Edmonton Photographic Historical Society

This Kiron 70-150 mm f/4 Macro1:4MC zoom was made by Kino Precision, Japan in 1980. The same company made both 1.5x and 2x extenders for this lens. It is a lovely design featuring a 52 mm filter size —common to many normal lenses—and a constant f/4 at all zoom positions. The f/stops are full stops from f/4 to f/5.6 and from f/16 to f/22 while the other apertures are half stops apart. FOCAL LENGTH RANGE:          70mm - 150mm [2.1X zoom ratio] DIAGONAL ANGLE OF VIEW: 34.3° @ 70mm - 16.4° @ 150mm   LENS CONSTRUCTION: 13 elements in 9 groups WEIGHT (Olympus OM Mount): 460 g (with hood, front and rear caps) The macro range sets in below the three foot (0.9 m) marked distance at all zoom positions but you only get to the minimum 1:4 ratio at 150 mm. Macro starts around a 1:8 macro range at 70 mm. This is the only lens I have ever collected that has the original price sticker on the rear cap. At least I assume it is the original price sticker… It ha...

  I came across this clipping in a pocket of a gadget bag containing a 1985 Minolta Maxxum 7000.  Titled Approximate Night Exposures , I would of thought it would have been cut from a photography magazine.   Except on the back there is part of an ad for an Alberta Ballet Lottery for a Family Vacation. That would make me suspect the clipping is from a local publication. The quality of the paper would make me suspect it was a magazine, rather than a newspaper. The fact the chart only has films from 50 to 400 ISO would also help a bit in narrowing down the decade. ISO 1000 film did eventually show up. It might be easier to check with the Alberta Ballet for who they advertised “Lottery License Number R36608” with. I don’t suspect the Alberta Lottery regulator would want to help. Would any of you happen to be able to help? Have you seen this chart before? Or an article containing this chart? Or a ballet…?

Here are three automatic electronic flash that are all powered by two AA batteries. Starting at the left we have the Image CZ65. It has a remarkable assortment of features compared to the other two. It has two Auto ranges as well as manual.  It tilts.  It has four zoom positions.  It might even be thyristerized, able to make many more exposures quickly with the same two AA batteries as the other two flash. On the minus side it doesn’t have a separate PC cable although it does have a socket for a cable on its hotshoe. The middle flash is a Sunpak auto 170. It has one auto range and manual. It has a short PC cable held in a grove in the back as well as a separate red button on the back of the hotshoe (facing the operator when mounted on the camera). It also has a hotshoe connector. The right flash is a Sunpak auto 140 . It has one auto range and manual. It shares the PC cable arrangement of the Sunpak 170 but depends on you shorting the tip on a metal post to manually fire...

  This Vivitar 35AF camera was so cheap it was almost being given away. When first picked up, the lens cover —covering a 34 mm f/3.8 lens—could be popped open with that sliding switch under the “Auto Focus/ DX” lettering. Then the shutter button actually fired the shutter! But then the camera was done. Looking at the battery hatch door you could see the door has to be pushed towards the hinge to get it to release and open. Trouble was the door was bulging up and the hatch couldn’t be released. Obviously the batteries had leaked and the camera would not work until fresh batteries could be installed.      A short time tapping on the door gently with a small soft-faced hobby hammer—over a garbage can to catch the fine white powder—released the hatch cover enough it could be opened. A revolting plug of leaked electrolyte was revealed and could be gently scraped off. One of the two AA batteries was relatively intact and fell out with more gentle tapping on the camera body...

There was a time selftimers were not built into cameras. So accessory selftimers were available that used the cameras cable release sockets. Since we collected two selftimers at the same place and time, we are going to present them at the same time. The German Autoknips IV came in a two tone plastic box. The Japanese Asahi Pentax Selftimer came in a colourful cardboard box. Starting with the Autoknips you find a chrome finished box with a large pivoting arm with a very red spot. We will get to the mounting and the cameras the selftimer was designed for when we get to the instructions we found on the internet. In a side view you can see the pivoting arm has two raised balls your fingers can clamp to twist the arm (clockwise) until the clockwork insides are as wound as you prefer. Then you move that side mounted pointer towards the front to lock everything in the ready state. You screw the threaded end of the unit (on the right) into your camera’s cable release socket. You can twist the ...