A Vintage SLR: Kine-Exacta by Ihagee, Dresden

I had almost forgotten how photography used to be in the early days!!! When my father died two years ago, I ran into this heavily mended, smudgy leather case, labeled "Exakta" and "Ihagee" — the leather strip for carrying the item was torn off, the color no longer black, really (or mostly). Before selling it off (or rather: in order to sell it off), I took a series of pictures, using my Nikon D300, using a flash (SB800) and a AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8GF IF-ED lens. As the D300 is a camera with a DX size sensor, the focal length at full frame would calculate to 157 mm. I should really switch to full frame, as 157 mm effective focal length is at the border of being a bit unhandy for bigger objects!

ISO 800, f/7.1 1/60 

ISO 800, f/7.1 1/60  

Note the spelling "Exakta" on the leather case: this has some significance... Upon removing the leather case, we see its content:

ISO 800, f/7.1 1/60 

Here, the labeling is "Exacta" and "Ihagee Dresden". What we have here is a close descendent of the world's very first 35mm (24 x 36 mm) SLR (single lens reflex) camera. This was first introduced in Leipzig (Frühjahrsmesse) in 1936, under the name "Exakta" — some people refer to this as Kine-Exakta. The first model featured a round focusing loupe. Prior to the war, this was succeeded by model II (rectangular loupe), then by model III (rectangular loupe, 3 connectors for external flash). After the war, production continued between 1945 and 1948, with model IV, which was also intended for exporting (as war reparation production), hence the change in the label from "Exakta" to "Exacta". Models I - III also had a slightly different wheel for the long shutter times (left side in the picture above). Interestingly, all Exacta (and Exakta) models had the shutter release button on the left side of the lens. For details on the history of this camera see Wikipedia (German), or the English version (rudimentary), or here (in German).

So, what we have here is a Kine-Exacta manufactured by Ihagee in Dresden — a version IV, from around 1946 - 1948. For details on the lens see below.

The bottom view shows the screw for mounting the cover and for mounting the camera on a tripod, plus the two handles for rewinding (or advancing) the film:

ISO 720, f/7.1 1/60 

Here's the rear view, with the film compartment and the viewfinder closed. On the left side, the film transport lever with coaxial exposure counter, the little handle for disabling the film transport (for multiple exposures), and the shutter control wheel (short exposure times); on the right, the wheel for long exposure times and the self-timer:

ISO 800, f/7.1 1/60 

On the top, we see the closed viewfinder with the rectangular focusing loupe. Unfortunately, none of the original Exacta / Exakta models had a cover for the loupe (other than the leather casing), so scratching it was almost inevitable...

ISO 640, f/7.1 1/60 

On the lens, the front adjustment controls the aperture (f/2.8 .. f/22), the rear adjustment is for the distance (minimum distance ca. 0.8 m), with indicator for the depth of field:

ISO 640, f/7.1 1/60 

The right adjustment wheel is used to control long exposure times (1/5, 1/2, 1, 2, 3, 4, ... 11, 12 sec) and the self-timer (1/5, 3/4, 1.5, 2, 3, 5, 6 sec):

ISO 450, f/7.1 1/60

Top, left side adjustments / features: film transport lever with coaxial exposure counter, the little handle for disabling the film transport (for multiple exposures), and the shutter control wheel for short exposure times (1/1000, 1/500, 1/250, 1/150, 1/100, 1/50, 1/25, Z, B). On the top of the picture: the shutter release button.

ISO 400, f/7.1 1/60

The lens (exchangeable, of course) on this model is labeled "Carl Zeiss Jena Nr.2823606 Tessar 1:2.8 f=5 cm". The picture was taken with the aperture set to the minimum, 1:22.

ISO 200, f/7.1 1/60

At the time of production, four different lenses (all f=5 cm) were available (shown in order of ascending price):

• Exaktar-Anastigmat, 1 : 3.5
• Xenar 1 : 2.8
• Zeiss Tessar 1 : 2.8 (shown here)
• Xenon 1 : 2

The focusing loupe is definitely not in good shape. The viewfinder is opened by pressing the button at the bottom of this picture:

ISO 320, f/7.1 1/80

One way to use the viewfinder was through the two rectangular openings, obviously without picture / focus control — one could call this the "sport viewfinder". As this is without optics, one had to be careful with placing the eye such that the two rectangles would approximately match, in order to have reasonable control over the field of view:

ISO 560, f/7.1 1/60

The front view with the viewfinder opened — the focusing loupe really is in bad shape!

ISO 800, f/7.1 1/60

This camera was presumably made before the invention of the pentaprism. the viewfinder is a simple lens (convex, flat bottom with focusing screen / surface); the picture seen is mirrored horizontally, but focusing works amazingly well, even without loupe — at least as long as the aperture is open!

ISO 800, f/7.1 1/60

The loupe could be used to focus on a very small (part of the) field of view — a rather fiddly procedure! Obviously, this works better if the loupe isn't full of scratches...

ISO 800, f/7.1 1/60

 Side view, right hand side:

ISO 800, f/7.1 1/60

On the left side, we find the little button that opens the back cover:

ISO 800, f/7.1 1/60

Perspective onto the shutter release button (with conical thread for a mechanical cable control), viewfinder closed:

ISO 800, f/7.1 1/60

Perspective onto the 3 flash sync connectors (typical for models III and IV), viewfinder closed:

ISO 800, f/7.1 1/60

 When the rear cover is removed, we see the shutter blind (horizontal, canvas), the film cartridge compartment on the right, the winder spool on the left, and the guide roll for the film perforation. The camera serial number, 616167, is engraved above the shutter. The back cover also presses the film against the guides above and below the shutter, ensuring a flat exposure area. To the right of the shutter, there is an additional vertical bar connecting to a knob at the bottom of the camera — this was presumably used when the camera was re-functionalized as magnifying apparatus?

ISO 800, f/7.1 1/60

 Front view onto the lens (see above for details):

ISO 800, f/7.1 1/60

After removing the lens, one can see the mirror housing and the lens bajonet:

ISO 320, f/9, 1/250

The rear (bajonet) side of the lens — much simpler than current lenses, as there is no aperture control through the camera body, nor any electrical connectors / internals to the lens...

ISO 450, f/9, 1/250

So much for looking at this early SLR, over 65 years of age; the signs of use are there for good reason, as my father was an avid hobby photographer for a couple years (up till around 1955 - 1958), thereafter, unfortunately, the camera mostly saw the inside of drawers. I'm now trying to auction it — I don't think I'll make much money out of it, though...

My DSLR Camera #2

In August 2007, less than 2 years after the D200, Nikon announced a successor / replacement, the Nikon D300 DSLR. I rushed to study the specifications and looked at comparative reviews — and found that Nikon had improved just about every aspect of its semi-pro model:

• 14-bit rather than 12-bit ADC (higher dynamic range)
• 12.3 MP rather than 10.2 MP sensor
• ISO 200 ..  3200 in lieu of 100 .. 1600
• improved autofocus
• self-cleaning sensor
• viewfinder with 100% coverage (up from 95%)
• 3" / 922000 pixel LCD, up from 2.5" / 230000 pixels
• (plus several other enhancements that weren't important to me)

Needless to say that it didn't take long for me to decide that I wanted to upgrade, especially after having seen the limitations in dynamic range with the D200 (see my previous blog entry). I received my new camera body in February 2008 — and I still use it to this day (OK, that's only 3.5 years — but at least it's about twice as long as I kept the D200). The price was virtually the same as for the D200 (CHF 2350 in lieu of CHF 2390). I added an 8 GB Lexar 300x UDMA CF card (CHF 320). For the time being, I kept the AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 18 - 200 mm lens, and of course the Nikon SB-800 flash light.

The new camera body definitely improved my photography experience. Here are some examples of how I used it in 2008 / 2009 (apart from the usual family event / home / garden photos):

• 83 shots taken at the Basel Tattoo parade on 2008-07-19
• I had fun taking automatic serial shots to have a "film" of tree felling actions in our garden: one series with 101 pictures at 30" intervals; a second series with 103 pictures at 1' intervals; finally a third series with 42 pictures at 5' intervals (oops — here I lost the start of the "show": I forgot to double-check whether the series had really started, and when I checked after 1.5 hours, no picture had been taken yet ... )
• I documented 4 concerts of the SONUS ensemble in which Lea is participating (26, 52, 2, and 10 shots); pictures from the first concert can be found on Facebook.
• On 2009-07-30 we did a 1-day train excursion through Graubünden into the Ticino and back home - just 15 shots in Lugano — I didn't really feel like taking lots of pictures from the moving train —
• On 2009-08-06 we did another 1-day excursion, this time by train to the Lac Léman, by ship to Geneva, and back by train; the weather on the Lac Léman was gorgeous — 100 pictures
• On 2009-08-13 we did a third 1-day excursion: by train to Andermatt, and from there over the Oberalp-Pass to Chur, from there by bus to Juf and back home via Chur. The weather in Andermatt was excellent, Juf unfortunately didn't look very attractive, plus, it started raining (just 21 pictures).
• On November 13th, 2009 Lea and I attended Deborah's diploma ceremony in the Grossmünster in Zurich — this was a late evening event, flash lights were not permitted (nor desirable, I think). The 16 shots that I retained (out of 17) were all quite satisfactory, despite the limited light strength (f/3.5 - f/5.6) of the 18 - 200 mm zoom lens: the vibration reduction did a good job (I did not take a tripod along, nor did I use any other supporting means). Sure, some of the shots have noticeable color noise, but that was to be expected and is far from making the photos unusable.

After the first two years I felt pretty comfortable with the D300, it did a good job, the proportion of usable shots was very high, I liked the pictures that I got out of this gear — clearly the best camera that I have ever used so far. Sure, I also ran into a couple limitations with the camera body:

• I often wished there was a built-in GPS module, to save me from guessing where on a trip a particular shot was made.
• When taking pictures of birds I sometimes had to use excessive cropping, even at an equivalent (maximum) focal length of 300 mm — either a "longer" lens ($$$$) or a higher pixel count would have been nice.
• There are certainly limitations in low light conditions — some extra sensitivity in the sensor would be helpful.

Besides a body defect, other limitations were mostly with  the 18 - 200 mm zoom lens:

• Some pictures (especially taken towards the sun) showed an irritating artifact that I attributed to a light leak — I'll discuss this in a separate blog entry (Nikon fixed this within the warranty, at no cost).
• The lens clearly had limitations in resolution / sharpness, especially near the edges (see my separate blog entry on this and related topics).
• Worse than that, the lens creates serious distortions, especially at the wide angle end. At the very least, these distortions are time-consuming to correct — if they can be corrected at all (see again my separate blog entry).
• A larger aperture would sometimes have been helpful — though this was the least of the problems, thanks to the vibration reduction.

In 2010, I wanted to address at least some of these issues. The light leak issue was easy to address (thanks, Nikon!); in February 2010 I added an external GPS (AOKA Bluetooth GPS Adapter for Nikon DSLR, Holux M-1000 Wireless GPS Receiver) for CHF  236 — that's good value for money, even though a GPS receiver built into the camera body would be preferable, IMHO.

• AF-S Nikkor 70 - 200 mm f/2.8G ED VR II
• AF-S Nikkor 16 - 35 mm f/4G ED VR
• Nikon TC-20E III (2x Teleconverter)
• AF-S Micro-Nikkor 105 mm f/2.8G IF-ED VR
• AF-S Nikkor 24 - 120 mm f/3.5-4.5G ED VR

That looks and feels a bit overwhelming; I'll return to the lens discussion in separate blog entries. Briefly:

• these are all high contrast, low artifact lenses (using Nikon's Nano coating), and
• they are all full format lenses, i.e., I'll be able to use these lenses even if and when I upgrade to a full-frame camera body;
• all lenses feature VR (vibration reduction), which more than compensates limitations in the maximum aperture setting;
• with the addition of the teleconverter I now have the equivalent of a 140 - 400 mm zoom lens, equivalent to 210 - 600 mm with my current D300 body;
• the 70 - 200 has a minimum distance setting of 1.4 m — and at that distance the maximum focal length is actually only 140 mm, not 200 mm. This means that this lens is not rally as good at macro photography as my old 80 - 200 mm zoom lens that I used to have on my Nikon F3: at a minimum distance of 1.2 m, this offered a reproduction ratio of 1:6,  while at 1.4 m the new 70 - 200 (actually 70 - 140) only offers a reproduction ratio of 1:10 — hence the addition of a macro lens: this actually offers reproduction ratios of up to 1:1;
• the wide angle zoom offers a little more range at the wide angle end (equivalent to 24 mm rather than 27 mm with the previous 18 - 200 mm superzoom predecessor);
• last, but not least: the 16 - 35 / 70 - 200 mm zoom combination leaves a gap at focal lengths of 35 - 70 mm, equivalent to 50 - 105 mm with full frame sensors / 35 mm film — to cover this, a 24 - 120 mm zoom lens was added: this is not quite of the same professional standard as the other lenses (even though it features Nano-coating, internal focus, aspherical and ED lens elements), but it is an excellent all-round lens to keep on the camera most of the time (e.g., when traveling). With a full frame equivalent of 35 - 180 mm it covers more than the gap left by the other zoom lenses. Also, at a minimum distance of 45 cm it offers reproduction ratios of up to 1:4, i.e., it is better at macro photography than the 70 - 200 mm and my old 80 - 200 mm zoom lenses.

How to carry around all this gear is another story, of course ...

I have now started using the new set of lenses, the 18 - 200 super zoom went on sale last January — and I still got 43% of the original price, even though at that time the lens was 5 years old! As in other recent years, family circumstances did not allow for extended travel activities during vacations, but over the past 18 months I have now used the expanded set of lenses on my D300 body on the following occasions:

• 2010-08-09: a 1-day excursion by train, bus and gondola lift onto the Moléson near Fribourg (66 pictures, excellent weather condition, marvelous sight!)
• 2010-08-10: 1-day excursion by train and ship to Lausanne, the Lac Léman and the Château de Chillon (80 pictures, gorgeous weather again)
• 2011-04-23 - 2011-04-25: short trip to London, to visit Deborah (251 pictures, good conditions)
• 2011-06-25: Military Air Show (97 pictures, a learning experience with zooms and tripod; moderate weather & sight conditions)

So far (up to this writing) the D300 shutter has been actuated 2722 times — not really much, but more than with any of my previous digital cameras, and about as much as I did with my F3 over 20 years!

Moléson, FR/Switzerland: view onto Gruyère
Nikon D300, Zoom-Nikkor 70 - 200mm f/2.8
ISO 200, f/9, 1/320, 200mm (300mm equiv.)

My First DSLR Camera

In January 2006, after two years of (mostly, or at least often) suffering with my Nikon Coolpix 5700, I decided it was time to take up "real" photography again. Needless to say: I decided to stay with Nikon, but this the going for a "real" camera, i.e., a digital SLR (DSLR). I don't recall all considerations that led to the final brand and model selection, but one thought must have been that I still had my Nikon F3 with all the lenses (all manual, though), so I was hoping to be able to continue using some of these valuable optics with Nikon F-mount — especially the 24 mm f/2, the 35 mm f/1.4 and the 50 mm f/1.4 —

I looked through Nikon's range of cameras, and the Nikon D200 appeared like a good choice: sturdy / rugged (not made from plastic as some low cost models), almost like a professional camera, but not as bulky as the latter, and with the necessary / desired operational flexibility, i.e.: 10.2 MP sensor — twice the number of pixels compared to the Coolpix 5700, yet lower noise due to a much larger DX size sensor, a good autofocus, a good size 230,000 pixel LCD display, an ISO range up to 1600, a shutter speed up to 1/8000 s. I paid CHF 2400 for the body which had just been introduced a few months earlier (November 2005). I added a 4 GB CF memory card for CHF 720; as the delivery time was rather long — about 2 months, if I remember correctly  (the demand was apparently larger than expected), so I added a second 4 GB card to the order while still waiting for the delivery, and that second, identical CF card was then billed for CHF 400: I still have the invoice showing

• 4 GB CF Extreme III memory card, CHF 719
• 4 GB CF Extreme III memory card, CHF 399

I don't think there was an option to cancel the first order ...

Of course, I wanted to add a lens with autofocus, and — just coming from the Coolpix 5700 with it's focal length range equivalent of 35 - 280 mm, that I actually found handy and enjoyable — I opted for the AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 18 - 200 mm; the minimum lens aperture was f/3.5 - f/5.6; given that the vibration reduction option allows a 4-fold increase in exposure times, I expected that the moderate minimum aperture would not be a problem - and I was not disappointed in that respect! The focal length corresponds to a range 24 - 300 mm (on a full frame camera), i.e., this lens gave me a little more at the far end, and substantially more range at the wide angle end, in fact covering all my manual F3 lenses, even beating my old 80 - 200 mm (full frame, of course) by a factor of 1.5 at the far end. This lens is not exactly cheap (CHF 1200) — such a wide (11x) zoom range requires a complex lens construction (and still a lot of compromises, as I learned later, see below). The big advantage with this lens was (for me) that I could keep it on the camera body all the time: no need to carry extra gear (i.e., additional lenses), minimal danger of getting a dust on the camera sensor (I may return to this topic later).

I also added a Nikon SB-800 flash light; this certainly was a good choice then — and I still use that flash light today (I'll return to the topic of flash lights in a future blog entry).

Unfortunately, my D200 experience started with a major mishap! I waited a couple months until I really started using my new toy (probably not out of respect, but merely because I was too busy at work), but in summer 2006 I started using the camera. I had taken some 360 pictures — at a time when my computer was behaving strangely, at times: it was typically usable and OK, but at times programs would just crash, or music imported from CD would be corrupted in strange ways (occasional, sudden burst of hissing noise), and I also experienced cases of image data corruption (e.g., JPEG images where major portions were either missing or severely color-distorted). These problems had already affected some pictures from my Coolpix 5700 — I discarded some shots, with others I invested lots of effort and Photoshop time into attempts to restore / reconstruct the original data. I was concerned, but the problem was sporadic (it tended to be more prominent in summer, when the office temperature was high) and mysterious: I looked for disk problems — disk diagnostics worked OK, even though clearly I had corrupted data, and I definitely also experienced problems with copying files between disks, duplicating disk contents on a second drive, reading and writing DVDs ... this all sounds painful, but as stated, the problems were somewhat sporadic, and so I continued using my system despite these issues. Worse than that (OK, in the aftermath one always knows better!), I continued importing photos (into iPhoto at that time) and deleting them from the CF cards once they were on disk. Of course I would do backups from the iPhoto library — but as it turned out, the iPhoto files, and with these also the backups, still included some degree of corruption.

Anyway: life goes on, and so I started using the camera more frequently. To get used to the new tool I took pictures from our garden, at family events, etc. (the usual pictures, as you would expect), and I used the camera to create pictures for on-line auctions, i.,e., for selling rather than collecting or discarding stuff that is no longer in use (which actually is great fun, too!). Taking "sales pictures" of "things" is anything but trivial and taught me a lot about how to use a flash light! Then, as I got acquainted with the camera, I started using it for a couple bigger "projects" — here are some highlights (the number of pictures given only reflects shots that I kept in my computer) —

On 2007-02-18 I took the camera along for a 4-hour winter walk around the Greifensee near Zurich (no snow at that time!). I kept just 28 shots — pictures that I actually quite like (all taken with Nikon D200, AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 18 - 200 mm). Here are a couple examples:

South boat harbor in Niederuster / Greifensee, ZH/Switzerland
ISO 400, f/18, 1/1250, 18mm (27mm equiv.)

View from Niederuster ZH to the little town & castle of Greifensee
ISO 400, f/13, 1/640, 200mm (300mm equiv.)

Storks near the south end of the Greifensee (near Zurich/Switzerland)
ISO 400, f/10, 1/400, 200mm (300mm equiv.)

The "Greif", the only steam boat in Switzerland still powered by coal, in its winter dress
ISO 400, f/10, 1/400, 56mm (84mm equiv.)

Greifensee: view from Maur, ZH onto Uster ZH, with castle and church
ISO 400, f/14, 1/750, 50mm (75mm equiv.)

Greifensee, harbor of Maur ZH: tourist & ferry traffic on the lake (provided the lake isn't frozen in winter!)
ISO 400, f(14, 1/750, 60mm (90mm equiv.)

I love these autumn scenes around the lakes in our region! But clearly, I was experimenting here. the first shot was a fairly demanding one — the picture shown is the result of major brightness and contrast adjustments (causing substantial color noise in the dark / shadowy areas) — the original looks as follows:

South boat harbor in Niederuster / Greifensee, ZH/Switzerland
ISO 400, f/18, 1/1250, 18mm (27mm equiv.), unaltered

Apart from the color noise, the result isn't all that bad, I think, given that the sun is almost in the picture (hence the lens flare).

In general, such autumn shots are rather tricky to handle when trying to enhance the result. These autumn moods feature a lot of subtle mid-tones, are often low in contrast, especially in hazy conditions. I think & hope that the above results aren't too far from reality. Here's the unprocessed version of the second picture:

View from Niederuster ZH to the little town & castle of Greifensee
ISO 400, f/13, 1/640, 200mm (300mm equiv.), unaltered

The next major event was the Military Tattoo in Basel, on 2007-07-20, where I took 185 pictures during a daytime performance (we had to get back home after the event), unfortunately under covered skies and even occasional, slight rain:

Basel, Military Tattoo 2007
ISO 640, f/7.1, 1/320, 26mm (39mm equiv.)

Despite the weather, the photos I took at this event are OK, I think — about as good as it gets, given the weather circumstances and the seats that we managed to get.

Finally (yes, finally already, see my next blog entry!), Lea & I spent a marvelous week of vacation in the Engadin (staying in a hotel in Samedan), featuring

• a trip down to Martina — Tschlin — Strada
• a hike up to  Muottas Muragl and to the Lej Muragl
• a trip across the Bernina to Poschiavo, walking around the Lago di Poschiavo (very nice with its turquoise / blue / green color variations!)
• a trip via Maloja to Promontogno — Soglio — Castasegna, from there to Maloja again, walking along the south side of the Silsersee, to Sils-Maria (the current background pictures are from the latter part of this excursion)
• a trip to the Pass dal Fuorn (Ofenpass), then hiking all the way down to Müstair

Overall, I don't think I can complain about the results from my D200 and the 18 - 200 zoom lens: contrast, colors, even resolution/sharpness were OK (given the limitations of the lens). Here are two sample shots from our hike from Promontogno up to Soglio:

Valle di Bregaglia, Ascent to Soglio / GR, Switzerland
ISO 100, f/6.3, 1/160, 135mm (202mm equiv.)

Valle di Bregaglia, Ascent to Soglio / GR, Switzerland: View onto Promontogno
ISO 100, f/6.3, 1/160, 200mm (300mm equiv.)

Pictures that showed the limitations of the D200 camera sensor were shots like these:

Maloja / GR, Switzerland, view towards the pass
ISO 100, f/9, 1/320, 24mm (36mm equiv.)

On the south border of the Silsersee, GR / Switzerland
ISO 100, f/6.3, 1/160, 18mm (27mm equiv.)

While superficially these shots may look OK, it turned out to be try difficult to process the pictures above such that the shadows weren't just black without either losing detail in the bright clouds or causing the picture to look flat (i.e., to lack contrast). Clearly, I was running into limitations with the 12-bit dynamic range of the D200. This, and the fact that the successor model was improved in just about all aspects, I decided to switch / upgrade at a time when I could still sell the D200 body for a reasonable price. In January 2008, I bought a Nikon D300 (for the amount that I had paid for the D200 body), the D200 body was sold at an on-line auction (including one 4 GB CF card), for around CHF 1200 — a write-off of CHF 1900.

Was I happy with this camera? Overall: definitely! Over two years, I have taken 1500 shots with it, of which I still keep around 1000 (after losing 360 pictures), which I think is a good yield, given that it was my entry into DSLR photography. OK, the costs per image in the end were CHF 1.90, not considering labor / time / computing resources — but what counts in the end is the satisfaction one gets out of the pictures that remain.

Re-discovered my Paxette 35 SB!

Over the past week we have been cleaning out old stuff and trash (mostly from my parents in-law and Lea's grandparents) from the shed behind our house (over 20 m3 / 700 cft, about half-way through so far!) I found a cardboard box labeled "photo lab stuff etc." in my own writing. I must have packed that box for our move back from Germany to Switzerland, back in 1992 — turns out that the contents were actually much older:

• drums for developing films, last used around 1977 — trashed
• bottles with chemicals for developing film, prepared around 1977 (almost all of these chemicals should be prepared fresh and will not hold for more than a few weeks!) — trashed
• utensils for developing paper prints (I once had everything for creating b&w prints, except for the enlarger) — trashed
• boxes with glass plates from glass-framed slides (removed all the glass some 25 years ago, in order to avoid fungi to "eat up" my photos): weird that I would keep such stuff — all gone now
• a small slide viewer — kept this, as I have sold my slide projector a couple years ago ...
• a box with five Kodak Tri-X Pan film rolls, exposed, but not developed — I think developing this now would be a pure waste of time!
• a set of 49 mm filters for my Topcon RE-2 — I may try selling these for a dime or so (the last three are only useful for analog b&w photography in the digital area there are plenty of software tools that emulate these filters and much, much more):
  
  • Hoya UV(0)
  • Hoya Skylight (1A)
  • Topcon Yellow SY 48.2 Y2 (1.5x)
  • Hoya Orange O(G)
  • Hoya Green G(X0)
• my set of non-automatic extension rings for the Topcon RE-2 (9, 14.5, and 30 mm) — I may try selling these for a dime as well, however, it will be hard to fine anyone with interest, let alone a need for such archaic equipment ...
• the non-electronic flash light "Ariosa B99" that I used with my very first camera (I may return to this in a later blog entry) — and
• I rediscovered my Paxette 35 SB! The metal parts of the hard leather enclosure are clearly corroding (after 47 years!), one belt attachment has fallen off, the camera itself still looks OK — but clearly, it is non-functional by now: the timer clockwork is not moving, the shutter doesn't open at all (the aperture blades still seem to work OK), and either the selenium cells are gone, or (more likely) the analog brightness indicator is stuck / corroded). So, I thought I would take a couple photos to document this camera, than it will go into trash:

Braun Paxette 35 SB, picture taken with
Nikon D300 (lens: 24 - 120mm f/4.0), ISO 200, f/20, 1/60, 75mm (112mm equiv.)

Braun Paxette 35 SB, picture taken with
Nikon D300 (lens: 24 - 120mm f/4.0), ISO 200, f/20, 1/60, 95mm (142mm equiv.)

Braun Paxette 35 SB, picture taken with
Nikon D300 (lens: 24 - 120mm f/4.0), ISO 200, f/20, 1/60, 100mm (150mm equiv.)

Braun Paxette 35 SB, picture taken with
Nikon D300 (lens: 24 - 120mm f/4.0), ISO 200, f/20, 1/60, 48mm (72mm equiv.)

Braun Paxette 35 SB, picture taken with
Nikon D300 (lens: 24 - 120mm f/4.0), ISO 200, f/20, 1/60, 48mm (72mm equiv.)

Braun Paxette 35 SB, picture taken with
Nikon D300 (lens: 24 - 120mm f/4.0), ISO 200, f/20, 1/60, 65mm (97mm equiv.)

I still remember well how I was holding this camera through the protective fence on the North (NW) side of the top floor of the Eiffel tower in Paris, back in 1969 (I'm not sure my current camera would fit through!)  — it was fun, but the results were rather modest in sharpness and contrast ...

View down from top floor of the Eiffel Tower, North side, in July 1969
Image scanned from color slide, using a Nikon Super CoolScan 5000 ED slide scanner, 4000 dpi

My First Digital Camera

In 2004, I wanted to take up photography again — and I wanted to "go digital", really digital, i.e., fully electronic rather than mechanic. Our kids both had started with Nikon Coolpix 775 cameras (2.1 MP, 3x zoom lens, equivalent to 38 - 115 mm "normal" focal length), back in summer 2002, and they were happily taking pictures. Coming from a (now unused) Nikon F3, I was looking for something "higher up", but hesitated spending lots of money on something that I had no experience with. Somehow, I found the looks of the Nikon Coolpix 5700 appealing (a conventional camera with parts of the body cut off). That camera was introduced in summer 2003, at a price of CHF 1600.-; in January 2004, when I saw a new one on sale in an on-line auction for just under CHF 1200.- (which I thought was a reasonable price) I went for it.

In the aftermath, this was a mistake, of course (no experience yet with on-line auctions!!) — not because I had been cheated dramatically, but this was a shop owner selling off his stock because newer and better models were lurking around the corner (and came out a couple months later). And of course I hadn't tried it out — but at that time this would not have helped because I did not have anything to compare with, nor had I even ever used our offspring's cameras. The latter would not have helped either, because the Coolpix 775 had an optical viewfinder, the Coolpix 5700 does not. Here are my findings and the camera's features:

• 5 MP sensor, 8x zoom lens (equivalent to 35 - 280 mm "normal" focal length), plus 4x "digital zoom" (i.e., built-in cropping, hardly usable), minimum distance 3 cm for macro photography;  shutter speed up to 1/4000 s;
• An absolutely tiny, 1.5" (stamp-size), 100'000 pixel flip-out LCD in the back — ridiculous by current terms;
• An equally bad, 180'000 pixel electronic viewfinder — unusable for serious manual focusing, hardly usable in low light conditions (and no optical viewfinder to help out!);
• Zoom speed was OK, but focusing could take seconds — one had to be patient with this camera! If you were not used to it you were likely to take a photo before the lens was in focus — whomever I handed the camera (for a quick a shot with me on it) fell into this trap, and the tiny screen or the viewfinder were hardly suited to indicate how much out-of-focus a picture was.
• Needless to say: in low light conditions that performance was limited
• I had the original 32 MB (unusably small!) SD card, as well as a bigger 512 MB card — enough to keep any single day's production and more, assuming JPEG (see below, I took my laptop along on trips and offloaded the photos every evening);
• The built-in flash was OK, but hardly suited for good results (limited power, always pointing forward);
• Finally, I'm notoriously bad at reading manuals (i.e., I rarely ever do!), an so inevitably I found myself in situations where the camera insisted on popping out the flash where I did not want tit, or conversely, where it refused to turn on the flash where I really wanted — because I managed to maneuver myself (i.e., the camera) into odd "locations" in the menu settings, or by inadvertently pressing an inappropriate button; similarly, when I wanted to take a macro shot, I had forgotten how to switch to macro mode, and the camera would not focus at all ... :(
• On the bright side, that camera was compact and light (500 g), easy to carry along on trips!

Despite all this, I made some very reasonable photos with this camera; the viewfinder shortcomings did not seem all that bad initially — after all, coming from analog photography I was not used to seeing and checking the results immediately after taking the shots anyway! At least in good lighting conditions I could not blame the camera for doing a bad job — here's a shot from my office window into the garden in mid-winter, showing a pretty good dynamic range:

Our garden in Uster / ZH, in winter
Nikon Coolpix 5700, ISO 100, f/6.4 1/319, 10mm (39mm equiv.)

Overall, the camera did some 1300 - 1400 shots in our hands, covering the following key events:

• The Air '04, a military air show in Payerne, VD (51 photos, a challenge for the autofocus!)
• Walk around the Greifensee near Zurich (39 photos)
• May 2005: Southern France: Avignon, Marseille, Arles, and Tarascon (300 photos)
• July 2005: Finland / Finnmark: Porvoo, Helsinki, Hvitträsk, Sipoo, the Finnmark/NO, Lakselv, Kakslauttanen, Kaunispää, Varangerfjorden / Nesseby, Niilanpää - Kiilopää, and Rovaniemi (477 Photos)
• In August 2008, Lea also took the camera to the Hessenpark and Darmstadt, Germany (72 photos)

Particularly on the trips to Southern France and Finland, the Coolpix 5700 served its purpose well — yet after less than 2 years it was clear to me that I wanted to return to a "real" camera, i.e., a DSLR: the electronic viewfinder, the slow focus, the somewhat cumbersome menu system (i.e., the need to study a manual!?) all drove me away from this camera. My DSLR arrived in spring 2006 (to be discussed in a future blog); I kept the 5700 for a while (see above), but 2009 it developed a serious problem — Nikon replaced the sensor at no charge (even though the warranty had long expired). However, soon thereafter the camera was left attached to the USB port, and the battery was drained completely — this caused new damage: zooming only worked towards the far(tele)  end,  to return to wide angles one needed to turn off and back on the camera — not really practical! In the end I was fed up with it and sold it as defective, for CHF 34, at an on-line auction.

At that time I was using Apple's iPhoto for managing the pictures; iPhoto then did not read the RAW format from a Coolpix 5700, and I wanted to avoid an extra conversion step for importing, so I was taking pictures in JPEG format — not lossless, of course,  but at least that saved me from having to add a 1 GB or bigger memory card (these cards were expensive, after all). I have since consequently switched to using RAW format only.

My Last Analog Photo Gear

As mentioned in my previous post, the accident with my first SLR camera gave me the chance to start from scratch. So I spent some time thinking carefully about all the limitations that I experienced with my previous gear, and how to avoid such restrictions with my next camera - and naturally I ended up buying way too much equipment - some of it I later sold without ever having used it! Here's my recollection of considerations that I took into account, back in 1982:

• I was focusing on color slides - this implied that pictures should look fine "as is": there is no easy way to do cropping on a slide: at the wide angle end, one can typically work with fixed focal lengths and adjust the picture composition by taking a couple steps - at the narrow angle end (70 mm focal length and beyond) this is often not practicable, so I wanted a tele-zoom lens
• I was frequently taking pictures inside buildings, or in streets and narrow locations, etc., so I also wanted to expand to focal lengths below 50 mm
• Inside buildings, the lighting is usually critical (this was the time of analog film, so at 400 ASA one would already start getting grainy pictures), so I wanted the focal lengths at 50 mm and below with large (but still affordable) apertures
• For macro photography I wanted to add extension rings again - but automatic ones, if possible, as this makes macro photography so much easier.
• One thing I had been missing with the Topcon was flexibility with the viewfinder: the preferred viewfinder screen depends on the type of lens attached (no autofocus at that time!), e.g.: for macro photography one wanted a clear viewfinder, for low light conditions a fresnel lens with focusing aid is better, and for architecture photography I was often missing a grid that helps getting the photo straight (again, there is only so much straightening one can to while framing a slide!)
• And of course I was looking for a camera body (and Nikon somehow appeared to be the obvious choice to me) that wold give me all this flexibility ....

So, here's what I bought, back in fall 1982: I took the Nikon F3 - their top-of-the-range camera at that time, so I was sure I would not be disappointed — and here's the additional gear that filled up my Tenba photo bag:

• 24 mm f/2, 35 mm f/1.4, and 50 mm f/1.4 fixed focal length lenses
• 80 - 200 mm f/4 Telezoom lens
• Nikon flash SB-16A
• a leather enclosure that I never used (always had the camera in a bag)
• additional viewfinder screens C, G2, G3, and R - the only one I ended up using is "R" (Grid)
• a set of automatic extension rings
• filters & other, small stuff

And — so you might ask — was I happy with all this equipment? Well, yes, in that I certainly did not have any of the limitations that I experienced with my previous SLR. Over about 20 years I took some 3000 pictures with it (gross under-use for professional equipment that is built for 100'000+ exposures!), and as far as I can tell (in my own measures), the number of good shots was exceptional (i.e., I typically didn't discard many slides) — but of course not all accessories turned out as useful as anticipated, plus ...

• time went on, of course, and not too long after my purchase, cameras with autofocus started appearing — and there I was with all my lenses with manual focusing ...
• for me as a non-professional photographer, a single viewfinder screen ("R", with the grid) would have been sufficient;
• the most popular lenses were the 80 - 200 mm f/4 telezoom and the 35 mm f/1.4; I often found pictures from the 50 mm lens "boring", "ordinary" - and also the 24 mm f/2 wasn't used very heavily. It was OK for architecture and in buildings, but for landscape, pictures often had a "flat" appearance;
• I should have switched to the high-eyepoint viewfinder when that became available it's just easier to work with;
• I ended up doing far less macro photography than anticipated. Actually, I could cover most of my "close-up" needs by using the telezoom at a focal length of 200 mm at its minimum distance of 1.2 m

For the first 10 years, I used it quite often (in my own measures) - it served me well on our vacation trips, and during all the excursions we made during the 6.5 years that we lived in Germany, as well as of course places near where we live now, such as this autumn / evening picture from the Pfäffikersee near Zurich:

A hazy autumn afternoon on lake Pfäffikon / ZH
Image scanned from color slide, using a Nikon Super CoolScan 5000 ED slide scanner, 4000 dpi

1993 — 1995 the camera remained unused — I was probably too busy establishing myself in my home office; I resumed photography in 1996 and used the camera till summer 2002. By that time our kids had digicams, Lea had used a Fuji APS camera for a while (until somebody lost it in London, or had it stolen ... ), but clearly, I now saw that for me the era of analog photography was over. In 2007 / 2008 I sent in the body for a revision (the electronics was broken, and apparently it also had a light leak), then I auctioned out all of the above gear. Back in 1982 I had payed some CHF 5500 for the equipment, after 25 years it returned some CHF 1500 — the body alone still was worth 37% of the purchasing price (ignoring currency depreciation).

Also this camera story ends with an anecdote (this time without accident / bloodshed!), indicating how much I had lost interest in analog photography in the end: when I was about to sell the F3 and wanted to turn it in for repair in 2007, I realized that the exposure counter indicated 35 photos: I turned the rewind handle - and indeed there was still a film in the camera, with pictures taken 5 years earlier, up in Northern Finland!! I sent in the film for development, and — as expected — I received a set of color slides with awfully degraded photos; I spent a couple hours in attempts to restore the original colors — so far (I'll give it another try) the result is very modest ...

My First Photo Gear

My first camera was a gift from my parents that I received around 1964/65 - a Braun Paxette 35 SB viewfinder camera with 45 mm fixed focal length lens (f/2.8 .. f/22, shutter speeds 1/30 .. 1/250) that served me well for several years: I kept it till early 1971. I was shooting b&w photos initially, then also color negatives; in July 1969 I carried it along when I made a 2-week trip to Paris, together with a colleague from high school - shooting color slides for the first time.
The first travel experience with this camera almost ended in a disaster: I took it into a remote valley in Graubünden (near S-charl) where my eldest brother (16 months my junior) and I were attending a 3-week summer camp with the boy scouts; my brother and I walked around the camp, looking for motives for my first photos; I had this idea to start shooting from within the middle of a little mountain river; by stepping onto a couple cobbles I managed to reach a big piece of dead wood that was laying in the middle of the water (the water depth was maybe 50 cm at most, but the water was ice-cold) — all this was almost OK, but I did not realize that this piece of wood was slippery: inevitable I slipped, pulled out a shoe full of water, and in the sudden movement that I made to avoid taking a full bath, I banged the camera against the wood! It did not catch any water — but the shutter was defective before I even managed to take a single shot! So much for the photos from this camp — the lens was still OK, as it turned out, but I had to have the shutter repaired after my vacation ...