show us your Retina!

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The IIa is completely jammed but not going anywhere, I was my grandmother's. I'm fairly certain that all the family album pictures that are of good quality are taken by her, with this camera. Eventually Ill try to fix it, but I'm not in a hurry because the finder is no joy to use, very differently form the secon one:
The IIIC works fine except the meter, just needs a little adjustment, the focus scale doesn't line up but the RF seems to be spot on.
 
A friend of mine inherited his mother's old camera. He let me have a look and it is this beauty. Not a rangefinder, but a scale focus. Great little camera, and it works. Shutter seems ok except the very long speeds. not bad for an almost 80 year old camera.

The lens had some serious cleaning marks, so I polished the front element with toothpaste!

Sorry about the bad scan.
 
Just put this together today.

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The Vitessa had too many issues for me so it became a donor for this Retina IIa. The Vitessa also came with a bunch of accessories (filters, hood, Kontur 1:1 viewfinder) which will work on the Retina.

I do not know how it will be with film yet. With scotch tape on the film rails the focus does look good. The Retina will fold up with the Ultron on it but not with a filter on the lens.

Shawn
 
rodt16s said:
Looking forward to seeing some results with the Ultron
Click to expand...

It turns out the Ultron works fine on the IIa. The IIa, however, decided to act up. I didn't realize the film wasn't feeding properly (tore the film sprockets) so most of the shots I took actually didn't get taken. Then the shutter started acting up too. Only ended up with a couple of completely boring shots around my yard. But focus is good from minimum up to infinity.

Tried moving the Ultron to a pre-war IIa (type 150) as I prefer the simpler mechanics of it but the larger front element wouldn't allow the cover to close.

Shawn
 
An acquaintance gave me a gorgeous "Big C" Retina the other day, so of course I needed a photo of it next to the "small c" that I've had for a few years.


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That's a rare Retina you have there. Only 18,700 made. Not offered for sale in the US only Europe. Rodenstock lens makes it even more rare. I have one too, that's how I know. Bob J Danville CA
 
I gave this camera to a friend who said he wanted to try film again. He hasn't touched it since. This is the one I could kick myself for getting rid of, it was the best "riding bicycle with camera in the pocket" camera.



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I exposed a few rolls of film in my Retina Reflex with the cloudy prism, which involved a lot of guess work. What kept me interested in the camera was the fact that the Xenon is a great lens, the camera's light meter was accurate, and the shutter was not only accurate, but as quiet as my rangefinder Retinas. What held me back was a bit of vagueness in regard to which specific prisms would fit the Retinas. Here is an example shot post-prism replacement:


forest path by Mike Connealy, on Flickr

Having a mirror that does not instantly return in a leaf shutter slr takes a little getting used to, but I think it probably contributes to the extraordinary quietness of operation. There are some add-on accessory lenses, but I doubt I will bother with them as their use complicates the use of the camera. I do have a little screw-in accessory lens which facilitates close-up work, and I'm looking forward to using the camera often.
 
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