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Post by belgiumreporter on Nov 26, 2015 14:05:59 GMT -5
Here's the page in the 1961 catalogue The same catalogue, Leica did know it's place back then and prices where a bit more whitin reason.
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Post by belgiumreporter on Nov 24, 2015 13:58:11 GMT -5
Underwater cameras rarely turn up on classic cameras, so i tought i'd show you one or better two. This is the Calypso Nikkor II of 1969 vintage next to its somewhat more modern cousin the Coolpix AW 100. Underwater photography used to be a bit of an awkward hobby, unless you wanted to waste a lot of film you'd better learned how to zone focus and guestimate light underwater. These days are long gone now and you can shoot to your hearts desire with the digital offspring of the Calypso's and Nikonos cameras. The AW 100 won't go to depths of 50 meters like the Calypso, but neither do i ! This Calypso Nikkor II was only named that way for two years (69-'70), before and after that the underwater range of nikon was called Nikonos I- II- III- IV or V. The original camera in 1960 developed by the Belgium engineer Jean de Wauters for Jaques Cousteau of wich the Nikonos was developed, was called the "Calypso" (without the Nikkor suffix)
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Post by belgiumreporter on Nov 24, 2015 8:40:35 GMT -5
Ever since the Nikon F was introduced in 1959 there was a demand for "cheaper" nikon cameras. Nikon responded to these needs by introducing the nikkorex 35 in 1960. There was no nikon badge on the camera as nikon wanted to make clear that there's a significant diffrence between the F and the nikkorex. The catalogue price for an F with 50mm f2 and plain pentaperism was in 1960 15.500 Belgium francs, while the nikkorex with build in meter and a fixed 50mm f2.5 was 5900 Belgium francs allmost a third of the price of the F ! Still there was no comparison possible between the two the nikkorex was a recipe for disaster cheaply build( by Mamiya) the nikkorexes all five versions of them ( 35-35II-F-zoom and 35 auto) turned out to be very unreliable cameras that did more damage than good for the Nikon brand.It took Nikon till 1965 to come up with a decent "budget" nikon in the form of the nikkormat Ft wich was basicly a metered F body with fixed prism. This time they've got it right, though "budget must be seen in perspective, rather less expensive. In the catalogue of 1966 the Ftn had a list price of 23.400 Belgium francs, while the nikkormat listed at 18.500 Bfr ( same as a pentax spotmatic) The nikkormat line ran from 1965'till 1978 by wich time, in 1977 the EL2 finally recieved the Nikon badge wich it deserved in 1978 the nikon FE replaced it and made an end to the line of nikkormats. Nikon never made the same mistake again and even their 1979 budget EM series turned out to be fine cameras. Nikkorex a recipe for disaster the first 1960-35 and the last 1964-auto 35 Nikkormat FT, Ft2, EL, ELw and Nikon EL The workhorses for pro's and amateurs alike. Instead of buying a Tn prism for my F i got myselve a (black) Nikkormat Ft2 this gave me the advantage of having two body's wich in 1974 came in very handy when using color and B&W film.
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Post by belgiumreporter on Nov 23, 2015 5:29:05 GMT -5
I can still remember drooling over photographic equipment catalogues as a young boy. At the age of ten i had a Voigtlander Bessy camera. One of my "richer" friends had the spotmatic with standard and 135mm takumar lenses needless to say i was a bit envious. So these catalogues where some kind of confort as they allowed me to dream wich camera i would choose if i ever had the money... Note on the left page, canon in those days, was nowhere in cutting edge technology and still relied on metering light with a seperate build in light meter on their FX model, we had to wait another year untill they came up with the pellix (nice idea but a lot of flaws) and somewhat later the FT.But then again it took most camera manufacturerers untill 1965 to come up with TTL metring. Should any of you wonder, the catalogue is in Dutch ( that's what we speak over here :-) )
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Post by belgiumreporter on Nov 21, 2015 8:21:28 GMT -5
One more to make my collection complete. The Pentax spotmatic F launched in 1973 was a further developement of the line of spotmatics wich started in 1964. In this version it finally recieved (automatic) open aperture metering. There's no metering switch wich means the meter is allways on exept if lightlevels go below EV2 for a while so unless you want to drain the battery it was advisable to keep a lens cap at hand. I like these pentaxes because of their significance in camea history, along with other well made japanese cameras they wiped away (west) German competition. When launched in the early sixties the public wasn't very keen on japanese "toys" but soon, throughout the sixties and finally the early seventies these kind of cameras established their place and fame amongst amateurs and professionals. The fact that half a century later these cameras still work without to much problems only proves the Japanese camera craftmanship (and lens making) was on a very high level. I will never turn down a fine all mechanical slr certainly not at the bargain prices at wich they can be had right now ( how long will these low prices last, early 50'ties Japanese slr's are getting very expensive) On a strange note, the spotmatic SP1000 and SP500 never had spotmatic written on them, i can't seem to figure out why...maybe some Pentax specialist can help me out with this.
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Post by belgiumreporter on Nov 17, 2015 16:06:00 GMT -5
I presume that you have tried playing a Saxophone before.......out of curiosity what maker is it? I have a soft spot for older Alto Saxophones and have one under restoration at the moment, not sure of the maker without more research. Mine is down for a complete overhaul, complete clean, lacquer and oil, new leather seals, finger tip rests etc, and a new adjustable playing strap. It is fitted with a metal mouthpiece, but takes trimmed standard reeds, after a struggle at first to get any notes!It produces overtones far to easily at the moment, but that's down to the player. Scale is good. but a bit sharp on upper notes. I think it dates from the 1920's at earliest. Not up to Jazz standard, but I can get a tune out of it, which is more than I can on other instruments. Stephen. Stephen, it is an B&S Markneukirchen Klingental series 500 wich can be dated back to 2002. Markneukirchen Klingetal is a (former) East German instrument maker wich kept on producing brass and woodwind instruments after the fall of the wall. They discontinued their complete sax range in 2005. A lot of people like these saxes and they're supposed to (with the right read) give a nice jazzy sound others hate them... I was able to blow two notes out of it but that was as far as i've got with the memories of music class some 50 years ago. I did find this you tuber very helpfull in bringing back some memories and basics of sax playing :
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Post by belgiumreporter on Nov 16, 2015 16:45:56 GMT -5
I do like to collect the odd camera that comes along when searching after the serious stuff. Though i am not in to the colourfull plasticy types. My interest goes out more to "swivel" body digital cameras like the Agfa Ephoto1280 wich started the trend soon followed by Nikon, Minolta and Contax. But even those are not easely found at rock bottom prices. Don't underestimate "simple" colourfull cameras though, if you see what prices beau brownies fetch in auctions i think they seem to be a good investment and if not for the money they're still fun to look at.
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Post by belgiumreporter on Nov 11, 2015 10:15:02 GMT -5
Shiny objects? A new Paul Desmond, I say!! Hansz, it'll probably take forever for me to blow "take five" out of that horn, but meanwhile i can enjoy taking pictures of it :-)
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Post by belgiumreporter on Nov 10, 2015 15:04:21 GMT -5
Hello Johnbear and wellcome to this forum. i've cheked out your website nicely constructed site and really informative. i admire your stubborness in not willing to pay more than 23 £ for a camera :-)( i'm a bit jealous on that) still you've got a nice collection toghether and it seems you put a lot of work in documenting each camera. I can higly recommend other forum members to have a look at your web site it's worth it !
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Post by belgiumreporter on Nov 10, 2015 5:25:09 GMT -5
On one of my recent camera hunts i came home with somemore than i've expected... The local recycling store had a " vintage electronics special" so a minolta 5000i with two lenses, a sekonic spot meter,an akai gx77 reel to reel deck and a B&O reciever changed hands all for a bit less than 40 €. It allways puzzles me how good (but not high end) gear falls from grace so deeply that it can be picked up for next to nothing. Is it really the abundance of such goods that makes up the price? The sax is another story, it took some explaining to my wife how on earth this had something to do with me collecting cameras, guess i just can't resist shiny objects???
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Post by belgiumreporter on Nov 8, 2015 8:33:29 GMT -5
Recently i came across this handsome pontiac "bloc métal" 45 b it wasn't to expensive and even though i am not in to folders i've bought it because the styling is so very close to another pontiac in my 35mm collection (the super lynx I). There isn't an abundance of French cameras so i thought they would make a nice pair. From what i can see Pontiac made their top plates out of cast (rather than pressed) aluminum wich gives them a special look. I need to (further) polish the 45b some more but for that i need to find my dremel that i seem to have put away a little to well. The lens on this one is the som bérthiot 105mm/3,5 with a prontor shutter The dept of field scale, finder and accesoire shoe (wich looks like it has been machened out of the cast metal) The pontiac super lynx with similar styling
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Post by belgiumreporter on Nov 7, 2015 14:31:13 GMT -5
The king regula ctl 2000 is an interesting and rare camera.There isn't much to be found on the net about these cameras and what i did find wasn't very conclusive. Launched in 1966 it wasn't the first slr with trough the lens metering or 1/2000th top shutter speed but the iso 8-6400 and 1/125 sync speed were special features in those days.Completely made and assembled in West Germany by a family run buisness, it should have had good credentials as being a quality camera. However in it's 7 years of production it never sold well for a number of reasons ( image, poor quality finish,Japanese competition,price range...). The ctl 2000 is often referred to as a poor man's leicaflex and Leitz aledgedly brought King to court for infringements of Leitz patents. However there isn't hard evidence to be found if this actually happened and if so, what the outcome of the court case was.Some say there wasn't any conviction, others claim King had to pay a million Deutch marks, wich was the main cause of King going out of buisness... Comparing the ctl2000 with a leicaflex of that era i wouldn't call it a copy. It's more like comparing a zorki 4 to a leica M 3 they look a somewhat alike but that's where the comparison ends. Still the King regula ctl2000 has gained some cult status and if you happen to find one chances are it'll cost you twice(or more) the price of a leicaflex. The King regula ctl2000 in full glory Next to its so called "example" the leicaflex,though this is an sl 2 wich appeared some 6 years later than the regula, bear in mind at the time of introduction of the regula, leicaflexes didn't have through the lens metering .
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Post by belgiumreporter on Oct 26, 2015 15:40:24 GMT -5
I find the display a bit museum unworthy, there's no structure in the display. it seems more like we've got a bunsh of old camera"s let's put them in the museum. We HAD a nice camera museum here in Antwerp it was a joy to visit if you were interested in classic camera's. They had everything from the first camera's to some real special leica and alpa stuff (amongst many other). But due to relocation of the museum and a diffrent policy the camera's were put in storage in favour of photographic exhibitions, so it became a "photo" museum and gallery rather than a camera museum. On the whole i think "camera" museums are hard to find so i had to make my own private collection ;-)
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Post by belgiumreporter on Oct 22, 2015 15:52:35 GMT -5
Apples in B&W
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Post by belgiumreporter on Oct 21, 2015 5:43:38 GMT -5
Ahh, so i'm not the only one who thinks there's little action on the forum...I have been busy with lots of non camera related things lately. Still i've tryed to stir things up with posting as much as i could. I feel a bit unconfortable with the fact so many of my posts keep sticking on top of the lists, and the fact that most of my latest posts weren't (classic) camera related. I wonder what people might think and that's why i'm holding a bit back, i don't want this forum to become my personal blog. Now that my collection is as good as complete i find it increasingly difficult to spend money on camera's, the few ones i would still like to have are rather expensive, with a house that needs further rebuilding i can't justify buying them. I do pick up what comes along the way at silly low prices but that implies i need space to put it all, or try to resell it with a profit,however neither of the two options are easy... Anyway please let me know if you've had enough of my non camera related posts, if not i'll keep stalking this forum and maybe now and then i'll show some camera stuff.
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