SLR Camera

Exakta VX Review – Through The Past, Brightly

By / / SLRs / 22 Comments

I  love playing with old lenses (and interesting color films, too) for their character. Creativity is a form of play, and the Exakta VX is a fun toy for exploring these things (and it’s Jimmy Stewart’s camera in Rear Window). There are the aesthetics, especially that gorgeous Spencerian script on the finder, and the overall art-deco vibe. In the late-30s, the Kine Exakta and its successors, the VX and VX II, were the first “system” 35mm cameras. They have interchangeable lenses in a bayonet mount, interchangeable finders, and accessories for macro, microscope, and astronomical photography. Their built-in knives and available take-up cassettes allow film swapping mid-roll. I have four lenses, a Carl Zeiss Jena 58mm Biotar, a CZJ Flektogon 35mm, a Schneider 135 Tele Xenar, and a 100mm Steinheil Tele Casserit.

Konica TC and T4 SLRs – The Last of the Steam Powered Trains

By / / SLRs / 11 Comments

Back in the 1970s competition in the SLR camera market was fierce. Most companies needed to innovate regularly to maintain their profile and market share. Konica had been building up their Autoreflex system for some years. With the T3 they had produced a camera that did pretty much everything and was backed by a highly respectable system. However, there was still a need to keep up with trends and innovate.

Nikon D40 – an Ode to my First “real” Camera

By / / Digital Cameras / 24 Comments

(The idea of an ode to my first “real” and favorite camera is inspired by Pablo Neruda’s Odes to Ordinary Things. I love that we can pay allegiance to those beautiful, ordinary items of life.) They say that you can never forget your first: your first love, or, in this case, your first camera. Technically, the Nikon D40 is not my first camera, but my fifth, but it is my first “real” camera, the first one with an interchangeable lens. It’s the camera that I have had the longest, almost 15 years, and for a baker’s dozen of years it was the only camera that I owned. It’s the camera that feels familiar, comforting, and reassuring in my hand. It’s the camera that I reached for this morning as I poured coffee into a mug, pulled on hat and gloves, and grabbed the leash to walk the dog on a gloomy, grey January day.

Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D – Nostalgic liaison with an old flame

By / / Digital Cameras / 3 Comments

Ah nostalgia, it’s a strange thing and forms a part of every one’s life and the older one gets the more the past seems so rose tinted. My first Digital SLR was a Konica Minolta 7D, bought in 2005 and which I had almost forgotten, but a click here and there lead me to DPReview and the KM Talk Forum, then a thought formed in my mind; why not buy one and use it today? 

Wirgin Edixa-Mat Reflex B – A Brief Look at a Camera I’d Never Heard of

By / / SLRs / 10 Comments

…for a long time at least, I hadn’t known or paid attention to the names ‘Wirgin’ or ‘Edixa’. And that’s despite the fact that I’ve been involved with analogue photography for decades now. I could most often be found with my favourite Pentax, the MX or LX. Then about a year and a half ago I came across the Edixa-Mat Reflex on YouTube. In the video, the beauty and the interchangeable viewfinders were given special mention. This was my first brief contact.

Less than two weeks later I spotted such a camera at a flea market and could hardly believe my luck. The state… well, there was a lot of work to do. After a few hours of cleaning, lubricating and adjusting, the Edixa-Mat Reflex B finally ran again; at the end she received a new, self-cut leather dress.

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