Question:
~golf clap~
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Most boaters have a camera or two aboard. I’ve discovered a particularly honest camera shop in the Seattle area. My 35mm Contax SLR began behaving badly in the middle of a photo shoot yesterday. It seemed that nothing could be done to stop the film from automatically rewinding each time the shutter was triggered. Worse, this was the second time in the last few years I’d experienced this problem. Last time, a local camera shop "repaired" it, for about $150. The Contax was originally purchased, barely used, from Kenmore Camera. I thought I’d investigate the cost of upgrading to a newer model, or at least buying a cheap "back-up" body of some type that would accomodate my set of Zeiss lenses so I could keep working while the Contax languished in the shop, again. Kenmore Camera had a nice, used Contax with some whiz bang features. $600. After disclosing the current problem with my present Contax, I asked the salesperson whether they would allow something on trade. I detoured to the rest room while he showed my somewhat battered old veteran to his boss. After emerging from the rest room, I was relieved in more ways than one. "Your camera’s all fixed, sir!" said the salesperson. "What?!" "Yeah. There’s a little tiny spot on the bottom of the camera, and if you find something small enough to press in on that particular spot, it will reset the computer. That’s all you really needed all along. Here, I’ll show you exactly where that spot is. If this ever happens again, just take the end of a paper clip or something and you can reset this yourself. I’ll bet you had to change your batteries just before this happened, right?" "Right." " My boss said that once in a while an extremely low battery situation will trigger the situation you were experiencing." Wow. I was all ready to trade in my old camera and spend a few hundred bucks or so on the upgrade. They could have said, "Gee, we’re really sorry but since your camera isn’t working we’ll just have to take it in for parts and we’ll give you $25." Five minutes after I left the store the camera could have been up for sale, (button pushed), for at least a couple of hundred dollars. So instead of making a sale, they made a customer. Wise move. So wise, in fact, that I "rewarded" Kenmore Camera and celebrated my good fortune with the purchase of a new 19-35mm f/3.5-4.5 lens. They still made a deal, after all. I thought I’d pass the word along to any rec.boaters in the Puget Sound area: you’ll encounter remarkable honesty at Kenmore Camera. Wish they were a little closer to my house. (There were about six salespeople working there on Saturday, all were busy, and there was still a lineup. Easy to see why.)
Response:
Wow….good testimonial. I’ll keep them in mind. I bought my Sony Mavica from some nice Jewish boys at 21st Century Camera in Brooklyn some time ago. They delivered what they said they would at the price agreed to with excellent fast service and threw in the nicest leather camera case made for it I ever saw. They also had the lowest price in the huge camera shopper, too. "For you, we’ve got suuch a deal! Oy Vay!" He sounded exactly like Georgie Jessel….(c; Let’s plug their webpage, while we’ve found an honest one…. http://www.kcamera.com/ KENMORE CAMERA 18031 67th Ave Ne Kenmore WA 98028 425-485-7447 or toll free 1-888-485-7447 Open Monday – Friday 9:00-7:00, Saturday 9:00-5:00 PST There…..that’s better. Ok, which marine dealer or manufacturer would like our loyal attention??…..(c; Sell us a new boat! Pfat Chance, eh? – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -Most boaters have a camera or two aboard. I’ve discovered a particularly honest camera shop in the Seattle area. My 35mm Contax SLR began behaving badly in the middle of a photo shoot yesterday. It seemed that nothing could be done to stop the film from automatically rewinding each time the shutter was triggered. Worse, this was the second time in the last few years I’d experienced this problem. Last time, a local camera shop "repaired" it, for about $150. The Contax was originally purchased, barely used, from Kenmore Camera. I thought I’d investigate the cost of upgrading to a newer model, or at least buying a cheap "back-up" body of some type that would accomodate my set of Zeiss lenses so I could keep working while the Contax languished in the shop, again. Kenmore Camera had a nice, used Contax with some whiz bang features. $600. After disclosing the current problem with my present Contax, I asked the salesperson whether they would allow something on trade. I detoured to the rest room while he showed my somewhat battered old veteran to his boss. After emerging from the rest room, I was relieved in more ways than one. "Your camera’s all fixed, sir!" said the salesperson. "What?!" "Yeah. There’s a little tiny spot on the bottom of the camera, and if you find something small enough to press in on that particular spot, it will reset the computer. That’s all you really needed all along. Here, I’ll show you exactly where that spot is. If this ever happens again, just take the end of a paper clip or something and you can reset this yourself. I’ll bet you had to change your batteries just before this happened, right?" "Right." " My boss said that once in a while an extremely low battery situation will trigger the situation you were experiencing." Wow. I was all ready to trade in my old camera and spend a few hundred bucks or so on the upgrade. They could have said, "Gee, we’re really sorry but since your camera isn’t working we’ll just have to take it in for parts and we’ll give you $25." Five minutes after I left the store the camera could have been up for sale, (button pushed), for at least a couple of hundred dollars. So instead of making a sale, they made a customer. Wise move. So wise, in fact, that I "rewarded" Kenmore Camera and celebrated my good fortune with the purchase of a new 19-35mm f/3.5-4.5 lens. They still made a deal, after all. I thought I’d pass the word along to any rec.boaters in the Puget Sound area: you’ll encounter remarkable honesty at Kenmore Camera. Wish they were a little closer to my house. (There were about six salespeople working there on Saturday, all were busy, and there was still a lineup. Easy to see why.)
Larry
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I can’t STAND when newspapers/magazines take a digital or scanned picture, and blow up the zoom so much that the image gets pixelized. Don’t publications hire photo editors anymore? Nope, desk top publishing ended that proffession. Any idiot can do layout now.
"Desk top"? "Proffession"? Yep, any idiot can do layout now. — Skipper
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Nope, desk top publishing ended that proffession. Any idiot can do layout now. "Desk top"? "Proffession"? Yep, any idiot can do layout now.
Yeah, it used to require a bit of skill, making half tones and litho stips to the right size and orienting them onto the master sheet, now it’s all drag and drop and a click of the mouse. http://hometown.aol.com/hlaviation/
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Nope, desk top publishing ended that proffession. Any idiot can do layout now. "Desk top"? "Proffession"? Yep, any idiot can do layout now. Yeah, it used to require a bit of skill, making half tones and litho stips to the right size and orienting them onto the master sheet, now it’s all drag and drop and a click of the mouse. http://hometown.aol.com/hlaviation/
One can drag, drop and click all one likes, but if one doesn’t have artistic ability, skills and experience, whatever one designs will look like crap. We still use illustrators, typesetters, graphics artists, et cetera, because our clients demand professional-looking final product, not crapola from the amateur hour.
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The early Brownies were 117 film. My mother had a Brownie, which my father left in the woods on a hunting trip, Mom still complains. The quality of the pictures is still great. Both the clarity and the lifespan of those old B/W films. I think the 627 was 120 on a different roller package. Bill
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Your Brownie probably used 627 film. Same size film as 120 but on a different spool. Somebody sells it respooled for those that like using the older cameras. Nikon’s new 4500 promises to be a nice camera. The Canon G2 is also. Both are priced between $720 & $800. The Olympus E20 is also excellent, albeit at a premium price. Nikon’s new 5700 will compete with Olympus. Wide angle lenses are a problem. More objectionable than the size and weight of good quality wide angle attachments, is the flare. You have to use some sort of shielding device (hand’s okay) when the sun is in an unfavorable position. 4 mp or above is okay for outstanding prints. Mike One of my Brownies shot 120, maybe the Brownie Starflash. But one of my Brownies shot some oddball film, I think. The Russians are making a knock-off of that Yashica, sells new for a couple hundred buckeroos. I’m playing around with a Nikon 885, a digital camera. It takes decent photos if you don’t need giant enlargements, but I still like a 35 mm SLR better. That would be it.,..627…thanks…and I agree with your comments about digital cameras.
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I can’t STAND when newspapers/magazines take a digital or scanned picture, and blow up the zoom so much that the image gets pixelized. Don’t publications hire photo editors anymore?
Nope, desk top publishing ended that proffession. Any idiot can do layout now. http://hometown.aol.com/hlaviation/
Response:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Your Brownie probably used 627 film. Same size film as 120 but on a different spool. Somebody sells it respooled for those that like using the older cameras. Nikon’s new 4500 promises to be a nice camera. The Canon G2 is also. Both are priced between $720 & $800. The Olympus E20 is also excellent, albeit at a premium price. Nikon’s new 5700 will compete with Olympus. Wide angle lenses are a problem. More objectionable than the size and weight of good quality wide angle attachments, is the flare. You have to use some sort of shielding device (hand’s okay) when the sun is in an unfavorable position. 4 mp or above is okay for outstanding prints. Mike One of my Brownies shot 120, maybe the Brownie Starflash. But one of my Brownies shot some oddball film, I think. The Russians are making a knock-off of that Yashica, sells new for a couple hundred buckeroos. I’m playing around with a Nikon 885, a digital camera. It takes decent photos if you don’t need giant enlargements, but I still like a 35 mm SLR better.
That would be it.,..627…thanks…and I agree with your comments about digital cameras.
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The lens is a Yashkor 1:3.5 80mm Was this lens considered respectable?
It was ok, you got a fair deal on the gravel=;) I’ll drop into my camera store for the cards to try the bracketing and advice on how to do so.
The Grey Scale is cheap, the price of the MacBeth might shock you=;) They might have one you can walkoutside and use and shoot the roll of film for them to develope. Shoot E-6 chrome film and process normal so you can see the real uncompensated result unless you are used to reading negatives. Any time you get prints they’ve compensated for errors. C-41 gives you about 2 1/2 stops latitude where you can print generally acceptable results, chromes you can tell 1/4 stop. http://hometown.aol.com/hlaviation/
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The CCD’s will give the quality of print film. The drawback is the amount of memory and time to write it required. Some professional digital cameras are in the range, as the portrait photographer does not mind the wait. The Lexar Media stripes the data, so you have multiple eeprom’s being written at one time, just more cost. Plus the cost of energy to run the camera and write the Flash memory. Some will use the 1" mini hard drives. Is the reason that most portables are lower in definition. Bill
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Cool.. I have a great old Honeywell Spotmatic with a jammed shutter. Haven’t used it in at least a year… I seem to have gone digital. Dan I’m looking forward to the day when digital cameras can produce the type of resolution available from silver film. It’s probably right around the corner. You’d need a minimum of five megapixel resolution for a crisp 8×10. It’s available, but expensive. There doesn’t seem to be anything digital and affordable that will accomodate a range of interchangeable lenses, either. Canon has a new model out that takes the same lenses as the standard range of Canon SLRs, but the camera is around $2000. The short lens issue is a big one, though. It’s almost impossible to take good interior photos on a boat with anything longer than a 28mm lens. A 15mm works even better, (providing the camera can be kept on plane with the horizon) and I’ve yet to see a digital camera with a "wide angle" setting adequate for the job. Even the new Canon, previously mentioned, takes a wide angle lens and "adds" some mm to it because of issues I won’t get into here. A 28 mm lens becomes a 35 mm, and so forth. They may be out there. Some of these digital cameras are thousands of bucks, and I can’t say I’ve ever seriously looked at one in that price range. The $300-500 variety are basically just glorified Brownies (and if you can recognize that reference you’re not exactly young anymore.) 
My first camera was a Brownie that shot some weird size of roll film. With big flashbulbs, too.
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Cool.. I have a great old Honeywell Spotmatic with a jammed shutter. Haven’t used it in at least a year… I seem to have gone digital. Dan I’m looking forward to the day when digital cameras can produce the type of resolution available from silver film. It’s probably right around the corner.
Well, I mostly take snapshots. The Spotmatic takes awsome pics for a 30 year old camera, but it’s bulky and delicate, and the manual focus/zoom makes it difficult to use for spur-of-the-moment shots. The digicam (Olympus D-510z) works fine for 98% of my uses. Why I worry about quality is beyond me, really. Most of my published photos appear in black and white on newsprint. Doesn’t exactly call for high resolution.
I can’t STAND when newspapers/magazines take a digital or scanned picture, and blow up the zoom so much that the image gets pixelized. Don’t publications hire photo editors anymore? They may be out there. Some of these digital cameras are thousands of bucks, and I can’t say I’ve ever seriously looked at one in that price range. The $300-500 variety are basically just glorified Brownies (and if you can recognize that reference you’re not exactly young anymore.)
Hey, I recognize the reference, and I’m just around 30… but really, most point-n-shoot cameras, film or digital, are just glorified Brownies. — Beware of mathematicians and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of hell. — St. Augustine
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The Russians are making a knock-off of that Yashica, sells new for a couple hundred buckeroos.
The box wasn’t what made that camera worth while, it was the optics available for it, personnally I prefered the Rodenstock on the Rollie, but the Zeiss on the Yashica is also first rate, especially the f2,8 80mm. TLR cameras in general are a dime a dozen, there’s only a few that are valueable, and the Yashica with the 2,8 is one of them. To be honest though, I’ve never checked out any Russian optics. They had a hell of a laser program, so the technology is in the country, whether it made it into their photo industry is the question.. http://hometown.aol.com/hlaviation/
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You guys reminded me of an old Mad Magazine cartoon about taking pictures on the beach. There were two cameramen. One was Mr. Professional Photographer with cameras, light meters, carry bags, and tripods wearing one of those photojournalists vests with all the pockets stuffed with stuff. The other photog was one Alfred E Neuman with his disposable Fuji camera hanging from a string around his goofy head. When you flipped over the page, there were two pictures taken by the two photogs of a beautiful girl in a tiny bikini standing by a pier. Of course, the pictures were identical……(c; Larry
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Your Brownie probably used 627 film. Same size film as 120 but on a different spool. Somebody sells it respooled for those that like using the older cameras. Nikon’s new 4500 promises to be a nice camera. The Canon G2 is also. Both are priced between $720 & $800. The Olympus E20 is also excellent, albeit at a premium price. Nikon’s new 5700 will compete with Olympus. Wide angle lenses are a problem. More objectionable than the size and weight of good quality wide angle attachments, is the flare. You have to use some sort of shielding device (hand’s okay) when the sun is in an unfavorable position. 4 mp or above is okay for outstanding prints. Mike – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – One of my Brownies shot 120, maybe the Brownie Starflash. But one of my Brownies shot some oddball film, I think. The Russians are making a knock-off of that Yashica, sells new for a couple hundred buckeroos. I’m playing around with a Nikon 885, a digital camera. It takes decent photos if you don’t need giant enlargements, but I still like a 35 mm SLR better.
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The lens is a Yashkor 1:3.5 80mm Was this lens considered respectable? I’ll drop into my camera store for the cards to try the bracketing and advice on how to do so. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Oh my, if that had 2,8 Carl Zeiss lenses on it, it was worth more than a load of gravel. No, just run a bracket set on a grey card & a MacBeth color card so you know how to compensate for the exposure. Rerun a bracket set every hundred rolls or year whichever comes first. http://hometown.aol.com/hlaviation/
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Wonder if that was ‘120 film’? About 15 years ago I traded one third of a tandem truckload of gravel for an old Yashica-D twin lens medium format camera that shoots 2" x 2" negatives on 120 film.
Oh my, if that had 2,8 Carl Zeiss lenses on it, it was worth more than a load of gravel. More awkward to use than my Minolta SRT 200 SLR, but the quality of print is better.
Much better. Speaking of the Minolta…my shutter speed was diagnosed as being off at slow speeds and on the fast speeds. Not sure if it’s worth the trouble to have it repaired.
No, just run a bracket set on a grey card & a MacBeth color card so you know how to compensate for the exposure. Rerun a bracket set every hundred rolls or year whichever comes first. http://hometown.aol.com/hlaviation/
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Wonder if that was ‘120 film’? About 15 years ago I traded one third of a tandem truckload of gravel for an old Yashica-D twin lens medium format camera that shoots 2" x 2" negatives on 120 film. More awkward to use than my Minolta SRT 200 SLR, but the quality of print is better. Speaking of the Minolta…my shutter speed was diagnosed as being off at slow speeds and on the fast speeds. Not sure if it’s worth the trouble to have it repaired. My first camera was a Brownie that shot some weird size of roll film. With big flashbulbs, too.
One of my Brownies shot 120, maybe the Brownie Starflash. But one of my Brownies shot some oddball film, I think. The Russians are making a knock-off of that Yashica, sells new for a couple hundred buckeroos. I’m playing around with a Nikon 885, a digital camera. It takes decent photos if you don’t need giant enlargements, but I still like a 35 mm SLR better.
Response:
Wonder if that was ‘120 film’? About 15 years ago I traded one third of a tandem truckload of gravel for an old Yashica-D twin lens medium format camera that shoots 2" x 2" negatives on 120 film. More awkward to use than my Minolta SRT 200 SLR, but the quality of print is better. Speaking of the Minolta…my shutter speed was diagnosed as being off at slow speeds and on the fast speeds. Not sure if it’s worth the trouble to have it repaired. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – My first camera was a Brownie that shot some weird size of roll film. With big flashbulbs, too.
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Cool.. I have a great old Honeywell Spotmatic with a jammed shutter. Haven’t used it in at least a year… I seem to have gone digital. Dan I’m looking forward to the day when digital cameras can produce the type of resolution available from silver film. It’s probably right around the corner.
You’d need a minimum of five megapixel resolution for a crisp 8×10. It’s available, but expensive. There doesn’t seem to be anything digital and affordable that will accomodate a range of interchangeable lenses, either.
Canon has a new model out that takes the same lenses as the standard range of Canon SLRs, but the camera is around $2000. The short lens issue is a big one, though. It’s almost impossible to take good interior photos on a boat with anything longer than a 28mm lens. A 15mm works even better, (providing the camera can be kept on plane with the horizon) and I’ve yet to see a digital camera with a "wide angle" setting adequate for the job.
Even the new Canon, previously mentioned, takes a wide angle lens and "adds" some mm to it because of issues I won’t get into here. A 28 mm lens becomes a 35 mm, and so forth. They may be out there. Some of these digital cameras are thousands of bucks, and I can’t say I’ve ever seriously looked at one in that price range. The $300-500 variety are basically just glorified Brownies (and if you can recognize that reference you’re not exactly young anymore.)
My first camera was a Brownie that shot some weird size of roll film. With big flashbulbs, too.
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There doesn’t seem to be anything digital and affordable that will accomodate a range of interchangeable lenses, either.
Depends on your definition of affordable. There are digital plates available for 4×5 format and digital backs available for Hasselblad and other medium format cameras. It’s almost impossible to take good interior photos on a boat with anything longer than a 28mm lens.
I learned long ago that to do quality interior and architectural work requires a large format camera. I used to do a lot of it with a 4×5 monorail camera with a 6×7 120 back on it. The swings, tilts and shifts allow you to get the shots you want in smaller areas without the distortion. You can get into a Calumet rail, a decent quality 90mm (135 mm on a 4×5 =50mm on 35)lens, a couple of sheet film holders and a roll film back for around a grand. I’m not sure what the digital plates cost now. http://hometown.aol.com/hlaviation/
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Most boaters have a camera or two aboard. I’ve discovered a particularly honest camera shop in the Seattle area. <SNIP I thought I’d pass the word along to any rec.boaters in the Puget Sound area: you’ll encounter remarkable honesty at Kenmore Camera. Wish they were a little closer to my house. (There were about six salespeople working there on Saturday, all were busy, and there was still a lineup. Easy to see why.)
Thank you. I like rewarding the Good People since everyone seems to take great delight in punishing the Bad Ones. It’s true that word gets around, though. There’s an auto mechanic here in Vanc (Silva Automotive) that’s the most honest and knowledgeable I’ve ever found. He doesn’t advertise at all, his shop is WAY out of the way, but he’s always packed with business…
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I thought I’d pass the word along to any rec.boaters in the Puget Sound area: you’ll encounter remarkable honesty at Kenmore Camera. Wish they were a little closer to my house.
Cool.. I have a great old Honeywell Spotmatic with a jammed shutter. Haven’t used it in at least a year… I seem to have gone digital. Dan — I shoot for the moon, but sometimes I hit London — Werner von Braun
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Cool.. I have a great old Honeywell Spotmatic with a jammed shutter. Haven’t used it in at least a year… I seem to have gone digital. Dan
I’m looking forward to the day when digital cameras can produce the type of resolution available from silver film. It’s probably right around the corner. There doesn’t seem to be anything digital and affordable that will accomodate a range of interchangeable lenses, either. Why I worry about quality is beyond me, really. Most of my published photos appear in black and white on newsprint. Doesn’t exactly call for high resolution. The short lens issue is a big one, though. It’s almost impossible to take good interior photos on a boat with anything longer than a 28mm lens. A 15mm works even better, (providing the camera can be kept on plane with the horizon) and I’ve yet to see a digital camera with a "wide angle" setting adequate for the job. They may be out there. Some of these digital cameras are thousands of bucks, and I can’t say I’ve ever seriously looked at one in that price range. The $300-500 variety are basically just glorified Brownies (and if you can recognize that reference you’re not exactly young anymore.)
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Glad to hear about Kenmore Camera, I have been trying to find a place I could trust to repair my old Rollie. The last place I took it want big bucks just too look it over and tell me what was wrong. When I told them I would not part with the lenses they lost all interest in "repairing" it. I’ll menton your post when I take the camera in. Best Mike N
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Most boaters have a camera or two aboard. I’ve discovered a particularly honest camera shop in the Seattle area. My 35mm Contax SLR began behaving badly in the middle of a photo shoot yesterday. It seemed that nothing could be done to stop the film from automatically rewinding each time the shutter was triggered. Worse, this was the second time in the last few years I’d experienced this problem. Last time, a local camera shop "repaired" it, for about $150. The Contax was originally purchased, barely used, from Kenmore Camera. I thought I’d investigate the cost of upgrading to a newer model, or at least buying a cheap "back-up" body of some type that would accomodate my set of Zeiss lenses so I could keep working while the Contax languished in the shop, again. Kenmore Camera had a nice, used Contax with some whiz bang features. $600. After disclosing the current problem with my present Contax, I asked the salesperson whether they would allow something on trade. I detoured to the rest room while he showed my somewhat battered old veteran to his boss. After emerging from the rest room, I was relieved in more ways than one. "Your camera’s all fixed, sir!" said the salesperson. "What?!" "Yeah. There’s a little tiny spot on the bottom of the camera, and if you find something small enough to press in on that particular spot, it will reset the computer. That’s all you really needed all along. Here, I’ll show you exactly where that spot is. If this ever happens again, just take the end of a paper clip or something and you can reset this yourself. I’ll bet you had to change your batteries just before this happened, right?" "Right." " My boss said that once in a while an extremely low battery situation will trigger the situation you were experiencing." Wow. I was all ready to trade in my old camera and spend a few hundred bucks or so on the upgrade. They could have said, "Gee, we’re really sorry but since your camera isn’t working we’ll just have to take it in for parts and we’ll give you $25." Five minutes after I left the store the camera could have been up for sale, (button pushed), for at least a couple of hundred dollars. So instead of making a sale, they made a customer. Wise move. So wise, in fact, that I "rewarded" Kenmore Camera and celebrated my good fortune with the purchase of a new 19-35mm f/3.5-4.5 lens. They still made a deal, after all. I thought I’d pass the word along to any rec.boaters in the Puget Sound area: you’ll encounter remarkable honesty at Kenmore Camera. Wish they were a little closer to my house. (There were about six salespeople working there on Saturday, all were busy, and there was still a lineup. Easy to see why.)
Response:
Posted in 35mm Lenses | 
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Seriously, though, if you have to have a zoom, the only consumer-grade zoom I’ve ever shot that I’ve had any success with is the Nikkor 28-105 f/3.5-4.5D. High marks. It also has a decent "macro" (~1:2) capability. ~dudefish~ How about zooms? naw man, 50/1.8!!! still very fast, very very sharp (sharper than the 1.4 perhaps), and much cheaper. yeah i know, the 1.4 is faster, cheaper, sharper at f/1.4. For your first lens I would recommend a 50 mm 1.4 AFD Nikkor. For available light you will always find it handy. If you want something a little longer, then the 85 mm 1.8 AFD Nikkor would be a great lens also! Doug from Tumwater 
Cheers! Alan Myers 