Plates: Letchworth State Park Multiple Exposures, Plus a Collage!

 My wife and I just got back from western New York, where we spent a couple of days exploring the various trails of Letchworth State Park, or "The Grand Canyon of the East." Below are some multiple exposures I made while hiking through the gorgeous fall scenery. I used a Fuji X100V. Most of the photos are 4 exposures each. 

The last image is a collage I made using about 80 photos I took while making my way through the "Powerline Trail." I'm not sure that I like the result, but I spent a lot of time on it, and where else am I going to post it?! 

Roll: Exakta Test Run

At an auction a few months ago, I snagged an Ihagee Exakta VX camera along with a Schneider-Kreuznach Xenon 50mm f/1.9 lens. I bought the pair because I always regretted selling the my Exakta VX years ago. It's probably the most beautiful 35mm camera ever made, and I wanted it back on my shelf!

I tested the camera out a few weeks ago with some Ilford HP5 film. Unfortunately, there is a major light leak, as you will be able to see in some of the uncropped images below. I think the back of the camera doesn't quite close tightly enough anymore. I'll have to make some modifications if I want to use it again. Still, I enjoy how my photos turned out. The Xenon lens, while not super sharp at wider apertures, still has nice character. 

Spotlight: Olympus XA4 Macro

 

One of my favorite cameras of all time is the original Olympus XA from 1979. The tiny camera features precise manual focus via a rangefinder, as well as aperture priority exposure control, and fits in a coat pocket with room to spare. It's an absolute classic. I was intrigued, then, when a working XA4 Macro came in on consignment at the auction house where I work. My boss kindly allowed me to borrow it. 

The XA4 Macro was released in 1985, and has a nearly identical form factor to the first XA. It is quite a bit simpler in operation, however, with zone focusing instead of rangefinder focusing, and full program exposure versus aperture priority. The lens is also wider and slower, with a 28mm f/3.5 instead of a 35mm f/2.8. That said, it is razor sharp. 

The main gimmick of the XA4 Macro is in the name. The lens can focus pretty dang close! Down to 1 foot, even. To ensure well-focused images at its two closest pre-set focus distances, the included strap can be adjusted to precisely measure either 1 ft or 1.7ft from the camera. A nifty trick! So if you're buying an XA4 Macro used, make sure the strap is included. 

Focused at 1 ft

Focused at 1.7 ft

The viewfinder is very simple, with frame-lines (including marks for parallax correction), and a single LED that lights up if the camera thinks there's not enough light in the scene. A few different XA proprietary flashes are compatible with the camera - I used an Olympus A11 flash for some of my interior photos. Normal flashes will not work, as the camera has neither a hot shoe nor an x-sync port. 

I shot a roll of HP5+ with the XA4 Macro, which I pushed to 800 ISO. I am pleased with the results. All of my negatives came out well-exposed. When I guessed focus correctly or used the measuring strap, photos turned out nice and sharp. My favorite images are below. While I was only able to borrow the camera for a short while, I enjoyed my time with the XA4 Macro and will try to win it at auction! 

Triptych: Mountain Pass

 

I made these multiple exposures while hiking the Mountains-to-Sea Trail in North Carolina earlier this month. Each darkroom print is 7"x5". Below are the individual photos, as well as a couple "rejects." 

Spotlight: Voigtlander Bessamatic Deluxe

 

While exploring St. Joseph, Michigan, I found this cute German Voigtlander Bessamatic Deluxe SLR tucked away below a table, hidden behind a bunch of junk, in a local antique shop. For only 38 bucks, I had to have it. But what film would I use? I was away on vacation. Luckily, I still had an emergency roll of expired TMax 100 stored away in my VW Beetle for just such an occasion. I loaded the camera up and started firing off frames. 

Released in 1962, the Bessamatic Deluxe is an enhanced version of Voigtlander's Bessamatic camera from a few years prior. One of the most notable improvements over the original is the inclusion of a full information viewfinder, which (for 1962) is a pretty lavish feature! The little protrusion between the "Voigtlander" and "Bessamatic" logos projects your current aperture and shutter speed settings into the viewfinder. Also viewable in the finder is a match-needle exposure meter that runs off selenium cells. I don't really trust 60-year-old selenium cells, so I used an external light meter for my exposures, but I could see how this in-camera meter was easy and convenient to use back in the day. 

The wheel on the left is how you change aperture... weird!

Adjusting the exposure settings on the Bessamatic Deluxe is pretty bizarre, and a bit of a chore. Twisting the ring around the lens will change both the aperture AND the shutter speed at the same time (to keep you at the same exposure value). To change only the aperture, you must twist a knurled wheel on top of the camera, beneath the film rewind knob (Huh?! What?!). There is NO way to independently change the shutter speed. So, my method was to first change the shutter to what I wanted (which would also change the aperture), and then adjust the aperture with the wheel on top of the camera. German engineering at its finest! 

One other strange thing about the camera has to do with the focusing. The Bessamatic Deluxe features a split image assist on its focusing screen, and around that split image is a small matte ring which shows the current focus of your lens. However, beyond that central split image and small ring, the image will always look in focus. You can be inches away from your subject with the lens set at infinity, and everything on the focusing screen will look totally sharp except for the small ring and split image in the very middle. I have never seen this before. It's disorienting at first, but once I was aware of how it worked, it didn't make any difference in the shooting experience, really. 

Here you can see that this little fox ornament is completely out of focus (judging from the central focusing aids), but the rest of the screen is totally clear. Also, note the nifty aperture/shutter window at the top

The mirror on the Bessamatic Deluxe is not instant-return, so the finder goes black once the shutter is released. You must re-cock the shutter before you're able to see anything through the finder again. I don't hate this, because I always know if the camera is ready to fire when I put my eye to the finder. 

Lenses on the Bessamatic Deluxe are interchangeable, but mine only came with a standard 50mm f/2.8 Color-Skopar, so that's all I got to use. On the days I used the camera it was pretty overcast, so I was forced to shoot wide open at f/2.8 for the majority of my exposures. I wasn't really impressed with the image quality, as a lot of my images came out very soft. Was this the fault of the lens? I'm not sure. Maybe it was the expired film I used, or maybe my camera is slightly out of alignment. Regardless, I'm not overly pleased with my results, but I got a few decent images out of the roll. Take a look!