Her mother, nervously declined and explained that her father wanted
her home now:

She was nervous, because she herself knew that it was a breach of
custom. The maternal uncle has more authority over the children of a
family than a biological father. That is the way a matriarchy works.

It was an awkward moment, a clash between traditional and modern
values and he felt the clumsiness of the situation. Deep down, he felt
it wasn’t a good reason. His niece was crushed.

The platform in Kungsbacka …

The station in Copenhagen …

And all they lead to is a table of your own, eating by yourself at a restaurant …

Or … sitting over a cup of coffee at a bookstore …

All taken with a Kiev 4a and a Jupiter-8M (normal lens), Tmax100 (scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to film lying around the house).

There are more in the shoebox.

I am still using my FSU cameras, a Kiev 4a, after having my Leica CL stolen a couple of weeks ago. This one was taken with a Kiev 4a from 1970, a Jupiter-12 (35/2.8) from the early sixties and Tmax400 developed in HC110.

There are some more photographs from this week in the weekly shoebox.

I have quite a few FSU (Former Soviet Union) cameras and lenses. Most of them are the Contax style Kiev camera with the rebadged Zeiss lenses from the 40′s: Jupiter-12 (35/2.8 Biogon), Jupter-8 (50/2.0 Sonnar) and Jupiter-9 (85/2.0 Sonnar). They all perform as well as older Leica lenses (which is all I have, that is, older ones, not the newer aspheric lenses).

So why risk expensive stuff when the quality can be just as good … as long as you can find a body that holds up. I have been fortunate enough to find one.

I ran some tests first, just to be sure, and this informal portrait of Rebecca, in the doorway of the livingroom that leads out into the backyard, is one of the results:

All taken with a Pentacon Six. The first one used a Flektogon 50/4.0 and the other two were taken with the standard lens, Biometar 80/2.8, 1/60 @ 2.8.

I’ve wanted a portrait of her for a while. I feel ok with this one.

It wasn’t really a compromise. The Kievs use some very good lenses, Jupiter-12, Jupiter-8 and Jupiter-9, in my case. They are Biogon and Sonnar lenses made in the former Soviet Union. You might have to shop around a bit, but it doesn’t take too much effort to find lenses that perform like their contempory Zeiss lenses. The optical industry in the Soviet Union was no slouch.

This one is a shot with the Jupiter-9 (85/2.0):

The Kiev’s, like the Contaxes they are, have a couple, not many, weak points. One is that the two halves of the focal plane shutter are held together and spaced by silk ribbons. The actually shutter is metal, but the ribbons will break every 15, 20 or 30 years. The ones on the body I was using with the 85/2.0 broke, which was a pity because they were nicely matched to each other.

So … I had to try and find another Kiev body (Kiev 4A) that would work well with my lenses. I ran some tests with the 50 and the 85, using Fomapan 200 developed in R09 (ur-Rodinal). I used the Zeiss Jena Sonnar (50/2.0):

and the Jupiter-9:

Even if the body and 85/2.0 were hitting focus alright, the body was scratching the film as you can see in the shot above.

On the LUG (Leica Users’ Group), Hoppy was left cold by the 50 Sonnar shot. The sunlight on Rebecca’s arm was too burned out. That is a characteristic of Fomapan 200 and R09, not so much the lens. The lens can usually deliver good tonality. So I wanted to show that for week 27, the following week:

I used Agfapan APX400 developed in Xtol this time (10+ minutes diluted 1:1).

Week 26 ended up with a Rolleicord shot as its main:

and

More from both weeks can be seen in the shoeboxes for week 26 and week 27.

The second one was with a Kiev-4a and a Jupiter-9 (Sonnar lens made in the former Soviet Union).

There are some more shots from the week, from Copenhagen, Odense and Göteborg, in the shoebox for the week.

Still beautiful.