Yes, it’s a picture of the dogs. To be more exact, it is a very basic scan of a negative taken from a Minolta Autocord TLR from the 1960s. This was a test of a newly repaired and CLA’d camera, to make sure everything was working properly. I’m pleased to say the repairman has done a wonderful job.
The photo, by the way, begged to be taken. The kids were resting under a 佛 character painted on the wall at a shrine entrance in the hills behind the house. The character means Buddha. I’m sure Lady thought the juxtaposition appropriate.
To be honest, the purchase of the Autocord was a little superfluous. I just wanted to see what a TLR was like to use. I discovered several things.
Firstly, the rendering of the Rokkor lens on this thing is wonderful. It is sharp, but sharpness is beside the point. It is the camera I used to take this photo, which was by far my favourite from that particular shoot, using maybe five different cameras, digital and several film formats.
The second thing is that the TLR is a perfect balance of large negative and small camera body, with a tiny lens and lack of mirror box. The lack of mirror also improves its ability to be handheld at slower speeds and still achieve adequate sharpness. It also sits beautifully balanced on a tripod, if need be. The Autocord has a focus lever at the front which enables focusing through tactile memory of the position it rests when focused at any given distance. With a bit of practice I can probably get to focus without necessarily relying on the viewfinder.
The third thing I discovered was the necessity of a good CLA for these cameras. I bought the first; it gave beautiful results, but the viewfinder was dim and then, after some months, the shutter jammed.
I bought a replacement. It all worked perfectly, but I couldn’t get it to focus properly. Two duds. Both were sent to Karl Bryan in the US, and they came back transformed. The photo below was a test shot using an original Minolta close-focus and parallax correction lens set. Looks like it worked perfectly.
Which brings me to the final point about these TLR cameras. Works of mechanical precision design, and absolutely beautiful to look at.
Leave a Reply