Flim and the BBs Digital Recording Jazz Pioneers Awesome Music!

#213

December 9, 2017

Gentle reader,

I have only written about my music collections a few times. The articles were quite popular and well received. I humbly thank you for reading my blog and your words of encouragement are truly heart warming.

Years ago, I came across a Washington, D.C. FM radio station with the called letters WJZE at 100.3 MHZ on the dial. They were playing a format called "Smooth Jazz". I and many others found the music to be very listenable and fun. In fact, where I worked every radio in this huge shop was tuned to "JZE". One could call up and talk with the DJs and make requests and talk about the music. In fact, one day, I heard, "This tune is going out to the hard working men at the Metrorail Brentwood shop." A cheer went up in the shop. I became friends with one of the DJs and we talked often. Try that today.

I became a fan of Jazz years earlier and had gone to see RETURN TO FOREVER and GEORGE BENSON as well as others at a venue called then, THE MOSQUE. It is an opera house and is still used for concerts of all kinds to this day. The name has changed, it was an odd choice for a name anyway. It is in Richmond, Virginia and in fact the Richmond Symphony Orchestra held their performances there. At least they did when I lived in Richmond.

So, Jazz was familiar to me, at least the few groups I had heard at that point in time. Yet, this Smooth Jazz was different, more lively and tuneful. One did not have to concentrate, or think about the theme or any such "serious" listening technique. One could whistle along, if one could whistle.

A couple of years went by and as happens, some radio company bought the station and changed the format to Golden Oldies! I called my DJ friend up at home that night and asked what the hell happened. "Yeah, we weren't allowed to say anything. As the last Jazz tune ended, they had security guys escort me from the building! I don't know what is happening to all the recordings." As Dear Leader is fond of tweeting, "Sad!"

Many of us were delighted a few year later when another station, this one at 105.9 MHZ called WJZW began playing Smooth Jazz. It lasted longer, then it's format changed to Classic Rock. But, there was a silver lining. HD Radio had come along and their HD2 band continued playing Smooth Jazz! For a while, anyway. As a result, I bought HD Radio capable car stereos and a SONY HD Radio for in the house. Smooth Jazz lives! Or it did for a few years. On your computer or device, you can listen to this:
SmoothJazz.com Global Radio : The Global Home for Smooth Jazz . Trad Jazz . Nu Jazz . Chill Jazz : 24/7 - KJAZ.DB 

I admit, there are many new artists that I am not familiar with these days. But I did amass a large collection of LPs and CDs of my favorite Smooth Jazz artists which co-mingle with traditional Jazz artists in my collection.

The point of this long winded introduction is to set the stage for my introducing you to a band that was on the cutting edge of Digital Recording: FLIM AND THE BBs. Before I go further, let me insert this link so that you can hear them for yourself:
Flim and the BBs - YouTube

I had heard their tune which was written for a daytime American TV show which were coined by the odd descriptor: Soap Opera. The show is or was, called ALL MY CHILDREN. This to my limited knowledge is the only tune of theirs that was a "hit". 

The only CD that I had come across in my usual thrift store browsing was titled BIG NOTES. Once I saw the name of the band, it took me back to the joyful years of Smooth Jazz on the radio.

I Googled the band and Wikipedia had a wonderful article about them, here is the link: OK, for some reason,  Mozilla Firefox is not letting me bookmark that page, so here is a quote from the heading HISTORY:

"Flim and the BB's consisted of Jimmy Johnson, nicknamed Flim, on Alembic 5-string bass and the two BBs, Bill Berg on percussion and Billy Barber on piano, keyboard, and synthesizer. Woodwind-player Dick Oatts was a featured guest on their first album before becoming a full member of the band.^[1]
The band was a side project, as they worked as studio musicians for a living. Their early days in the late 1970s included studio work in Minneapolis and playing as a band at the Longhorn Bar. They became acquainted with Tom Jung, chief engineer at Sound 80 Studios in Minneapolis. It was around this time that Minneapolis-based 3M began experimenting with digital recording, and Flim & the BB's were hired to provide music to test this new equipment at Jung's studio.
The group's self-titled debut album was recorded in 1978 at Sound 80 and was ostensibly going to be a direct to disc recording. Nevertheless, 3M placed an experimental 50.4 kHz digital recorder in the control room as a backup to the direct-to-disc lathe. The band was required to play the entire LP side without stopping and without any editing afterward. When the resulting acetate disc was deemed inferior to the digital master tape, the record was pressed from that digital backup tape, making it the second-ever U.S. commercially available digital recording. Since the machine used was an early experimental prototype, built before any digital recording standards were established, and dismantled before 1979, there is currently no way to reissue that first album on either LP or CD.^[2]
Flim and the BB's recorded its second album, Tricycle, for DMP Digital Music Products, an audiophile record label started by Tom Jung. The album was the first non-classical recording to be released in compact disc format. It was recorded on the Mitsubishi X-80 digital audio recorder at Sound 80. The disc displayed the full dynamic range available in CDs, becoming a popular test disc for this reason. It was also the first jazz album to be recorded, mastered, and delivered in the digital domain. The recording chain, after the first few feet of microphone cable from the musicians' instruments, remained in the digital domain until it was decoded by the consumer's CD player. DMP's releases were for the most part recorded directly to two-tracks as opposed to the more common multi-track method. This means that there was minimal use of overdubs and the majority of the music was performed, recorded, and mixed "live" to the digital recorder.^[3] The cover art for Tricycle was drawn by Bill Berg's son Jacob.
Flim & the BB's released four more albums for DMP, with each winning Digital Audio's "Jazz CD of the Year" award. After the release of The Further Adventures of Flim & The BB's they parted ways with DMP and signed to Warner Bros. Records. They released the album New Pants in 1990 and followed with This Is a Recording in 1992. Billy Barber composed the theme song for the TV soap opera All My Children. A version of the song appears on This Is a Recording. DMP released two of their albums, Tricycle and Big Notes, on limited edition Gold CDs, and Tricycle on Super Audio CD (SACD)."

I was truly intrigued, so to eBay I went and sure enough there was a seller with a mint copy of their debut album! I'm not going to say what I paid for it, but I've never paid so much for any recording. BUT, it is worth it! The music is incredible! Remember, they had to play the entire side through, only pausing for a few seconds between tunes. As the article states, they were recording it "Direct-to-Disc". From microphones, through the mixer right to the cutting lathe! As a backup, they were making an experimental DIGITAL recording too. But, then you just read that.

An aside, if you are a regular reader, thank you! You are well aware of my being a budget audiophile. That being said, here is a photo of my system:

The only difference from a month ago is that large dragon now resides upon the unused Dynaco A25 speakers and a smaller all-metal dragon sits where the large dragon is in this photo. So, it is a really good system with incredible lifelike sound.

That being said, since I have not looked/listened to see/hear whether any tunes from their first album are one YouTube, I can only pass on my impressions. Firstly, here is the front cover. 

Oh, if you are reading this on a "device", you will not be able to read any of the album's notes unless you do that spreading thing with your fingers.

Remember, this was 1978, if one said digital to someone else in 1978, the only thing that might have been digital to the average person was maybe a wristwatch with a digital LED face. They used so much battery power, that one had to press a button to see the time display for a few seconds. But I digress. Here, read once again: "Since the machine used was an early experimental prototype, built before any digital recording standards were established, and dismantled before 1979, there is currently no way to reissue that first album on either LP or CD."

Now do you see why I had to find and buy this album? In fact in the booklet in one of their later CDs, one of the artists reminds his mother to not get rid of that first album. 

The seller was correct in listing this album as mint. There are no ticks or pops or skips or any surface noise. Remember this was a digital recording, so no background tape his either. I absolutely LOVE the music. So clear, the bass notes can be felt. I am so happy!

As I have done SO many times in the past, being the type of collector called a "completist" I strive to get one of everything that author, music group, label, camera company, what have you made or produced. Last music group I did that with was The Rippingtons. Another fantastic Smooth Jazz group.

Thanks to eBay and especially Amazon, I was able to buy the complete works of Flim and the BBs. Sellers prices on both sites are ALL OVER THE PLACE! I of course picked the least expensive that were described as very good or better. 

And below, here they are.  

Starting front row, left, TRICYCLE 1983, TUNNEL 1984, BIG NOTES 1985, NEON 1987, THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF 1988, all on dmp DIGITAL MUSIC PRODUCTIONS.  Their final CDs are on WARNER BROTHERS: NEW PANTS 1990, AND THIS IS A RECORDING 1992. Their last CD has ALL MY CHILDREN on it, which coincides when I was working at Brentwood.

So, there you have it, their entire catalog of recorded music. I hope your listening to them on YouTube will encourage you to buy some for yourself. On, another thing, if you stream with your Bluray player of Smart TV and have a surround sound/home theater system, watching music videos this way sounds AMAZING! At least it does in our living room. 

Thanks once again for looking, enjoy music!

Scott 

 

Upgrading Nikon Digital SLR Cameras from Amateur D70S to Prosumer D200

#212

December 8, 2017

Gentle reader,

To you, it may seem silly to go from a camera introduced in April 22, 2005 to one introduced only a few months later on November 1, 2005. Looked at that way, it is silly, since SO many better cameras have come out since then. Yet, aside from the costs involved in newer models, so many have features, such as HD video that I and others have no interest in. I have digital cameras that do HD video and I never use that nor their WI-FI or GPS capabilities.

Here's why. At first, I was looking at upgrading from a DX format, Nikon's name for APS-C sized sensor to a full-frame (35mm) or FX as Nikon calls it. The reason for that is all my film SLR lenses, especially the wide angle ones would create images the EXACT size of a film SLR since the FX sensor is exactly the same size as 35mm film's standard negative size. Also wide angle lenses which are 50% narrower on most digital bodies would be truly wide as designed.

Reality showed me that the older FX bodies that I could possibly afford if I sold a bunch of things on eBay would while having the larger sensor would in fact have about the same number of pixels per square millimeter. The reason I wanted to upgrade was to get better images than my D70S' 6.3 megapixel sensor could deliver. The D200 is over 10 megapixels. Which is nothing compared to newer ones, I know. I have a 14 megapixel camera with a Leica lens and 35mm equivalent lens from 25mm to 600mm. But it's lens, while quite capable is not very crisp. Plus, it's sensor while having 40% more pixels, they are much smaller sensors.

In my defense, it also never occurred to me to look at a timeline of Nikon DSLRs to see when each model came out and the megapixel count and features. As an example the latest top-of-the-line Nikon that just came out, the D850 is full frame with an amazing 45.7 megapixel count. That equals 35mm film as far as resolution. Of course it has WI-FI, GPS, 4K-HD video and a whole lot more stuff I would likely never use. Oh, and it's well over $3,000 for just the body. WAY out of my budget, seeing as how I'm retired and on a fixed budget. That last line is the real key. I sold some things on eBay to buy this body.

All images were made with my fantastic, but also several years old Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3 with it's incredible Leica Summicron lens. An aside: Leica approached Panasonic as they decided to get into digital cameras. The deal provided Panasonic would create the cameras using their electronics and Leica would build and prove the lenses. Most of the cameras were available as a Leica AND a Panasonic. The Leica were on average 50% MORE expensive for exactly the same camera and lens! Why? You were paying for the Leica name and that little red Leica DOT on the front of the body. 
If you've ever shot extreme close-up photos, often referred to as Macro, you will find depth-of-field is extremely shallow. What that means in the distance from front to rear of the subject that you are shooting that will be in focus is usually less than one inch. Although the two camera bodies appeared to me to be both straight and lined up with each other, the images show they were not. See how the D200 is blurry and the D70S is not? 

In addition to the camera body I purchased separately the MB-D200 Multi-power battery pack which along with allowing two batteries in parallel, OR two sets of AA batteries, it also duplicates many controls on the body so that when holding the camera vertical, the shutter button and other controls are in the same place and it is much more comfortable to hold. 

That is why the D200 seems so much taller than the D70S. It is, slightly larger too, but not that much. I have a similar device under my N90S film camera. This makes these cameras appear like their professional much more expensive brothers which have the added height built-in.

Plus, there is the COOL factor. I mean look how cool it looks all tall and button festooned it is!

The rear views are even more telling as to the significant differences between these cameras that came out the same year. Display window alone is significantly larger. Unlike the D70S, there is not an Automatic-let-the-camera-figure-it-all-out-for-you button.

The learning curve will be steep. Fortunately, I found a 48 page user's guide on line on this model which will help. The factory manual I have, but it is physically small and fine print while the guide is 8 1/2 by 11 and I've put it in a binder.

Top view shows the other differences. Again, there is much to learn.

I've cropped the battery pack out of the photo above and made sure the photos are exactly the same size so that the comparison is easier. Something I see in the images that isn't so obvious on each camera to the eye, is in red by the eyepiece: FORMAT. I haven't looked it up yet, but suspect if one pulls off the rubber eye piece, there is a button to quickly format the Compact Flash cards. The seller included six 2 gigabyte name brand Compact Flash cards in lieu of a battery since he found it was bad. I formatted them all by finding it in the menu. 

Since I'm showing comparison photos, here below are the Prosumer Nikon Film camera verses Prosumer Digital film camera. I put flashes on both. The N90S has a Nikon brand unit and the D200 has an aftermarket makers. I had a Sigma unit for the D70S, but it's foot broke and my attempt to replace the foot with a new one was unsuccessful. Nikon brand Digital flashes are WAY more expensive than other makers are. And of course, Nikon made sure that their own FILM flashes would not work on their digital bodies.

What's surprising to me about this comparison is that the digital body is not narrower than the film body. One would think that since the film body has to house the film cassette (that's what they are called) on the left side (right side from the front) of the body, it would necessitate a little bit more width there. They are somewhat similar as far as controls on the front. The D200 is missing the little cover for the terminal on the top right side of the body. I'll have to see if I can find one.

The N90S and others, including my Voigtlander Bessa R, have this thin rubber coating on the film door which as you can see wears off. No removable rubber eye cup or adjustable diopter for the film camera. That little lever closes a flap to cover the eye piece for long exposures, such as fireworks. Digital body is very control laden compared to the film camera. And having adjustable diopter negates the need to wear glasses while shooting.

Tops are similar yet different. The light grey stripe above the name of the camera on the N90S is to let daylight in to illuminate something in the viewfinder. Shutter button on the film camera is harder to find by feel. They solved that in their digital bodies by having the on/off switch surround the shutter button on the digital bodies.

Now some group shots to round out the article.

Lenses are ALL film/digital except the one on the D200. It is digital only.  The are: left to right starting at the front: 50mm f1.8 "normal" lens which is equivalent to a 75mm on the digital body do to the APS-C sized sensor being 50% smaller than 35mm or FX full frame sensor. Next, made by Sigma but sold through Ritz Camera as a Quantaray brand. I do not know why a previous steward blacked out the name, is a 19 to 35mm wide angle zoom lens. Equal to 28.5mm to 52.5mm on the digital body. On the right to balance the image is a Sigma made, Spiratone branded T-mount 12mm f8 fisheye lens. Being SO wide and having a small maximum aperture, there is no need to focus the 12mm lens. On a 35mm camera it would be a very wide photo with curvature of straight lines near the left and right edges. On the digital body it is equal to 18mm but has a circular image due to the smaller sensor.
Back row contains, left to right a Tokina 100mm to 400mm zoom. I would have preferred an all black one, but they are more expensive. On the digital body it is equal to 150mm to 600mm, which is quite a long reaching lens. In the middle is a Sigma 70mm to 300mm lens that I found in a thrift store for $9.00! Equal to 105mm to 450mm on the digital body. On the right is a Promaster 28mm to 200mm zoom lens. Equal to 42.5mm to 300mm on the digital body. See how the "crop factor" negates wide angle number and view?

To the Tokina lens, I added a tripod collar. It is too big, so I had to come up with a spacer. While the lens is lightweight, using the camera's tripod mount is not a good idea for this long of a lens. A better quality long lens would be thicker, heavier and usually include a built-on tripod mount. Also, due to the weight of the collar/mount the lens would not stay zoomed out to it's 400mm length while standing upright. Below for informational purposes is a large manual focus lens I once had which has a built-on tripod mount. It is the one on the left and is manual focus. It would mount on the digital body just fine, but require more work to get good images.

It is on the left, the tripod mount is not visible, but the knob on the right side is to loosen the tripod mount collar so the camera/lens can be rotated from horizontal to vertical while mounted on a tripod or monopod. Note that it is 300mm at the long end but SO much larger and longer than the 100mm to 400mm next to it. Back when this all-metal lens was made, variable apertures (that let in less lgiht as the lens' internal elements move further away from the film/sensor) were rare, zoom lenses were constant aperture from smallest (75mm) to largest (300mm) end, or whatever their focal lengths were. This was due to a different design. The elements moved further away from each other inside, rather than ALL the elements moving further from the film/sensor. These type are still made but very expensive to buy and like that monster above, very long, thick and heavy.

While on the subject, take a look at the two in the back row on the right. Both are 28mm to 200mm zooms. In fact, the one furthest on the right is the same one shown above with the other AF (auto Focus) lenses. The one to the left of it is MF (manual focus) and also variable aperture, f4.0 to f5.6, but the design is completely different. The one on the right gets signifiantly longer physically as one twists the zoom ring. The one MF lens' elements inside move apart as the lens zooms, but the lens' body stays the same size. BTW: "elements" refers to the group or groups of different glass lenses inside the lens bodies. 

I hope you have enjoyed and perhaps learned some things from this article. It feels SO good to be getting back into photography. I've been concentrating on creating an amazing stereo system for years and the focus of that has been my main hobby and subject of this blog. Now that I am completely happy with that, time to get back into a passion that happily occupied me since buying my first 35mm SLR in April 1995. I was 38 then and now am 61. 

The world of photography has changed dramatically since the advent of digital photography and especially the proliferation of smart phones with cameras. Yet, now there is increasing interest in either going back to film or trying it for the first time. Analog is not dead by any means. To learn more about this exciting phenomenon, check out a book called The Revenge of Analog by David Sax. It very well get you as excited as it got me.

Thanks for looking,

Scott

December 8, 2017 

   

Returning to my roots: Vintage Cameras and Shooting Film.

#211

December 4, 2017

Gentle reader,

I have found that I spent way too much time on FaceBook reading what fellow vintage audio/stereo collectors/users were up to as well as putting my own thoughts down. So, I stopped following all the groups and then thought more about getting back to shooting film.

Despite what many assume, photographic film is not dead. Many professional shooters never transistioned to film at all. Yes, film sales are a tiny fraction of what they once were prior to digital cameras and especially cameras in cell phones. WAY more images are captured now than ever before, because it's simple and free.

Nonetheless, I have a Nikon N90S film SLR and Voigtlander Bessa R film rangefinder camera, each with oodles of lenses. All Nikon lenses since the late 1950s will fit on their DSLRs and most will work, but the older ones will need more manual input from the shooter. 

I also still have numerous vintage cameras including a Rolleiflex Twin Lens Reflex medium format camera and a 1946 Leica IIIC which can use all the Voigtlander's lenses. Plus other interesting cameras that are now "worth" a fraction of what they once sold for on the used market. An example is the pinnacle of the "Zoom Lens Reflex" format of 35mm cameras that Olympus invented: IS-3DLX. I have the wide angle and telephoto lenses that take the built-in 35-180mm zoom lens out to 28-300mm, PLUS the once super expensive G-40 flash.

I even still have 35mm film in the freezer. So, you see I have the tools, experience and desire. Once the holidays are out of the way, I will begin. Again.

While I once had a larger collection (more than 200) of vintage film cameras, (of course back then, they were just cameras), I had decided to reduce my collection to the ones I really wanted to keep. Here is the collection now, minus three cameras not shown in this image.

Not shown above are the aforementioned Voigtlander Bessa R, it resides in an aluminum brief-type case along with all the lenses. The others are a Busch Pressman 4X5" press camera with a Linhof Schneider-Kreuznach Press-Xenar127mm f4.7 lens with a Synchro-Compur shutter. This camera was a surprise from my father-in-law. He and other relatives and friends upon learning that I decided to collect cameras, found and gave to me what they had! He had two homes one local and one in Puerto Rico. One day a package arrived from him addressed to me. I called my wife and she of course said, "Open it." Was I surprised! 
The other is also a gift, it is a Wrebbit all-paper pinhole camera modeled after a very old wood and brass large format camera. The only part that isn't paper is the black fabric bellows. Boy was that a challenge to make!

And above we have the two large cameras. Busch on the left, Wrebbit on the right and the thick instruction book for the latter below. I've never used the pinhole one, but did make some structural improvements to keep the film (35mm) flatter and ease removing the back. Plus, I installed some thin sealed-pore foam rubber tape to make the back light-tight.

Below is the Voigtlander Bessa R in situ with all it's lenses. I will be showing it and all the lenses later in a future post.

But, since I'm on the subject, many probably do not know, I did not, that they used to make T-mount adapters for Leica screw-mount (M39, sometimes called L39) cameras which this Bessa R and it's earlier Bessa L cameras utilize. As a result, I was able to buy T-mount or YS mount wide angle lenses which cost a fraction of the "correct" M/L39 mount counterpart lenses. There were attempts by other camera makers to introduce a modern metered and affordable interchangeable lens rangefinder camera using the LTM (Leica Thread Mount) system. Cosina of Japan bought the rights to the vaunted and historical Voigtlander of Germany name and began producing said cameras.
The Bessa L body had no rangefinder or viewfinder and was made for very wide angle lenses which often do not need to be focused. Each lens included a very high quality viewfinder that slipped into the shoe atop the body. The R came out next and it is based upon a Cosina SLR body. A few years later came models that accepted both the Zeiss Contax (and Kiev) rangefinder mount and another model for the Nikon rangefinder lenses. It is my understanding that the Nikon and Zeiss lenses interchange. I've had a Contax and most of the Kiev lenses but never could afford a Nikon RF camera.

Above is the cabinet that houses the collection along with my 1/18th scale diecast cars. Several of which I owned real ones of. I built this cabinet originally to house my wife's Beanie Babies collection. Those BBs now reside in a huge black bag in the attic.

Working backwards, this is what I reduced the collection to after the first round of sales. Or as I like to call it, passing on the stewardship. Since we never actually OWN anything, especially land, I consider myself a steward. I purchase, house and take care of items and then pass them on to others who then become the stewards of those things.

Yes, rangefinder cameras were the main focus of my collection. But if you have a keen eye, you also see a large portion are former-Soviet cameras which were mainly copies of German cameras. The vast majority of the rest are Japanese. Note that I also owned the only STEREO camera that was rangefinder focused.

I invented the system you see in these images that once mounted the collection. I called it CameraLock. In fact, there is still a web page hosted by a fellow collector from which I sold plans to make your own CameraLock panels with made them nearly theft-proof. I NO LONGER have the plans, so please don't ask.
110 film cameras, the better ones, were a specialty of mine. I even had a Minox 110. It was rumored to be based upon the Leica 110 that Leitz chose not to market. When I first found out that there were rangefinder 110 cameras made, I paid way too much for some of them. 
I also had every 126 film rangefinder and SLR camera as well. I shot with all kinds of film back in the day. I only had one 127 film camera, it too was a rangefinder, painted white of all colors. It was no longer in the collection when this image was made.

For your viewing pleasure, here are some larger images of each panel. I am not sure if these are loaded with exactly the same cameras as the photo of both panels, but believe so. LEFT panel is above and the RIGHT panel is below.

Experimenting with a fisheye lens lent the image above and a cropped one below. This is going back several years when I had smaller pixel-count digital cameras, so the image is not as sharp as the ones I shot today much higher in the article.

Prior to inventing the CameraLock system, I squirreled cameras wherever they would fit as so many of us have. Here is a much earlier iteration of my home office when I hadn't fully thought out the most logical arrangement of furniture. Note the giant military 70mm rangefinder camera:

So, who here knew that the Lightsabers used in the original Star Wars were made from Press camera flash handles? I showed my flash to my grandsons and they looked at their Lightsabers and I swear I could see their minds working.
 
Here is the top photo again and the list of what is in the collection today follows.

Starting top left, is a camera with one of the sharpest lenses of the fixed-lens rangefinders: Canon Canonet QL17 G-III QL. Next is a Soviet copy of a Zeiss Contax camera, a KIEV 4M. The body was made in 1979, but the lens in 1983. Next, looking like a Leica M3, the more humble, but so pretty Aires 35 IIIC camera. Still has the lens cap and an Aires UV filter. Sitting pretty is my pride-and-joy: Leica IIIC from 1946. I removed the "shark skin" covering and replaced it with red sea-snakeskin. Originally I bought a Summarit 50mm f1.5 Leica lens. But my research later revealed that the Soviet copy of the Zeiss Contax 50mm f1.5 lens was far sharper. So, the Summarit went on to a new steward and a Jupiter 3 took it's place. I had the camera CLA'd and had the shutter curtains replaced with FED shutter curtains which are actually better than the Leica replacements are. Yet, I don't think I've actually shot a roll of film with it! But I digress. Next to the Leica is a Soviet Zorki I(d) with an Industar 22 50mm f3.5 which is a copy of the Leica Elmar lens. To the right are two collapsible 35mm rangefinder cameras: An Ansco Karomat which is a US market Agfa camera. On the very right, another camera GIVEN to me, which my friend carried all over Korea during the war, a Voigtlander Vitessa. It is unique in having "Barn Doors" to cover the lens and bellows when shut. The lens is an Ultron 50mm f2.0.
Next Row contains: A Vivitar 845 TELE MOTOR 110 camera atop another which is a Minolta Autopak 460T. Both have telephoto lenses that can be moved in front of the standard lenses. Next, my late mother-in-law's Minolta 16 16mm camera. Then a stack of three KODAK 110 cameras, two of which are rangefinders: Pocket Instamatic 50, Pocket Instamatic 60 and Trimlite 48. The next one which is on it's side, another GIVEN to me, this one by my brother, a Made-in-Germany Rollei 35. This camera was the smallest full-frame 35mm camera. I later came across the correct flash for it which attaches to the bottom of the camera! It's tiny lens which pops out of the body to shoot is a tiny Zeiss Tessar 40mm f3.5. To the right of that is probably the smallest 35mm rangefinder camera the Olympus XA with flash. Next to that is my late father-in-laws Yashica J camera. Coincidentally, the VERY FIRST old camera I bought at a church bazaar was also a Yashica J. I then did not know what a rangefinder was and he showed me how to use it. After he passed we inherited all his cameras and projectors. Finally is my "brick" the largest selling 35mm camera, the Argus 3C. It has the 10-speed shutter. When I registered it with the Argus collector's group, they told me it was the earliest serial number they had seen.
Bottom row contains two cameras that my sister found, bought and gave to me, both old Kodaks: Brownie Junior Six-16 and Vigilant Junior 620. Next is a Rollei Rolleiflex Automat it is from 1939 and has a Zeiss Tessar T 80mm f3.5 lens. Am I correct that the red T means the lens is coated? Since this is pre-war, I'm not sure. Next two inherited 8mm movie cameras: Bell&Howell ONE-NINE and Kodak Cine-Kodak Eight-25. Next in it's little yellow case is a Hit-type tiny camera called a Crystar. Then in the back in the smallest SLR camera made the incredible interchangeable lens Pentax 110. It is fitted with the normal lens and flash plus motor winder. In front of it is the incredible Minolta 110 Zoom Mark II, also a 110 SLR but with a fixed and very sharp zoom lens. Towering over both of them is my Nikon N90S with 35-80mm zoom lens and the optional power pack handle that attaches to the body and allows use of AA batteries and includes a second shutter button for ease of vertical shots. Finally is the aforementioned Olympus IS-3DLX camera along with the G-40 flash and the wide angle and telephoto auxiliary lenses that extend the fixed 35-180mm zoom lens and extend it from 28mm to 300mm.

In future posts, I will list and show the Voigtlander Bessa R and all it's lenses and the Nikon N90S and all it's lenses. 

For now, thanks for looking. I truly appreciate your taking the time, I do tend to run off at the fingers. Plus I'm told I think and talk too much!

Scott
December 4, 2017