The Film Retriever

This is a short review of the Seconik Microlite I picked up from a charity shop for just £3.5. The only resources i could find online was the manual where it can be downloaded from here . General The Seconik Microlite comes from the early '70s and it uses the long discontinued 640 1,35V Mercury cells. In my case I am using the SR44 silver oxide batteries providing 1.5V output together with a bit silver foil. As we are going to see, the 0,15V difference between the two cells can make a difference of about 1 stop under-exposure. Make sure that the silver foil is enough to provide a constant and steady touch of the base otherwise the meter's needle will be "jumping around" as a result of the battery not making contact. Features The Seconik Microlite is a CdS, reflected light reading only meter. It uses the simple "match the needles" principle and it is very easy to use. Just set the ASA and rotate the wheel until the needles coincide. The meter can be used in t...

Last summer (2009) the lens on my Canon EOS 5 ceased working so i was thinking of ways to finance a new lens for it. I was passing by a charity shop and there it was in the window , a Yashica T4 for £10. I could sell it on eBay for the ridiculous amount of £100 and buy a new lens for my Canon. I've run a couple of films through it and I can only say that this is a really -really- good camera producing top notch pictures. Is it worth the £100 price tag? I seriously doubt. The main selling point of this camera is of course the Carl Zeiss Tessar T* 35 f/3.5 lens. It has a nice blue coating and it is very sharp and controls flare very well. Here are some pictures of what this lens can do ( pic1 , pic2 , pic3 , pic4 ). Not bad at all. I've read somewhere on the internet that it is even sharper than the Contax T2 sonnar lens. Maybe, although i doubt about it. The lens can vignette a bit but i suppose it is normal with such a small front element. Overall it is a really nice lens ...

I came across this cute little camera in a car boot sale. After a hard bargain, my wife bought it for £4. Matt Denton has a great website where you can find some more info about this camera. I never knew that Ricoh was making rangefinders in the 70's. It just looked so cute and the size was right so for £4 i couldn't go wrong. After i got the results back from the lab, i was blown away from the quality of the pictures this camera can take. The camera offers a fully manual and a speed preferred automation. That is quite convenient if you think that most compact rangefinders of that time offered full automatic (Konica C35) or shutter preferred mode (Yashica). A 1.3v PX675 mercury cell powers the CdS lightmeter which is reasonably accurate. Since the PX675 has been long discontinued, i use a 1.5v SR44 battery which requires to compensate with the ASA dial (expose the 400ASA film as 320ASA) for the difference in voltage. The rangefinder patch is nice and visible. On the...

Searching on the internet, i was surprised to see how few resources you can find about the Zeiss Ikon 518/16 which has been such a popular model during the '50s. After working for almost half a year with my Zeiss, i thought that maybe it would be a good idea to write my own personal review about this great performer. I got this one as part of an exchange deal in a price that i feel ashamed to write. The guy sold me a Agfa Box camera which didn't work properly and since it was still in warranty i decided to give a couple of pounds extra and go for it. And i am glad i did. The camera seems to be in a very good condition. Size wise it is in the same league with the Zenit 12XP when unfolded but fold it up and you can put it in your coat's pocket. And that's not all. I am not exactly sure about the difference in weight, but it does feel much less heavy that the mighty Zenit. And remember, this is a 6X6 medium format camera. The lens on the camera is a 75mm - f/4.5 Nettar c...