Central Europe (Austro-Hungary +)

Here are a few taken with the Retina IIIc (Ilfrod FP4+). For reference, I brought my Contax iia (Voigtlander SC Skopar 21mm f4, CZ Opton 50mm f2, Nikkor P.C 105mm f2.5) and Retina IIIc (Rodenstock 50mm f2 Heligon) on this trip. I mainly had the 21mm on the Contax, but sometimes swapped the 105mm (and a few times the Sonnar), and used the Retina for most 50mm shots.

Botanical Gardens,Vienna


Botanical Garden by Mark Wyatt, on Flickr

Buildings in the palace complex, Varazdin, Croatia


Varazdin buildings by Mark Wyatt, on Flickr

Mariboir, Solvenia, view


Maribor View by Mark Wyatt, on Flickr
 
markjwyatt said:
Here are a few taken with the Retina IIIc (Ilfrod FP4+). For reference, I brought my Contax iia (Voigtlander SC Skopar 21mm f4, CZ Opton 50mm f2, Nikkor P.C 105mm f2.5) and Retina IIIc (Rodenstock 50mm f2 Heligon) on this trip. I mainly had the 21mm on the Contax, but sometimes swapped the 105mm (and a few times the Sonnar), and used the Retina for most 50mm shots.

Botanical Gardens,Vienna


Botanical Garden by Mark Wyatt, on Flickr

Buildings in the palace complex, Varazdin, Croatia


Varazdin buildings by Mark Wyatt, on Flickr

Mariboir, Solvenia, view


Maribor View by Mark Wyatt, on Flickr
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Enjoying these photos, Mark! You hit some places in Central Europe that I’ve yet to visit but am eager to thanks to your photos. One tech question: how’d your Contax IIa hold up? I’ve got one of these cameras that I’d love to take on a European trip, but I worry about the complex shutter mechanism fouling up (even though my camera has been serviced). Did you find yourself having to be extra careful to avoid bumps etc.?
 
Dubrovnik, Croatia 2018. Olympus XA, FP4+.

201810025_zpsrvuewa4w.jpg
 
Bingley said:
Enjoying these photos, Mark! You hit some places in Central Europe that I’ve yet to visit but am eager to thanks to your photos. One tech question: how’d your Contax IIa hold up? I’ve got one of these cameras that I’d love to take on a European trip, but I worry about the complex shutter mechanism fouling up (even though my camera has been serviced). Did you find yourself having to be extra careful to avoid bumps etc.?
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Not really an issue. I just had the shutter changed out to an unused one (hard to call it a new shutter, but it kind of is), and it worked fine. I did have a couple issues- first, my rewind spool is not too good any more, and I actually lost my roll a couple of times (Ilford film is really stiff), but caught it rewound and reloaded. Tape works, and used that on a couple of the last rolls. I do have some Contax reloadable cassettes, and thought of bringing those, but I have not tested them in camera, and that unknown is even worse. Also, when the shutter got replaced, my repair guy thinks he flipped a washer in the rewind mechanism (and will fix for me, but I did not get the camera to him before the trip), and the counter was not counting, so I manually advanced the counter as best I could and when it stopped, I rewound. Neither issue was a show stopper because I was aware of them. I brought the Retina IIIc along also so if either had issues, I would still be taking pictures, and it had no issues. Older cameras always present some challenges, but until recently, the Contax iia was very reliable.
 
markjwyatt said:
Not really an issue. I just had the shutter changed out to an unused one (hard to call it a new shutter, but it kind of is), and it worked fine. I did have a couple issues- first, my rewind spool is not too good any more, and I actually lost my roll a couple of times (Ilford film is really stiff), but caught it rewound and reloaded. Tape works, and used that on a couple of the last rolls. I do have some Contax reloadable cassettes, and thought of bringing those, but I have not tested them in camera, and that unknown is even worse. Also, when the shutter got replaced, my repair guy thinks he flipped a washer in the rewind mechanism (and will fix for me, but I did not get the camera to him before the trip), and the counter was not counting, so I manually advanced the counter as best I could and when it stopped, I rewound. Neither issue was a show stopper because I was aware of them. I brought the Retina IIIc along also so if either had issues, I would still be taking pictures, and it had no issues. Older cameras always present some challenges, but until recently, the Contax iia was very reliable.
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Thanks! Good to know. The shutter on my IIa broke several years ago while on a hike. I sent it to Henry Scherer, who fixed it and overhauled the camera, but that experience made me a little skittish about taking the camera on trips. I did take it to the southwest US in 2021, and it behaved well. So maybe I should just go ahead and use it on overseas trips… it seems a shame not to use the beautiful Zeiss glass. I will follow your example, though, and take a film backup camera… just in case….
 
Freakscene said:
Where the advertisement is for The Slivovice Museum (it says "zazrak zvany slivovice" - 'plums are miraculous') there was a large mural advertising Campari from maybe 1993 until - I think it disappeared around 2002, to be replaced by various advertisements for Lidl and then Albert supermarkets, until this Slivovice Museum advertisement arrived some time quite recently - I don't recall a slivovice museum, and that's the sort of thing I would have known about, so I guess maybe it wasn't there when I was also there. In the 1990s it was a good spot to arrange to meet people before we all had mobile phones and could just ask "where are you?". Another funny memory.

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markjwyatt said:
Here are a few taken with the Retina IIIc (Ilfrod FP4+). For reference, I brought my Contax iia (Voigtlander SC Skopar 21mm f4, CZ Opton 50mm f2, Nikkor P.C 105mm f2.5) and Retina IIIc (Rodenstock 50mm f2 Heligon) on this trip. I mainly had the 21mm on the Contax, but sometimes swapped the 105mm (and a few times the Sonnar), and used the Retina for most 50mm shots.

Botanical Gardens,Vienna


Botanical Garden by Mark Wyatt, on Flickr

Buildings in the palace complex, Varazdin, Croatia


Varazdin buildings by Mark Wyatt, on Flickr

Mariboir, Solvenia, view


Maribor View by Mark Wyatt, on Flickr
Click to expand...
I like all of these , and thank you for potting up film, lens and camera details. It is interesting. I also try to use my Contax IIa as often as possible and so far it's been fine and the bad pictures are down to me alone.
 
davidswiss said:
I like all of these , and thank you for potting up film, lens and camera details. It is interesting. I also try to use my Contax IIa as often as possible and so far it's been fine and the bad pictures are down to me alone.
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I like the way the Contax iia shoots. It really is a compact precision mechanical device.
 
Mute-on said:
Your building verticals also seem very straight without some convergence I would expect. They look fantastic to me. Is this post-processing or something else?
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IMO, the convergence of verticals should not be 100% corrected. The result looks to me un-natural, as if the rising verticals were slightly diverging, esp. the tower. How about other viewers?
 
Mute-on said:
Both your Q2 and M11 photos look a little like pushed Tri-X or increased contrast. Your building verticals also seem very straight without some convergence I would expect. They look fantastic to me. Is this post-processing or something else?
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Hi. Thank you - I’m glad you like the images. I was a late comer to digital because I didn’t like the plastic look to the images. Once I actually took the plunge I started to use Photoshop to play with levels, curves and contrast to achieve a more film-like appearance. In some cases adding some “grain” though I don’t believe I did that with the photos posted in this thread. By the way, I also have a Fuji X100v and the files from that camera already have a very nice film-like appearance.

As for the “straightness” of the image, I simply use the Photoshop perspective adjustment tool. The same as I have (previous-to-PS) achieved throughout my darkroom years by simply tilting an unattached baseboard. I prefer the corrected appearance though from the subsequent post above, some appear to prefer the “natural” out-of-camera look. Each to his/her own but it is why large format camera users become proficient at in-camera perspective adjustment along with the invention of the tilt-and-shift lens for those who prefer it straight…
 
Tuna said:
...I also have a Fuji X100v and the files from that camera already have a very nice film-like appearance...
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AS I wrote earlier, I brought my Contax iia + lenses and Retina IIIc. My wife brought her Fujifilm X100f that I bought for her a couple of years ago. The X100f (or "v" I imagine) is a very nice travel camera.
 
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