The Old New Old Lens And The New New Old lens

If the Soviet* air force can refrain from doing barrel tolls around ELINT aircraft and conducting tip and run passes over air warfare destroyers**...at least for a few months more...we may get a chance to see yet another of the new old lenses from the LOMO company.

Currently anyone who wants to clap an 1840 lens onto their full-frame Nikon or Canon Digital camera is well served by the brass LOMO Petzval lenses that are in stock at Camera Electronic right now. They are superbly built, full of optical flaws, and set the user back 176 years. You won't get full value from them with an APS-C or micro 4/3 camera but the 24mm x 36mm sensor will do the trick.

Well, now they are collecting Kickstarter money for another venture - the reconstruction of the 64mm f:2.9 Daguerreotype Achromat in brass or black metal. This one has helical focusing rather than a rack and pinion wheel, but the same sort of Waterhouse stops for the aperture. And they have provided some art stops similar to the old Rodenstock Imagon. You'll get patterns in your background  wherever highlights predominate.

I am hoping that this lens will have more effect with the APS-C cameras - it would be perfect teamed with some of the monochrome options that exist on mirror-less cameras. Of course we still have the problem of sensitivity on the sensor - far too high for historic work. But we also have neutral density filters and the front element of this lens is not going to be all that big.

I already know one friend who has Kickstartered this one and I am keen to see if it is workable - forward to the past!

Note: The old new old Lomo Petzval lenses are in stock at Camera Electronic right now - the cabinet opposite from the tills. If you're a Canon or Nikon shooter ask to see them. You'll be charmed.

* Yes, yes, I know they call themselves Russians now...
** Roughly equivalent to threatening a rottweiler...

Cheap Cool

I have long been guilty of making fun of the Russian makers of the Lomo cameras for their product - and so far I have gotten away with it. I suspect that few people read the ads anyway.

Well, if you are reading this, here is another one - but oddly enough this is actually worth buying for the fun of it.

The Lubitel 166+ is the latest plastic copy of an old German design from the 1930's. Don't frown at the Russians - there were enough American, Japanese, and  Chinese copies of this sort of camera to sink a battleship. Indeed, I believe they used to pelt them down on the USS MARYLAND all the time - to no avail.

It takes 120 film, produces 56mm x 56mm square negatives or transparencies, and has a fully adjustable lens system. 5 shutter speeds plus bulb. 6 aperture stops. Flash synch at all speeds. Cable release socket.

It works. It's brand new and we're selling it off at half price with box and accessories.

If you are a photography student it will attract at least as much attention as the screw-mount Leica in the last posting but at a bargain price. If you wear revolutionary attire and smoke really bad cigarettes while carrying a pamphlet by Trotsky you will be remembered forever by the rest of the class...

Take The Wide View, Comrade

Whether your photographic dreams lie on the steppes of the Ukraine or the steps of Odessa, you will welcome this chance to own a part of Soviet photographic history. The FT-2 is one of the most ingenious things to come out of Russia that doesn't explode.

It is a metal-bodied 35mm panoramic camera that operates on strict socialist principles. ie. it works, but only after you study the propaganda for an hour and even then you are never sure if someone is looking over your shoulder. Occasionally users will disappear and none of the neighbours can say where they have gone. It has a red spirit level, and if that isn't Soviet, I don't know what is. I presume that is water in there - if it was actual spirits they would have drained it by now...

Okay, seriously, this takes 35mm film into its own especial cassettes - of which there is one on board - so you will need ebay up another one before you attempt to load it in a darkroom. Once it is fueled*, you close the front latches and start to wind on with the knob - watching the counter at the right side as it revolves. Quite what the mathematics of this are I do not know so practice with a dud film will be needed.

The two semaphore levers on the top control the three shutter speeds. It is a revolving lens with a fixed f:5 aperture so you calculate your exposure by looking at the light and following Party instructions. The level is fantastic - big and red. I am surprised it is not star-shaped. I would have done it that way...

Does it work? Presumably so - with the sort of reliability of a sickle or a hammer. Nothing much to go wrong with it.

Call in and embrace the New Era of Panoramas.

* Fuelling Soviet machinery can be exciting. Google up Nedelin and see what I mean...