Another Certo Owner!

Some very nice Certo Six pictures here.

Ansel Adams

I am going through Ansel Adams's book "The Negative" and am calibrating my meter and camera for the zone system. I will post scans of my prints, but for now, zone 0 is nowhere near where it should be (pure black). It's more like zone II or III on the negative. Zone 0 should basically be film base + fog and I have quite a bit of detail.

New Color Pics

My ex-wife

A statue

Flare

Having owned nothing but modern multicoated Nikon gear my whole life, I had never experienced flare before. Now that I own a classic folder, it has reared its ugly head. Just be sure to use a lens hood ALL of the time. I have never had issues when I use my lens hood. My hood is a classic black Voigtlander.

Tessar

The 80mm f/2.8 Tessar lens consists of 4 elements in 3 groups and, on the Certo Six, is of the unit-focusing type. Here is a small Wiki article on the Tessar. Here is a PDF article from the Zeiss website. The 2.8 debuted in 1932. To this date, about 5 million Tessar design lenses have been produced. Crown glass is in blue, flint glass is in green.

Telescope Adapter

ScopeTronix has numerous adapters that work with digital cameras with 40.5mm filters (the same as the Certo Six). I see no reason why these wouln't work with the Certo an allow you to do astrophotography with medium format!

Exposure Meters

While I have no experience with hand-held meters, I decided that they would be inpractical to carry about. I went with the Voightlander VC II meter. This meter is VERY compact at 42.5mm X 37mm X 19.5mm and weighs a mere 42 grams. I got mine here. I am VERY happy with my purchase even though it cost as much as my Certo Six did. It is nice and simple and seems to be accurate. It fits atop the Certo and easily clears the film wind lever. The other nice thing is that it transferrable to your other cameras. My father-in-law tried it with his Realist stereo camera over Christmas.

Enlargements

I was consistenty disappointed when I try to blow up my 35mm negatives. My 8X10's did not meet my expectations. Not being able to enlarge my negatives was my prime reason for going medium format in the first place. Here is my first print where I did all the developing and printing.

Flashes

I have investigated several options for flashes for my Certo Six.



Vivitar 283- I bought one off of Ebay for $60. Its condition was not as described so I sent it back. Here is the manual.

Plus

• Lock that locks the flash to the camera's shoe so it doesn't wobble around at all.
• Powerful (guide number 120ft. @ ASA100)
• Four depth of field options
• Automatic bounce flash compesation (increases output to compensate for loss of light in reflecting)
• Auto thyristor technology

Minus

• Very top-heavy
• Very bulky

Vivitar 285 HV- still available new from B&H for $90. I returned it for the reasons below. Here is the manual.

Plus

• Lock that locks the flash to the camera's shoe so it doesn't wobble around at all.
• Powerful (guide number 120ft. @ ASA100)
• Four depth of field options
• Automatic bounce flash compesation (increases output to compensate for loss of light in reflecting)
• Auto thyristor technology
• 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 power options
• Zoom function

Minus

• Very top-heavy
• Very bulky
• Cheap, cheap, cheap construction! (looked anf felt like a cheap plastic toy)

Rollei 134 REB- Bought off Ebay for $20. Here is the manual

Plus

• Relatively compact
• Svelte
• Very slick head tilt function
• Nice quality (slightly better than Vivitar 283)
• Auto thyristor technology
• Lower center of mass
• Threaded for tripod mount

Minus

• Only two depth of field settings in auto mode (f4 and f11 for 100 speed film)
• Funky Rollei locking sync. cord (make sure you get a cord with this flash if you buy one)
• Non-locking shoe (I cut two shims out of brass shim material, drilled a small hole in each and placed them right under the thin chromed shim that's alreay in the flash shoe. I used the screw that' s already there to attach all three. This screw prevents the flash from sliding all the way in the shoe. I filed a notch in the flash shoe with a needle file so it would slide all the way in. The flash fits perfectly now- not wobbly at all)

I'm going to stay with the Rollei because it is so nice and compact for its power (guide number of 110 ft. w/100ASA film). I really can't stant the bulk of the Vivitars. The 283 is a close second as it is well built and has a locking shoe. The 285 HV is a piece of junk. The Certo does not need the zoom function of the 285 and the 1/4, 1/2, etc. power function can be accomplished by stopping down the aperture or by adding NDO filters.