. They were simple, fully automatic and would give you acceptable images with minimum effort. These were the fully automatic point and shoot cameras. They’d set the film speed through DX coding on the cassette, they would set the aperture and shutter speed accordingly. The small catch, you had to press the shutter release button yourself. The bigger catch, you had no idea what the images would look like.

This morning, I played around with one of these cameras. I haven’t used one of them for a long time, and I was curious about what it would «bring to the table» of images and quality. The camera was bought cheaply online and arrived by Norwegian snail mail two weeks after it was posted from a town reasonably nearby. Well done Snail Mail. After this wait, I was the confused owner of a Chinon Pocket Zoom AF.

The Chinon Pocket-Zoom AF – 38-60mm lens (probably f8 or something like that as widest aperture)

I was eager to test it out, and I gave it a roll of Rollei Retro 400s. The electronic and automatic wind-on mechanism did its job and rolled on a few frames that could have been used, and the display on the back showed «1». The Chinon was ready. I went out in very dull weather and the Chinon did not seem to be too fond of dull and «boring» light. It constantly set off the flash, and I had to manually reset it to «flash off» every time I changed compositions, as it would have reverted to flash mode automatically. It is a bit like an overbearing parent, the security net is always there.

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Shooting the Chinon was like shooting with your phone. You aim vaguely in the direction of what you want to photograph, you press the shutter button and wait for a while while the small elves inside the camera gets to work setting up your exposure. This takes a while, and you would probably not use this camera to photograph running animals or people in action. If you used it to photograph someone playing football, they would be done with their game and home for dinner before the camera takes a shot. After a while, when you hear the reassuring sound of the shutter and the winding mechanism, you are ready for your next shot.

Chinon Pocket Zoom AF – Rollei Retro 400s – Xtol Stock

When looking at the final images, they are not that sharp and crisp as you would hope. But since I have not had any control in the making of there images other than pressing the shutter release button, I don’t really feel it is my fault.

Some issues I see. The lens is probably not that bright and certainly not very sharp, and the images seem all slightly under exposed. They have a strange vignetting, much like the one you get while shooting a Holga camera, and the lens perfomance isn’t that much better on this Chinon. Also, you get these imprinted numbers on all your frames, and I was not aware that it would be printing numbers on my frames. I have left them here in all their atrociousness.

My conclusion. I will sell this camera to someone who will use it. I will certainly not use this camera again and if anyone wants it, please contact me.

I like this image because of the mood, and that it is evenly blurry all the way over.
*Chinon Pocket Zoom AF – Rollei Retro 400s – Xtol Stock*

Playing around with a Petri 7s

If you have followed this blog for a while, or read some of my posts, you may know that I have a Petri Racer that I really love shooting. I find the little Petri to be very reliable, accurate, light and handy as well as giving the images some character. I can’t really put my finger on why I like that particular camera so much, it is just a camera I enjoy shooting. A few weeks ago, I came across a Petri 7s on an auction online, and I won it on a very low bid.

The reason I was interested in this particular 7s was that it had the f1,8 lens, which some sources claim to be a six element lens with an interesting bokeh-pattern. Whether it is six element or four, as the f2,8 version, does not necessarily mean that much to me, but I do love nice bokeh and sharpness. For the very low price that I payed, it was worth the gamble at any rate.

The Petri 7s f1,8 Rangefinder camera w. amber coated lens

A gamble it surely was as this camera has a few personality traits that is very specific to this particular one. First of all. The Rewind-knob is loose, and you cannot turn the camera on its head without risking the film to lose tension as the rewind knob disengages. Another interesting «asset» this camera has, is a dodgy lock on the back. This means you will get the luxury of using electrical tape to secure it from opening mid-roll. In addition to this, the camera invites to a creative approach to focussing, with a rangefinder (although rather dim and dodgy) that jumps in and out of «sanity» a few times pr shot. I ended up guesstimating my focus because I trusted my own eyes more than the rangefinder unit.

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These faults aside though, the aperture settings and shutter speeds are fairly accurate. When I took it to Lillehammer to try it out on the newly fallen snow, I got very good negatives. My test was done with half a roll of Fomapan 200, which I because of the lighting conditions shot at 100. I shaved 20% off the development time compared to box-speed, and ended up at 6 minutes with Xtol Stock.

Petri 7s f1,8 – Fomapan 200@100 Xtol 1-0 6 minutes.

As you can see, in some of my images, my lens fogged over. However, this is not lens-haze, but rather an issue of a swift temperature change and a forgetful photographer who didn’t remember to wipe the lens before shooting against the sun.

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.

Messing up a test

Testing old, cheap cameras is always exciting. Sometimes they work, and sometimes they don’t, but in mist cases, you get something. In this test, I got something, but I managed to damage the film when winding it out. More of that to come.

Some weeks ago, I found an interesting camera on eBay, that I had never heard of before. The camera is called «Condor I» and was produced in Italy from 1947 by the Italian manufacturer of optics Officine Gallileo. After a while, Ferrania entered and most of the cameras were sold with the Ferrania logo on it. Mine, however did not. Whether this means that mine is among the earlier cameras, I don’t know, but – in mild terms – the camera does have some patina.

My dirty and somewhat tatty copy of the Condor I.

The first thing that really struck me when I played around with this camera, was the unusual selection of aperture stops. 3,5 and 4,5 are not that strange, but 6, 18 and 25 are stops I have never seen before on any manual camera. However, the aperture selector is the only part of this camera that is easy and smooth to operate. It seems to me that this camera has not been used for a long while, and that it will take some «jiggling» and maybe some sewing machine oil to get the focusing mechanism and the shutter speed dial to move with ease.

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After cleaning both the rangefinder windows (there are two of them on this camera) and the viewfinder window as well as a light wash with some glass cleaner over the whole camera, I loaded it with a roll of Rollei Retro 400s. Previously this day, I had spotted two lines of bicycle stands that I thought had an interesting look to them. I decided to shoot some frames, cut the film out of the camera and develop the film to check whether it does work.

So far so good, I shot some frames and went home ready for developing the film. I loaded everything I needed into the changing bag and cut the film out of the camera as intended. But for some weird reason, the take-up spool would not accept the «rewind setting» and roll backwards. I fiddled a bit with it, and after a little while, the film spun up into my hand, and I was able to carefully wind it off manually. It does seem, however, that I was not able to do this carefully enough. I got nasty scratches and marks on my negatives, and I can only blame myself.

Condor I – Rollei Retro 400s – Xtol 1+0 9.30 at 20 degrees

The nasty scratches aside, the lens seems very sharp and the exposures fairly accurate from what I would expect with the settings. All shots are f4,5 at 1/100th and the Rollei film is shot at box speed. Also, the I love the smoothness of the grain I see in these scans.

I do definitely have to take this camera on a new test. The images seem to be decently sharp and pleasant for a messed up shoot like this. I’ll make a video about this little quirky camera and my next time shooting it.

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

More with Frida and the Ford

In my last entry I wrote about my vintage-style shoot with Frida and her 1950 Ford Shoebox and I added some black and white shots shot on Ilford FP4 plus. As I mentioned, I also ran a roll of Kodak Portra 160 through the Ikoflex to really get the Vintage colour feel on some of the images.

The Kodak Portra is a low-saturated colour-negative film specifically made for obtaining the absolute most beautiful skin tones, but I also adore the effect it gives on scenery and backgrounds. With its soft greenish pastel tones it gives the true feeling of a vintage colour shot. The current emulsion was launched in 1998 following the professional Vericolor-series, and it was intended to be used in the professional market by wedding photographers and portrait photographers.

Running a colour film through an old camera with an old lens is always interesting. You never know how the old lens will cope with the colour reflections. It can seem as my Ikoflex enhances green somewhat, and gives a nearly «marine» colour palette.

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Again I am very thankful and happy to have a friend like Frida, who is as passionate about vintage and keeping the old alive as I am. Her outfit and car matches this shoot in the most exquisite way, and helps the Ikoflex make the Kodak Portra shine.

Based on the limited shutter speed on the Ikoflex, I had to set my apertures wisely. Because of age, My Ikoflex has only three properly working shutter speeds, 1/300, 1/100 and 1/50. I would also guess that the B-mode works, but I have not yet tried it. Because of this I had to shoot with smart apertures to get the pictures I wanted. The Through the window portrait is shot at maximum aperture F3,5 at 1/100, while the picture next to the car was taken at somewhere between f4 and f5,6 at 1/300 to keep some detail in the background.

No colour corrections are done after scanning. The shots are in colour as the Ikoflex shot them. My only corrections are some contrast correction, and obviously some dust removal.

Thank you for reading. Stay tuned for more fun stuff coming up soon.

Sunny day at Dokka

Today, I had a portrait assignment in Dokka, a little town nearby, and I brought the Voigtländer with an Ilford Delta 100 loaded in it.

I had the Voigtländer well placed in its leather casing.

The location for my assignment was at a defunct railway station now used for rail bikes. I arrived a bit early to enjoy the sunshine and, hopefully, make some great images. I was not the only living creature enjoying the sunshine this lovely day. I also met some very social and eager horseflies and mosquitoes. A part of the Norwegian summer.

A little tip for shooting in Norway where light isn’t that bright; think «Sunny 11» not «sunny 16». The lighting conditions in Norway are not as bright as further south in Europe.

Maybe not in mint condition, but for sure a great model. And after all, the BMW still is on its wheels.

Since the Voigtländer is not a rangefinder or markfinder, the focus is based on guessing distance. Not too difficult for street photography and the lens is really interesting. Looking through the pictures after scanning, I can see that I should have used the sun shader following the lens.

I developed in Xtol 1:1 for 8 minutes 20 sec in 21 degrees chemistry. Then rinse and stop in water, and seven minutes fixer.

New for this development cycle was that I used a new termometer, as my last one died an Xtol death from falling into the tank of stock. RIP.