Hello, everyone!
I hope you’ve been doing well.
I, again, took last week off. Since George the Tiny Tyrant started school, my daily schedule has gone through some major changes. Because the school only opens for half a day, I now spend my afternoons chasing a five-year-old on his bike. In case you are wondering what that’s like, it is exhausting.
A couple of weeks ago, I was at my friend Alex’s place testing some of his headphones(dude is an audiophile and audio engineer.) Out of nowhere-in fact- from his office cabinet-he pulled out a bunch of old cameras. When I say old, these are mostly from the 60s and 70s. Out of that bunch was this little beauty.
The plate above the lens is long gone, but eagle eyed Cedric recognised it to be an Exakta. Thank you, Cedric. With this clue, I did a little digging. According to what I read-please don’t fact check me on this- the camera was made in the 60s in the Zeiss factory in East Germany, hence the title of this post. I can say that because I was a commie kid.
After some visual inspection, I found the camera to be in a decent shape. The lens was surprisingly clean and mould/fog free except for some dust on the front element. Alex was kind enough to let me test out the camera, and so I did.
As you can see, the lens is a 50mm f2.8, and the fastest shutter is 1/175 seconds, not great. So I put a roll of UltraMax in it, and yesterday, I got the scans back. I have to say, I am pleasantly surprised. The camera seems to be in perfect working order, except for some weird light leaks, which is not the end of the world. Because I did not have very high hopes for the camera, I did not shoot as selectively as I probably should have. So you may find some of these extremely random and poorly thought out. But, here are some from the roll.
From the testing desk.
Headphones, etc.
Crow on crossbar.
On the football pitch. The camera does not have the best focussing mechanism.
Sunset.
Orphaned shopping cart.
Orphaned Stitch shirt.
Goals and net.
George’s cryptic, out of focus, slightly.
Legs of chair and table.
Corner of the room.
A selfie of yours truly. My left index finger? That’s where the shutter button is.
Voila! That’s it for today. Now that I know the camera’s working, I will put more films through it. I have to say I quite like how the camera works. The shutter sound is very commie. Hopefully, you’ll see more photos from the Commies’ Zeiss. Thank you for stopping by. Please enjoy the rest of your week!
A la prochaine!
An Exakta with a CZJ lens, that's quite something. The camera may be old and have light leaks (easily fixable), but their mechanics and even the built-in light meters are pretty good. CZJ lenses are generally good; I only have a few of those, and sold the best one some time ago (an old CZJ Pancolar, I wrote about it in a note). The 'Commie' camera world has many hidden gems! Some Meyer Optik glass is also beautiful. Audiophile guys often have good taste in cameras too:) "Glad to read you have at least a bit more time to yourself now that 'the tiny tyrant' goes to school for half days. Liked the Bart Simpson T-shirt.
Some of those CSJ lenses are excellent - and virtually all of them have their own 'character'. My first camera was an Edixaflex with a waist-level finder. I had one lens - an M42 thread f2.8, 50 mm Steinheil Cassar S. It was okay. A friend had a lens similar to the one in your first photo. For reasons I now understand, he would never let me buy it...!