Spoils from an Estate Auction October 29, 2007
Posted by Patrick in : Photography , trackbackA week before I left for San Diego, I traveled to the Royal York Auction Gallery in East Liberty. They’re housed in a storefront in Penn Circle, across the street from AAA. I heard that they would auction off different photographic equipment. Since it was within walking distance of my house and I was on a hunt for a TLR, I decided to check it out.
An estate auction is an experience. The adrenaline dosage was drastically higher than eBay. Two men sat on a high pulpit overlooking the bidders. The man on the right described the item to be sold, while the other one auctioned it off. When you actually bid on an item, the auction is intense as the Micro Machine man is slurring together numbers and babble as he points between the different bidders.
My eye was on a Rolleicord TLR and a tray of antique cameras, which contained a few TLRs. One of them, a Yashica D, looked like it was in great condition. I ended up winning both auctions for $22 a piece. The tray of cameras ended up having a few more goodies than I had first thought.
One is an interesting Olympus Pen F, that is a compact, half-frame 35mm SLR. That means that the camera uses half the size of a regular 35mm shot, and doubles the amount of exposures on a roll of film. A 24 exposure roll turns into 48. I’m interested to develop and make some prints, and see how they turn out.
Another interesting camera is a Polaroid SX-70, which is a Polaroid SLR. I was pretty excited to have a Polaroid camera that was also an SLR. Unfortunately, I cannot get it to work yet. It shoots out the test card, but doesn’t make any prints yet.
I just had several 120 rolls developed at Chrome Digital in San Diego. After I get some images in digital format, I’ll post them.
Comments»
Those are some absolutely sweet finds.
The Yashicas are pretty fun. I have an ‘A’.
What format does the Olympus Pen F shoot in? Same aspect ratio as normal? Does it fit a vertical shot in half a frame? Shoot horizontally and use less height?
With that I bet you could create some great montage shots–print two half-size frames on a regular print to juxtapose different ideas or visuals.
Anyway, definitely post some stuff when you have a chance.
It fits a vertical shot in half a frame. It’s weird. When you look through the viewfinder, the shot is composed vertically instead of horizontally. So, to get a horizontal shot, you need to rotate the camera 90 degrees.
Yeah, I’m interested in seeing how the prints turn out. I hope there’s not that much of a gap between the exposures so you could get two prints on a normal 35mm exposure.
I’m curious about how grainy the photo would be, since the exposure would be half the size now.
the SX-70 is a fantastic camera to use, very eye-catching prints indeed~!
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