The camera was part of a lucky buy. I came across of listing on ebay that simply titled "Old Cameras". It was a lot consisting of three cameras, but they were not identified by name in the listing, and the photographs looked like they were taken with a very poor cell phone camera, and were far to blurry to see any details. But I thought I recognized the basic shape of a Retina, and made the only bid of $15 in the last few minutes of the auction. The lot turned out to include a simple box camera, a common Kodak Bantam, and as I suspected, A Retina rangefinder, the IIIc.
The Retina IIIc was manufactured in Germany from 1954-1957, is one example of the company's high end offerings. According to Kodak's website, this camera had a suggested list price of $185, which would be over $1400 when inflation is considered today. The IIIc has a coupled bright-line finder, bottom mounted film advance lever, and even has a rudimentary interchangeable lens system. The camera has a built in uncoupled selenium meter, which much to my surprise is still reasonably accurate. Overall the camera is in extremely good shape, I have a feeling it wasn't used all that often. It came with an half shot rot of Kodacolor 400 still loaded, which was manufactured from the late 1970's to the early 1980's, so it hasn't been used for awhile. Someday I'll get the film developed to see if there are any usable images on the roll.
The camera came with a closeup adapter kit consisting of two supplementary close-up lenses and an external rangefinder to allow focusing at much closer distances than is possible with the built in finder. I haven't had a chance to use the close-up set, but will definitely give it try one of these days. I was also surprised to see that the the case still adapter that converts the reflective meter into an incident meter, an item that is apparently somewhat rare since it was fairly easy to lose.
I took the camera to the 2011 Dayton Celtic Festival which is held downtown along the river. Rangefinders have long been a favorite of street photographers due to their small, unobtrusive size. The Retina series are probably the quietest cameras I've ever used, in a crowded location such as this the camera is essentially silent.
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While the IIIc is overall a great camera, it really isn't one of my favorites. While many people swear by them, I'm not a fan of the bottom mounted film advance lever. I suppose that is could be something that I could get used to over time, I'm so used to using top mounted levers that it was a bit of an annoyance. My one big complaint is that the camera settings are meant to be used with the built in meters "LV" system. This system basically couples the aperture setting to the shutter speed setting, which works similar to modern cameras "program" mode in some ways. You have to first set the shutter speed, then read off the meter's "LV" value which you transfer to the aperture ring. Once set, you can't change the shutter speed without also changing the aperture setting. While the system does make sense, I found it makes it harder to make quick adjustments to the exposure settings. I much prefer the simpler operation of my Retina IIa.
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The Celtic Festival is one of the larger events held in Dayton, with a number of different bands playing pretty much around the clock.
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Beside the music and the food, there are a few tents that actually try to have a bit of an educational slant, such as these individuals in period dress who were demonstrating the use of spinning wheels and looms that were used by Irish families, many of which were among the first settlers to live in what is now the Dayton area.
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I just happened to notice this mural out of the corner of my eye as I walked past.
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Part of downtown Dayton Ohio
Summer 2011
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