Tuesday, February 14, 2012

If you happen to be in Valencia

There is a show of Cuban pre-revolution photography at the Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno (IVAM).


The 1939 photo above appeared in an article in El País about the show. The girl is posing with a Plaubel Makina which used 6x9 plates or cut film, and could also be outfitted with a 120 rollfilm back.  I always wanted one of these fine rangefinders, but the shutters and rf mechanism are somewhat delicate, and the cameras tend to go for more than my budget allows.

2 comments:

Julio F said...

There was a Plaubel Makina going around locally for around $400. Too much for my hobbyst budget, too.

Those must have been really expensive items in 1939.

Mike said...

RJ Lam once offered to loan me a Plaubel Makina over at photo.net. I declined because I was reluctant to see it exposed to the risk of international shipping. He made excellent images with it, but I've seldom found other instances of people actually shooting the camera.
(see http://www.luxcamera.co.uk/pages/Plaubel/Anticomar.htm)

That's the problem with the cameras that appeal to collectors, they often go unused. Another in the same category is the close copy of the Plaubel Makina made in the 1930's by Minolta; I've never seen a picture from one.

At least with the Makina and the Minolta, there is no film format problem if you can find the rollfilm adapter that lets you use 120 film in them. Some of the other fine old cameras that go unused require some rather difficult film cutting. The many great little 127 cameras can still be shot easily if you are willing to pay the high cost of the available film, but others like the Kodak Bantam Special demand film-slitting technology and some mechanical dexterity.