Historic cameras/lenses and other exotic bits of kit.
 

At Sassans suggestion I will start this one off with what is probably the most exotic hand held light meter ever made ... the SEI Photometer.
Measuring angle 1/2 deg spot and was the meter Ansel Adams used when he developed the Zone System.

http://www.rogerandfrances.com/photoschool/sei.html
http://www.kcbx.net/~mhd/2photo/film/expose/sei.htm

Don

Good start and nice catch.

I am amazed by the extend of knowledge a photographer had to earn before getting into business on those days, physics, chemistry, math, art... Isn't it strange that now, even a most unexperienced person can come up with a wonderful image just with a very little luck and effort!

As for me, there is one that I am totally obsessed with.
It is a monster to create very little image of all the big things and in every sense, is an engineering miracle.

"Nikon 6mm fisheye"

At one point I believed this is another creation of those guys who made a movie in a dark room, calling "Man walking on the Moon" and wanted us to believe man actually has walked on the moon!;) Well my paranoid is all gone now after seeing 3 of it for sale so far in past 8 years on ebay.
As per history (A good review exist here) this was made only by special order and only few are actually made. Three were shown in USA as display in major cities and one, in Chicago that was on window display, was ran into by a car and it disappeared with no trace!!!

At above 5 Kg weight, this 24 cm in diameter, non-AI fish eye F/2.8, 12 elements in 9 groups lens with amazing angle of 220 degree that means not only sees and record anything in front of it (180 degree in x and y axis), but it takes extra look to what is behind it, so the legs of tripod and photographer behind and form other end, head of photographer are all in the field of view of picture. I hope by giving the info here, I am not adding more competitors to hunt on of these baby s but I really first like to share the knowledge and then learn if any one of you actually has seen or touch it real world. As for now, sweet dreams for me. Truly this is best to be kept in a museum if you can find and donate it to place of your interest.

This is the picture of last one that I sadly witnessed getting sold twice on ebay and couldn't afford it (Well divorce will cost me a lot more...). I hope I am not in breaking of any applicable laws by uploading this imformative image as the ebay auction is gone now and pictures do not exist any more so I can't quot the auction number.

[img=http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/1826/nikon6mmmf3.th.jpg]

Whooooo, Now that's an impressive bit of kit and wouldn't attract some attention when using it.

24cm diameter - Massive!

Keep it up chaps, this thread is going to be a real interesting read.

Instant image review
 

Nice one Sassan. :cool:

Now for something we all take for granted in the digital world.
That is the ability to instantly review the shot ( chimp ). Back in the days of film the only option was to use Polaroid film in a seperate camera body.

Although Polariod film was per shot an expensive option it was used paticularly in a studio environment for lighting/composition checks. Also useful for determining the shot a client might want especially when they are standing over your shoulder and are not quite sure of what they really want. Lots of experience of this one. :rolleyes: :)

With medium format cameras with detatchable backs like my old Bronica SQA, this is no problem as film backs could be instantly changed, with the film being protected from accidental exposure by a darkslide. Polaroid backs for medium format are fairly straight forward. As the polaroid film is on the film plane they require no special optical elements so cost little more than a standard roll film back.

With 35mm however it is a different story. Due to the shape of the camera body it is impossible to get a polaroid film pack on the film plane, and so any back needs to contain an optical element to bridge the gap. The simplest if you can call it that was the NPC polaroid back. This used a fibre optic block to achieve that, but the downside of this back is that the final image is only 36x24 mm, the size of the film gate. The device was therefore quite an expensive option for such a small image view. The requirement existed though, as these were produced for a wide range of camera models.
Link to NPC site http://www.gwdigitalandphoto.com/proback2.cfm

Mikami overcame the image size problem specifically for Nikon F and F2 series by developing a special polaroid back. The Speed Magny.
Necessarily it was quite a bulky device, with the image relayed from the film gate through a lens onto a 45 deg silvered mirror. From that it passed through a Nikon enlarging lens onto another larger 45 deg silvered mirror which projected the image onto the polaroid film.

Two links from mir.com and you need to scroll down a bit on each one to view the Speed Magny.
http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography...htm#SpeedMagny
http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography...agic/index.htm

An additional link from the Nikon Historical Society, at the bottom of the page shows a Nikon F with the Speed Magny attatched and a resulting polaroid shot.
http://akiroom.com/redbook-e/kenkyuk...kai200709.html

Don

You are absolutely right Don and how much we have come so far!
Vividly remember the days of Polaroid back and could always fantasize "How marvelous would it be to see the actual result of setting you put up on the manual cameras of 70s in an instant image, with out waiting for film role to be finished, rewind, got it to photographer's shop, developed, fixed, pictured and finally viewed by the paper picture in matter of weeks, with no ability of general photographer to contribut at all in post processing except may be chosing the glossy or non glossy paper...that is unless he is runnig his own photoshop and non virtual color darkroom. B & W was obviously a different story.
Of course after all dealing with the image size etc, the Polaroid result was dependent on its chemical and factors that could be something erroneous or not reproducible by the final image on the film ....


Your last link had a beautiful image of all the "Black Knights" the History of the Black Photomic Finders towards the end of the article.
Do you remember the switch from silver metal body, to black?


Here are two other great fish eye lenses of Nikon, one AF. Wish I could find a way to attach the images permanently to this web page as they will die when ebay remove the auction in 90 days time after auction ends.

LINK - 1

LINK - 2

Found some reference material to the 1.3mp F3 digital camera variant a college tutor brought in on loan during my degree. My first introduction to digital imaging;
http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography...odak/index.htm

Pretty exactic back then, but a bit of a mino compared to the technology available today

"this digital imaging lark will never catch on" lol

Good one Joe.
To surprise you, I still take picture with my DCS NC2000e Kodak/Nikon based DSLR that uses Nikon N90s body (Not F3), very similar to the one on your mir link.

**************

Here is probably the most expensive piece of glass you can ever buy (Price divided by weight or size of what you get), or almost;
It is a converter that on early dates of Canon switching from FD / FL mount lenses to EOS, was used to keep the heavily invested professional photographers on expensive long focal length lens, happy with transition thus enabling them to use old expensive lens, on new camera bodies (Still film base camera bodies).

Ebay LINK

Canon has long stopped making them and I believe only 1 to 2 thousand of them were ever produced. There are cheaper Chinese version now a days too, but due to typically low quality glass used, they reduce the IQ significantly as opposed to real Canon deal that makes no noticeable change in IQ when used on long length old FD Canon's lenses.

The Nikon F's passed me by. All about afordability, and in those days these were seriously expensive bits of kit. By the time the 80's arrived I made up for lost time by getting F2's. F2 metering heads I have had are DP-2 , DP-11, and still have DP-12. If you are a fan of the F then check out this site, lots of great images of F kit from that era. This guy is a serious collector :eek: :D :D .
http://www.destoutz.ch/nikon-f.html

Black v chrome, then that really got underway in the 60's. Black being promoted as the 'pro' finish. Mind you, you did have to pay extra for it. From my receipts from the 1980's a black FM2 was £12 more than a chrome version. Lessons learnt for me from my Pentax Spotmatic from 1968 which was black and new, but that finish was not as durable as chrome and the camera quite quickly showed signs of brassing where the black had worn away. Black was, and still is, the collectors favorite and I had a black F2A that actually gained £200 in value over the three years I had it. This was probably down to keeping it in the base portion of the never ready case so protecting the finish, and never using it in the rough and tumble. So from a durability point of view my other F2's were chrome.

I see the second lens link is from the Nikonos RS. Probably the most famous user of one of the earlier versions was Jacques-Yves Cousteau.

Don

A good read Joe, and yes and I was one of those. From 1988 through to 2003 I was primarily a medium format user and so paid scant attention to those early digital days. With the release of the D100 and ensuing publicity I realised that for my needs the writing was on the wall so for me it was then the exit film. So while I know a fair bit about film cameras from 1960 to 1990 I know nothing of the early digital era. Memories of saying I would not buy a computer until they had at least 6gb hard drive due to the speed of development. :rolleyes:

As we are looking back at kit in this thread then I will post a link to my other great desire from the late 1970's ............ The Hasselblad 501C/M. On my salary pipe dream stuff.
http://www.camerapedia.org/wiki/Hasselblad_500_C/M

By 1988 I could afford a decent m/f outfit and bought into the Bronica SQA system. Hugely more affordable than the Hassie 501. Superior interlocks and operation, and with PS lenses capable of the same image quality. I cannot find a non e-Bay link to SQ images, but here are a couple for the ETRS which although similar was smaller.
http://www.camerapedia.org/wiki/Bronica_ETR
http://www.myphotoweb.com/Zenza_bron..._col/index.htm Click images in the left pane for a larger view.

Stevie had an ETRS outfit for 6 years before the weight finally got to her, and following a burglary spent a good slice of the insurance money on a new F3 instead :D .

Don

Good link Don.
The guy must be addicted to Nikon rather than collector.

F3 was the true joy of old time photography for me. I Loved it in and out, though had more handicaps of many other high grade Nikons but more than picture that I got with it, it was the way it would bring joy to my days. A real feel of grandeur (Right or wrong) to have it and I really missed when I lost mine in early 90s. Well now have a few more but never had time to go back and shoot with them.

Catch of day:
A canon lens that is probably bat and owls would use it, if they were photographer:

Canon 50mm F/1.0


LINK

Hmm...the F3. I bought the action finder prism for mine, then the bolt-on vertical format shutter release/ intervalometer. Next came the thread adapter (AH-3 sticks in my head??)...then the flash hotshoe adapter which fastened above the rewind crank. The MD4 drive naturally had the Nicad pack inside for extra drive speed :).....That baby nearly weighed more than my first car!

I blame the delay, so my only very recent dive into AF lenses (weirdly following buying digi bodies!) at how good the Nikon F3 was, or more to the point how poor the F4 was in comparison. The timing for Canon I think was spot on. Canon traditionally always seemed to play second fiddle to Nikon in the Canon F1n vs Nikon F3 battle. I think the launch of Canon's Eos 1really started to show others the way....I think a time where Canon really overtook Nikon in the Professionals choice for much of the time. (Though argubly I feel Minolta had the best AF system and Olympus the best flash system back in those days)

Canon f/1.0
I recall seeing something about a f/0.95 for a rangefinder Canon, also? Can't find my Hove blue book to check??

Joe,

I posted some links to the same in another thread before this one started. So here they are again.
http://www.huffman.tk/id11.html
http://www.collection-appareils.fr/c...ml/canon_7.php
http://www.taunusreiter.de/Cameras/Canon_RF_2e.html

Don

I just checked and my F2 / MD-2 without a lens weighs 4lbs. D2X is positively lightweight. :D

Don

thanks Don :)

Don't know about you but I well remember when I saw this one first in real life.
I was a young boy having my own super dopper Canon FTb with a lot of pride, (Early 70s and no I am not coming from dinosaur era), in a once-in-a-lifetime journey along with parents attending a professional conference in Iron curtain Russia, during Brezhnev's time, when at a breakfast table of Russia Hotel saw that gorgeous looking couple from America, the gentleman carrying one of these on a tiny tripod that made my mind blow up! Well I know even then where I want to live, A place where resident can buy that type of gears... Well as a happy Persian-American today, I still don't own it but well have saved the link to the seller in my wish list for hopefully a deal in near future.

EBAY LINK

Well the camera had a huge magazine that takes film cuts to make unheard-of-for-the-day number of images you could shoot on any still camera.

I think this one was put up for a low price on ebay but may be the number of production was large enough to make the price low for collectors on these days.

Bottom line; Know the value of your few hundred dollars PnP camera with 2 or 8 GB card that make thousands of images...

Nice find Sassan. 250 exposure film back.

I need to find an image of a camera with this and a motor drive to put beside a modern DSLR and Compact flash or SD card to show how things have moved on.

My memory is failing me a bit here and I would have to do a gallery rummage to refresh it, but we do have a member here who used the Nikon version on an F2 with motor drive. A seriously large lump of kit.

Don

Here is a good historical Nikon resource.

http://imaging.nikon.com/products/im...tory/index.htm

Olympus also made a 250 film-back for their OM system. Not sure that it kept its compact 'ethos' with both the 250 back and the motordrive with the 18 volt battery grip (12 x AAs), though the 15 volt NiCad version was about the same size as the power-winder.

My old 1973 OM system lens catalogue is looking a bit tatty now, but it shows the range that Olympus said would all be available at the time of the OM1 launch. In fact, they couldn't live up to the hype and some lenses didn't appear for a year or two and some never made it at all! At least two in this picture never materialised - the 400mm F4.5 and the dinky little 300mm F6.3

Going back to the Nikon fisheyes - it's interesting to see that they thought they would be useful for 'general photography' as well as specialist applications (just how many 'general' shots can you take with a 6mm ;))

That 13mm in the super-wide lens group looks an impressive piece of kit - anyone ever see one of those? (16 elements in 12 groups, 118 degree field-of-view, 1200gms).

On the subject of super wide angles. I remember spending all my uni' bar work spare cash on a Tamron 17mm. Had it for ages, but took every picture when I first got it!!! (regardless of whether it was the 'ideal' lens for the shot.

I did the same with my 24mm when I first got it - result is lots of old shots where the subject is too small in the frame!

Andy; Thanks a lot for those nice 250 magazine images of Olympus.
I found something that may worth a peak especially for all the Nikonphillic friends, that is quite interesting. Have a check:

LINK to ebay

Does any one care for rare expensive items, in more rare skin?

Check this one

How about a gold Nikon FM

http://www.cameraquest.com/fmgold.htm

Leica collectors usually have pretty deep pockets, but Hasselblad collectors probably a bit deeper.
Read the bit about the Jubilee cameras for King Bhumibol of Thailand. :D :eek:

http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography...ls/supreme.htm

Don

King Rama IV is often shown with a camera. I remembered this (below) from my time there, made into a flag amongs others around Bangkok.

http://www.thaiworldview.com/jpg/img078.jpg

Foxy; There is nothing more interesting to me than real Gold on black body. Thanks for the link.

Guys as we lose the images on ebay in matter of 3 months or so, I got written permission form camera$ who is the seller of that gorgeous 250 magazine Nikon F to upload their images in here so that we have the reference even after ebay delete the originals.
Can't say how beautiful this one is. Just check the view from back that looks like one of those humongous chines cargo ships.
Again thanks to courteous Camera$ for permitting upload of their images here and if you wonder where you might be able to buy one of these, the good news is that, this camera is still available for sale on ebay. Here is the LINK. Also when there, don't hesitate to check the rest of items put up by this seller. There are some wonderful and rare items that can surprise you. As for seller, I have had opportunity of buying a camera from them about a year or so back and was fully satisfy with the purchase.

Ok. I got one nice one.

Have you ever thought which is the largest focal length any of the good Japanese manufacturers ever built?!

Get ready to click on this one:

L I N K

This on enable you to take a picture of an object 52 Kilometer away or what ever the seller means with that!!!!

:rolleyes::eek::cool:

I could hand hold that noooo! problem:D:D with a crane to help.:rolleyes:

Not quite in the same league as Sassans exotics :rolleyes: :D but we went to a camera fair a couple of weks ago and saw some very interesting kit. I was looking for info on a real odd ball, the Zeiss-Ikon Cantarex when I found this site. It is mostly in German but there are some good pics of cameras from Voigtländer, Leica, Rollei, Pentax, Canon, Nikon and a few more. Links to each on the left pane.

http://www.taunusreiter.de/Cameras/index.html

Same site but in English is the Early History of Single Lens Reflex with example pics of the cameras.

http://www.taunusreiter.de/Cameras/S...ry_1950_e.html

Don

An excellent statement!
Reminds me of when I worked in a camera shop. One christmas a guy was buying a telescope (quite a powerful one), he asked me a deadly serious question, "Do you think I would be able to see Blackpool tower from my house"?
A difficult one to answer really, but a quick clarification query did the trick. I replied "I'm sorry sir, I don't know where your house is"? oh how we laughed LOL

Add to that high speed Canon F1 body with 14 FPS

For a bit of fun I have been looking for an image of an aerial reconnaissance lens as a result of Tony Covells ' Information Please ' thread.
http://www.worldphotographyforum.com...ead.php?t=3640

I found this page which shows such a lens with a 50mm as comparison. I have no idea of the film format but I guess it would be fairly large.

http://photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/00Pr8i

I thought I would post it here as there are also two scans of early 1000mm lenses.
Two interesting things on the Takumar. Focussing appears to be similar to a Crayford focusser as used on an Astral Telescope, and check out that tripod collar.

Don

Good ones guys.
Keep them coming.

So what happens when the F stop is even wider that ONE ? !
That is the result:

L I N K

Must be on lens for a jet black night photography...

Nice one Sassan,

I have been looking at pics of some of the kit in that e-bay store. Kind of like going to a vertual camera fair. Some amazing stuff there.
I will come back with links to my most interesting from that lot. As you are doing lenses I will pick cameras. :D

Don

A few highlights from Sassans link in his earlier post.

Canon Hansa rangefinder with Nikkor lens.
Very early Canon history.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Canon-Hansa-Orig...742.m153.l1262

Nikon rangefinder Reflex housing.
Although Leica and Contax offered similar, this is a good example of how long lenses were used on rangefinders in the days before SLRs. Rangefinder focussing and framing was limited to 90mm.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Nikon-rangefinde...742.m153.l1262

Alpha 9d.
A Swiss made camera that was unbelievably expensive and had the wierdest ergonomics. Half frame version chosen here to remind us that 35mm full frame was not the only option. Probably the most well known half frame camera was the Olympus Pen F.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Alpa-9d-half-fra...742.m153.l1262

Ried rangefinder.
A reminder that the Brits used to make cameras. :)
http://cgi.ebay.com/Reid-Sigrist-Rei...742.m153.l1262

Minolta XM.
A definate rare bird for me as I have never actaully seen one. This was Minoltas answer to The Nikon F2, Canon F1, and Pentax LX. Seen here with the waist level finder. System included 4 different finders, 9 screens, motor drive and 250 exposure back.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Minolta-XM-motor...742.m153.l1262

Canon F-1 + Servo EE Finder + Drive MF + 1,4/50mm FD
This is for those that think their current camera is big and heavy.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Canon-F-1-Servo-...742.m153.l1262
Note this view does not show the battery pack to power the viewfinder :eek::D. To see that follow this link.
http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography...ervo/index.htm

Don

Thanks Don for putting them up.
I really can't get enough of them even if look at them for whole day.

That F1 is magnificent. Wonder timewise which one came first this one or Nikon's F2 Photomic that have quite a resemblance to one another at least externally.

I was wondering actually who among us can check the attics. May be we have some of these hidden from eyes somewhere in the home.


Now did you notice this one?

LINK

Just wonder if it is the watch or the camera or the story behind both that make it so expensive. Where is our watch guru, Saphire?

The Canon F1
 

Sassan,

As you might expect the bulk of any contribution from me would be Nikons. So especially for you I have dug up some Canon F1 links.

Link 1 is pure Canon porn that I am sure you will enjoy :D especially as it relates to the LA Olympics.
http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography...1984/index.htm

Link 2 is the High Speed F1 that Rudra posted but with a different link.
http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography...peed/index.htm

Link 3 to everything else you ever wanted to know about the F1. Check the sub links at the bottom of the page.
http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography.../indicator.htm

Enjoy.

Don

How about this little chap: http://cgi.ebay.it/_Obiettivi__Leica...ayphotohosting