It’s been a while since I’ve written a post about cameras, so today I thought I’d post about a few lenses I’ll be taking with me on a short trip. I’ll be packing my 5D and two quirky lenses – the  Loreo 35mm F5.6 lens and the Jupiter 9 85mm F2.0 lens.

I bought this very small and light Loreo lens a while back on eBay for $20. It’s a pancake style lens that uses a plastic element and water stop aperture mechanism to control light. It’s apertures range from F5.6 all the way to F64. The Loreo is pre-focused so if you want your pictures in focus you’ll have to move your feet to get the shot or adjust the aperture accordingly. This lens isn’t going to give you National Geographic quality images, hence the awful reviews,but that didn’t stop me from buying one. I love the look plastic lens elements give so we’ll see how this one performs this weekend.

The other lens I’m bringing is the  Russian Jupiter 9 lens, a copy of the Carl Zeiss 85mm Sonnar. It’s a aluminum bodied lens that was produced sometime in the 1960s. My copy  is a M39 thread SLR mount.

The 85mm focal length makes it a great portrait/short telephoto lens. The decent F2 aperture should also give some good background bokeh. I managed to find the original plastic lens hood online but I probably won’t use it because the way it mounts is pretty flimsy.

I’ll report back with some photos taken with these lenses next week.  Stay tuned!

There’s a local company called 21c Promotions that puts on antique fairs/flea markets and retro design events once a month at rotating locations. Last month’s event was an antique fair at the Croatian Cultural Centre on Commercial Drive.

With 175 different vendors offering everything from shabby chic to 50’s kitsch, collectibles and memorabilia to vintage kitchenalia, this popular European-style collectors market is a must-see. There are 185 tables jam-packed full of bargains on deluxe 20th Century junk, making this event an absolutely-do-not-miss treasure-hunting adventure.

If you need anything appraised, there is also an appraiser on hand – just like the Antiques Road Show!

The stuff you can get here is pretty overwhelming. I ended up getting a really nice gold leaf Pyrex casserole dish and a gigantic Victorian style magnifying class with a foot-long handle.

There are tons of tables and multiple rooms. This is just one of the tables and one of the large rooms packed wall to wall with sellers and buyers.

Upcoming event dates are as follows:

March 14: 21st Century Flea Market
April 17 & 18: Kerrisdale Antiques Fair
May 16: 21st Century Flea Market
June 13: Retro Design & Antiques Fair
July 18: 21st Century Flea Market
September 4 & 5: Kerrisdale Antiques Fair
September 19: 21st Century Flea Market
October 24: Retro Design & Antiques Fair
November 14: 21st Century Flea Market
December 5: Retro Design & Antiques Fair

Check out the website for times and locations: http://www.21cpromotions.com

I came across a pair of interesting opera glasses on ebay that I thought Naomi might like. I bought it for $9.99 along with an old Russian camera lens that was shipped all the way from Belarus.

The binoculars look like they could be from the 50’s and the only markings on them are “ROW Rathenow Theastar Opera Glasses”. There isn’t much information online about the glasses except that they are made by Busch Rathenow in Rathenow, Germany. They were a company which was renowned for making tank binoculars during WWII. These glasses, however, are on the opposite end of the spectrum. It makes me wonder what operas or theatrical plays these might have seen and who they belonged too.

A few weeks ago I picked up an interesting vintage camera lens designed by the Ichizuka Optical Company. This lens, the Telinar 105mm F/4.5, originates from Japan, dating back to the mid 50’s & 60’s. Very little is known about this lens and its manufacturer. The only information I could find online was on the Camerapedia website. Drawn by its aluminum build, quirky shape, m42 mount and $20 price tag I was curious to see what sort of images it could produce.

The lens arrived through the mail in average shape. All the aluminum had tarnished to a dull flat silver and the inner lens element was coated with a film of fungus/haze.  After fully restoring my first camera lens, the Jupiter 11 135mm F/4, I thought I’d give this lens a try. To start, I had to figure out how to pull out the rear element to see if I could clean the haze. I purchased a compass from Home Depot to use as a spanner wrench but soon realized this was a mistake. Using a compass as a spanner wrench is a terrible idea as it warps with pressure when you unscrew any part of the lens. I bit the bullet and purchased proper spanner wrenches off eBay for $45 which were much more efficient at taking apart the lens.

Dismantling the lens was fairly easy. I managed to get to the hazy glass within 20 minutes. Luckily the haze wiped off easily, so I put everything back together and polished the aluminum with Autosol. After re-greasing the focusing helix with white lithium grease it was good as new! So how did it perform?

Mounted on a Canon 5D, the Telniar 105mm is surprisingly sharp. At F/4.5 images in the center are very sharp, but soft around the edges with low contrast. Ironically enough, these are exactly the sort of qualities I like in a vintage lens. If you see one of these lenses, don’t hesitate to pick one up!

Last weekend, my family and I zipped down to Portland (again) for a quick shopping trip and while we were there, went to visit a Goodwill thrift store. In Vancouver, the equivalent would be The Salvation Army, or Value Village.

Goodwill is a North American organization that helps the needy by offering employment, job training and career services.  They have over 2300 retail stores that sell donated goods at very low prices. Goodwill splits their stores into two – retail stores and  outlets. We visited four stores and one outlet between Seattle and Portland.

I found the stores to be very clean and well presented. All items were sorted into sections: clothing/shoes, books, household goods, furniture and electronics. Definitely a vintage hunters dream!

The Goodwill outlets are completely different. They are basically large warehouses where semi-trailer trucks unload donated items into massive blue bins. None of the items have been processed so the sorting is up to you. It was a surreal experience that sort of felt like dumpster diving. In my 5 mins there I encountered suitcases, Christmas ornaments, shoes and even old underwear! Needless to say I wasn’t as prepared as some of the other people who arrived with gloves and masks on.  Once you’ve finished your shopping, you pay by the weight of your items and off you go.  I’ll admit, the outlet isn’t for everyone as it can be an intense shopping experience – as you’re elbows to elbows with someone once a new blue bin enters the warehouse. If you don’t think you’re up for this, you can always try the goodwill online store.

A few of the awesome deals I managed to pick up:

• Two 1970 Yashica Electro GSM rangefinder cameras with the famous Yashinon 45mm F1.7 lens  for $8.99 (valued between $20-$150).
• 1/8 size Crema Violin which needed some parts for $4.99 (valued between $100-$150).

I’ll be writing posts about these items in the future.

During the summer months I photograph dozens of weddings. It’s a demanding job that requires a camera which focuses quickly and lenses that are sharp and vibrant. For any job I’ll use a Canon 5D with an assortment of L series lenses. When I’m not shooting weddings or commercial gigs, I like to experiment with old and unique lenses on my SLR.

The saying, “They just don’t build them like they use to,” definitely applies to old Russian optics and cameras. I’ve always had a soft spot for them when I did darkroom work back in art school. I was attracted to their quirky designs, bomb-proof build quality and mysterious Cyrillic writing which adorned the name plates of the cameras. Russian optics were also top of the line as they copied many of the formulas from Carl Zeiss.

Russian cameras were manufactured as far back as before WWII and are made to this day in factories such as Arsenal & Zenit in Russia. In my opinion, the golden years of Russian optics were between the 40’s and 70’s.

Feeling nostalgic, I thought I’d pick up a Russian lens off Ebay. For forty bucks shipped from the Ukraine to my door, I got my hands on a Jupiter-11 135mm F/4 telephoto lens. Built at the Zenit Factory, I specifically wanted the older aluminum style lens (the newer ones come pained in black) in M39 mount.  The lens block design is a direct copy of the famous Carl Zeiss Sonnar lens so I figured it would provide fairly sharp photos. With all old aluminum lenses from the USSR, however, they are difficult to focus because they are stiff (due to the dried up grease) and have a  tarnished silver look to them. Being brave I decided to dismantle the lens as much as I could to re-grease and polish it back to as close as new.

I started off by twisting the lens apart into two sections: the focusing mechanism and the lens block. After that, I got the smallest screwdriver set I could find at Home Depot, some white lithium grease, and a bottle of Autosol metal polish to do the job. After 30mins I unscrewed the focusing collar of the lens and slowly it came apart. Taking as much of the old grease off the lens as possible I applied a generous amount of the white lithium grease on the focusing screw and polished the base with the Autosol polish. After three hours I finished polishing the rest of lens and slid everything back together. The new grease in the lens made a huge difference! The metal polish also brought the silver back to life.

I then mounted the lens onto an M39 – Canon EF adapter (you can find plenty on ebay) and then directly onto my Canon 5D. This lens will also mount onto Sony Alphas, Panasonic GH1’s, Pentax’s and other cameras with the right adapter. There isn’t auto focusing or automatic aperture systems in these old lenses but there’s something about them that make you work harder for your picture.

Here are some links to more information on this lens:

Kiev Survival Site: Excellent resource on fixing old Russian lenses which also inspired me to fix the Jupiter-11

Alfred Klomp: A site no longer updated but it has a ton of interesting Russian lens information

Zenit: The manufacturer’s website in Russian (where the lens block diagrams above originated from)