Retina s2

[moretto]

Hi there!

I have bought a Retina S2 recently on an auction for a price not worth mentioning, looks in OK condition, but the seller knows nothing about it. (BTW, still waiting for it to arive).
So, as a Leica and FSU fan, I know absolutely nothing about Kodak (except a "brownie" I own). Couldn't find any online manuals for this specific model.
Is it any good? Fun to use? Feels like a piece of art or piece of "&%#%/" ??

Any comment and info welcome..thanks in advance.

 

[Spider67]

It is good and it's easy to use......but its a sad proof of the decline of a a great product family.
When you happen to find pricing lists you could see haw the products got better and more expensive. True higher prices may have been due to inflation, but the Retinas reached a point where they could not be produced any longer as pieces of original engineering. A camera like the S 2 would have been a Retinette in earlier years.
So it's not a piece of &%$§(/& but somthing like a rather unfitting headstone

 

[moretto]

Hm. Just hope I won't use it as a paperweight. My favourite for bw photo is Fed 4. Kodak should be at least as good. I hope for a brighter viewfinder, at least. That's my only complain about Fed.

 

[moretto]

Couldn't find a manual anywhere! And then the package arived. No focusing? Nice. No schratches, no visible marks that it had ever been used(??), works perfectly smooth. The meter is accurate, the lense is as clear as new. Shot a few rolls of colour film, a roll of Ilford and a roll of Efke BW. OK, if the lense is open wide under 6m, you need a measuring tape 🙄 . But otherwise, I'm nicely surprised. Just confused about flash setting...is the blue lightbulb mark for electronic flash or for those funny explosive cubes? 😀 And why is 1/125 marked red? Anyone has some link on a simple manual? :bang:

 

[zorroflores]

Hola Moretto,

You can find the manual for the Kodak S1 here: http://66.49.230.119/kodak_pdf/kodak_retina_s1.pdf
not the same but should give a good idea, the S1 and S2 differentiate for the exposimeter basically.

The blue bulb position is for flashcube (explosive, well not really that bad...) sets sync at 1/30. For electronic flashes there is a shoe and the sync speed could be any form 1/30 to 1/250.

I would love to see your pics in this post, should be nice based in the ever good lens in Retina cameras.

Best

Carlos Flores

The source website for the link of the manual is http://www.butkus.org/chinon/, great site for manuals, donate if you find it useful.

 

[moretto]

Thank You, senor. Wow, we are really across the world 😉. As You guess, I was so inpatient to try the new toy, I was shooting everything around, so the pics i have for now are really nothing to show, unless You like to see my cousin disasembling an old VW Golf after a hard day of autocross.😱 Or my house from 360 different angles. But as soon as I shoot something representative, I'll be happy to upload it

 

[moretto]

huh, it' been a while since my last post, but here goes. Some pics from Retina:

 

[Tom Harrell]

Nice shots! What body of water is that? The lens looks reasonably sharp! Thanks for posting the pictures.

Tom

 

[moretto]

Thanks Tom.

This is Adriatic Sea, Kvarner Bay, Rijeka -Susak-harbour in Croatia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kvarner_Gulf

I must say I'm satisfied with lens performance in near range, but however, i shot some panoramic snaps in colour...not so happy with those.

 

[zorroflores]

I find a beautiful range of tones in the second picture, the play of light in the clouds are great, and the first picture looks sharp (the son?), the retina lens has made honor to its tradition.

Best regards

Carlos Flores

 

[moretto]

Thank You Carlos.

The first pic is the son. In his place I would be tired of my pop clicking around me. 😉 The second one was taken through a window with so called "stop sol" glass which acts similar to polarizing filter, as You know, Retina has no filter thread.

Best regards
Mladen

 

[Spider67]

Great pics Mladen!
I like the 2nd one most....and there's a magic moment in the first.