Spotlight: Bell & Howell Foton

As the resident camera expert at the auction house I work at, I was recently tasked with going through a large lot of vintage equipment that came in from an estate. Inside one of the many boxes of old gear, I found a Bell & Howell Foton, one of the rarest and most sought after American-made cameras of the 20th century! As I realized what I found, my mouth dropped wide open and I instantly started breathing heavily. While out of my price range (these things often fetch over a grand), my boss was nice enough to let me put a roll through the camera.

The Foton was made right here in Chicago by the Bell & Howell company in 1948. It first retailed for a whopping $700, which is about $9,000 in today's money according to the CPI inflation calculator. Yikes! Mostly due to this high price, the Foton didn't catch on and was soon discontinued in 1950. 

Check out that cool frame counter!

The Foton's most distinguishing feature is its spring-driven motor drive which, once wound up via a key on the bottom plate, lets the camera fire at six frames per second! If the key is fully wound, you can shoot through an entire roll of 24-exposure film without having to wind at all between frames. It's a thrill to fire the shutter and watch the circular dial-style frame counter spin, spin, spin away! You can set the camera to fire in semi-automatic mode, or flip a switch and make the Foton keep firing until you take your finger off the shutter release. There is also a manual film advance knob on top of the camera, but it is only used during film loading. The shutter is of the focal plane variety, made of metal, and travels vertically. Speeds range from 1 second to 1/1000, plus bulb.  I didn't get a chance to shoot any action sequences, but you certainly could with this camera. I'm sure the 6fps winder made the Foton a dream camera for photojournalists and sports photographers back when it originally came out. 

Bottom of the Foton, showing the winding key.

The Foton came with a standard "2 inch" (about 50mm) f/2 lens, which is actually measured in t-stops on the barrel. Other lenses were manufactured, but are just about impossible to find these days. You can focus the lens by twisting the barrel, or by turning a small dial on the front of the body, similar to on a classic Contax or Nikon. The Foton has separate focusing and framing windows, both of which are pretty small. The rangefinder window on the Foton I used had a bit of haze, which made focusing slower and trickier than it should have been. I also shot almost my entire roll indoors, which didn't help the situation. 

You can use this little dial to focus the lens, if you're not in a hurry!

Besides the slightly hazy focusing window, I absolutely loved using the Foton. For my roll of film that I shot with it, I made photographs of my wonderful co-workers at the auction house. I used Ilford HP5+, which I pushed an extra stop to ISO 800. Below are my results! If you want to bid on the camera, it will be up for auction live and online on November 11th at Direct Auction Galleries in Rogers Park. 

Spotlight: Yashica T2

 

The Yashica T2 is a 35mm point and shoot camera from 1986. I bought mine last month as part of an auction lot that also included a Panasonic portable DVD player. I obviously purchased the lot for the Yashica, but I've actually loved being able to watch my Tales from the Crypt DVD's on the go! 

The T2 is pure 80's plastic fantastic goodness. I think the only piece of metal on the camera is the screw on the battery compartment door. However, housed inside this lovably ugly hunk of plastic (this thing ain't winning its user any style points) is a wonderful 35mm f/3.5 Carl Zeiss Tessar lens. The question is, can the camera focus properly to take full advantage of such a nice piece of glass? 

Being from the mid-80's, the autofocus on the T2 is not the most accurate. The camera tells you the general distance it's trying to focus at when you half press the shutter. It does this by displaying a light-up symbol of a person (1-2 meters), a group of people (2-4 meters), or a mountain (4 meters - Infinity) in the viewfinder. I found my camera often wanted to focus at the furthest distance even when I was pretty close to my subject. I often had to half press the shutter two or three times until it displayed the distance symbol I thought was appropriate. If the camera does nail the focus, which is a bit of a toss up, images are quite sharp. 

The shutter and winder create an absolute cacophony of nostalgic photographic noises each time the shutter is tripped. One nice touch is that the camera will not wind to the next frame until the shutter button is released, which cuts the amount of noise in half if you're trying to be a little sneaky. The lens has a  semi-transparent plastic cover that slides out of the way at the moment of exposure. This protects the lens against scratches and dust. 

The T2 has a built-in flash, and its pretty weak. With ISO 100 film (which is what I used) it only reaches as far as 2.5 meters. I took some photos at night, and was a little shocked when most of my group shots came out very underexposed, even though my subjects were fairly close.  At least the T2 offers a decent amount of control over the flash. There's a "No Flash" button to make sure the flash does not fire, as well as  a "Day Light Flash" button you can press to force the flash to fire in sunny conditions for some fill. 

Besides a ten second self-timer, there are no other controls on the T2. Overall it's a simple camera that's easy to use, as long as you don't mind babysitting the autofocusing mechanism a bit. I'm fairly happy with the photos I got using Kodak T-Max 100 film that expired in 1996. Check out my results below! 

Spotlight: Canon EOS RT

 

Last October I tried out the Canon Pellix, a Canon SLR from 1965 that utilized a pellicle mirror (you can read that article here). This year I decided to try out Canon's more recent pellicle mirror offering, the EOS RT from 1989. Like the Pellix from nearly 25 years earlier, the EOS RT (stands for "Real-Time") has a fixed, semi-translucent mirror that does not flip up during the moment of exposure like on a standard SLR. Instead, 2/3 of the light passes through the mirror to the film, while 1/3 of the light goes into the pentaprism viewfinder. This means that you never lose sight of your subject -- there is never any "blackout" like on just about every other SLR. This makes the RT a handy tool for sports or street photography, as you can see the decisive moment as you click the shutter. 

The tradeoff, like with the original Pellix, is a slightly dimmer focusing screen, since the majority of the light is passing through the mirror to the film. However, with a fast lens like the 50mm f/1.8 that I used with the camera, this dimness is hardly noticeable, especially outdoors. Another tradeoff is image quality, if dust or fingerprints manage to get on the mirror. With a clean mirror, the RT should produce images just as sharp as a non-pellicle camera. 

Unlike the Pellix, the RT boasts autofocus, as well as a built-in 5fps motor drive. In my tests, the AF worked well in decent light, but struggled indoors (pretty typical of an AF system from its era). There is only one autofocus point, right in the center of the focusing screen. I will say, shooting at 5 frames per second with full view of my subject was an absolute thrill! It felt like I was... cheating. 

The RT with the back open and shutter open, showing how light passes through the mirror

Besides the pellicle mirror and 5fps shooting, the RT is very similar to the EOS 650. Other than the "RT" badge, the body design is practically identical to the 650. This is not a bad thing, as the form factor of the camera is extremely comfortable. However, I do dislike how many of the controls are hidden behind a flap on the rear of the camera, and not immediately accessible. For things like ISO, rewind, and battery check, that's fine, but having to open up the flap to change my AF and drive mode is a pain. 

The damned flap

I love the soothing blue light...

Below are some photos I made with my Canon EOS RT, a Canon 50mm f/1.8 EF lens, and Ilford HP5+ film. I'm pleased with the results, and would recommend this camera to anyone, as it's pretty cheap (I got mine for $30 with a flash!). Thanks for reading!