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Showing posts from February, 2022

Half Frame, A Parallel Tiny World

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  I managed to get hold of an Olympus Pen-D at a very reasonable price. I've been checking these out on eBay for a year or two and the prices are usually overinflated for what is a nice but fairly basic camera. The collectors are after them because they form a unique little story in the development of compact cameras in the 50s and 60s. This is the story of half-frame 35mm cameras and the pursuit of these in the Japanese camera industry. Olympus produced a series of these called Olympus Pen cameras over a couple of decades right into the 1980s. I like the Pen-D because it has one of the best lenses in the series, a 6-element F.Zuiko 32mm f/1.9, and, while having an uncoupled meter on board, it doesn't need batteries, especially those mercury ones from the early 60s, as the meter is a selenium type. The meter uses the EV system that I'm used to from my Minolta A5; very handy as you set the aperture and speed rings relatively for the light level and then you can turn then as

Exercising Old Cameras

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  I dusted off my Rollei B35 the other day, realising I hadn't used it in over a year. This is not a good thing for old cameras which need their cogs and springs exercised once in a while to maintain them. I had had a couple of problems with the winding mechanism and so I decided to run a film through and see if there was a real problem with this. It turns out that patience is the solution and just taking a bit of time over making sure the film is secure in this tiny little camera means that all is well. I've posted a gallery of some of the best shots on my Lomography Home . Sure enough the little camera is alive and well and I got some good results on my roll of Fomapan 400, although the small aperture lens really does prefer sunny summer days.