May 30, 2020
my take on the “ampersand list” design
seen from United States
seen from Russia
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Canada
seen from T1
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Finland
seen from Indonesia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from Israel
my take on the “ampersand list” design
The E. Ludwig Meritar 50mm f/2.9 lens was one of a number of standard lenses supplied on several different cameras made in East Germany in the post war years. In this article, I’m going to show a few examples of the sort of performance you can expect with this lens when fitted to a modern mirrorless camera, the Fuji X-T1.
My copy of the lens is fitted with an Exakta bayonet mount, and I used a simple Exakta to Fuji X adaptor I bought from Amazon for only a few pounds to fit the lens to the camera. Obviously, the lens is completely manual and so the camera must be manually focused and used in manual exposure, or aperture priority mode.
E. Ludwig Meritar Lens Description
The Meritar lens is a triplet design, which means it consists of three lens elements set in three groups. The aperture stop down is of pre-set design where a minimum aperture value can be pre-set and then quickly selected with a single turn of the aperture ring. This type of lens was popular in the days before auto stop down aperture was introduced in the early 1960s.
The actual aperture settings available are f/2.8 to f/16 and the aperture itself consists of 5 blades.
I suspect that the lens has some sort of coating to reduce reflections and glare, because the lens elements have a blue tint.
To use the lens is remarkably simple because there are only two control rings – the aperture and the focus ring. On the Fuji X-T1 I set the exposure control to auto iso, a fixed shutter speed and then set the aperture ring on the lens to the aperture I wanted so effectively let the ISO set itself to get the correct exposure. This works as long as you keep an eye on the ISO and don’t let it get too high – on the images below the ISO was between 200 and 640 which for a modern camera like the XT-1 results in the noise being well controlled. With the focus mode set to manual, the superb Fuji focus peaking system can be used to set the focus.
The pictures
To get some sample pictures with this lens and camera combination, I went to the Fairlands Sailing lake in Stevenage to get some pictures of the sailing boats. I was a cold day, and I have to say the sailors were braver than I to be out on the water in shorts!
Overall the Meritar is an average performer – I had in mind that it would be spectacularly good, but it certainly isn’t that. When used fully open and f/2.8 the lens seems quite soft, and even when stopped down, although it sharpens up a bit, it is still quite flatt and doesn’t have the advantage of the ‘1960s look’ that something like the Jupiter 8 has.
My assessment is that although it was interesting trying the lens out to see how it looked, I wouldn’t bother buying another one if I found it available on ebay.
Ludwig Meritar 50mm f/2.8 sample with Fuji X-T1 – sailing boat
Ludwig Meritar 50mm f/2.8 sample with Fuji X-T1 – two sailing boats
Ludwig Meritar 50mm f/2.8 sample with Fuji X-T1 – two sailing boats
Ludwig Meritar 50mm f/2.8 sample with Fuji X-T1 – two sailing boats
Ludwig Meritar 50mm f/2.8 sample with Fuji X-T1 – sailing boat into the sun
Ludwig Meritar 50mm f/2.8 sample with Fuji X-T1 – bird and leaves
Ludwig Meritar 50mm f/2.8 sample with Fuji X-T1 – sailing boat crew
Video
The clip below shows the video performance of the E.Ludwig Meritar on the Fuji X-T1 in a short clip I took at the same time as the images above.
Some samples with an E. Ludwig Meritar 50mm lens on Fuji X-T1 The E. Ludwig Meritar 50mm f/2.9 lens was one of a number of standard lenses supplied on several different cameras made in East Germany in the post war years.
A few days ago I posted an article reviewing my Ricoh R1v digital compact camera and today I’m going to add to that post by describing my experiences of shooting with it, and show some sample pictures.
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Ricoh R1v sample pictures – macro strawberry
Ricoh R1v sample pictures – country track
Ricoh R1v sample pictures – Emma
Ricoh R1v sample pictures – wall and tree
Ricoh R1v sample pictures – old garage door
Ricoh R1v sample pictures – Raceways
Ricoh R1v sample pictures – Watering the plants
Ricoh R1v sample pictures – Stevenage old town
Ricoh R1v sample pictures – Stevenage high street
Ricoh R1v sample pictures – The rump and wade
Ricoh R1v sample pictures – paving
Ricoh R1v sample pictures – hanging baskets
Ricoh R1v sample pictures – macro picture of flower
Ricoh R1v sample pictures – macro picture
Ricoh R1v sample pictures – Flowers on seat
Ricoh R1v sample pictures – Flowers on seat
Ricoh R1v sample pictures – Stevenage War memorial
In order to try the Ricoh R1v out, I took a walk around the old town area of Stevenage this morning and used the camera in the way it was intended – as a snap shot camera, and the pictures I took are shown above.
My impressions of the camera are:
Although it is difficult to see images on the back of the camera to compose pictures, the addition of an optical viewfinder meant that it was much easier to use than LCD only cameras
When I imported the pictures above I discovered that it doesn’t auto rotate images taken in Portrait mode – they have to be done manually.
Obviously being small and light means it is easy to keep in a pocket and take out and use at any time. The start up time is pretty quick.
On to the actual pictures. Just to be clear this pictures were all taken in Jpeg mode and the camera controlled every aspect of the picture. They were imported into Lightroom and a very small amount of tweaking done to balance the exposure and in some cases the pictures were slightly cropped to correct some lines which were not straight.
My findings are:
The highlights are blown in some pictures and can’t be recovered in Lightroom although that is not really surprising for a camera with a small sensor.
The fill in flash fired automatically on some of the pictures and this resulted in some good balanced exposures.
It isn’t possible to easily isolate subjects with such a small sensor – again, this is to be expected.
The camera is good for macro photos because of the high depth of field.
Video performance
I also took a short video clip which shows the (pretty poor) video performance. Don’t forget, this camera is about 12 years old so I didn’t expect it to be too good.
Ricoh R1v Sample pictures A few days ago I posted an article reviewing my Ricoh R1v digital compact camera and today I'm going to add to that post by describing my experiences of shooting with it, and show some sample pictures.
Vivitar were a popular manufacturer of third party, add on lenses in the 1970s and 1980s. They produced some fantastic quality lenses, and some of more dubious quality, but were a popular choice for those of us that couldn’t afford the camera manufacture’s home produced lenses.
Vivitar 75 – 205 f/3.8 telephoto on Fuji X-T1 sample pictures – Lake edge
Vivitar 75 – 205 f/3.8 telephoto on Fuji X-T1 sample pictures – Lake edge
Vivitar 75 – 205 f/3.8 telephoto on Fuji X-T1 sample pictures – Wall’s Ice Cream
Vivitar 75 – 205 f/3.8 telephoto on Fuji X-T1 sample pictures – close up of seed head
Vivitar 75 – 205 f/3.8 telephoto on Fuji X-T1 sample pictures – close up of dead grass
Vivitar 75 – 205 f/3.8 telephoto on Fuji X-T1 sample pictures – old fence
Vivitar 75 – 205 f/3.8 telephoto on Fuji X-T1 sample pictures – duck
Vivitar 75 – 205 f/3.8 telephoto on Fuji X-T1 sample pictures – pidgeon
Vivitar 75 – 205 f/3.8 telephoto on Fuji X-T1 sample pictures – cropped pidgeon
Vivitar 75 – 205 f/3.8 telephoto on Fuji X-T1 sample pictures – stepping stone
Vivitar 75 – 205 f/3.8 telephoto on Fuji X-T1 sample pictures – seagull
Vivitar 75 – 205 f/3.8 telephoto on Fuji X-T1 sample pictures – cropped seagull
Vivitar 75 – 205 f/3.8 telephoto on Fuji X-T1 sample pictures – close up
Vivitar 75 – 205 f/3.8 telephoto on Fuji X-T1 sample pictures – cropped close up
Vivitar 75 – 205 f/3.8 telephoto on Fuji X-T1 sample pictures – boats
Vivitar 75 – 205 f/3.8 telephoto on Fuji X-T1 sample pictures – walking the dog and running
These pictures can also be viewed full sized here.
Because they are now generally cheap to buy, I like to see how these old lenses perform when they are used on a modern camera with a digital sensor, and this post describes how the Vivitar 75 – 205mm f/3.8 zoom performed on my Fuji X-T1 APS-C mirrorless camera. For anyone who is interested, I’ve tested a few vintage lenses with this camera – to find the other articles just search for fuji x-t1 in the search box above.
This lens is an M42 mount, constant aperture zoom with a close focus option and when I looked in an old copy of Camera Weekly I discovered that it was available for about £120 in 1981. These days it is possible to find a copy second hand for between about £20 – £30.
My particular copy is in almost perfect condition mostly because it has been looked after by my cousin’s husband who gave it to me to add to my collection a few months ago. He kept it in a proper lens case with the lens elements protected by two caps and a filter, along with a small pack of silica gel to keep the moisture content down. Because of this the focus, zoom and aperture rings are perfectly smooth, there isn’t a mark on the body anywhere and the coatings are in excellent condition without a trace of the dreaded fungus anywhere on the elements.
It is a heavy, solidly build, long lens which needs to be supported by the hand when used on a modern mirrorless camera like the Fuji X-T1. The focal length quoted on the lens of 75-205mm is, of course, when used on a 35mm film camera. On an APS-C sensor camera like the X-T1, the equivalent focal length is 112.5 to 307.5 which puts it squarely into telephoto territory. As well as the normal use as a telephoto however, the lens has another trick up it’s sleeve because it has a close focus setting which is at the 75mm end of the telephoto range. It would actually have been more useful to be at the 205mm end, because it would then have allowed you to be further from the subject when close focusing (which is useful for things like butterflies etc) but it’s still a useful addition. With this setting selected it’s possible to get some nice close up pictures, although not true macro shots.
The aperture range is a useful f/3.8 to f/22 and as I said above it is a constant aperture design. This means that as the zoom is operated, the aperture remains the same over the full range of the zoom. Many lenses will allow the aperture to change as the zoom is adjusted but the design of this lens actually changes the aperture blades with the zoom to keep the ratio of opening to focal length constant.
Another interesting thing about the design is that the length of the lens doesn’t change as the zoom is adjusted, and the lens body doesn’t rotate, meaning a polarising filter would not need to be re-adjusted after zooming.
Results
I took the camera / lens combination out to get some shots on a typical dull February day and a selection of those pictures are shown in the gallery above. I also took a short video which is shown below.
All these pictures were taking in Manual exposure mode but with auto iso, and were recorded in RAW mode. They were then imported into Lightroom for a few small tweaks before exporting at 1000px on the longest edge.
I have to say that it wasn’t the ideal conditions for testing the lens and I might try some further tests on a sunnier day later in the year when I can close the aperture down a bit. A lot of the results were taken at quite high ISO, and even though the X-T1 has extremely good noise performance, any picture taken at ISO3200 will not be as good as one taken at ISO400.
Even so, the results are quite reasonable, and if the lens were to be used as a cheap way of taking nature shots of birds etc it would serve a useful purpose at a good price. The close up performance in particular certainly seems worthy of some additional testing, and when I do that I will update this post with those results.
Vivitar 75 – 205mm f/3.8 zoom with Fuji X-T1 Vivitar were a popular manufacturer of third party, add on lenses in the 1970s and 1980s. They produced some fantastic quality lenses, and some of more dubious quality, but were a popular choice for those of us that couldn't afford the camera manufacture's home produced lenses.
The subject of this post is an early digital camera made by Ricoh in about 1999, the RDC-4200.
Ricoh RDC-4200 front view with lens open
Ricoh RDC-4200 back panel showing LCD
Ricoh RDC-4200 top panel controls
Ricoh RDC-4200 bottom showing battery covers
Ricoh RDC-4200 memory card slot
Ricoh RDC-4200 with lens unit pointing backwards
Ricoh RDC-4200 data connection on back panel
Ricoh RDC-4200 sample pictures – line of trees
Ricoh RDC-4200 sample pictures – tree trunk not in macro mode
Ricoh RDC-4200 sample pictures – tree trunk in macro mode
Ricoh RDC-4200 sample pictures – leaf in macro mode
Ricoh RDC-4200 sample pictures – looking up a tree
Ricoh RDC-4200 sample pictures – telephone box with advertising
Ricoh RDC-4200 sample pictures – the pied piper pub
Ricoh RDC-4200 sample pictures – local car
Ricoh RDC-4200 sample pictures – macro with flash
Ricoh RDC-4200 sample pictures – leaves with the lens at telephoto
Ricoh RDC-4200 sample pictures – leaves in macro mode
Ricoh RDC-4200 sample pictures – wooded area
Ricoh RDC-4200 sample pictures – signs against the sky
Ricoh RDC-4200 sample pictures – Stevenage has quite a few trees
These pictures can be viewed full size here.
My Camera
I bought this camera from eBay as a non working unit for a few pounds. The camera was complete in it’s original box with the software, cables, smart media card and carry case. Although it was described a non working, when I received it, fitted some fully charged Eneloop AA batteries and gave it a test it seemed to work fine.
The condition of the camera is pretty good considering it’s age. All the buttons work, the swivel lens unit doesn’t have any slack or play in its joint and there is no major area of damage. There is a slight yellow tinge to the glass in front of the flash, which may be due to aging, and the chrome trim around the lens is a bit scuffed, but overall I’d say that’s not too bad.
RDC-4200 description
In design the RDC-4200 is similar to the Nikon Coolpix 4500 in that the lens is on a separate, swivel mounted section of the camera which gives it the ability to be easily positioned whilst keeping the LCD view-screen in a good position to view. On the Nikon, the flash is mounted in the lens unit to make sure the flash light was always illuminating the subject – on the Ricoh the flash is positioned in the body and moves as the lens unit is rotated. This is both more complex to engineer and less effective because as the lens unit moves over the top of the camera the flash can’t follow it round!
The rest of the camera design follows fairly conventional lines with the LCD on the back of the body and a mode dial, control buttons and the shutter release on the top of the camera. On the bottom of the camera are two battery compartments, one is for the 4 AA batteries which power the camera and the second one is for a flat cr2025 cell which keeps the internal clock and camera options stored. There is a rubber flap on the back of the camera which covers the DC in, video out and serial/RS232 connector (no USB here) and a door on the side of the camera is provided to access the SmartMedia card used to record pictures.
The sensor resolution is quite low at only 1.32M pixel which gives a maximum picture resolution of 1680 x 960. Although these days that would be a very low resolution, at the time this camera was made it was respectable. Mind you, the manufactures at this point were definitely locked into the ‘more is best’ approach with each year’s offering having more pixels than the last, so within a year of the release of this model it would look pretty poor.
The lens unit has an optical zoom of 3 times and then a digital 2 times zoom. Since the digital zoom is simply cropping the picture it’s something I personally never use and in fact I didn’t find how to enable it in the menu system. The lens itself is protected by an integral lens cover which opens as the power is turned on.
Unfortunately, there is no optical viewfinder fitted, you need to rely on the LCD to compose pictures which as we know is a fairly difficult proposition in full daylight.
Although the RDC-4200 is quite old, it is still fairly sophisticated in the level of control it offers. When I started increasing my digital camera collection I was quite surprised at the level of control a lot of these early digital cameras had, but I suppose they were being designed after many years of designing 35mm film cameras and by the late 1990’s that technology was producing some quite sophisticated units. The RDC-4200 offers auto and manual focus, exposure compensation, white balance adjustment, self-timer and even an interval timer option, but all these settings were accessed via the single menu button so the camera doesn’t have the instant control options of a modern unit.
Shooting Experience
I took the RDC-4200 with me on a morning walk to see how it performed and what it is like to shoot with. The pictures I took are included above and they were all recorded at the top resolution and picture quality in jpeg. They were then imported into Lightroom for a few very small tweaks and exported to 1000 px on the longest edge.
As I’ve mentioned numerous times in the past the biggest drawback with cameras without a proper viewfinder is the difficulty composing on an LCD screen in daylight. Fortunately I used the camera in the early morning so the light wasn’t too harsh, but even so it was really difficult to see anything much on the screen. There is a small control on the bottom of the camera which can be used to change the brightness level, but even full brightness it was challenging.
Regarding the results I think the camera has a few issues. For a start the sensor finds it very difficult to deal with a large degree of dynamic range. In a lot of the pictures abpve the sky is washed out and couldn’t be recovered in Lightroom. In pictures where there wasn’t the dynamic range the camera has made quite a nice job – for instance the pictures of leaves on the road and the tree trunk.
The other problems I noticed were that the flash power in macro mode didn’t seem correctly controlled, and there was quite a lot of optical distortion in the lens – quite a few of the pictures have curved lines where they should be straight!
Ricoh RDC-4200 specifications
Ricoh 4200 compact digital camera with swivel lens unit
1/3 inch CCD 1.3M pixel sensor
1.8 inch LCD monitor for composition and picture viewing
Centre weighted metering
Auto and 5 preset white balance
Shutter 1sec to 1/500sec
Aperture f/2.8 to f/14 (max aperture depends on lens focal length setting)
Auto focus with macro setting down to approx 3 inches
Built in flash
Resolutions 1280×960 & 640×480 recorded as jpeg with 3 quality settings
Recording in TIFF also available
4 AA batteries + cr2025 cell
Ricoh RDC-4200 digital camera The subject of this post is an early digital camera made by Ricoh in about 1999, the RDC-4200.
The Nikon Coolpix series of cameras were a iconic design that solved the problem of how to compose a picture on an LCD as the camera is held in multiple positions in a novel and interesting way. The camera was split into a monitor section and a lens section, with a swivel joint between the two parts.
The series started in the late 1990’s with the coolpix 900 and there were several improved models in the range. The unit I’m discussing here, the Coolpix 4500 was the 4th in the series and was introduced by Nikon in 2002.
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Nikon Coolpix 4500 digital camera – front of camera with lens up
Nikon Coolpix 4500 digital camera – front of camera with lens in shooting position
Nikon Coolpix 4500 digital camera – back of camera
Nikon Coolpix 4500 digital camera – back panel control layout
Nikon Coolpix 4500 digital camera – LCD picture display
Nikon Coolpix 4500 digital camera – control layout on top panel
Nikon Coolpix 4500 digital camera – compact flash card
Nikon Coolpix 4500 digital camera – battery compartment
Nikon Coolpix 4500 digital camera – flash up
My Camera
I bought this camera because I remember seeing the adverts for the split camera Nikon series in the early 2000’s and was intrigued by them but never bought one. Since I’ve become interested in vintage cameras I’ve started to buy the models which I’ve been interested in over the years but couldn’t afford to buy, and so it was with this unit. I actually originally bought a Nikon coolpix 950, but it has a faulty battery door which I need to fix, and being interested in the whole series I picked up this later model 4500 a while later.
I paid £18 for this camera which seems a bit high, but it is a fully working example and the camera came in it’s original box complete with charger, 3 batteries and a 64M compact flash card. It’s quite useful getting the memory card with the camera, because old format memory cards are extremely expensive to buy.
The camera itself is in very good condition with all buttons working and no major scratches on the case or LCD. The LCD does have some marks on the anti-glare coating and as I found out when I used the camera this does have a detrimental effect on the shooting experience.
The only thing I can see which appears to be wrong is that the internal date isn’t retained after being set if the battery is removed, and a red clock icon seems to be flashing on the LCD screen all the time. I guess the internal battery is flat and isn’t being charged.
Nikon Coolpix 4500 description
As I said in the introduction to this piece, the Coolpix 4500 follows the design of the earlier models by splitting the lens section from the camera body with a swivel joint. This gives the ability to hold the camera screen at an easy viewing angle whilst the lens can point in (almost) any direction.
Nikon made a series of add on adapter lenses to provide additional wide angle and telephoto capabilities, and there is a switch on the bottom of the camera body which limits the swivel range when these lenses are fitted to prevent the lens unit fouling the body.
The camera is fitted with a 4Mp 1/1.8 inch CCD sensor, a 4x optical zoom lens, the usual Program mode, Aperture priority mode, shutter priority mode and manual exposure modes as well as a fully auto mode and a variety of ‘scene modes’. The controls are well laid out and quite intuitive, and it took very little time for me to get used to using the camera.
I’m not going to give a lot of detail about the operation of the camera since that is easily found by reading the official handbook which is available here and viewing the pictures of the camera above. Instead I’ll give my impressions of using the camera and some sample images I took with it.
Shooting with the Nikon Coolpix 4500
I took the Coolpix 4500 for a walk around the sailing lake in Stevenage to take some pictures and see how the camera performed.
The most obvious thing I noticed from walking around was how difficult it was to see anything on the LCD. It’s quite small and the anti-glare coating has some damage and even on a very dull day like it was the day I went out with the camera, I could barely see the screen to compose a picture.
The other overriding impression was one of lack of speed. I know it’s completely unfair to judge a camera of this age by today’s standards, but most operations seem very slow. In particular, when the camera was set to record the best quality pictures it was taking seconds to write the file, and even on fine quality (the setting just below the best quality) it was still a couple of seconds. The zoom also seemed very slow to travel from one end the range to the other, and the auto-focus hunted quite a bit before locking on.
I noticed a couple of the pictures I took seemed to have some odd colour effects – the macro picture of berries below shows this effect. Notice how the colour disappears from the highlights – I’m not sure it this is simply the sensor reacting to overexposure.
Well – that’s the list of bad things out of the way, now to the good things.
The camera is comfortable to hold and the controls I needed to use were easily accessible. I found the general design of the camera, with the split lens / body option quite a sensible one and I’m a bit surprised that it wasn’t continued. I know a lot of cameras have the option of an articulated display these days, but the split / swivel design seems somewhat more robust to me.
I mostly used the camera on Auto mode or Program mode so I didn’t need to delve into the menu system much, but found that (as long as I got into a shady area) it was easy enough to do. I set the camera so that the Func button altered the metering mode, so most things I wanted to change were alterable with the Mode & Func buttons and the main control dial.
In auto mode the camera was suggesting flash several times, and I used flash on a few of the macro shots above and it seemed to do a pretty good job. I had to just pull the exposure back a bit on the flower shot below where it was a bit over exposed.
Talking of macro mode, the camera seems well equipped for macro shots. The small sensor means you get much more depth of field than you would with a large sensor camera and the camera can focus to really close distances making it ideal for pictures of flowers & bugs.
The pictures below are the best of the ones I took on my trip out. They were all taken in jpeg mode and imported into Lightroom for a few post processing tweaks. I think the camera has performed really well and would be a good buy for a general snap shot or macro camera.
Nikon Coolpix 4500 sample pictures – macro flower with flash
Nikon Coolpix 4500 sample pictures – chains
Nikon Coolpix 4500 sample pictures – graffiti
Nikon Coolpix 4500 sample pictures – single sailing boat
Nikon Coolpix 4500 sample pictures – ducks and rocks
Nikon Coolpix 4500 sample pictures – under the tree
Nikon Coolpix 4500 sample pictures – two boats
Nikon Coolpix 4500 sample pictures – tree bark in macro with flash
Nikon Coolpix 4500 sample pictures – looking over the nature pond
Nikon Coolpix 4500 sample pictures – berries in macro mode with flash
Nikon Coolpix 4500 sample pictures – swan just emerged from the water
Nikon Coolpix 4500 sample pictures – swan
Nikon Coolpix 4500 sample pictures – flower in macro
Nikon Coolpix 4500 sample pictures – signpost from below
Nikon Coolpix 4500 sample pictures – duck, I liked the water in this shot
Nikon Coolpix 4500 sample pictures – cobble stones in macro mode with flash
Nikon Coolpix 4500 sample pictures – getting ready to sail
These pictures can also be viewed in full size here.
Nikon Coolpix 4500 specifications
Nikon Coolpix 4500 swivel lens compact camera
Made by Nikon in about 2002
4Mp 1/1.8 inch CCD sensor
ISO auto, 100, 200, 400, 800
7.85 to 32mm zoom lens (38 to 155mm equiv) + 4x digital zoom
f/2.6 to f/5.1 max aperture
Shutter 8sec to 1/2300 (depending on exposure mode)
Manual, Aperture AE, Shutter AE, Program AE, Auto and scene modes
Type I & II Compact Flash storage
2cm close focus in macro mode
1.5 inch LCD for live view and picture viewing
Optical viewfinder
In-built flash
256 segment pattern metering + spot, centre-weighted and af point metering
Self Timer
USB, A/V and DC connectors
Nikon Coolpix 4500 digital camera The Nikon Coolpix series of cameras were a iconic design that solved the problem of how to compose a picture on an LCD as the camera is held in multiple positions in a novel and interesting way.
As a collector of vintage camera equipment I normally look out for traditional film cameras to add to my collection, but over the last few weeks, since I acquired a Fuji S2 Pro DSLR, I’ve been more and more interested in digital cameras.
Although they are not as old as the 35mm and medium format cameras I own, I’m really interested in all forms of photographic history, so I decided that I would start to build up the digital side of my collection. In fact, this may be an ideal time to add digital cameras because it’s still possible to add some quite interesting models for very low prices.
For example the subject of this post, a Fujifilm MX-2900, would have set you back several hundred pounds when it was first available in the autumn of 1999 and I managed to buy it for the price of 99p.
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera – front view of camera
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera – front view of camera with flash extended
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera – side view showing connectors
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera – back view
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera – data card door open showing smartmedia slot
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera – rear view showing image on LCD
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera – top view showing control layout
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera – setup menu display
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera – 2.3 Maga Pixels
My Camera
As I said above, I bought this camera for 99p and paid a couple of pounds postage to have the camera shipped to me. The seller on eBay sold it as ‘spares or repair’ because it was untested. When I received it I found that there was a very good reason it couldn’t be tested – there wasn’t a battery in the camera! This left me with a bit of a problem because I assumed that it would cost a lot of money to buy the correct battery. As it turned out, I found a supplier on eBay who supplied a new Lithium Ion battery of the correct type for this camera for only £3.93 postage paid. So I suppose I should say the total cost of the camera with all the postage and battery etc was a bit under £10.
While I waited for the battery to turn up I could actually run the camera with a 5v supply plugged into the external power socket on the side of the camera. Fortunately a standard phone charger supplies just the right voltage.
With the power plugged in, the supply switched on, and a SmartMedia card inserted in the memory card slot, I gingerly pushed the power switch to the on position. Happily, the camera sprang into life, made a lot of winding sounds as the lens pushed out of the front of the camera and started a small light show as the LEDs built into the 4 menu buttons started flashing in a rotating circle.
Although it was a bit difficult testing all the functions with the camera attached to a supply with a short lead, I did manage to test most of the functions and confirm that the camera was working. Fortunately, the new battery only took a couple of days to arrive in the post, and after charging it I could get the camera working properly and using the setup menu set the date, sharpness, filesize etc.
The camera is in remarkably good physical condition with every button working and no real marks or knocks. The only slight issue I found was the hand grip which was very sticky. This is reminiscent of Nikon SLRs of a similar vintage and on my Nikon F80 I removed that with some IPA on a lint free cloth. Fortunately that also seemed to work with the MX-2900 although the grip has lost some of it’s shine as a result and looks a bit messy.
Fujifilm MX-2900 Description
At the time this camera was introduced it was the top model in Fuji’s digital camera line up and is quite a sophisticated unit for its time.
The camera has both auto and manual exposure, TTL metering with a choice of spot, matrix or averaged modes, the lens has a useful 35 to 105mm range (in 35mm terms) and the camera can shoot in a range of resolutions and file quality settings.
In construction it’s made with a magnesium alloy inner shell with a hard outer plastic case which gives it a solid, strong and quite weighty feel. There are numerous buttons for things like macro mode and altering the composition display and the camera is equipped with two LCD panels – a colour one on the back for composition and picture display, and one on the top for shooting information.
As well as the back panel LCD for composition, there is also an optical viewfinder, although this is a completely passive display – there is no exposure information displayed. Next to the viewfinder is a green LED which indicates that the camera is ready to take a shot. This is useful and certainly bright enough to see in daylight.
Shooting experience
I took my MX-2900 out for a test spin around the local neighborhood and took the pictures which are included later in the post. The first set are jpeg images which have been imported into lightroom just to resize them. The second set have been post processed, but to be honest there wasn’t much to do other than re-orientate some pictures and in a couple of cases pull the highlights down a bit and the shadows up a bit.
So how was it to shoot with the MX-2900?
Well, my first impression as I walked out into a bright sunny day with the camera was – who had the crazy idea of deciding a back panel LCD was a good idea for composing pictures? I know that thought will have crossed the mind of every camera user when they tried to take a picture in sunlight and I guess there are a couple of excuses with this camera. First there is an optical viewfinder so the LCD doesn’t need to be used and secondly, this is a very early digital camera and you can possibly forgive the manufacturer at this stage in digital camera manufacture. Unfortunately, the optical viewfinder doesn’t show you the focus so I had to rely on the LED by the viewfinder to confirm focus was achieved and the pictures below show that in most cases this was pretty much the case. As it happens, the back panel LCD is particularly difficult to see on this model – I guess more modern technology has better brightness and contrast to help with this.
I used the camera in both auto and manual mode, and with a variety of file sizes although I found when I returned home and tried to read the memory card that the TIFF-YC files wouldn’t properly read on my 5 year old Mac. Every image application I opened them in showed them as three un-synced black & white pictures so I had to use an on-line conversion service to convert them to jpeg.
As I was walking around with the camera I discovered that it will auto save pictures when auto mode is selected, but with manual mode each image is presented with the option to save it or delete it after it’s taken. This is another situation where it’s difficult to see in bright sunlight.
The other notable point as realized as I was walking round with the camera was the very long write times to get the images written to the data card. The bigger TIFF files (which were about 4.4Mb) were taking about 15 seconds to write! In fact the performance of the camera is pretty slow all round, but I don’t really want to be picky about that – we are talking about a camera which is 17 years old now and it’s just not fair to judge it by today’s standards.
When I saw the results from the camera I was more than pleasantly surprised. As I was taking the pictures I got the impression from the little I could see on the LCD, that the camera was having real trouble with the extremes of light from the highlights to the shadow, but the actual pictures show that it was probably the LCD which had trouble rather than the sensor. The images themselves, even straight from the camera are extremely good and I would have no problem using them for most purposes.
It just shows that you don’t need to spend a fortune if you want to take up photography – £10 should be enough :)
All the images from this post can be viewed in full size here.
Pictures from camera
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples from camera – tree leaves
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples from camera – shadows
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples from camera – steps
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples from camera – blackberries
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples from camera – cycle track
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples from camera – leaves in sunlight
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples from camera – reservoir
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples from camera – another cycle path picture
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples from camera – trying macro mode
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples from camera – post box
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples from camera – crossing beacon
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples from camera – posts
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples from camera – someone is watching me!
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples from camera as tiff – down our street
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples from camera as tiff – by the bus stop
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples from camera as tiff – drain
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples from camera as tiff – leaves into the sunlight
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples from camera as tiff – fence panels
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples from camera as tiff – local car
Pictures after Post Processing in Lightroom
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples after PP – leaves in sunlight
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples after PP – cycle path
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples after PP – blackberries
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples after PP – steps
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples after PP – shadows
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples after PP – tree leaves
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples after PP – reservoir
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples after PP – another cycle path shot
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples after PP – trying out macro mode
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples after PP – postbox
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples after PP – crossing beacon
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples after PP – posts
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera samples after PP – someone is watching me!
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera TIFF samples after PP – down our street
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera TIFF samples after PP – by the bus stop
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera TIFF samples after PP – drain
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera TIFF samples after PP – leaves in sunlight
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera TIFF samples after PP – fence panels
Fuji MX-2900 compact camera TIFF samples after PP – local car
Fuji MX-2900 Specifications
Fuji MX-2900 Zoom digital camera
Manufactured about 1999
Max image size 1800 x 1200 px
1/1.7 inch CCD sensor with 2.3 Mp resolution
7.4 to 22mm zoom lens (35mm equiv about 35mm to 105mm)
Aperture f/3.3 to f/7.6 at wide end and f/5 to f/11 at telephoto end
64 zone TTL metering with average, spot and matrix options
shutter 1/4sec to 1/2000sec in auto, 3 sec to 1/1000sec in manual
Auto and Manual white balance
Framing guidelines can be enabled on LCD to aid composition
Single sensor sensitivity of ISO125
Digital zoom of 2.5x
2 inch LCD monitor + top panel info display
Optical viewfinder with diopter adjustment
Image effects available ‘in camera’
Auto and manual exposure modes
Macro mode
Integral flash + hot shoe
SmartMedia card slot
Fujifilm MX-2900 Zoom digital camera As a collector of vintage camera equipment I normally look out for traditional film cameras to add to my collection, but over the last few weeks, since I acquired a Fuji S2 Pro DSLR, I've been more and more interested in digital cameras.
Over the last few weeks, since I got my Minolta Dynax 700si, I’ve been carrying it around with me to test it out and get some sample pictures. When we were on holiday in Lincolnshire recently I completed the film and yesterday I developed it.
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Minolta Dynax 700si sample pictures – Party at my Sister’s house
Minolta Dynax 700si sample pictures – Decking at my Sister’s house
Minolta Dynax 700si sample pictures – Garden table at my Sister’s house
Minolta Dynax 700si sample pictures – Garden at my Sister’s house
Minolta Dynax 700si sample pictures – My Mother and Brother at my sister’s party
Minolta Dynax 700si sample pictures – Family at my sister’s party
Minolta Dynax 700si sample pictures – My sister’s party
Minolta Dynax 700si sample pictures – Claythorpe Mill
Minolta Dynax 700si sample pictures – James at Claythorpe Mill
Minolta Dynax 700si sample pictures – Claythorpe Mill car park
Minolta Dynax 700si sample pictures – Wild birds at Claythorpe Mill
Minolta Dynax 700si sample pictures – Mum at Claythorpe Mill
Minolta Dynax 700si sample pictures – Jan and Emma at Claythorpe Mill
Minolta Dynax 700si sample pictures – Family group at Claythorpe Mill
Minolta Dynax 700si sample pictures – Main house at Gunby Hall
Minolta Dynax 700si sample pictures – Gardens at Gunby Hall
Minolta Dynax 700si sample pictures – Picnic lunch at Gunby Hall
Minolta Dynax 700si sample pictures – Gunby Hall
Minolta Dynax 700si sample pictures – James playing croquet at Gunby Hall
Minolta Dynax 700si sample pictures – Croquet at Gunby Hall
Minolta Dynax 700si sample pictures – Jan in the garden at Gunby Hall
Minolta Dynax 700si sample pictures – James and Emma in the garden at Gunby Hall
Minolta Dynax 700si sample pictures – Garden at Gunby Hall
These pictures can also be viewed full sized here.
I took the pictures at a variety of locations including a party at my Sister’s house and Gunby Hall in Lincolnshire. The results shown above are a bit of a mixed bag although I think the camera performed well enough and isn’t to blame. The problems I see basically come down to two areas
Some odd colour casts, particularly in the dark areas of the pictures.
Quite a lot of grain.
The film used was Kodak ColourPlus 200, which is a fairly cheap film (about £2 a roll of 24 exposures) although I have used it in the past and had reasonable results. I developed the film with a Digibase C41 kit and I think that may be responsible for at least some of the problems. I have now developed 14 films with the kit, extending the development time as the instructions recommend, but I wonder if the developer is becoming exhausted. 14 is certainly on the upper limit of what is recommended, so this film is probably the final one I’ll develop with the kit.
I suspect that the film was also slightly under exposed. Although it’s possible to override the DX coding on the 700si, I didn’t and so the film was exposed at box speed of 200 ISO. In retrospect, I think it may have been better to set the camera to about 160 ISO or even 100 ISO to make sure it was over exposed a bit. I find that in contrast to digital, film is better over exposed and it has a rather strange characteristic of needing more over exposure the lower the light level. If you look at some of the pictures taken on sunny days above they are quite nicely exposed, but the pictures taken on the duller days seem a bit flat and dull. If I look at the amount of change to the exposure I applied in Lightroom I added about a stop extra to the pictures taken on the duller days.
One positive is that the film has almost no drying marks. On this film, as I took it off the reel to hang up and dry, I carefully wiped the film with a soft chamois cloth which took all the water droplets off. Although I was worried that this may have scratched the film, it doesn’t seem to have been hurt at all so I will be doing that in future.
Just for the record, the film was scanned with an Epson V550 perfection scanner as TIFF files, imported into Lightoom CC and just had some exposure correction applied, some attempts to correct the colour casts and then noise reduction and sharpening.
Minolta Dynax 700si sample pictures Over the last few weeks, since I got my Minolta Dynax 700si, I've been carrying it around with me to test it out and get some sample pictures.