Olympus XA

May 31, 2013 by Howard Dale Posted in Camera Collection, Olympus XA Tagged gallery Leave a comment

This camera is small – really small. Originally produced in the 1980s it takes regular 35mm film cartridges and most amazingly has a built in, fully coupled rangefinder, even if it isn’t the brightest combined rangefinder/viewfinder I’ve ever seen. It has an extremely good 6 element, 5 group f2.8 35mm Zuiko lens, which doesn’t extend – don’t know how they did this. Since the rangefinder is not so stellar and the 35mm lens has great depth of field I’d be tempted to scale focus. Olympus must have thought so too because also came out with an XA2, which only scale focuses. I have one of these too. It cost me less than $10 and came with the separate flash. The flash, which attaches to the side of the camera, doubles the overall size but since I don’t use flash much it’s not a problem. The electronic shutter release requires a very very light touch. It’s very easy to set it off by mistake. I’ve read that the camera is prone to shutter failures – let’s see. If you want a very small unobtrusive 35mm film camera, especially one with rangefinder focussing, you should take a look at this.

For more information see here

On 46th street, New York City

Dag Hammarskjold Plaza

Church on Dag Hammarskjold Plaza

Audrey Hepburn statue outside UNICEF on 44th Street NY

Audrey Hepburn Statue outside UNICEF House, 3 UN Plaza

Trump World Tower, 47th and first avenue, NYC

My first serious camera – Minolta Hi-Matic 7sii

May 14, 2013 by Howard Dale Posted in Camera Collection, Minolta Hi-Matic 7sii Tagged gallery Leave a comment

This is my first serious camera. For a long time I thought it was my first camera. I later remembered that it wasn’t, but that’s a topic for another post. My wife, Eirah bought it as a present and that’s what got me started with photography.

The first three pictures were taken around the time I first got the camera. The subject is, of course my wife. Please excuse the poor scans.

The rest of the pictures were taken about 34 years later in our garden (please excuse the poor scans). Everything was working against this. Since I was starting to get back into film I took it out to see if it was still working. I hadn’t touched it for about 20 years. I opened it up and found to my surprise that there was a film in it. So I quickly closed it up again and thought well I can at least test it. After I’d finished I took out the film and discovered that it was an ISO 400 film and the camera was set for ISO 100. So all things considered I wasn’t expecting much. Turned out much better than I thought – some interesting changes in the colour.

At work

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Forgotten but not gone. Fujifilm Finepix HS10

May 2, 2013 by Howard Dale Posted in Camera Collection, Fujifilm finepix HS10 Tagged gallery Leave a comment

I little while ago I wrote a post called “Gone but not forgotten” describing some cameras that I used quite a lot, but no longer possess. This camera is quite the opposite in that I still have it, but have very rarely used it and not at all for a couple of years.
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A Gem of a folding 35mm – Retina IIc

April 28, 2013 by Howard Dale Posted in Camera Collection, Retina iic Tagged gallery Leave a comment

I love this camera. It’s one of my all time favourites. The usual Kodak philosophy was to produce inexpensive cameras for everyone. In the case of the Retina they moved in another direction. Kodak purchased German manufacturer Nagel in order to produce a camera that could compete with Contax and Leica. This Retina iic is about 60 years old and I must say I’m impressed. It was also great fun to use and quite small and portable. It has a fairly fast (f2.8) and sharp Schneider lens and when folded (yes it’s a folding camera) it can easily fit in a pocket. Mischa Konig’s Kodak Classics site has lots of information on Retinas including that the first model Retina, Kodak’s first 35mm camera introduced the “135” 35mm film cassette still in use today.
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Gone but not forgotten – Canon Powershot S50, Panasonic ZS3, Panasonic ZS7

April 27, 2013 by Howard Dale Posted in Camera Collection, Canon Powershot S-50, Panasonic Lumix ZS3, Panasonic ZS7 Tagged gallery Leave a comment

I tend to hang on to my cameras and have only disposed of a few, usually in a good cause. Here are three that got away (There is a fourth, but I think that’s a topic for another post).

Canon Powershot S50. As I recall one of my first digital cameras was a Canon Powershot S10. Unfortunately I left it on a train. After lots of soul searching and research I decided to get a Canon Powershot S50. I left this camera in a taxi in Geneva, Switzerland while attending my daughters wedding. Curiously both the S10 and the S50 were eventually returned to me. My granddaughter expressed an interest in photography so I gave her the Panasonic ZS7 (see below). It only seemed fair to give her brother something too so I gave him the S50.