Exakta

[Tom Barry]

I believe this is one of the few left-hand winding 35mm cameras ever mass produced. This one still works, but the cloth shutter has pinholes and I just keep it in a display case with some other old things I like. I used a light tent and one fluorescent lamp directed from the right.

Exakta VX IIa-web by tombarry975, on Flickr

[Shadowman]

Nice for still life subject. Nice one.

[tao2]

Hi Tom,

that's a good camera with a very good lens. Ye should get the curtains replaced or DIY. It's too good tae lie on a shelf. If ah could afford it ah'd buy it just for the lens but have other projects at the moment. Ye do know that lens is worth $150-200 dollars tae the right person?

[Loose Canon]

Cool piece Tom!

Composition is nice and having the instruction manual? Awesome. Love the date showing.

Just as an opinion? I think you have some lighting issues going on which are hiding the beautiful details that should be seen with this piece.

Honestly Tom? I think you could give this beautiful piece a better shot with a differently designed lighting arrangement. Another arrangement can be done with what you have, a composite, or just another lamp.

But hey! That’s just me!

Just a Theory!

[Saorsa]

I agree, a bit of fill from the left would bring out some detail in the leather and the starboard side of the prism and illuminate the lettering on the lens on the port side.

A polarizer might reduce the glare at the 10 O'clock position on the lens lettering too.

[Tom Barry]

Thanks for looking and all the comments and suggestions. I could have used another lamp to the left, certainly, or some other tricks of the trade, but I wanted it to look as though it was just lying on a table with slanting daylight coming through a window.

[John 2]

I lusted after this camera in my early film days. I seem to remember that there used to be a version with a removable pentaprism so that you could either use it at waste level or eye level and as Robert points out, it has a good lens. As to your shot, I would only tone down some of the very bright highlights but leave the rest as is. Interesting capture.

[Tom Barry]

I lusted after this camera in my early film days. I seem to remember that there used to be a version with a removable pentaprism so that you could either use it at waste level or eye level and as Robert points out, it has a good lens. As to your shot, I would only tone down some of the very bright highlights but leave the rest as is. Interesting capture.

Thanks, John. This is the version you mentioned. The pentaprism is mounted in the photo. It slips off and you can use the waist-level finder. It also has a built-in knife (!). You could remove the take-up spool and substitute an empty cartridge and use that to take up the exposed film. That way, you didn't have to rewind, but the film had to be cut off behind the film gate by unscrewing a knob on the bottom of the body, pulling it down to cut off the film, pushing it back and then firing off two blank exposures to draw the end into the cartridge. The instructions say you could use the knife "in the same way if any part of the film is to be removed from the camera for processing." I guess this would necessitate wasting a few frames, but if you really needed to process a frame or two right then and still use the remainder of the roll, that would be a handy feature. I also have an as-new aluminum bodied Steinheil Munchen 135mm f2.8 Quinar with hood and built-in tripod mount. Such high-grade Steinheils used rare-earth glass, which causes some concern about low-level radiation emission, but I doubt there is enough to cause users to grow third eyes! I think I can get an adapter to mount this optic to a modern camera; might be interesting to put it into action.

[DEAN01]

Nicely done, Tom. It's been a long time since I used an Exata.

[Texas Dave]

I really enjoy this photo! My fascination with vintage cameras includes nicely done photos of them as well. Thanks for sharing!