I found another favorite camera that I had many years ago. My previous Ikoflex Ia was pristine, and had been stored in an attic with the receipt, wrapped in butcher paper and was unused. It was a great camera. This copy, though good, had absolutely nothing working on it this morning. I puttered around, cleaning this and that over and over. "It should work" - I told my self. I had everything solved by dinner. The lenses don't look as good as my first copy, but I will work on them some more.
Love your Ikoflex. I have both the Ia and IIa, both refurbished by a guy in Spain. I first saw an Ikoflex in a very old camera shop in Huntsville, AL a few years ago. I was immediately smitten by the styling, but the camera was in very poor condition. It started my hunt for nicer copies.
I just shot rolls through each in the past two weeks and have them out for developing now. They've produced excellent results before.
DougVaughn wrote:
Love your Ikoflex. I have both the Ia and IIa, both refurbished by a guy in Spain. I first saw an Ikoflex in a very old camera shop in Huntsville, AL a few years ago. I was immediately smitten by the styling, but the camera was in very poor condition. It started my hunt for nicer copies.
I just shot rolls through each in the past two weeks and have them out for developing now. They've produced excellent results before.
Doug, The first copy got me over 30 years ago with this fuji velvia shot. I never should have sold it.
Jim
Desmolicious wrote:
In the hey day of everyone throwing away their film gear, you could get a complete black G2 set (all the lenses) for just over $1k….
I finished the Ikoflex today. Replaced missing leathette, glued loose bits, finished polishing the lens, and cleaned the viewfinder and mirror. The mirror is a scary project, but I practiced on a parts Ikoflex first - which is leading me to re-silver the parts cameras mirror - this one's is fine and clean. I also got into leather conditioning, sewing, polishing, & non-stardard repair (stainless steel hinge & strap) for the original case. Loaded with Kentmere 400. Did all the same to a Yashicaflex.
Dug up my Pentax 120Mi. A fav but haven't used it in a while. Need something with a flash and date stamp for this weekend. A roll of HP5+ inside too! 🤩
I got this for $40 (plus shipping, which was almost as expensive) from a seller on Etsy a few weeks ago and I love it. The Vredeborch Felica, a medium-format toy camera from the late 1950s. It is similar in many ways to a Holga: two apertures (f8 and f16 in this case), scale focus, and a simple lens. Unlike the Holga it has two shutter speeds (the Holga has one), but they're both slow: 1/50 and 1/25, in line with the slow films of its era. It has a curved film plane to counteract the lens's distortion. It also has a built-in yellow filter, activated by a switch, that swings into place when you want more contrast or need to reduce incoming light by a stop.
It opens like a tin of biscuits; there's a switch on the bottom to unlock it and then you pry off the lid, which includes the innards of the camera, for loading and unloading your film.
This image below is gold-toned, the camera is actually silver in colour but I was playing with a new photo app on my iPhone that applied this filter.
Probably the camera I like using the most right now - the Pentax K2.
Aperture priority is just super useful sometimes. And match-needle metering that's activated by half-pressing the shutter, so no eye-poking for a left-eyed person like me - yay!
I will say though that it doesn't feel quite as smooth as the Nikon F2AS. The Nikon just has the silkiest film advance.. so maybe they're tied for my favorite camera right now
genjy wrote:
Dug up my Pentax 120Mi. A fav but haven't used it in a while. Need something with a flash and date stamp for this weekend. A roll of HP5+ inside too! 🤩
fjablo wrote:
Probably the camera I like using the most right now - the Pentax K2.
Aperture priority is just super useful sometimes. And match-needle metering that's activated by half-pressing the shutter, so no eye-poking for a left-eyed person like me - yay!
I will say though that it doesn't feel quite as smooth as the Nikon F2AS. The Nikon just has the silkiest film advance.. so maybe they're tied for my favorite camera right now
Fantastic camera, I should never have sold mine. It was black paint w brassing and gorgeous.
It also felt better built than my Nikon FM/FM2/FE2s.
Crazy thing is K1000s - a far inferior camera - go for far more money than K2s. That's what happens when the sheep follow youtubers who follow each other...
Desmolicious wrote:
Fantastic camera, I should never have sold mine. It was black paint w brassing and gorgeous.
It also felt better built than my Nikon FM/FM2/FE2s.
Crazy thing is K1000s - a far inferior camera - go for far more money than K2s. That's what happens when the sheep follow youtubers who follow each other...
I think the K series was the pinnacle of Pentax build quality and the size and weight of these cameras is perfect from a comfort and ergonomics standpoint.
It’s a pity that Pentax felt the need to follow the miniaturization trend initiated by Olympus and followed by all the Japanese brands for at least some of their range.
I have a nice serviced KX. My only complaint is that the focussing screen is on the dim side. Perhaps it is just an issue with my particular camera having a dirty screen, but I find focussing screens in other cameras of similar vintage easier to focus with.
If I ever see a nice K2 I would like to try it, but these cameras are thin on the ground.
My father's OM-10 was what got me into film SLRs. The lenses are just beautiful to handle - I still have the 28mm f2.8 and 50mm f3.5 Macro and occasionally use them adapted to Canon..
I've considered an OM-2 or OM-4 plenty of times, but I just don't like that shutter speed dial position..
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andrewd01 wrote:
I think the K series was the pinnacle of Pentax build quality and the size and weight of these cameras is perfect from a comfort and ergonomics standpoint.
It’s a pity that Pentax felt the need to follow the miniaturization trend initiated by Olympus and followed by all the Japanese brands for at least some of their range.
I have a nice serviced KX. My only complaint is that the focussing screen is on the dim side. Perhaps it is just an issue with my particular camera having a dirty screen, but I find focussing screens in other cameras of similar vintage easier to focus with.
If I ever see a nice K2 I would like to try it, but these cameras are thin on the ground. ...Show more →
It's a really nice and well-balanced camera. Agree that the size is perfect and smaller isn't necessarily better.
Most likely my hope is in vain, but I still hope that *someone* at Ricoh/Pentax realizes that they'd swim in money if they released a DSLR that was designed after the K2 / KX series (likely a bit bigger overall, but needs to be FF and significantly smaller than the K-1). Basically a Nikon Zf but as K-mount DSLR..
fjablo wrote:
It's a really nice and well-balanced camera. Agree that the size is perfect and smaller isn't necessarily better.
Most likely my hope is in vain, but I still hope that *someone* at Ricoh/Pentax realizes that they'd swim in money if they released a DSLR that was designed after the K2 / KX series (likely a bit bigger overall, but needs to be FF and significantly smaller than the K-1). Basically a Nikon Zf but as K-mount DSLR..
As much as I like my Nikon AF-D lenses, I wish when they made the Df that just ditched the screw drive to make it all smaller. But if anyone is going to make a body dedicated to legacy manual glass in this day and age it would be Ricoh.
ottokbre wrote:
As much as I like my Nikon AF-D lenses, I wish when they made the Df that just ditched the screw drive to make it all smaller. But if anyone is going to make a body dedicated to legacy manual glass in this day and age it would be Ricoh.
The screw drive is not what made that camera big. There are plenty of tiny film bodies that have it e.g the F65.
It’s mostly the LCD that adds a lot of thickness to the back. And of course you have to squeeze the battery, processor, etc in somewhere and that may take more space than a roll of film and a CR2 battery.
Somewhere between D5600 and D7200 is likely the smallest Nikon could have made this.
Today they could probably make it smaller than back then (processor draws less power, generates less heat, thinner LCD packages). I think Ricoh could make one not much bigger than the Pentax KP, if they wanted to.
I just found this Konica Z-up 70 VP. Has a 35-70 Konica lens. Looks brand new and came with box, case and two batteries. Got a roll of Portra 400 loaded. Hope to get some scans tomorrow.
