Edmonton Photographic Historical Society

Kitstar 55-220 on left, Pentax 70-210 right I was in a camera store one day when the owner made me a very generous offer. He had a bin that held a selection of items priced at $1. He said I could take one item free, as the rest were bound for the garbage bin.      I had been plucking items from the $1 bin for weeks. There had been a great choice of everything photographic including zooms, wide-angle lenses, accessory optics, extension tubes, battery grips, cameras, cases, books, electronic flashes and filters.        But the selection had thinned out so there were just items I already had, items missing their battery doors, cases for cameras I never expected to find and lens cases that while nice I wouldn’t invest $1 to acquire. After all, all lenses and cameras are bulky enough without padding them with cases.      But I digress…      The store had another table that held items you could chose for $25. I had plucked just ...

Collecting can be a multiple step hobby.        First you have to happen across something you want to add to your collection. This can happen by reading about a particular camera and thinking, “That sounds like something I would like to have.” Or you can see the camera at a thrift store, or online, or at a camera club meeting and think again, “If I ever find one of those, I should snap it up.”        In my case I do a lot of looking and it is only when the second part of the process—the right price at the time—kicks in I snap things up, It sounds more like I am putting on airs, because I buy literally anything photographic if the price is right. And by price is right I mean too cheap to pass up.      Then I clean the new items up. This can take from minutes to hours, using cotton swabs (dry and soaked with water and/or alcohol), tooth brushes, paper towels and sometimes rags.      Next I research the item on the inter...

There is sometimes slight frustration in collecting multiple iterations of a single design. Kodak Al—a founding member of the Edmonton Photographic Historical Society—has had to find satisfaction not just in collecting only Kodak items, but being able to find satisfaction in the shutter/lens/finish differences in single camera designs made over the years.      Well the same feeling consumes you when you find a digital camera that has been made through APS film into digital versions. The Canon ELPH cameras share a common outward appearance—rounded corners, solid feel, speedy reaction to the zoom—while evolving slightly.        When I found this Canon PowerShot SD1200 is Digital ELPH I was initially saddened by thinking to myself, “I must have this already.” It was too good to not pick up. It came with a really excellent Roots™ brand case, a battery, a wrist strap and a 512 M SD card for $3. Imagine how happy I was to find I actually haven’t collected ...

This flash is a Braun VarioZoom 340 SCA.        Back in the March 2010 issue of AllPhotography (Issue-39) I did a write up on this flash—here it is. The Braun VarioZoom / SCA 340 flash initially drew my eye for the distinctive piece of silver spotted plastic hinged to its fresnel head. Playing with it briefly I could see this flapper thingy was to fire some of the flash power towards the subject when the head was pointed up to bounce off the ceiling.      This is the same idea as the photo- journalism trick of attaching a card to the head of a Vivitar 283 flash pointed at the ceiling. The result is a soft fill on the foreground while the background receives almost equal balanced lighting from the huge patch of soft light from the ceiling. If you are working really close the bopper card fills the eye sockets and can add a highlight to the eye- ball. I won’t go too far down the path of comparing the Vivitar 283 to the VarioZoom.     ...

     I recently bought an Ansco Anscoset rangefinder camera . It seemed the best choice of cameras that varied from autofocus SLR’s to really, really old German viewfinder cameras.        “Why?” you ask.      For starters it has a Rokkor 45 mm f/2.8 lens. Obviously that means it was built for Ansco by Minolta. It is actually the same camera as the Minolta Uniomat II.     According to McKeown’s Price Guide to Antique & Classic Cameras (11 edition) it has an Optiper-Uni-Citizen shutter as well as the Rokkor 45 mm lens used in all three Uniomat versions. The three Uniomat models can be told apart because— The first version (1960) isn’t marked with the Opiter-Uni-Citizen shutter, although the shutter acts the same way in all three models. We will return to the shutter later. The Uniomat II (1961) is marked with the Opiter-Uni-Citizen shutter on the lens barrel. The Uniomat III (1964) isn’t marked as such, but has the selenium ...

The Flash This Braun F34R flash came with an unrelated camera outfit. It is unusual because it also came with a charger. At least I assume the two are related, as both the flash and charger are labelled as F34R. The Power Supply Battery Compartment      The problem comes in that the charger is supposed to put out 6-VDC. The flash has a compartment for two AA cells. Since they are 1.5 VDC each, feeding the batteries 6-VDC would be a very bad idea. AC/B Switch      Then there is the matter the flash has an on/off switch that moves from an “AC” (in red) position—that also blocks the two-pin AC connector with a small piece of plastic—to a “B” (also in red). I am so confused…      I was trying to convince myself the AC 6-VDC power supply was to charge two Ni-Cad AA batteries—maybe while the flash was powered by the power supply—so both processes were somehow splitting the 6-VDC. Power Supply Connection      Then I had the nightmare...