Panorama Camera Collection: KMZ Horizont

My latest addition to my panorama camera collection, the first real panoramic camera for the last few years. The Horizont was produced between 1967 and 1973, a direct successor to the FT-2 (which I already own since 2007). This one is in quite good condition for the fact it is well in its 40's.

Other than the FT-2 the camera uses plain standard 135 film and I am looking forward to give it a spin.

KMZ Horizont

Made in USSR

Some more info about this camera:

• www.sovietcams.com
• camera-wiki.org

How to clean sticky rubber grips

The recently purchased used Nikon F70D with the panorama feature is more lessuseless because of the extreme sticky back. It must be a longterm reaction between rubber, sweat and humidity. Is not a pleasure to touch at all, your hands literally become sticky too. Anyway, someone recommended to have a try with alcohol, and I am not talking about having a drink while using the camera. I got some alcohol from the pharmacy for a few Euro's (actually the bottle costs half the price I bought the camera for) and started wiping, nothing to loose than the camera back. Indeed it works, though you must be prepared to to a lot of wiping and rubbing before a clean layer of rubber comes through the smudgy stuff. Can plan a good 1 hour before it is done.

I don't give any guarantee on this, not sure if the effect comes or whatever side-effect will surface.

Nikon F70D sticky back (red: before;green: after)

without words

Camera Collection: Praktica LTL3

Another rock solid metal camera, the Praktica LTL3 produced by VEB Pentacon between in Dresden between 1975 and 1978. I bought this for 25,- Euro's and it comes with this fantastic old-fashion Stasi look-alike observation bag. Plus 3 bw Agfa films for the Chinese market (from the mid 80's) with a DM (Deutsche Mark, defunct currency before 2001) price tag on it.

Praktica LTL3 with manual and accessories leaflet

Action Bag

Open Action Bag

Agfa XR100i China

References:

• http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Praktica_LTL_3mera-wiki.org/wiki/Praktica_LTL_3
• Manual: http://www.cameramanuals.org/praktica_pdf/praktica_ltl3.pdf
• http://www.praktica-collector.de/189_Praktica_LTL3.htm
• https://www.flickr.com/groups/praktica-ltl/

How to take picture - A basic guide from the 60's

This little leaflet (by DEWAG* in 1965) came with the original box the EXA500 was packed in. It is a basic guide how to take pictures by the camera maker explaining the basics of photography available at the 1960's in the former GDR (DDR). It is called 'erinnerungen sind eine kamera wert' ('memories are worth a camera') and written in rather old-fashion style.
Here the scanned version, hopefully not infringing any IP of a defunc company in history, this is meant for educational purpose and to keep camera history.

(*) DEWAG - Deutsche Werbe- und Anzeigengesellschaft, the governmental advertising agency, not the german company that operates under this name today. (Wikipedia)

Camera Collection: EXA 500

My latest addition to my camera collection. The EXA 500 was build in the former German Democratic Republic (DDR, aka East Germany) from 1968 to 1969. About 100.000 were built. The export version of the same camera was called EXAKTA 500, it got is name from the additional shutterspeed of 1/500, it is using a focal plane shutter. Solid metal handicraft work by lhagee founded back in 1921. The company was taken over by the government owned company VEB Pentacon. More in-deep info at the links in the reference section.

Unfortunately the model I bought does not work any more.

lhagee EX 500

References:

• https://www.cameraquest.com/exa500.htm
• http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Exa_500
• http://www.dresdner-kameras.de/ihagee_exakta/exa/exa.html
• http://www.ihagee.org/
• http://johns-old-cameras.blogspot.ro/2013/06/exa-500.html
• http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentacon and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentacon

Consumer Cameras of the 1960's

I collected quite some 'consumer' cameras from the 50's and 60's, just unwrapped these cameras to be displayed on a shelf or stored in a dry cabinet. Not worth a lot, but they all still work fine and its fun to look at these old clunky metal bodies.

Mostly Agfa Isoly, Click, Clack, Isolette, Silette and others. I did not touhch this box since moving back to Europe 15 months ago. Btw, they were all wrapped, I just set this up for the picture.

What a contradiction to take a box of film cameras with a digital camera and then fake the bw image.

Camera Collection

Why film can't be dead

We have the year 2014, most major companies (Agfa,..)gave up on producing film, though some smaller companies do so.

SLR cameras fron the 80's and 90's, basically most of the plastic bodies, go for a few Euros on ebay, but the prices medium format cameras achieve is breath taking. I don’t believe you buy eg. a Mamiya 6 for 900 Euros just to put it on a shelf. Except my panorama cameras, all the old cameras I buy, wont cost more than 50 Euro each.

Linhof Master Technika sold at 964 Euro

Mamiya 6 at 912 Euros

Linhof is certainly a well known brand, like Leica, it wont loose value, despite Linhof is still producing (non digital) cameras .