A 77 Year Old Camera Goes to the Mountains

Colorado CJ

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Hello everyone, I am a long time lurker, this is my first real post here.

I recently won an auction on a camera I've been wanting for a while, a Kodak Medalist I in excellent condition. Whenever I get some new photo gear, I head up the canyon to Rocky Mountain National Park to test it out. It was a windy, wet day in the park with lots of overcast skies. Makes for some interesting shots though!

I wish there was a way to display these images like they are displayed on my calibrated screen, large and full of tones, the down res image displayed on the internet color palate doesn't let you see the full qualities of these images.

Anyway, saying that, here they are.

These were shot on a 77 year old Kodak Medalist I that I received a couple of days ago. These are my first rolls and my first shots taken with this old camera, so I really didn't know what to expect. The first images were shot with trough a minus blue filter on Neopan Acros 100 film rated at 50 ISO and developed in Rodinal at 50:1 for 9 minutes. After they dried, I scanned them in using an Epson V750 pro.

Kodak Medalist 1 - Test 1 by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr

Kodak Medalist 1 - Test 2 by Andrew Marjama, on Flick


These next few were taken between 11,500 ft and 12,000 ft altitude. It was raining on and off, but it made for some good photo taking.

Kodak Medalist 1 - Test 4 by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr

Kodak Medalist 1 - Test 5 by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr

Kodak Medalist 1 - Test 6 by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr


These last images were using the same film and shot through the same filter, but I used Pyrocat MC at 1:1:100 to develop them. The negatives were a little thick at 15 minutes development time, so next time I'm going to develop for 12 minutes.

Kodak Medalist 1 - Test 7 by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr

Kodak Medalist 1 - Test 8 by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr

Kodak Medalist 1 - Test 9 by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr


Thats it for now. I have a few other photos (I shot 3 rolls, so 24 exposures total), but they weren't as interesting, or were doubles of these.

Next weekend I am going to take this camera, along with my 4x5 large format camera and my D600 to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park for some more photography and camping.
 
Saw these over on FM, Andrew. They look very good to me. I am still in love with my Medalist(s); those Ektar lenses are extremely good despite their age. Kodak got those right.

Kenny
 
The Kodak Medalist's Ektar lens is still one of the sharpest medium-format vintage lenses I have ever used. In the full-resolution version of my profile picture, you can actually count the number of stitches in the gloves that I'm wearing (the pic is an older self-portrait taken in the mirror with the Medalist I used to have). I can only imagine the insane amount of detail present in your full resolution images of the mountain landscapes.

I hope to see more from your 77 year old Ektar!
 
These images are very nice! Thanks for sharing them. Rocky Mountain National Park is one of my favorite places on earth to capture images. I am not familiar with the camera you used but your images show that you know how to use it.

Just curious, did you reroll 120 onto 620 spools?
 
Lovely shots Andrew, thanks for sharing them here! The Medalist is a camera I covet, and you've done nothing for my GAS avoidance program by showing these pictures 🙂

Also curious if you're re-spooling or if your camera has been converted to 120.

kind regards,
 
These images are simply gorgeous!

As you can probably tell from my avatar, I am quite the fan of the Medalist myself (Even if I'm apparently not as big a fan of haircuts.)

The Ektar is amazingly sharp, and the magnified RF gives amazing focusing accuracy. I have taken some really wonderful images with mine.

The Medalist is a pain in the ass with its 620 film and horrible ergonomics, but if you can put up with its quirks, it rewards you for it.
 
Thanks everyone for the welcome! I am sure this Medalist is going to be with me for a long time.

As for the 620 question. The camera is stock. I have a Harrison Film Changing Tent that I use for loading/unloading my large format film so I use that to re roll 120 film onto some 620 spools I bought on ebay.

After re spooling the first roll, I can now re spool a roll in about 3 minutes. So as long as I can find 620 spools, I'll be fine. Right now I have 6.
 
Yes, welcome!

Yes, welcome!

Thanks for the wonderful post - supports the view that landscapes can be done, even best-done, in black & white. The Medalist? back in the late Sixties, when I was in high school I saw a 16x20 inch print a friend of my Father had made from a Medalist neg - can't remember the film, Verichrome maybe? Amazing quality. I handled the camera and had one of those "...someday I'll own one of these." Not yet, but the owner (a physicist & astronomer) praised the Ektar optics and also the Tessar on the (then new) Rollei 35. I have the Rollei (it is amazing) and a Medalist is on my bucket list. Best, and enjoy, alfredian
 
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