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Fixed
• 20mm f/3.3 and 21mm f/3.3
• 28mm f/2.8 and 35mm f/2.8
• 50mm f/2 and 50mm f/1.7
• 50mm f/1.4 and 55mm f/1.2
• 60mm Macro Yashinon f/2.8
• 135mm f/2.8 and 200mm f/4
• 300mm f/5.6
• 600mm f/8 and 800mm f/8
• 500mm f/8 and 1000mm f/11

Zoom
• f/3.5 45-135 mm and f/4.5 75-230mm

I remember back in 1974 I was looking to get a better camera. The Yashica Electro GSN was one of the candidates. The advertised low-light capabilities of the GSN was what appealed to me the most, and that it was a rangefinder with a fixed lens was what appealed to me least. So I decided to go with a SLR because I liked the idea of being able to see exactly what I was shooting. Still I did think it was a attractive camera and if I’d had the money at the time I might have gotten one along with a lot of the cameras that were on the market.

Well, about a year ago after having gone digital for several years I got to missing film. I’d heard that film cameras could be had today for very small amounts so I went looking on Ebay. One of the first cameras I got was one of the Yashica Electro GSN’s. Mine was in excellent shape with a battery adapter. In wanting to learn more about my new purchase I found that the Electro does have a great reputation and a loyal following. And while so far my use of it has been limited I can see why it is so well-liked. The lens is sharp and the aperture priority auto exposure seems very accurate. Since a lot of other people have written well about the Yashica Electros I am just going to give links to what I think are two of the best accounts:

Karen Nakamura on the Yashica Electro GSN

Yashica Electro GSN from Matt’s Classic Cameras

And lastly here are a few images.

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Agfa introduced Rapid film in 1964. It was supposed to be easier to load than regular 35mm film. Unfortunately for Agfa, Kodak 126 film propelled by the poplar Instamatic Cameras eclipsed the Rapid Film System. By the end of the 60′s even Agfa was selling 126 cameras. With the Rapid System you need two cassettes. One with film and one to take up the film. You place both cassettes in the camera and slide the film leader into the empty cassette and close the camera. When you are finished you remove the take-up cassette for processing. There is no rewinding. With this system the film also is protected if you should open the back of the camera before the roll is finished. The Cassettes also have a metal plate that sets the film speed for cameras that are capable of reading it. The Rapid cassettes use standard 35mm film and it is easy to reload an empty cassette. For me Rapid film is far and away the easiest of the obsolete film systems to work with.

I bought the Agfa Isomat Rapid for a few dollars on Ebay because it had a couple of Rapid Film Cassettes that I needed for Yashica half frame. It is a funny thing that on Ebay often a camera with a Rapid cassette will sell for less than people are selling the casssettes for by themselves. When I got it it appeared that the shutter would not fire which didn’t bother me since I hadn’t bought the camera to use. Lately I have been interested in using the square format. When looking to see if there were any 35mm cameras that did the square format I saw the Isomat Rapid mentioned. I thought it was too bad that the one I had appeared not to work. However in reading further I found that this camera has to be loaded with film and have the back closed for the shutter to work. And when I loaded the film and closed the back the Agfa Isomat Rapid did work.

The Agfa Isomat Rapid came out in 1965. It has a 38 mm 3-element Color-Agnar f:4.5 lens. The lens is zone focus either by symbols at the top of the lens or by a length scale at the bottom. It has two exposure modes, automatic and flash. The mode is set by a lever upper-right of the lens. For automatic exposure set the lever to “A” and the camera will automatically select an aperture setting. At automatic the shutter is fixed at 1/70. In automatic mode when you press the shutter halfway you will see a green light in the viewfinder if the exposure is okay. If not okay there will be a red light. The exposure system is powered by a selenium cell so no batteries are needed. Surprisingly the cell in my camera still works. For the flash mode you use the lever to set an aperature that will work with your flash. The shutter speed in the flash mode is 1/30.

So far I have just ran a couple of rolls of Legacy Pro 100 b&w film throught the Isomat. I took two feet of bulk film and pushed it into the Rapid cassette. This yields 16 square images. I have only used the automatic mode and found it gave good results. I haven’t been too particular about the focusing going mostly by the symbols. I do think that with some care this lens could give reasonably sharp results. So far I have been pleased with the ease of use of the Isomat and the images it gives. I imagine it will be a camera that will get regular use. If you would like some square images in 35 mm along with a kinda interesting camera then the Agfa Isomat Rapid can often be found for less than $10 on Ebay. You will probably need to ask the dealer about the cassettes since they usually don’t mention them. Anyway here are some images.

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Technically there isn’t much to the Lex35. It has one shutter speed which I would guess to be around 1/125, and one aperture that looks like f11. While it may sound funny to talk about build quality with a camera of this sort, the Lex35 does seem to be a little sturdier than most cheap plastic cameras. The film advance and rewind mechanism are quite good. One feature that this camera has is a fake panorama mode. There is a sliding switch on the back of the camera that turns panorama mode on and off. You can see the change of modes in the viewfinder. When scanning the negatives sometimes I like to leave the black upper and lower borders that this mode makes.

Overall I like the Lex35. My favorite way to use it is to load it with some cheap bulk black & white film like Legacy Pro 100 and then to go out and shoot whatever catches my eye. It is relaxing just take in what is in the viewfinder and not think about focusing and exposure. Hopefully the gallery will give some idea of what the Lex35 can do.

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The Holga HL-C is a Holga lens with an adapter for mounting it on your Canon digital camera.

The lens is the same as the film Holga with the exception of the aperature.  The aperature on Holga HL-C is made of one center hole surrounded by a ring as smaller holes.  Not the best image, however this is what the aperature looks like.

The ring of holes is there to produce vignetting. The vignetting effect is supposed to work best with a fullframe sensor.  With the APS-C sensor that I use vignetting is inconsistent.  Still even with the APS sensor the Holga HL-C does produce increased softness to the edges and gives images an often lovely diffused glow.

I think the main issue with the Holga HL-C is that due to the small aperature it is difficult to see much through the viewfinder.  I do believe that the effective aperture for this lens is much smaller than f8.  I usually need to use an ISO of 800 even in fairly bright light to get an effective hand-held shutter speed.  Still with practice it is possible to get some nice images with this lens.  One time when I very much like to use this lens is when there is harsh sunlight of the type that we get here in Illinois at mid-day.  The Holga HL-C is effective in difussing the harsh sunlight and giving a soft glow to bright light.

In actual practice I use the Holga HL-C most often with a fisheye attachment that I had for use with the film Holga.  Due to the smaller sensor size there is no fisheye effect, however there is a slight curvature that I like.  Also the wider angle increases vignetting.  Most of the images  in the gallery were taken with the fisheye attachment.

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The main thing that I miss with the Holga HL-C when compared to the film Holga is the square format of the film Holga.  However I tend to think that it might be most useful to not compare the two and to learn to use the Holga HL-C as a thing of its own and not as a digital subsitute for a Holga. The Holga HL-C for Canon is usually sold for between $25 and $30. I believe I got mine from HolgaDirect. There also are versions of the Holga lens for Nikon, Pentax and Sony.

I have some more image with this lens on my Flickr pages.
Holga HL-C Set

Put His Foot In It
On one occasion in Scotland a guest arriving rather late at a country house was quartered in the haunted room. Although professing to he a skeptic, like many others, his courage vanished with the light. Determined, however to protect himself as well as possible he placed a loaded revolver under his pillow and awaited events. As the clock struck midnight he saw a fleshy hand at the end of the bed, and steadying his nerve, he addressed the visitant thus: “If you do not instantly remove your hand I shall fire without further warning.” He counted three and then discharged the bullet . A howl of pain which aroused the household followed, and It was soon discovered that the successful, marksman had shot away two of bis own toes.

The second is a story I remember my father telling. It was said to have happening in a house that once stood about a mile east of Pesotum Illinois.

One Saturday night a farmer was sick and asked for his children to
stay with him instead of go to a dance that night in Pesotum.  His
children decided to go to the dance.  As they were leaving he told them
that if he died while they were gone that no one would ever sleep
peacefully in his room again.  Well, I suppose it comes as no surprise
that the farmer did die and that afterward anyone who tried to sleep in
his room was bothered by a ghost all night.  He would do things like
pull the blankets off and make his eyes glow while he stared at you from
the foot of the bed.  After a while people got the message and stayed
out of the room.

At some point another family came to live in the house and had the
same experiences with the haunted bedroom. No one would spend the night
in there.  The farmer who lived there had a daughter who was seeing a
young man.  The young man heard the story about the haunted room and to prove his
bravery said he would spend the night there.  He took his gun with him
and before going to sleep he put the gun on the nightstand.  The young man
did have some trouble sleeping, however until he looked at the foot of
the bed and saw what seemed like glowing eyes everything had been
quiet.  Now why he thought he could shoot  a ghost I don’t know, however
he did grab his pistol and fired a shot at the glowing eyes.  The
family in the house heard the shot followed by a scream.  When they came
into the bedroom they saw the young man holding his foot.  It turned
out that he had seen the reflection of the moon on his big toenail and
had shoot himself in the foot.

When I saw the first story in the old Courier I wondered if it wasn’t the inspiration for the second story.  Or maybe both are true and shows that it is dangerous to sleep in a haunted room with your feet sticking out from under the blankets.

The No. 2 Rainbow Hawk-eye was one of the cheapest cameras you could buy back in the early days of the Great Depression.  It was first made in 1929, the year of the stock market crash, and ended production in 1933, the first year in office for FDR. Judging from ads from that time the No. 2 Rainbow Hawk-eye sold mostly for between one and two dollars.  One ad offered it for as little as 87 cents.

The ad above is from Robeson’s Department store in Champaign, Illinois. Robeson’s was a very popular store in those days and it is possible that this camera camera from there.  The No. 2 Rainbow Hawk-eye was the kind of camera that a young family without a lot of money would have purchased to make images of what was important to them.  The 2 1/4 x 3 1/4 negatives would have been printed without enlargement. I imagine that The No. 2 Rainbow Hawk-eye was a guest at Christmas and birthdays. Although since film then was very slow it is likely that most pictures taken with the The No. 2 Rainbow Hawk-eye would have to have been taken outdoors.

I do wonder what became of the images that this camera made.  Hopefully, they were passed on.  Judging from some of the other cameras in the box I am guess that the No. 2 Rainbow Hawk-eye was retired when a more sophisicated camera was purchased in the mid-thirties.  Probably it sat forgotten for decades until it was sold in a box with several other cameras at an auction in the late 70′s.  My father was the buyer.  And again the cameras sat for several more decades until I was looking at that box of cameras last winter. I noticed that the No. 2 Rainbow Hawk-eye was the only one of the cameras that used a film that is still made.  I looked the camera over and found that the shutter still worked and the lens seemed clean enough.

Now has you can see from the picture the camera is beat up and the metal parts are rusty. Very primitive even when new compared to todays cameras and definitely judging by appearance not improved by the years. Still I felt a strong curiousity to see if the No. 2 Rainbow Hawk-eye could still make an image.  And as you can see in the gallery below it still can.

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To me there is something mystical about using a camera from former times.  And that was especially true with the No. 2 Rainbow Hawk-eye.  The times when it was born seem similiar to our troubled time.  Hopefully we will make it through these days as well as the No. 2 Rainbow Hawk-eye.