Canon Eos 55 Qd – In the land of Heartquakes (Part One)

Lately I published very few posts on this blog. For various reasons I didn’t use film during the first months of this year, but I’m going to get it back, so I’m starting here a series of posts where I will talk about two Canon slrs, used with different films and lenses. The Eos 3000n canon has already been known on these “pages”, while today I propose the Eos 55 Qd. Recently, I returned to L’Aquila for the official presentation of the State of Things, the great collective project of documentary and social photography to which I had the honor and the pleasure of attending (I warmly invite you to check it). I have returned to places of suffering that has been going on for nearly 8 years, renewed since last August by the new earthquake swarm that hit the central Apennines.

End of the year post: Praktica Bc1

It has been a long and intense year, the one that is about to end. This blog has grown thanks to the many readers around the world. Many things have happened and others will shortly happen. The most important was the Darkroom I built, where finally be able to print the best shots made with film. Soon, I will also print using ancient techniques, such as Platinum/Palladium and Cyanotype, when will be ready the U.V. contact printer that I’m building. Thanks to contact printing, I’ll be able to better use large format cameras too. Already a couple (M.P.P. Mark VIII 4″x 5″ and Reality so Subtle pinhole 4″x 5″) are already waiting to be used. But it will also, print (via internegative) images from digital files. So even intangible electronic images will become real. This post by the end of the year is dedicated to another East Europe’s camera, but this time it is not only manual, but electronics controlled with aperture priority exposure: the Praktica Bc1.

The cute little Werra & the… Pyramid!

It is true: we’re back in the …. Eastern Europe’s phase. The fact is that the cameras and film rolls accumulate, remain there for a while in half use and then finally, it is their moment to be finished, developed and published. So, it  happens that concentrated within a period, similar types or even different versions of the same models. This time it is the turn of the small, but very pretty, Werra 1. Obviously, produced in the former GDR. Simple, spartan (no range finder or meter), but well performing (Carl Zeiss Tessar 50mm f/2.8 lens) and with some  super-technologic “surprise”, at least for the time.

Kodak Retina IB (Typ 019 Ausf II) Almost Done With Retinas

Another Kodak Retina …? Yes, yes…. I know guys, but I warned you that I still had a couple of them in the queue to be tested. Now only the IIa remains (still not loaded yet), and then I’ll stop….. maybe… 😉 This IB, however, has long been around in the house (and in the repairman office), because while being in superb cosmetic condition , the shutter was frozen. Once repaired, however had to wait its turn patiently, until it reached its moment.

177 Years – Photography Day Post: Agfa Silette L

Okay guys, I wrote that for this month (probably) there would be no other post, but just  today marks the 177th anniversary of our beloved Art: the Photography! And so, since yesterday I had developed and scanned a new film roll, here I am again. It was at least a year that a beautiful Agfa Silette L rested sadly in a closet. Seemed to work perfectly, except the  focus ring … At first I thought it was the “usual” problem of hardened lubricant that plagues many vintage Agfa cameras, but once removed the front of the lens I realized that it was simply mounted incorrectly.

The Kodak Retina IIIc (Typ 021 Ausf I) – Almost a Queen

Okay, do not say I did not warn you! Most of my purchases in recent months has focused on Kodak Retina and Retinette cameras. As a result, even my shots and post on this blog … reflect this trend. This time, however, let’s consider one of the “Top” models of the range: the Retina IIIc (Typ 021 Ausf I). Laboriously, and after a long search, I managed to win one at an affordable price. In fact, many collectors and enthusiasts, eagerly, are grabbing these jewels of photography, conyinuosly raising the prices. Indeed, the aesthetics, the level of construction and the photographic performance, give their holder the feeling of holding in your hands something really valuable.

Ferrania Eura: The Italian Holga

Ferrania is a brand that all Italians of a certain age know, at least also in name only, because until the ’70s the advertising signs and neon signs appeared often in alignment with the photographers “shops” even in the remotest villages. Who then did not use at these times at least one Ferrania film roll? In short, it was kind of our local Kodak. Currently, this brand has returned to the attention of analogue photography enthusiasts with a crowdfunding operation to reactivate the film production lines once famous both in Italy and abroad. Anyway, is not the film that I want to speak about here, but a medium format camera: Ferrania Eura. Built since 1959/early ’60s, the Eura was a kind of Italian Holga, but made in a more refined and reliable way as well, with a decidedly higher level design.

I Developed it a little late… Minox 35 GT & Kentmere 100

About a year ago, I got a nice Minox GT camera and I took some rolls of film straightaway. The second and third have already seen them in these posts. The first one  however, remained hidden somewhere, patiently waiting for me to find the time to handle it. In fact, there was the problem of the film tail completely rewound in the cartridge: the first empirical attempts, however, had not brought good results and the “Film Picker” I had purchased had disappeared during the move. Well … a long story.

A Walk on Appia Antica – Images from the Past caught with a Retinette IIB

Walking along the Via Appia Antica, in Rome, it’s like taking a leap into the past. Nearby, the modern city with all its noise and its concrete while before our eyes they lie green fields, luxury villas half-hidden among the ancient trees and above all, to the sides of the old road (often with the original flooring), construction of the Roman era, statues, temples and votive plaques. That alone could be enough to bring the visitor back in time more than twenty centuries but, sometimes, you can do amazing meetings, which return a scenario worthy of those immortalized by landscape painters of the nineteenth century.

Fed 5 and Jupiter 8… By The Sea

Fed, along with Zorki and Zenit is one of the best known Soviets brand by photography enthusiasts. Since the early 30’s  of the twentieth century in fact, have been built millions and millions of  Fed cameras. Just to give an idea, the initial model that was simply called “Fed” (ФЭД), since 1934 and until 1955, were produced (in many variations) about 720,000 copies, while for the model 5 in production from 1977 to 1990, I have no data  (according to the website Sovietcams, which I suggest to refer to anyone interested in identifying and learn more about these cameras) but are surely made in hundres of thousands copies.