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February 6, 2010

Sears SL11 from 1964 – a relabeled Ricoh SLR with the Nikon F mount

Filed under: Welcome — Tags: Bayonet, equipment, film, Gear, Nikkorex, Nikon, Ricoh, Rikenon, Sears, SL11 — xtalfu @ 11:59 pm

Few cameras have more obscure and incestuous origins than this one.

At the beginning of the Sixties, Mamiya was ready to launch its first 35mm SLR, the Prismat, and following a suggestion of its US importer, agreed to develop and manufacture a version of the camera for Nippon Kogaku, the maker of the already famous Nikon F. The Nikkorex F was launched in 1962, at half the price of the model F. Nikon expected that the new camera would penetrate the amateur phographer market and increase the sales potential of the Nikkor lenses. Nikon learned quite a few things in the process, and put that experience to good use when they launched the Nikomat in June 1965.

In 1964, Ricoh presented the Singlex, which was very similar to the Nikkorex F, F mount included. It is unclear whether Ricoh was just relabeling cameras made by Mamiya, or whether they had bought the plans and the tooling after Nikon and Mamiya had lost interest in their joint venture. In any case, Ricoh was one of the main manufacturers supplying Sears-Roebuck with private label cameras, and the Singlex was rapidly incorporated to the Sears catalog under the Sears SL11 moniker.

The Sears SL11 with the standard Rikenon 55mm lens

Technically, it can be argued that the Ricoh and Sears cameras were not using the real “F” mount, but only a very close variant: Nikon’s bayonet mount is using lugs to help position the lens on the body (3 body-side lugs imbricated with 3 lens-side lugs). On the Ricoh and Sears bodies, one of the lugs was shorter than Nikon’s , leaving room for a larger lug on the lens side. As a consequence, a Nikon lens with its “small lug” could be mounted on the Ricoh and Sears camera bodies, but the “big lug” Rikenon lenses shipped with the cameras could not be mounted on a Nikon body.

In 1967, Ricoh and Sears replaced the Singlex and the SL11 with new models designed and built by Ricoh. They did not use the Nikon F mount, but the ubiquitous 42mm screw mount, and were equipped with a TTL CdS exposure meter. It seems that Ricoh and Sears designated the new models with the same Singlex and SL11 names as the models they were replacing, at least for a while. The cameras were also sold as Ricoh Singlex TLS and Sears SLS or TLS in the subsequent years.

As we can see, the use of confusing product references is not a recent practice.

More after the jump

Welcome

Paris- Garden of the Pont Neuf - April 2009 - Nikon F3; Nikkor 24mm

This blog is about photography. About old film cameras, and the pictures you can still make with them.

Like anybody else, I use digital cameras. They’re convenient. But I also love shooting with film cameras. It’s a different experience, and using different tools make you see the world differently.

Nobody makes new film cameras anymore. But there is such an ample supply of nice second hand cameras that finding one you like is not a problem.

Film cameras are now extraordinarily cheap, and as long as you’re in no hurry to see your images and don’t take too many pictures, using SLRs or rangefinder cameras from yesteryear is a rewarding experience.

In the nineteenth century, photography did not kill watercolor painting and cars did not drive horses to extinction. In the nineteen eighties digital watches did not kill mechanical watches, and vinyl records are making a comeback 20 years after CDs were launched.

People paint, ride horses, wear mechanical watches and play vinyl records for a multitude of reasons, some of them unsuspected 150 or 20 years ago. And they will still be shooting film 10 years from now.

I love taking pictures, I love old cameras, and that’s all it is about. If you’re in the same frame of mind, welcome.

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Sears SL11 from 1964 – a relabeled Ricoh SLR with a Nikon F mount.

Filed under: Gear, Nikon Cameras, Weird cameras — Tags: Bayonet, Nikkorex, Nikon, Ricoh, Rikenon, Sears, Singlex, SL11, SLS, TLS — xtalfu @ 11:49 pm

Few cameras have more obscure and incestuous origins than this one.

The Sears SL11 with the standard Rikenon 55mm lens

How to spot a Sears SL11?

The Sears label on the pentaprism housing. The Sears retained the accessory holder of the Nikkorex.

The Sears label is glued on the pentaprism housing. The Sears SL11 retained the vertical accessory holder of the Nikkorex, at the left of the mount.

The Copal metal shutter. Mamiya was the first camera manufacturer to use a vertical Copal shutter. Nikon and Ricoh kept it in the Nikkorex and the Singlex.

On the back of the body, the name of Ricoh is engraved. There are some traces of glue. A Sears label may have covered Ricoh's name originally.

Using the Sears SL11

The big difference between film and digital photography is that the body of a film camera does not play such an important role as the body of a digital camera in the final quality of the picture. If the photographer is technically competent and has enough time to set up the camera, any Single Lens Reflex with no light leak and an accurate shutter will give good results, provided a good film and a good lens can be used.

Marietta, GA- The wall of old the train station. The shutter release of the SL11 is very sensitive, and this picture was taken accidentally. The camera took the decision for me and I tend to like the result.

With a recent Nikon fast prime lens and fine grain film, the SL11 will not be as convenient to use as a modern film SLR (no exposure metering, no autofocus), but if the subject is static or cooperative, there will be little difference as far as the pictures are concerned.

The SL11 is a fairly large and heavy camera – it’s larger than the Nikon F and with its standard 55mm lens, it tips the scale at more than 1.2 kilos. I’ve also held a Nikkorex F in hands, and both cameras share the same matte aluminum finish, which seems very difficult to keep clean in the long run (dust and grease seem like ingrained in the camera’s outer shell). The body shell of the Sears model is not exactly similar to the Nikon’s, but the SL11 is absolutely identical to the Ricoh Singlex, with the exception of a Sears label pasted on the prism cover; Ricoh’s name is engraved on the back of the camera, so that there s no doubt on its origin.

As can be expected from a camera designed in 1962, no exposure meter has been incorporated, and the photographer will have to rely on his experience, on a hand exposure meter or on the Sunny 16 rule to determine the right aperture/shutter speed combination. The camera and the lens support Nikon’s automatic aperture pre-selection, and the diaphragm stays at full aperture until the shutter release is pressed. As a consequence, and surprisingly for a camera that old, the viewfinder is very bright.

In the field, the camera surprises with a very sensitive shutter release, and the very high demultiplication of the focusing ring of the lens seriously slows down the operations. As expected, the shutter is rather loud. The lens is still very good. There is some flare in back-lit situations, but at mid aperture (f:8 or f:11), it produces razor sharp pictures.

A camera without a built-in exposure meter is too slow to use to my taste, but this one is an interesting curiosity. Compatible with any Nikon lens made in the last 50 years, provided it has an aperture ring, it will find a place in the equipment bag of a “Nikonist” between a FE2 and a D300, for a film roll of nostalgia.

More about the SL11 and its cousins

The Sears SL11 with a Nikon 24mm AF lens. It simply works.

The Sears SL11 with a Nikon 24mm AF lens. The SL11 is compatible with any Nikon lens provided it has an aperture ring.

The common ancestor: the Mamiya Prismat NP.
Ron Herron’s site is totally dedicated to Mamiya 35mm cameras.

The predecessor of the SL11: the Nikkorex F and Nikon’s own version of its history, reported by Kenji Toyoda.
Kenji Toyoda went to the source and talked to the Nikon engineers who worked on the development of models such as the FM, the FE or the FA. For Nikon, they’re “the best of the rest”.

Nikon’s official Web site offers a very detailed history of the most important cameras of the company: More about the history of the Nikon cameras – the legendary and the other ones : Nikon Imaging Products

A few sites have a pages dedicated to the twins of the SL11:
– the Ricoh Singlex (first model).
- another source of information for the Singlex and the Nikkorex F : Richard de Stoutz and his Nikon F collection.

As explained above, Ricoh and Sears kept on using the Singlex and SL11 names after they abandoned the original design of Mamiya. The user manual of Ricoh Singlex TLS of 1967 is still available.
The Sears labeled version of the camera is also shown here as the Sears SLS.

Marietta, GA - Jan. 2010 - Sears SL11 with Rikenon lens (55mm f:1.4)-Lodak CN400

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January 31, 2010

Nikons’s most advanced manual focus “ultra-compact” SLR: the Nikon FG

Filed under: Gear, Nikon Cameras — Tags: EM, equipment, FG, Gear, Nikon, Olympus — xtalfu @ 11:58 pm

In 1972, Olympus launched the OM-1. Much smaller and lighter than any other single lens reflex (SLR), it opened the path for a new generation of more compact cameras. Nikon’s own FM (launched in 1977) was remarkably smaller than the Nikkormat cameras it was replacing, but still a tad bigger than the Olympus OM-1n. Built like a tank, it was not light, either.

It would take another model, deliberately designed for the beginners, the Nikon EM (1979), to finally beat the OM-1 at its own game (weight: 460g against 510g, width: 135mm instead of 136mm). Small and light, the EM had a plastic (polycarbonate) body over an aluminum chassis, an aperture-priority exposure control system, and very few ways to over-ride the automatism. A magic -2EV button could be used for back-lit scenes, and that was about it: there was no semi-automatic exposure mode. It could use all Nikon’s previous AI (auto-indexing) lenses, as well as a new series of cheaper lenses (the E-Series) launched for the occasion. The E-series lenses were smaller and less elaborate than the other Nikkor lenses, but some of them (like the 50mm f:1.8) gained a very good reputation over time. It has to be noted that the E-Series lenses were the first to use the AI-S version of the F mount. Geeks can learn more about the evolution of the lens mounts of SLRs in the pages published a few months ago in this blog. 50 years of lens mount evolution.

Nikon FG

In 1982, Nikon extended their “ultra-compact SLR” range with the FG. It retained the platform, the dimensions and the shutter of the EM, but its electronics had been revised to incorporate two exposure modes, a semi-auto and fully automated program adjusting the aperture and the shutter speed. It also adopted the On the Film (OTF) flash metering system of the FE2. Not a pro camera yet, but not a beginner’s camera anymore.

To this day, the FG remains the smallest of the manual Nikon SLRs targeting the “advanced-amateur” market. A few “all-plastic” autofocus SLRs tipped the scales at 350g in the subsequent years, but Nikon’s digital reflex cameras are all bigger and heavier.

Shooting with the FG

The FG was available in two versions: “chrome” or black. Both had a small removable grip at the right of the body, and looked like smaller copies of the F3. After all these years, the FG is still a very nice little camera. Like the EM, it’s built around an aluminum chassis, and the body itself is in polycarbonate. The commands are simple and well organized. A single selector controls the shutter speed (for semi-automatic operation) and the type of exposure automatism (aperture priority or program). When the program mode is selected (after pressing a safety lock), the aperture ring of the lens has to be set at the smallest aperture. If the photographer forgets to set the aperture, the “overexposure” LED will flash in the viewfinder. The shutter is taken over from the EM and can not offer anything better than 1/1000 sec, with a flash synchro speed of 1/90. Incidentally the shutter still works at 1/90sec when the batteries are dead.

There are few other controls on the FG. A switch disables the warning beeps that the camera emits in multiple occasions, and a push button on the left side of the body can be used to open-up the exposure by 2 stops, to prevent under-exposure in back-lit scenes. There is no way to switch off the camera, and the best way to prevent battery drain is to leave the shutter speed selector on the manual 1/90sec setting when the camera is not in use.

Nikon FG - The commands

The viewfinder is one of the places where savings were made. With 0.84x magnification and 92% coverage, its performances are similar to the FM or the FE’s, but remarkably inferior to the exceptional OM-1, which in spite of being so compact, still combines a magnification of 0.92x with 97% coverage. At the right of the viewfinder, the photographer will find a scale representing the shutter speeds, with one or many (up to three) red LEDs showing the actual shutter speed and/or the ones recommended by the metering system. Red LEDs, as usual, happen to be invisible when the camera is used in a bright environment.

Derived from the EM and largely built in plastic, the FG is obviously not in the same league as the FE2 or the F3 when it comes to build quality. The articulated winding lever is not as smooth as the F3’s (which is mounted on roller bearings) or the FE2’s, which gives the impression of being mounted on a bronze bearing. The camera has the reputation of being prone to a scary shutter lock (nothing dramatic – set the shutter dial to Manual 1/90sec , and everything goes back in order). To me, it looks more like a “bug” than anything else.

Olympus OM-1 and Nikon FG: not a big difference in size - the design objectives of their manufacturers were miles apart, though.

In a few words, the FG is a strange combination of relatively advanced features (multi-mode exposure automatism, on the film flash metering) with a base which is derived from an entry-level camera. In particular in its black version, it looks very competent and professional, which could lead to some disappointment. Because of its small size and its serious looks, it’s easy to believe that it’s a pro camera, comparable to its FM2 and FE2 stablemates, or to the Olympus OM-2.

Nothing could be more wrong. The Nikon FM2 and FE2 are equipped with an exceptional titanium or aluminum shutter, with flash sync speeds up to 1/250sec and a maximum speed of 1/4000 sec. The shutter of the FG is much more limited, and its top speed of 1/1000 sec is a serious limitation on a bright sunny day now than 400 ISO seems to be the universal film sensitivity, in black and white as in color.

The FM2, FE2, OM-1 or OM-2 were cameras built for demanding amateurs or professionals; a small size was one of the design objectives of their manufacturers, but it came second to build quality.

The second hand market recognizes those facts: a nice FE2 costs at least $ 125, with the FM2 and some late Olympus models crossing the $250 barrier. Well received on the market when it was launched, the FG is still abundant on the second hand market and a very nice one can be found for approx. $50.00. A nice compact SLR for casual photography.

More about the Nikon FG

Nikon’s own words about the FG
Photography in Malaysia: the “bible” for the amateurs of Nikon cameras. Check the Nikon FG pages.

The Nikon FG - a light SLR for mountain hikes

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January 23, 2010

The world through a plastic lens? A few pictures in Rome with the Holga 120 CFN

Filed under: Gear, Pictures, Weird cameras — Tags: equipment, Gear, Holga, Holga 120 CFN, Kodak Portra, Lomography, Rome — xtalfu @ 11:59 pm

When your good friends learn that you still shoot film, and write about it, they understand they have a unique opportunity to get rid of all the – let’s be polite – worthless photo equipment they don’t use anymore and you end up with Kodak Brownies or Instamatics by the bucketload. And if your brother in law is really facetious, he brings you a brand new Holga from one of his trips in China, and since it’s a Christmas present and everybody in the family is intrigued, you buy film and start using it.

Holga 120 CNF

That particular camera comes in a big orange box with the rest of the “Starter Kit”. Reading the user manual, you get confirmation that the camera is “extremely low tech, and will eventually wear out”. Major design flaws are presented as unique features – the dreaded manual mentions “leaks of light, unvoluntary multiple exposures, loose connection between the film and the take up spool” among the desirable characteristics of the product. Looking for some comfort, you check a little square format book at the bottom of the box. It’s a nice paperback of 192 pages, showing 300 images taken with Holga cameras. Not something Leica or Nikon would be proud of, but interesting pictures nonetheless.

The camera’s design is very basic. It accepts 120 format roll film, has a plastic wide angle lens (60mm, F:8 or F:11) with 4 possible focus settings, and a shutter which offers a unique and unspecified speed. The camera comes with 2 user interchangeable back plates, one will give you 6×6 cm negatives with some vignetting, the other one 6×4.5cm negatives, probably with less vignetting (I don’t know, I only shot with the 6×6 plate). The “CFN” Holgas also come with an electronic flash, equipped with a turret of 4 filters (Red, Blue, Yellow and transparent) for special effects.

Using the Holga

The Holga 120 CFN needs 120 film – of course – and since Holgas are supposed to be enjoyed for their shortcomings, color film should be preferred (the plastic lens is prone to chromatic aberrations which would not be visible with black and white film).

Finding color film in 120 rolls proved very difficult. If 35mm film is still easy to find (even in supermarkets or in the little stores attached to many hotels), the same can not be said for 120 roll film. Only stores dedicated to professional photographers still have a few references. I bought a few rolls of Kodak’s Portra 400 NC film. Loading the camera is a difficult task, but in all honesty I’m not used to roll film and I would also have suffered with a more high end camera.

Holga 120 CNF - a view from the shutter (120 film adapter removed)

Holga 120 CNF - a view from the shutter (the 6x6 back plate has been removed - the two AA batteries power the electronic flash ).

In the street, the camera attracts lost of attention. People notice the bright red color (Holgas are also available in black, kaki and in a unique blue and yellow combination), and are intrigued by the cheap aspect of the camera. It looks like a toy, and people are surprised to see an adult using it.

The camera has very few controls and is easy to use, with a decent viewfinder and relatively smooth commands, and provides a user experience very similar the “boxes” that Kodak used to sell before the launch of the Instamatic cameras.

The results
Having the rolls processed proved as difficult as buying the film in the first place. Costco and the proximity drugstores don’t process anything larger than 35mm film, and the rolls had be sent to a professional lab (some of them charge up to $20.00 per roll). When you receive the pictures, you discover the “Holga paradox”: you’re not attracted to the almost “normal” images, but by the most severely flawed. The pictures with the fewer technical faults are just bad (with vignetting and all sorts of aberrations), while some of the images plagued with the worst of the problems (involuntary multiple exposures, light leaks) have a surrealist quality that the most creative of the photographers would struggle to get from a digital picture processed in Photoshop.

Holga, what for?

“Normal” photographers are supposed to spend thousands of dollars in the equipment which will help them produce pictures as perfect as possible from a technical point of view – in focus, sharp, with the right exposure, no vignetting, no distortion, and no chromatic aberration.

Rome-Coliseum-Holga 120 CFN - This is one of the pictures with the fewest defects.

Straight from the Holga - at least the bright red camera attracts smiles

Deviations from the norm of the technically perfect picture are supposed to be voluntary, in order to convey an emotion or a message. They’re not supposed to have been brought randomly by a poorly designed camera.

Holgas don’t follow the rule. They’re not “normal”, and they’re not what “normal” photographers would be looking for. Their results are totally unpredictable. When nothing went really wrong, the results are dull. It’s only when they are massively flawed that the pictures start being surprising and interesting.

Using a Holga reminded me of the “Exquisite Corpse” creativity method used by the Surrealist movement at the beginning of the XXth century. With a Holga you will rely on chance to create something new and different. Using the bright red Holga, I started believing that chance could be an artist on its own right. And you end up loving that little camera for that very reason.

More about Holga cameras

Holga 120 CFN and photographer - digital pictures can also be flawed...

A few decades ago, photographers in Austria discovered the “Lomos” (copies of Cosina point and shoot cameras made in the USSR), and liked the – flawed – pictures made by those very imperfect little cameras so much that they launched the “lomography” movement. They started distributing the “Lomos” in Austria and Germany, and progressively added other cameras from Eastern Europe and China to their catalog. Lomos and Holgas are now widely distributed, and can also be purchased directly from the Lomography web site, where a red Holga 120 CFN can be found for $75. That’s a lot of money for such a low tech object. Bargain hunters can also find Holgas on eBay, for far less.

Cynics will say that the initiators of the Lomography movement found a way to get rich selling Soviet surplus to the rich photographers of the West, and philosophers that they showed that chance and chromatic aberrations could be more creative than would be artists obsessed with technical perfection.

Holga links

The Holga blog: a blog about film photography, Holgas, Toy Cameras, 6×6 TLRs, Polaroid – “LO-FI” photography at its best.
The Holga group on Flickr
Cameras from (formerly) communist countries: does not include Holgas, but the original Lomos, Dianas & Lubitel cameras, among other things.

Rome - View of the Curia from the Campidoglio - Holga 120 CFN

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January 17, 2010

Single Lens Reflex or Rangefinder Camera? A few days with a Leica CL

Filed under: Gear, Leica Cameras — Tags: Camera, CL, Gear, Leica, Louvre, M5, Olympus, Paris, rangefinder, Viewfinder — xtalfu @ 12:50 am

I was back in Paris for a few days at the end of last year, and since there was still room in my equipment bag, I pulled my old and battered Leica CL from a drawer and took it with me. A good opportunity to check whether I could get acceptable results out of it this time.

I never was a rangefinder guy. When I started being interested in photography, semi-automatic Single Lens Reflex cameras (SLRs) were already the norm, and Leica an expensive brand of obsolete cameras. My formative years were spent with a Pentax MX, and I’ve always found natural to see the world on the matte focusing screen of a reflex camera. But I was intrigued by the Leica legend, and one day, purchased a Leica CL. Over the last 15 years, I used it rarely, but being light and compact, it could find a slot in my equipment bag from time to time.

Leica CL with its two lenses

The CL was a sort of entry-level rangefinder camera, designed by Leitz in Germany and built by Minolta in Japan from 1973 to 1976.

From a technical point of view, it is a miniature M5, and very advanced for a Leica of its time. A semi-auto camera with through the lens metering, it used a mechanism very similar to the system used in the much maligned M5’s.

After the CL and the M5 were abandoned in the mid seventies, Leitz reverted to fully manual cameras with no metering capabilities, and aficionados had to wait for another 10 years before a semi-auto rangefinder camera was proposed again by the German firm.

With its M bayonet mount, the CL could use the 50 mm lenses of its bigger brothers, but Leitz had also designed two lenses specifically for the CL, a 40mm Summicron (F:2) and a 90mm Elmar (F:4).

Using the Leica CL

A true Leica, it also used a focal plan textile shutter (1/2 sec up to 1/1000 sec). The rangefinder has a short base and is not as accurate as the M6’s, but is good enough for the 90mm Elmar.

A class at the Louvres Museum- Jan.2010. Paris

A class at the Louvres Museum- The CL is small and silent, and nobody paid attention to me or to the camera.

With its mechanical shutter, the CL only needs a battery for metering, and uses it sparingly. Mine still has the mercury battery I bought it with, but I suspect it must be at the end of its life, because the recommendations of the metering system were so bizarre that I decided to forget about it and apply the “sunny 16″ rule. With a battery in working order, the determination of the exposure is very simple (a match needle at the right of the viewfinder).

On the CL, the image in the viewfinder is large and clear. The viewfinder has a greater field of view than the 40mm lens normally mounted on the camera, and projected bright lines show to the photographer what the actual picture will look like. There is little difference between the respective field of views of the viewfinder (similar to a 35mm) and of the 40mm lens, but the bright frame projected of the 90mm lens will seem minuscule at the center of a viewfinder, whose enlargement factor does not change. Disconcerting, but not dramatic.

What really requires adaptation is focusing. On a manual focus Single Lens Reflex camera, the image of the subject is projected on a matte ground glass, and the photographer can see immediately whether the image is in focus or not. Similarly, with tele-zooms used at large apertures, the effects of the reduced depth of field are easily visible, and the photographer can visualize what will be in focus, and what will be pleasantly blurred.

The back of the Leica CL - Note the viewfinder at the top left corner of the body, leaving ample space for the nose of the photographer

On a rangefinder camera, the finder does not provide any feed-back when it comes to focusing. Every element of the image seems in focus: it’s very easy too forget to set the focus, and very difficult to predict the depth of field.

The coupled rangefinder is materialized by a small window at the center of the viewfinder. It’s extremely accurate, but the focusing ring on the small lens is narrow and rather stiff, and you get the impression that you could have reacted much faster with the large focusing ring of the 50mm lens of your SLR.

I guess it gets better with experience, but it’s very frustrating for a beginner.

If you can get over the idiosyncrasies of the viewfinder, the Leica experience is very rewarding. The camera is virtually silent, and being small and black, gets totally unnoticed. The pictures are sharp, with a lot of micro-contrast, and give the impression of being of higher quality than the images taken with most of the SLRs (provided you could master the focusing system). Your success rate will be lower than with a manual SLR, and far lower than with a dSLR of the latest generation, but when the images are good, they’ll be very good.

Buying a rangefinder camera

Rangefinder cameras are markedly different from SLRs, and will not produce good pictures without some serious practice. The first attempts will be frustrating, and there is no point in spending a lot of money in a Leica M9 if you discover after a few days that you’re totally allergic to this style of cameras.

The Leica CL is one of the cheapest options for a photographer who would like to try rangefinder cameras. Good Leica CL are rather easy to find in the US or in Europe. Even in a pristine condition, they never cross the $1,000 threshold, and nice items can be found between $300 and $600. In Japan, the CL was sold as a Leitz-Minolta camera, with no other difference with the “Leitz only” CL than the logo.

A few years after the production of the CL was stopped, Minolta launched the CLE, an automatic exposure version of the CL, and the first camera to propose On the Film (OTF) flash metering. There is no semi-auto or manual mode. The CLE contains much more electronics than the CL, and it can not be repaired if the main circuit decides it had enough. The CLE is much more difficult to find than the CL. Expect to pay $600 for a nice one, and thousands for collector editions.

Full size M series Leica are either more primitive (no exposure metering) or more recent and significantly more expensive than the CL. Even in poor condition, a Leica M6 can not be found for less than $1,000. Cosina is still producing a line of rangefinder cameras, sold under the Voigtlander brand, and available with Leica M lens mount as well as less common mounts such as the Nikon and Contax rangefinder mounts. Amongst all the the rangefinder cameras from Voigtlander, the Bessa R3M is the closest to the CL (it accepts the same 40 and 90mm lenses), and can be found between $400 (used) and $600 (new).

The light chamber of the Leica CL - In this picture, the shutter is not armed. As a consequence, the CdS sensor of the exposure meter is not deployed.

The shutter is armed; the CdS sensor of the exposure meter is deployed. It will retract when the shutter release is pressed, just before the shutter opens.

References and links

A specialized source for rangefinder cameras (Leica, Nikon and modern Voigtlander): http://www.cameraquest.com/leicacl.htm

Canal St Martin - Paris - Located between the Gare de l'Est and the Bastille, the Canal was a favorite set of the French film makers in the thirties. Using a Leica with B&W film seemed appropriate

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November 27, 2009

Exposure Metering: Multi-Spot or Matrix

Filed under: Gear, Nikon Cameras — Tags: aperture priority shutter speed priority exposure automatic nikon canon minolta pentax olympus, equipment, Matrix evaluative TTL Nikon Olympus, metering — xtalfu @ 2:29 am

All film cameras have to live with the same design constraint: their shutter and their diaphragm are built in such a way that, for a given picture, the shutter speed and the aperture are the same for each square millimeter of the film. There is no way for the shutter of a film camera to block the light in excess in a particular zone of the scene, or to stay open longer only for the portion of the scene located in the shade. At some point the researchers of Canon were rumored to be working on an LCD based shutter, which could to exactly that, but the research never materialized.

Olympus OM-3. Picture: Wikipedia

Since the shutter only works in an all or nothing, one-duration-fits-all mode, some zones of the film will receive more light than the optimum, and others will receive less. Films have the ability to give acceptable results when portions of the scene are a few f: stops brighter and a few stops darker than the optimum (that’s the exposure latitude of the film). As a consequence, the exposure metering systems of the cameras are calibrated to determine the correct exposure for the portion of the subject located in the mid-tones, with the expectation that the film will have enough exposure latitude to render the highlights and the shadows correctly.

Unfortunately, in some cases, the brightness range of the scene greatly exceeds the exposure latitude of the film (think of the backlit portrait at sunset with the sun in the frame); supposing the photographer can not reduce the brightness range of the scene – using a flash or a reflector to bring more light to the subject, for instance, the exposure parameters will only be optimal for a subset of the scene, the highlights or the shadows, and the rest of the picture will be burned or left in the dark.

When cameras started being equipped with Through the Lens (TTL) metering systems in the sixties, most of the manufacturers opted for Average or Center Weighed Average Metering. Those metering systems were not adapted to high contrast scenes, and the photographers had to put their experience to good use and take control manually of the exposure metering process. If they had automatic cameras, they had to use exposure lock or exposure compensation systems. The alternative – measuring the brightness of a very narrow section of the scene with a spot meter, was not easy to master for the average photographer. Elaborate exposure determination procedures such as the “zone system” were adapted to small format cameras using roll film, but their complexity put them out of reach from the majority of photographers.

The Olympus OM-4 and the Nikon FA

In 1983, two cameras manufacturers tried to address the problem of high contrast/high brightness range scenes, and they chose two very different approaches.

Olympus tried to make the principles of the zone system accessible to more photographers, and developed a multi-spot system for the new OM-3 and OM-4 cameras. With the new OMs, the photographer could make up to eight successive spot measurements, whose result were presented in the viewfinder on an analog bar scale showing each individual result and the average. The cameras also had a “shadow” and a “highlight” push button, letting the photographer compose his picture following the principles of the zone system.

The photographer Ken Norton described the process in his blog:

Olympus OM-3 and OM-4: exposure metering controls. Picture: Wikipedia

“for example, I can take a spot reading of a highlight, a midtone and a shadow. Three dots will appear on the display. If I’m using a film with six stop exposure range, I’ll make sure that all three dots appear within the +/- 3 stop marks. Of course, I can bias my exposure to place a highlight or shadow anywhere I want on the scale. Digital cameras are capable of producing a histogram of an image. The multi-spot scale, with the “dots” is a poor-man’s variation of the histogram where we are able to define our bright areas and dark areas of a scene and like a histogram we are able to move these points around to place them within the acceptance range of the film.

You can read more about the subject, and see actual pictures of the viewfinder on Ken’s pages.

Nikon chose a totally different approach. In the first iteration – the Automatic Multi Pattern (AMP) of the Nikon FA – the camera was equipped with a database containing the mathematical description of thousands of potential pictures, with the exposure value to be used in each situation. The light meter was divided in five zones (a large central zone, two zones at the bottom left and right, two zones at the top, left and right also), and the electronic circuit would correlate the exposure value of each zone with other elements such as the focal length of the lens to define the characteristics of the scene, and associate it with one of the many typical pictures described in the database of the camera.

Nikon FA (the round knob controlling the exposure mode ( matrix or center weighted) is on the right side of the lens mount, at the top on this picture

The FA could also be operated in a more conventional Center Weighted Metering mode, and in all honesty, the results of the AMP system were not that different from the center weighted mode. But the system required no intervention and no expertise of the user, and was rapidly made more efficient with the addition of more metering zones and the capture of more parameters (focusing distance, color of the subject, for instance). Current Nikon cameras have a color sensor dedicating to metering, with more than 1,000 metering points. Equivalent systems have been developed by Canon, Minolta and the other manufacturers, under different names: Canon’s system is “evaluative”, and Nikon’s AMP is better known now as “Matrix metering”.

Modern digital cameras all use elaborate variants of matrix or evaluative metering as their default exposure mode, and give good results in a huge majority of cases. They use so many parameters that it’s sometimes very difficult to understand how the camera chose a particular exposure value; in doubt, photographers can visualize the picture they’ve just taken on high definition displays, and use histograms to analyze the exposure of their pictures. Olympus’ Multi-Spot system happened to be too complex for the huge majority of photographers, and left no legacy.

More about Exposure and Metering

Cambridge in Colour. A good (and free) on-line tutorial about digital photography.
A good book about exposure: “Exposure“, by Chris Weston.

Destin- The beach (Nikon FA- Nikkor 24mm AF - Kodak Ultramax) Sept.09

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November 21, 2009

The Nikon FE2: one of the very best manual focus SLRs ever.

Filed under: Gear, Nikon Cameras — Tags: aperture priority, Camera, equipment, F mount, F3, film, FM, metering, Nikon FE2 Gear — xtalfu @ 3:24 pm

Launched in 1983, the successor of the FE had a relatively short sales career, but a long legacy. It can be argued that the Nikon FM3a, sold from 2001 to 2006, is much more a descendant of the FE2 than of the FM2.

Nikon FE2 - The titanium blade shutter was the most advanced at the time of the camera's launch, with a top speed of 1/4000 sec and a flash sync speed of 1/250 sec.

In 1977, a few years after Olympus initiated the compact SLR revolution, Nikon presented the FM. Like the Olympus OM-1, the FM was a compact semi automatic camera with a mechanical shutter, which could be equipped with a motor drive. But contrarily to the OM-1, which still relied on a CdS light metering system and on mercury batteries, the FM used modern gallium photo diodes and silver oxyde batteries. It also benefited from a vertical blade metallic shutter, and the exposure metering was relying on 3 LEDs instead of the more conventional match needle arrangement of the OM-1. Solidly built and reliable, the FM was very successful commercially, and the ancestor of a large family of models whose production only stopped in 2006.

The FE from 1978 is the automatic exposure version of the FM. It looks very similar to the FM, but instead of LEDs, it uses two needles to show the shutter speed selected by the photographer (semi-auto mode) and by the automatic exposure system (aperture priority auto mode). In 1982, the FM became the FM2, receiving a new mechanic shutter with titanium blades, which could reach 1/4000 sec and had a flash synchro speed of 1/200 sec.

One year later, the FE2 was launched. Its titanium shutter is an improved and electronic version of the FM2’s, with a X synchro speed now reaching to 1/250 sec. The FE2 also benefits from a modern on the film (OTF) flash metering system (that the FM2 never got). The FM/FE range of products was extended the following year with the presentation of the Nikon FA, which added matrix metering (a world premiere), a programmed exposure mode and trade the brass prism cover of the FM/FE models for a polycarbonate one. Both FE2 and FA were discontinued in 1988. The FM2 lived longer, and was ultimately replaced by the FM3a, which merged the mechanical shutter of the FM2 with the electronics of the FE2.

Using the FE2 as an every day camera

Reasonably light and compact, the Nikon FE2 is very solidly built, and very nicely finished. Compared to a previous generation model like the FM, the FE2 has smoother commands. The viewfinder is typical from a pre-high eye point construction – the enlargement factor is high (0.86) for a good focusing precision, but the frame coverage is limited (93%), and the eye point is very short (14mm), which could be an issue for photographers wearing glasses. Even with thin glasses, it’s impossible to see 100% of the image projected on the focusing screen without having to move one’s eye ball right to left and left to right: you only perceive 90% of the focusing screen when you look straight into the viewfinder, which compounded with the rather limited frame coverage, ensures that you’ll have a wide safety margin on both sides of your prints.

Nikon FE2 / Olympus OM-1n - The FE2 is larger, but not significantly.

The determination of the exposure is very conventional for a camera of its generation, with a center weighted measurement provided by two silicon photodiodes. In automatic mode, a needle indicates the speed selected by the exposure system of the camera on a large scale at the left of the viewfinder. The photographer has multiple ways to override the automatism: he can memorize the exposure (pushing the self timer lever towards the lens), apply a correction factor on the film speed selector (from -2 up to +2EV), or switch to semi-auto mode. In this case, a second needle – larger and transparent – appears in the viewfinder, showing the shutter speed selected by the photographer. In a very simple matching needle arrangement, the photographer just has to align the meter needle with shutter speed needle. The shutter speed knob is much smoother than on the FM (in the FE2 the shutter is controlled electronically), and surprisingly the camera is more pleasant to use in semi-auto mode than the FM. No wonder that Nikon derived the exposure control system of the FM3a from the FE2’s and not from FM’s.

(more…)

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October 29, 2009

50 Years of Lens Mount Evolution: Part VI of VI

Filed under: Gear — Tags: Autofocus "Minolta A" lens mount "Canon EF" USM Silentwave, Bayonet, F mount, Four Thirds, Gear, Image Stabilization, Micro Four Thirds, Olympus, Panasonic — xtalfu @ 11:27 pm

The last 10 years – digital cameras and image stabilized lenses

The massive adoption of digital cameras has not led – so far – to a dramatic change of the design of the lens mount of the cameras. Canon, Nikon, Pentax and Sony (aka Konica Minolta) did not design specific lens mounts for digital cameras, even if they designed specific series of lenses adapted to the smaller size of the digital “APS-C” sensors.

Panasonic GF1 and G1 - the most radical development in interchangeable lens cameras since the Contax S and the Leica M3 (Photo courtesy of DPReview)

Only camera makers which had been absent from the 35mm Autofocus SLR market and had no installed base to please had the liberty to start from a clean slate. In 2003, Panasonic and Olympus launched the “Four Thirds” format, combining a relative small size sensor with a large all-electric mount. Last year, Panasonic finally presented the Micro Four Thirds G1, a camera with an electronic viewfinder and interchangeable lenses (EVIL), the first digital camera to really depart from the conventional SLR design of the Contax S of the late forties.

Why did the camera manufacturers keep the same bayonet mount for digital?

When the first digital SLRs from Nikon and Canon were presented in 2000, large imaging sensors were so difficult to manufacture and therefore so expensive that the camera makers settled for a form factor smaller than the 36×24mm dimensions of 35mm film (23.7mmx15.6mm for Nikon, 22mmx14.9mm for the Canon EOS-D30).

This form factor was dubbed “APS-C“, because it was close to the dimensions of an APS picture, shot with the “Classic” image format (25.1×16.7mm) of the APS cameras. The sensor being smaller than a 35mm negative (the diagonal of 35mm film is 1.5 times larger than the diagonal of an APS-C imager), the camera makers had an opportunity to design a new series of smaller bodies and lenses, but they all decided to stick to their legacy lens mounts and to design digital SLRs at least as large as their film counterparts.

Being the undisputed leaders of the film camera market, Nikon and Canon in particular had no interest in starting a new incompatible product line, at the risk of alienating their large user base; it would have leveled the playing field, and offered an easier entry in the dSLR market to companies like Panasonic or Sony. Nikon and Canon also wanted to limit the cost and the technical risk of going digital by reusing most of the components of their film cameras in their first generations of dSLRs. And they may have anticipated that one day, with the help of Moore’s law, cameras using full size digital sensors would become affordable for their professional and enthusiast customers, making their large F or EF bayonets more relevant than ever.

For a few years, however, dSLRs with APS-C sensors were the only game in town. Canon and Nikon both developed specific lenses for their small sensor bodies. Canon decided to modify the EF mount so that the EF-S lenses designed for the small sensor cameras can not be mounted on full frame SLRs or dSLRs. Nikon did not change the F bayonet – small sensor DX lenses can also be mounted on full frame (or FX) bodies, but being designed for the APS-C sensor size, they do not cover the full format of the FX sensors and the image is automatically cropped.

The Four Thirds and Micro Four Thirds formats

In 2003, Olympus and Panasonic launched the “Four Thirds” format. At that time, Canon had already started producing the first full frame 35mm digital camera (the EOS 1D), and was preparing much more affordable 35mm digital SLRs like the EOS-5D for the enthusiast photographer market. A large sensor was still complex and expensive to manufacture, but getting high quality pictures out of it would prove much easier than with a small sensor, in particular in low light situations.

The Olympus Four Thirds system was based on design decisions completely opposed to Canon or Nikon’s . The sensor size chosen for Four Thirds cameras is very small (its diagonal is only half of the diagonal of a 35mm sensor), but at the same time the lenses and bodies are designed around a large diameter bayonet mount (44mm, the same as Nikon’s F), with a relatively long focal flange distance (38mm). When the system was designed, it was believed that a large diameter lens and a long focal flange distance were required to get optimal results from the imaging sensor, but the Leica M8 and M9 have since proven that it was not the case.

On the positive side, the relatively large dimensions imposed by the Four Thirds mount gave the engineers more freedom to design high quality lenses with very fast apertures, but on the negative side the body & lens combination could not be made significantly smaller than the more conventional APS-C cameras of their competitors. To add insult to injury, the relative small size of the sensor proved a handicap in low light situations (all things being equal, small sensors are more subject to noise than larger ones), and steered most of the enthusiast photographers away from Four Thirds cameras. Four Thirds only got traction on the low end of the market.

Size comparison: Nikon 18-55 DX, Olympus 14-42, Panasonic 14-45 Micro 4/3

Size comparison: Nikon 18-55 DX (APS-C), Olympus 14-42 (Four Thirds), Panasonic 14-45 (Micro Four Thirds) - Image courtesy of DP Review

Failing to make a significant impact on the mid-level dSLR market, and completely barred from the professional market dominated by new full frame cameras with extraordinary low light capabilities, Panasonic and Olympus decided to create a new niche for themselves, and launched Micro Four Thirds cameras. Using the same sensor as the “Four Thirds” dSLRs, the Micro 4/3rd cameras have abandoned the reflex mirror chamber and the pentaprism viewfinder of conventional dSLRs for an electronic viewfinder. They are designed for a much shorter focal flange distance (approx. 20mm instead of 38mm, and the mount diameter is also smaller (32mm approx. instead of 44mm).
As a result, the body+lens combination is much more compact than any other dSLR on the market. It’s still difficult to predict how this new category of cameras will fare in the future, but they finally bring something new to the table.

Image Stabilization

The migration from film to digital is without a doubt the most significant evolution of photographic equipment in the last ten years. Image stabilization gained acceptance during the same time, and is now a feature expected by amateurs using digicam as well as enthusiasts and pros using expensive large aperture teles. The objective of image stabilization systems is to compensate automatically the involuntary movements of the photographers, and to produce sharper pictures even at slower shutter speeds.

Canon, Nikon and Panasonic adopted relatively similar systems, all based on the controlled movement of optical modules installed inside the lenses. Minolta, Pentax and Olympus opted for in-camera systems compensating the movements of the photographer by moving the image sensor itself. Apparently both systems produce good results. In-camera image stabilization systems do not require any change to the lens mount, but in-lens systems need to be managed from the body, and require a few more electric contacts. Most of the current lens mounts are all-electric now, and adding a few contacts is an easy done job.

The state of the art in 2009

Pentax: Progressive introduction of the KAF3 version of the K bayonet mount, with autofocus motor in the lens. The majority of the lenses in the product line still need an autofocus motor in the camera body.

Canon: No change to the EF mount of the EOS cameras. Starting with the Rebel and the 20D cameras, Canon used a specific variant (EF-S) of the mount for lenses dedicated to the APS-C format. Canon dSLRs all work with EF lenses, but only the Rebel and 20D, 30D, 40D and 50D cameras can use the EF-S lenses.

Minolta, Konica Minolta and Sony: Progressive introduction of SSM lenses, with the focusing motor inside the lens. The majority of the lenses in the product line still need an autofocus motor in the camera body.

Nikon: Multiple variants of the F mount were used during the last 15 years:
- AF-D: no mechanical difference with the AF mount, the D lenses transmit the focusing distance value back to the body for 3D Matrix Metering
- AF-I: focusing motor in the lens – used for tele-lenses between 1992 and 1996;
- AF-S lenses: ultra-sonic (“Silent Wave”) autofocus motor built into the lens. Most of Nikon’s zoom lenses are now AF-S, and the conversion of prime lenses has started a few years ago.
- The new PC-E (perspective control electromagnetic) lenses now use an electromagnetic diaphragm command. All the other Nikon lenses still use the mechanical stop down mechanism introduced with the F mount in 1959.

Olympus & Panasonic started promoting the Four Thirds format in 2003. Four Third lenses use an all electric bayonet mount. The Micro Four Thirds are more compact, and use 11 electrical contacts instead of 9 for regular Four Third lenses. Thanks to the very short focal flange distance of Micro Four Third cameras, it is easy to develop adapters for Canon EF, Nikon F, Olympus OM or Leica M or R lenses.

An exception on this blog: a digital picture (Nikon D80) taken in Essaouira - Morroco

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October 17, 2009

Poll: when you shoot with a film camera, what type of film do you use?

Filed under: Polls — xtalfu @ 12:43 pm

I’d like to know what type of film you’re using when you shoot with a film camera. It will help me focus my attention on what really matters to you.

135 (24x36) and APS format cartridges

Thank you

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October 10, 2009

50 Years of Lens Mount Evolution – Part V of VI

Filed under: Gear — Tags: Autofocus "Minolta A" lens mount "Canon EF" USM Silentwave — xtalfu @ 2:51 am

Autofocus

Point and shoot cameras started adopting autofocus mechanisms in 1977, following Konica’s introduction of the C35 AF.
Pentax and Nikon were the first to show autofocus SLRs with passive autofocus systems (in 1981 and 1983 respectively), but were not successful. For the occasion, both companies had designed a system where the camera body (or prism) housed the focus sensors and the lenses contained the motor used for focusing. Both cameras were using a “contrast detection” autofocus system. Pentax and Nikon had to develop specific variants of their mount (K-F and F3-AF respectively) for the occasion. In the typical Nikon manner, the two lenses designed for the F3-AF will be compatible with the F4 body launched a few years later.

Minolta and the hybrid design

Minolta A Mount (on the Angenieux 28-70 zoom)

Minolta A Mount (shown here on the Angenieux 28-70 zoom) - note the electrical contacts, the autofocus drive shaft, and the rod used for stopping down the diaphragm. The combination of electrical and mechanical commands is typical of an hybrid design.

In 1985, Minolta took a different approach. Using a much more efficient “phase detection” autofocus module, the engineers of Minolta developed a brand new camera system from the ground up. Abandoning the MD mount, Minolta designed a large diameter bayonet mount, and launched the new series of “A” lenses. No compatibility with the old Minolta system was offered, but it did not prevent the Minolta 7000 from being a huge success. It redefined the SLR category, and with the exception of the Canon EOS cameras, all autofocus SLRs would be following the same design principle for a long time.

The “A” mount – which is still used today on Sony SLRs, is a mechanical-electrical hybrid. The lenses have no aperture ring and the transmission of the aperture parameters between the lens and the body is electric, but the diaphragm is closed to its designated aperture by a mechanical lever. Minolta placed the autofocus motor in the body, and had to implement a telescopic shaft mechanism to control the focusing group of the lenses.

The competition was quick to react. Nikon (at the end of 1985) and Pentax (1987) adopted the same hybrid design, but decided to make the new models compatible with their legacy: their AF bodies could still accept non-AF lenses, and their new AF lenses could also be used on conventional SLR bodies.

Canon’s revolutionary EOS system

EF-lens-mount (source: wikipedia)

Canon needed more time than Nikon to react to Minolta’s innovations, but took a much more radical approach. The EOS system, launched in 1987, adopted an all-electrical approach, using an electrical command for the diaphragm and placing the focusing motor in the lenses (as opposed to the camera’s body). The EOS cameras and their lenses used the brand new EF mount, which did not offer any compatibility with the older FL or FD mounts. The absence of compatibility was a shocker for the faithful Canon users, but the new EOS system was obviously designed for the future: Canon did not need to make any change to the mount since its inception, and the all-electric exchange of information between the body and the lens was adopted progressively by all of its competitors.

At the beginning, most of the EF lenses used a conventional electrical motor to control focusing, but a few pro-telephoto lenses benefited from an ultrasonic motor (“USM” in Canon’s marketing brochures). Ultrasonic motors have a very low inertia and operate silently: USM lenses focus very rapidly, and allow the photographer to adjust the focus manually, after the autofocus process has taken place, and without the risk of breaking a cog wheel or the autofocus transmission shaft. USM lenses gave Canon a huge competitive advantage, in particular for sports and action photography.

Nikon recognized rapidly that mounting the autofocus motor in the lens was the right thing to do, and started converting its professional telephoto lenses to an almost all-electrical design (AF-I mount in 1992), which evolved into the current AF-S mount when ultrasonic (“Silentwave”) autofocus motors were adopted (1996). Pentax and Sony were slower to place the autofocus motor in the lens, and most of their current lenses still follow the original hybrid design of Minolta.

Some of the other camera makers decided not to convert their product line to autofocus (Leica, Konica), while some tried but could not get market acceptance (Olympus, Contax). In all cases, the failure to adopt autofocus relegated the camera makers to a niche market, and all ended up stopping production of SLRs altogether.

Almost 25 years after the introduction of the Minolta 7000, it’s interesting to compare Canon’s strategy with Nikon’s. Canon’s users had to absorb a huge change in 1987 (they had to throw away their lenses and buy new ones if they wanted to use the new EOS cameras), but the EF mount and the lenses have remained the same for the last twenty years. All-electrical USM lenses gave Canon a huge competitive advantage, and Nikon, with its more conservative and evolutionary approach, needed almost 20 years to catch up on the professional market.

The state of the art in 1987

Minolta A Mount on a 700si body (1993) - Note the electrical contacts, the stop down aperture command, the autofocus drive shaft.

Pentax: KAF version of the K bayonet mount. Mechanical control of the diaphragm, autofocus motor in the camera body.

Canon: New EOS mount, 100% electric. Totally incompatible with the FL and FD mounts

Minolta: New A mount totally incompatible with the old SR, MC and MD mounts. Mechanical control of the diaphragm, electric transmission of the required aperture value from the body to the lens, autofocus motor in the camera body.

Nikon: AF version of the F mount. Mechanical control of the diaphragm, electric transmission of the required aperture value from the body to the lens, autofocus motor in the camera. Upward and backward compatibility preserved on professional cameras and lenses (and with limitations on the consumer grade cameras and lenses).

Olympus: new line of lenses, with no focusing ring (autofocus had to be overriden using a rocker switch on the camera body). The reception of the market was so disappointing for Olympus that they gave up on autofocus SLRs, and reverted to conventional OM cameras until 2003.

House in Brittany - Minolta Vectis S1 - The Vectis, launched in 1996, adopted Canon's all-electric autofocus design

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