I first saw a Retina during my freshmen year of college, sitting under glass in a local camera store, I knew then that someday I would own one. The Retina rangefinders are among the finest cameras ever produced by Kodak. They are solidly built, have great glass, and are a pleasure to shoot. The Retinas are fine examples of cameras built by the German camera industry when they were at the top of their game, before being dethroned by the Japanese.
This is a Retina IIa, produced from around 1951-1954, it was sold with an original price of $169, which is over $1450 in 2011 dollars! In other words, this was not a cheap camera for the masses. Thanks to a badly spelled ebay listing, I got this practically mint condition camera for less than $30. I now have several Retinas, but the IIa is my favorite.
I took the camera with me to the National Museum of the Air Force at WPAFB. The lighting at the museum is very bright, so I had too push the film to ISO 1600. All of these photos are exposed at f/2.8 and 1/50, so many were not as sharp as I would like. Still, they came out better than I expected, and are more than adequate for online posting. Here we have a Caproni Ca.3 WWI era bomber, one of only two known to exist.
1600 ISORetina IIaair force museumaircraftairplaneblack and whiteclassic cameraddxkodakmuseumneopan 400planerangefinder
The B-29 Bockscar is the plane that dropped the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki at the end of WWII
1600 ISOB39Retina IIaair force museumaircraftairplaneblack and whitebockscarbomberclassic cameraddxkodakmuseumneopan 400planerangefinder
I'm not sure what type of plane this one is
1600 ISORetina IIaair force museumaircraftairplaneblack and whiteclassic cameracolinddxfamilykodakmuseumneopan 400planerangefinder
C-131 Starlifter, this particular plane is the famous Hanoi Taxi, which brought home POWs from Vietnam at the end of the war
1600 ISOHanoi TaxiLockheed C141 StarlifterRetina IIaair force museumaircraftairplaneblack and whiteclassic cameraddxkodakmuseumneopan 400planerangefinder
I didn't set the frame counter on the camera correctly, so not realizing I was at the end of the roll I tried to advance the film one more frame, and tore up the sprockets on the film. Luckily I didn't tear the film off the ree, which would have been much more of a pain to deal with.
March 2011
Neopan 400 at ISO 1600 in DD-X, 1+4 for 13 minutes1600 ISORetina IIaair force museumaircraftairplaneblack and whiteclassic cameraddxkodakmuseumnegativeneopan 400planerangefindertirewheel
