In my collection of classic mechanical cameras, I have a
1954 Kodak Retina IIIc made in Germany. It is a very compact 35mm camera with
amazing lenses. But for me it is the watchmaker’s precision that gives me the
pleasure of using it.
Here is the Retina with the lens retracted :
and fully extended:
Unfortunately, I had not used it for a decade or so. When I
decided to take it out to the Holiday Parade downtown, I did a quick check of
the functions. All seemed still smoothly working, except that there was some
fluid leak on one of the shutter’s leaf. The retina belongs to yesteryears’
leaf shutter cameras, where the opening of the shutter is not through a
horizontal moving cloth(or a vertical “guillotine” metal shutter like the
Contax cameras) but there are a set (in this case 8) very thin steel leafs that
open and close when the shutter release button is pressed. So, since the
shutter seemed working fine (no hang-up of the leafs) I decided to take it to
the parade.
The 50mm lens I used is a Schneider- Kreuznach Xenon 2.0, a fast
and among the most famous German lenses of the golden age of B&W
photography. And surprisingly the 65
year old Selenium built-in lightmeter still works and gave me a suggested
reading of 1/125 second speed and an opening of f8 for my ASA 100 B&W film.
I was a bit early for
the parade so decided to take photos of the attendees rather than the often
uneventful marching of t e parade participants. After all, that would be true
street photography contrasted to photojournalism or event photography.
… When I developed the negative all looked good. But when I
printed my first frame, a delightful phenomenon became apparent:
This is probably my favorite shot on the roll. It gives a
real feel of the people waiting for the parade to start. There is a lot of
facial expressions and body language around the beautifully postured American
Bulldog. The contrast is perfect and the center of the
frame has wonderful crispness and definition. But.. the left of the frame is
off focus.
I printed another frame and the same phenomenon happened.
Although the composition of high school band getting ready to march in the
parade seemed enhanced by the blurry left side of the frame!
The JROTC young man in front of the PolyJohns gives an old
time photograph feel:
And the caption of the narrow town street, with the mountain
range in the background demonstrates the quality of the lens:
So, I was delighted by this travel back in time in B&W.
I will use the Retina again soon as I cleaned most of the dried fluid material
with lighter fluid. Will see if the minimal weight of the deposit will still
affect the synchronization of the leafs that may be the cause of the blurred
segment on each frame.
If that does not work, I will use this camera for “special
effects”…
PS/ The picture
at the top of the page also shows the blur. But it certainly adds movement to
an otherwise very frozen composition where the man is lying down in the middle of the closed
street waiting for the parade to start.
December 8, 2019
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019
