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  #21  
Old 4th March 2020, 07:18 PM
Richard Gould Richard Gould is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Martin Rick View Post
I had a Mamiya 645 that I picked up for peanuts complete with the standard lens and 140mm portrait lens, but I had made up my mind to sell it for profit, having put a roll through it to check before selling. I'll just play with the Flexaret for a bit and see if I can get used to the square format, the more leisurely pace of shooting and the expense of 12 shots on a roll.
You certainly notice the difference in weight hanging round your neck and possibly I'll have to use a tripod as well. Major disadvantages that I've noticed so far? The fiddly aperture and shutter speed controls, the lack of metering and the viewfinder resembling the black hole of Calcutta. Whether the advantages that you mention will be enough to compensate, only time will tell.
Gt something like a Rolleflex/cord/or Yaschica and the viewfinder is quite bright, with the Flexaret all you have is the basic ground glass, as for a tripod why?, with these cameras with leaf shutters you won't need one, I take a lot of stuff in very dark interiors with my TLT's,folder's and Leica's, and losing that mirror in SLR's means that I can easily hand hold down to 1/2 second, these type of cameras are light, leaf shutter,no mirror, and I have found that it is the clunky mirror in SLR's that cause camera shake, I have never used a tripod or monopod with any of my older cameras
Richard
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  #22  
Old 4th March 2020, 07:44 PM
Svend Svend is offline
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+1 What he said^^^

Martin, the lack of a mirror combined with the weight of the camera and the very tiny leaf shutter makes the TLRs very hand-holdable to quite slow shutter speeds. Richard must be a statue if he can get sharp negs down to 1/2 sec. (impressive!), but I have never been able to manage that....maybe 1/15 on a good day. Pull down on the neck strap, take a deep breath and hold, then squeeze the shutter button gently....works well.

As for a dim viewfinder, I had the same problem with the old ground glass on my 1953 Rolleiflex (it was actual ground glass, not fresnel screen...very dim). I swapped it for a cut-down Mamiya RZ67 screen and it is now nice and bright. The other thing you can do to possibly brighten things up before going to a new screen is to clean the mirror (carefully and gently!...the top surface of those mirrors are silvered, and you can quite easily rub it off if you're too aggressive). If the silvering on the mirror is already too far gone, then new ones are available on ebay for about $8. Also, while you're in there, clean the inside surface of the viewing lens. Not sure how the Flexaret is built, but you should be able to get at the mirror and viewing lens by simply undoing a few screws.

Any questions, ask away...

PS -- that Flexaret has a good reputation...supposed to be a great camera with an excellent lens. Enjoy!
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Last edited by Svend; 4th March 2020 at 07:52 PM.
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  #23  
Old 4th March 2020, 09:27 PM
Martin Rick Martin Rick is offline
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I'm not very good at repairing mechanical things and, despite my best efforts, I seem to always end up with a nut, bolt or washer left over and nowhere to put it. I've looked at a couple of YouTube videos where some Czech technician explains Flexaret repairs in his mother tongue. That's not a great deal of help, though, and until things get palpably worse, I'm staying out of repairs.
Your comments about the "WOW" factor of the prints will have to seduce me I'm down to my last roll of FP4+ and when that's finished and I've hopefully become more familiar with it, the next thing I'll possibly try is Fomapan 100 or 200 as it's a bit more economical. It'll at least get a fair trial.
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  #24  
Old 4th March 2020, 09:41 PM
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Bob Bob is offline
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Originally Posted by Martin Rick View Post
It looks l ike it's a dead link.I get a "server not found" error message.
Working OK for me Martin - try again, it may have been a temporary glitch.

BTW, I can attest to the drawing power of medium format quality. I've barely touched my 35mm cameras since getting my Bronica SQ-A several years ago... Only very recently starting to use the 35mm again for non-landscape, non-tripod shooting.

Last edited by Bob; 4th March 2020 at 09:45 PM.
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  #25  
Old 4th March 2020, 10:23 PM
Martin Rick Martin Rick is offline
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Originally Posted by Bob View Post
Working OK for me Martin - try again, it may have been a temporary glitch.

BTW, I can attest to the drawing power of medium format quality. I've barely touched my 35mm cameras since getting my Bronica SQ-A several years ago... Only very recently starting to use the 35mm again for non-landscape, non-tripod shooting.
I've tried Firefox and Chrome with no luck
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  #26  
Old 4th March 2020, 11:15 PM
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Bob Bob is offline
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I've tried Firefox and Chrome with no luck
Very odd - I get there OK in IE11, Chrome & Firefox. Try from a different location if possible - something may be blocking your home IP address.

Or try typing the URL in manually (tho it seems rather unlikely that different browsers would be making the same hyperlink error!)

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  #27  
Old 5th March 2020, 11:05 AM
Martin Rick Martin Rick is offline
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It seems that any time one asks about a particular enlarging lens, the answer is always something like, "it's (not) as good as brand X" with both opinions being offered. However the majority opinion seems to be that I wasn't sold a pup and the 20 guineas was a good price, as long as the seller's description was accurate. But as they say, the proof of the pudding's in the eating and, when it arrives, I'll do a print to see.
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  #28  
Old 5th March 2020, 06:16 PM
JOReynolds JOReynolds is offline
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Years ago I encountered some technicians in a police lab, testing lenses between murders (producing books of evidence photos for murder trials kept them busy in bursts). They reckoned that, for B&W, the Tessar-derived Entals made by Taylor, Taylor and Hobson, were tops but acknowledged that Japanese and German might win out for colour. The Entals were of 4 elements, two a cemented pair, so fewer glass-air surfaces and a supposedly crisper image. 6-element lenses certainly miss out there. If there was colour fringing, B&W paper would not have registered it.
Who was it that recommended focusing through a blue filter to cut out the fringing? Was it Ctein or Gene Nocon?
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  #29  
Old 5th March 2020, 07:04 PM
Alan Clark Alan Clark is offline
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It was Gene Nocon who recommended focussing through a blue filter to get a sharper image. But he was proved wrong. Didn't it turn out that he was just a businessman trying to sell his book?

Alan
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  #30  
Old 5th March 2020, 08:55 PM
Martin Rick Martin Rick is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JOReynolds View Post
Years ago I encountered some technicians in a police lab, testing lenses between murders (producing books of evidence photos for murder trials kept them busy in bursts). They reckoned that, for B&W, the Tessar-derived Entals made by Taylor, Taylor and Hobson, were tops but acknowledged that Japanese and German might win out for colour. The Entals were of 4 elements, two a cemented pair, so fewer glass-air surfaces and a supposedly crisper image. 6-element lenses certainly miss out there. If there was colour fringing, B&W paper would not have registered it.
Who was it that recommended focusing through a blue filter to cut out the fringing? Was it Ctein or Gene Nocon?
Those were the days when as well as the Taylor, Taylor and Hobson, you could buy British Ross, Wray and Dallmeyer lenses.
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