Kodak IIc
I took the Kodak Retina IIc away for the weekend. It was nowhere exciting, just a small town nestling under the M4 close to the University of Reading. I wasn’t expecting much, staying in a Premier with a lot of new buildings and roadways; but the weather was quite good and there was lots of light and shadows with which to test the excellence of the Retina II lens. As it turned out, I was surprised by the range of subjects the place had to offer, from modern estate, sleepy suburbia, urban graffiti to rural calm.
I had expected to be photographing some kind of brutalist architecture, so I chose Fomapan 200 creative for its contrast and noticeable grain structure when processed in Rodinal 1+25. In the event, the film did no harm to the photographs I did take, regardless of subject and I think it is becoming my current favourite film. However, back to the camera: it is a folding camera, though without a visible bellows and has a coupled rangefinder for focus. The shutter speed and aperture dial are linked, with a small lever to separate the two when needed.
To load the film you open the back and push a small button, situated to the right of the viewfinder, towards the right, allowing you to wind on. With the camera back closed, push the lever again to wind on and reset the frame counter. Thereafter you should be able to wind on to the end of the roll. I made the mistake of pushing this button to the right before winding on for each shot – it’s not necessary and, in my case the frame counter did not accurately reflect the number of frames shot and I lost several frames in the process.
The viewfinder is used to frame the shots and to check focus much the same as any rangefinder. A dial on the lens assembly focuses the camera and finding focus is straightforward. I didn’t find the viewfinder great in terms of framing each shot, but it was okay and would probably seem better as I got used to using the camera. The camera comes with a nicely fitting leather case, strap and a small case for three screw-on filters and a lens cap.
Using the camera is pretty much effortless; the shutter is positive and everything works smoothly. You need a light meter and I used my standard Sekonic to take a sky reading, which protects my highlights, letting the shadows fall as they may; I like heavy shading. During my walkabout I did encounter times when a spot meter might have been more helpful, but in the event the negatives I got were all more or less workable, which might be down to the film characteristics and a bit of luck.
I have read several reviews for this camera and cannot remember reading a bad one, for a good reason – this is a nice camera to use, with a good lens and mechanism, a real piece of engineering. This is a classic camera with a very good reputation that is well deserved and I enjoyed using it.
By Richard de Bulat
This camera is available in our rangefinder camera page
