Camera Talk

Hi all -

The scanner did a pretty good job pulling images off the thin negatives off the first roll from the Vitessa, but they dried pretty well and weren't as bad as I first thought. Pretty much just snapshots, but a few for your perusal:

img109 by Scott, on Flickr

img106 by Scott, on Flickr

img104 by Scott, on Flickr

img102 by Scott, on Flickr

The lighting was pretty harsh for all of these, so I'm a little underwhelmed so far. I have a trip coming up and would like to bring this; I need to do some more testing before then to make sure it's up to the task...

Scott

Scott, the first one does not load, but the other three seem o.k. to me. Maybe a stop under, but that could be the scan. Sharpness is very good.

All load for me, FWIW. As Graham said, a bit underexposed, but not bad otherwise.

Robert

Thanks guys. I think I'm going to fettle the shutter a little more, but I have a roll of TMax 100 ready to go. Need to order some Adonal or HC-110 today...

It's amazing what you can scan these days, and still get a good image. It also helps when it's a good composition, like yours are, Scott. I think the camera is working just fine. Once you get some good developer, you can tune some of that harshness out.

PF

You have a keeper in that Vitessa, the lens seems very sharp. I like the Giraffes couple.

Thanks Julio and PF.

Just loaded this little thing back up. Something that's been tweaking me since I first shot it, the infinity focus is good, but when you focus on something truly at infinity, the horizontal coincidence is slightly off. Just to be sure, just now, I laid a ground glass ag'in the rails and checked focus throughout the range. The rangefinder and ground glass were in absolute, complete agreement, all the way through. So I guess it's just a quirk of this particular camera.

As an aside, I have been going through old pictures on Photobucket lately. I used to take a whole bunch of pictures of the kids. I haven't been doing that for a while. I mean to rectify that this summer. Have this, the Spotmatic, and the Yashica-Mat all loaded now...

Scott

Some of those older German cameras had really deep infinity settings. Could be the rangefinder just can't resolve the image, or you are looking at something still too close for infinity.

PF

Yeah, it's funny, PF. My instinct is to pop the top and adjust infinity, but the rangefinder and focus at the film plane are dead on. And when racked out to infinity and even with the coincidence a little off, the ground glass is sharp. I don't want to adjust infinity and throw the rest off.

The roll I'm shooting now will be telling. I'm shooting a lot of closer, open aperture shots, tripod mounted, real testing. Then I'll know more where I stand.

In case anyone is still reading...

Last night we had clear skies and a nice moon. Checked the rangefinder against it. Definitely off a smidge. Not very much at all, but noticable. Had a roll of TMax 100 in it, and with our trip getting ever-closer I decided to do a little real testing today. Set up a tripod, metered carefully, and shot several pictures of the newel with a dark background, wide open with release. If the edges are sharp, all's good. Shot from several distances. Also shot one outside at f/8 - too sunny for anything faster. Film's drying, but I looked over the images with a reversed 28 mm lens, so plenty of magnification. They all look sharp. Scanning will be the final word, but everything seems groovy. I'm still scratching my head on this one. I'll post some scans when the film's dry...