Astronaut John Glenn used an Ansco Camera in his MERCURY Mission. I have the pictures he made.

January 3, 2018

#219

Gentle reader,

One of my fellow camera collectors loves vintage Minolta Hi-Matic cameras. He'd posted a photo of one of his in our FaceBook camera collectors group page. So I showed him this photo of the first Hi-Matic next to it's slightly different Ansco variant.

He replied that the Ansco was used by Astronaut John Glenn in his first MERCURY mission for NASA. I concurred and told him I had some of the slides he made. He thought I must be joking with him. I was not.

Here is a link to a NASA article about HIS camera:

Another Journey for John Glenn’s Ansco Camera | National Air and Space Museum

Here's the catch. As an advertising idea, Ansco offered a packet of four slides made by Astronaut Glenn included with their purchase of  an Ansco Autoset 35mm rangefinder camera. I don't recall how I ended up with the slides, but I still have them.

The first thing I did was get out my light table and line the slides up on it and took the following shots.

My light table is very old and uses "daylight balanced" florescent tubes. Compare the slide frame's color with the light table's surface. It's slightly green. 

Then I shot each slide individually and could not get the camera exactly parallel to the images. But that is OK. I had another idea.

I'm no whiz with Photoshop, but I know a little bit about improving photos. I adjusted the levels and then removed the color cast. Now the images look correct. At least to my amateur eyes. 

I have a twelve-year-old Epson Perfection Photo scanner. So, I scanned the packet first, then converted it to slide scanning. A speed demon, this scanner is not. But it finally got the task done.

The directions specify which way to orient the slide and which side should face up. Plus with "Perfection" in it's name, it should and did do a better job than I of getting the slides to look good. Now, there are dust specks on them, I don't know how to edit those out and did not think for this short exercise to clean the slide's surface. 

Nonetheless,  here they are. I have no idea how rare they are, but they are fifty or more years old. I'm just glad that I kept them.

My late brother-in-law knew someone at NASA back in the day and we inherited a large framed photo taken on the moon. Plus the letter from NASA to him thanking him for whatever he did for NASA. HUGE flare from the sun, but I'm not gonna complain!

Thanks again for taking the time to read this humble blog.

Scott

January 3, 2018 

   

Vintage and Classic film cameras. Collecting and using them, and more.

January 3, 2018

#218

Gentle reader,

Since camera collecting was once such a huge part of my life for YEARS, I decided to go through the list on blogger.com and see which posts I had written about cameras, collecting them, comparing them, using them and more. Why? I quit all the FaceBook groups about vintage stereos and decided to get back into cameras. I've joined two Facebook groups about vintage and classic cameras as well as one about vintage digital cameras. Yes, there are such things and people collect them.

So, well below is a list starting with the very first one from MANY years ago to the latest a few weeks ago.  

I began camera collecting in the late 1990's when finding an old camera at a church bazaar. Soon after when the word spread that I had a new hobby, friends and relatives started giving me cameras, unasked. Those cameras are the most precious to me and will never be sold.

I discovered that there were periodic camera shows and what a nirvana those shows were! To see and handle cameras that I'd only seen in books! It was mind blowing. Sadly, at least where we live, those shows have gone the way of the Dodo. eBay is mainly at fault. It IS the largest flea market in the world.

I met a man who would become my camera collecting mentor. A Jedi Master to this young padawan. His name, now departed, was Colonel Bill Arps. A retired U.S. Army mustang that became an OFFICIAL U.S. ARMY PHOTOGRAPHER and rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel before retiring. I learned much from him and he some from me. I introduced him to computers, the Internet and eBay. I eventually sold all his cameras and lenses (over 4000 of the former) for him and later his widow on eBay. I miss Colonel Bill.  

NOTE: I have been going through the thousands of photos I have made of my cameras and found, as you will see, that there was a time when I had a bad monitor and did not know so. Some of the photos you will see will have a color cast or are very faint. I have been correcting them in my PC, but have not yet updated each of the pages that have photos that need to be corrected. 

Also, it took time to discover and nurture my writing style. Plus, having never blogged before, I didn't know how to add photos until the 10th post or so. And I did not then know that I could load them full size. So, many are small images. 

One other thing. If you are viewing this on a PC or laptop, clicking on any image will open a second window atop the post page which has the photo you clicked on plus all the images in order arranged left to right at the bottom of that page. You can either click each one, or use your left/right arrow keys to move from image to image. 

Without further ado, here is the list of links:
Old Camera Collection CameraLock displayed

Camera collection breakdown.

Current Camera Collection May, 2009

Camera Group Shots

Camera and Lens Group shots continued.

Update on the Collections

Cosina Voigtlander Camera Comparison

http://therobbcollections.blogspot.com/2013/01/coming-full-circle.html

China to the rescue! Fisheye lens viewer.

Been finding some cameras of late. Fleshed out the now small collection.

Have found a few collectible cameras, even though I don't collect them anymore. Right.....   

Double Sub-woofers and The Ultimate Olympus OM kit  

And Then There Were Three. Panasonic Lumix Cameras, that is! 

How to get quality wide-angle photos with a DSLR inexpensively! 

I haven't written about the cameras in a while: Aires, Kiev, Zorki....and Family  

Scored a couple of Nikon AF lenses for cheap! Plus a primer on DSLR cameras. 

UPDATE on: Scored a couple of Nikon AF lenses for cheap! Plus a primer on DSLR cameras.  

Have a photo studio in our home....on a budget! 

Blast from the past: ZLR film cameras; Olympus IS Series PLUS tests on Digital cameras!  

Returning to my roots: Vintage Cameras and Shooting Film. 

I will be writing more on the subject as time goes by. I plan to start shooting with film again using classic and more modern cameras. I will then write reviews and other articles that hopefully will interest you.

Thanks to you the page views has exceeded 135,000! I had NO idea anyone was going to read my humble blog when I began, it was just something fun to do. So, THANK YOU VERY MUCH for taking the time to peruse through my words and images.

Scott
January 3, 2018