vivitar ultra wide

[chris91387]

hopefully no one one will be offended if i reference another "toy" camera in this thread but i picked up a vivitar ultra wide (22mm) and ran a test roll through it and posted the results on flickr. see, i wont even waste valuable bandwidth or RFF storage space on this.

all shot on some mildly expired (but always refrigerated) kodak gold 200, processed at costco with the qss scan cd. did a little photoshop work for contrast but that's it. the vignetting is in-camera.

take a look:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/2303332...7610016867219/

[SergioGuerra]

It's a nice toy camera... I have one too:

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=vivitar&w=10037176%40N00

I like specifically these two:

[ClaremontPhoto]

This is a great camera.

I enjoy photos by PinkieStyle and Low Revolution who both use these cameras often (but not exclusively).

[funkaoshi]

I have this camera as well. It's fun, though loading film into it is a pain in the ass. Opening that back door is way harder than it should be. I think taking pictures of your shoes is the first thing everyone does when they get this camera.

I have a few photos online. I hardly use the camera.

[chris91387]

i guess i should, at the very least, give an impression of this camera. you know, "what would ken rockwell do".

the body is, well, the body is cheap plastic. loading the film is a pain and rewinding scares me because i feel that the rewind knob is going to snap off.

there are no focus, aperture or shutter speed settings. with a 22mm though, you focus shouldn't be too difficult. my first roll was iso 200 and i was mostly playing around in low light environments. i read that the camera lens is apx f11 and the shutter speed is about 1/125. the lens gives a nice vignette that seemed to become more pronounced in photoshop when i added a little bit of contrast and tweaked the curves some.

anyone who plays with these cameras knows that it's always a crapshoot and part of the fun is seeing what you get.

ok, done. back to work.

[oftheherd]

Those are interesting shots by everyone. I didn't even know the camera existed. I'll have to look into that.

[patrickhh]

I like this camera

[jamesj]

thought I would post some shots with my Black Slim Devil. Same camera as the viv.

[kuzano]

Vivitar was always a branding and marketing company. All equipment sold by them was made by other manufacturer.

For instance all the Vivitar Series lenses had a fairly good reputation. However, the reputation was tarnished a bit when you took into consideration that there were from 8 to 12 different lens manufacturers, plus in the different focal lengths supplying lenses with Vivitar Series One branding.

Some of the best were Kiron, who produced great lenses in their own name, plus more very good lenses for Vivitar.

So, who made the toy camera with which you are besmirching Vivitar (or perhaps NOT besmirchiing... can't tell) as a toy camera producer. They actually sold some excellent SLR cameras, made of course by companies who made such cameras.

I know on the Vivitar lenses, you can tell who manufactured the lens with the first two digits of the serial number. This gives people a leg up on assessing quality on Vivitar product, or perhaps understanding why a certain Vivitar lens is a POS.

For instance the SN table for Vivitar Series 1 70X210 made in the 70's was:

The 1st two digits (or first one digit, in the case of 6 or 9) designate the manufacturer:
6 Olympus
9 Cosina
13 Schneider Optik
22 Kino Precision (Kiron)
25 Ozone Optical
28 Komine Co. Ltd
32 Makinon
33 Asanuma (Tokina) 37 Tokina
42 Bauer
44 Perkin Elmer (US)
47 Chinon
51 Tokyo Trading
56 Kyoe Schoji
75 Hoya Optical
81 Polar
The next three digits designate the year and week of manufacture. One digit for the year and two digits (01 through 52) for the week. Obviously, designating the year with a single digit doesn't allow you to differentiate between, say, 1978 and 1988, so you have to infer the decade of manufacture from other evidence (such as when, where and how you acquired the lens, what documentation came with it and the physical appearance of the lens).
The remaining digits indicate the manufacturing serial number.

A SN starting with 22 (Kiron) usually denoted a good example.

Now, again, who made your toy camera for vivitar?

[jamesj]

did you type that all out @Kuzano?
That was pretty intense...

well the camera is actually I guess a clone of the Vivitar Ultra Slim and Wide. Bought it on fourcornerstore.com but also has made by superheadz.tokyo on the camera which brought me to www.powershovel.co.jp either way it makes fun photos...

[Lord Nikon]

I have one, its a pretty pimping camera for the $20 it cost.

For someone curious about getting into ultrawides its an extremely affordable experiment.


Roll in a day by Lord Nikon 12, on Flickr

A digital contact print (I did tweak levels frame by frame) from a full roll for the Roll in a day challenge.

[eurekaiv]

I seem to run into a UWS at a thrift store or swap meet every few months. $5 is the most I've paid for one. These things make fantastic images IMO. Not that sharp but they have a "look" and that's something I always appreciate in a camera. Here's a couple of my personal fav's...


Glowing Architecture II by eurekaiv, on Flickr


'til 2 Club by eurekaiv, on Flickr

[jamesj]

Nice images everyone!

eurekaiv if you find more send them my way!


- james

[BillBingham2]

Anyone still have a Vivitar Series 1 P&S out there? The one I am thinking of has a manual zoom. Wish I had purchased one years back.

I got my wife a P&S with a panoramic option that did wonderful stuff. I wonder where it is?

B2 (;->

[kuvvy]

Not used mine for a while but it can give good images in decent light and I love the wide view the lens gives. Here's some of my shots.

[jamesj]

[umcelinho]

I really love my vivitar utra wide and slim. probably the best bang for the buck camera i have.

[said]

Superheadz Ultra Wide | Rossmann HR400 | dm | V700







Click 4 more!

[farlymac]

A friend of mine gave me a VUWS a while back. It's okay, but I wouldn't want it to be the only camera in my bag (or pocket, for that matter).


00240004_2 by br1078phot, on Flickr

PF

[Kent]

I agree! That cam is highly enjoyable.
It's not "good" by today's expectations, but it's fun to shoot with.

I add some photo taken in the Emilia in 2011.
(Unfortunately developed by a bad lab. )

[Kent]

And another one...