Archive for February, 2008

I’m Not Addicted

Posted in Photography on February 8th, 2008

I believe I’m not. However, I have bought two more cameras today. Another Trip 35 in good condition and a Canon Canonet 19 from 1960 in excellent condition. The Canonet has a 45mm f1.9 lens and a bottom advance lever! How funky is that. Check out a few pics here.

I fear this is only the begining…

edit following day: Ok so I just bought 3 more in the space of 5 minutes. They come from the same seller so iot made sense to grab them all. Total was about $50. The cameras are some old school Agfa, a Kalimar and a Praktica PL Nova 1.

Olympus Trip 35

Posted in Photography on February 7th, 2008

I couldn’t help myself and today bought another Vintage Rangefinder. This time it’s an Olympus Trip 35 which was more your average consumer P&S camera of its time. This unit sold more than 10 million between 1967 and 1984. The name trip suggests rather bluntly that it was a cheap P&S targeted at the family on holiday market.

It has a Zuiko 40/2.8 lens with 4 elements in 3 groups. From what I’ve read all you need to do is set it to A and snap away terrific photos. It might live up to it’s consumer friendly name. I’ll have to report back on the performance. In the mean time you can check out the flickr group here.

Canon QL17 GIII

Posted in Photography on February 6th, 2008

Earlier today I purchased a top of the range camera! I splurged a whopping US$35 on a Canon QL17 GIII which is the end of the line of their Canonet range. It’s a 1972 rangefinder camera sporting a 40mm f1.7 lens with 6 elements. Canon sold 1.2 million units making it the best selling rangefinder of the ’70’s and was often compared to the Leica CL.

Check out the specs here.

I’ve acquired a taste for these old cameras and I think I’ll be buying a few.

Street Photography

Posted in Photography on February 1st, 2008

Blink and you have missed a handful.

If you watch a person carefully for any amount of time you can deduct whether they are happy, sad, paranoid, nervous and a slew of other emotions. What you won’t see is the many emotions and expressions in between. A person eating a hamburger looks like a person eating a hamburger. However, take a dozen pictures of that person and you will see a dozen unique expressions you would never have expected.

The above best explains in one paragraph why I love street photography. You discover people you don’t know in ways that no one else sees.