Some Fun with the Exa.

[tunalegs]

My first roll with the 1954 Exa.
What better way to test shutter accuracy than with a roll of slide film? Agfa Precisa. Nice colors. Forgive the softness I don't have a slide scanner (or an acceptable macro lens for the DSLR).


Killer Bees by berangberang, on Flickr


tanks, a lot. by berangberang, on Flickr


Untitled by berangberang, on Flickr

I did not use the Peronar triplet which came with the Exa because I find fully manual lenses far too tedious to deal with. Instead the above images were made with the Pancolar 2/50 which is spectacularly sharp, and probably the best normal ever available for the traditional Exakta (the Pancolar 1.8/50 was available for the RTL1000). I used a rather sorry domiplan for the images below, it looked like it had sat in an attic for 20 years, so I can't really be too hard on the thing. Actually kind of shocked I got the contrast I did since it's loaded with internal dust.


IX GEEK by berangberang, on Flickr


exa01 by berangberang, on Flickr

A "waist level finder" can also make an "above head finder" in a pinch. 😉 With no wide angle lens on hand my only shot at getting those plants out of the way was from a high POV.

Aside from some scratches on the back of the film, everything turned out pretty well. The shutter is accurate and consistent, there are no light leaks, and that is about all one can ask from an exa really.

 

[David Hughes]

Hi,

Nice to see others like the EXA. I like it because it's simple and straight forward without any frills although some might not think that about the VF. And you can get some very nice lenses for it, very cheaply...

Regards, David

 

[waynec]

I've been looking into the Eax line recently as a another purchase. The bodies are cheap enough, and I like the fact that it's not an easy camera to shoot what with the limited shutter speeds, so it will make you think before you shoot and I'm starting to prefer that way of working then a machine gunning digital; Although digital has it's place. What offsets the body purchase is the lens purchase, outside of the Domiplan, which can run a couple of hundred or more if your buying off Ebay. It's just hard to rationalize that money when I can buy a preferred FD lens for my drawer sitting FTB and have a better camera all around.

 

[David Hughes]

Hi,

That made me look on ebay and so I'm standing by what I said. Some nice stuff out there if you ignore the dealers Buy It Now stuff.

Regards, David

 

[tunalegs]

I have quite a few Exakta lenses at this point, and I don't think I paid more than $25 for any of them. It is however getting difficult to find wide angle lenses since the digital folks have somehow deluded themselves into thinking that a 1950s German wide angle is going to be magically better than something actually made for their camera. It's getting sort of silly.

My favorite lens by far is the Pancolar 2/50 which is much better in my opinion than the Schnieder Xenon, Steinheil Quinon, or others that demand high prices on ebay currently.