We’ve had an old 1960’s Kodak rangefinder in the family for years and never knew if it still worked. I decided to splurge (film and film processing is expensive these days), and buy a pack of film rolls and give it a go. I had a blast with the tactile nature of the camera and excitedly took exposures while anxious to see if I’d receive anything back from the processor at all. It was a tense 1-Hour. I’ve never been more happy at a film pickup!
All 24 exposures came through beautifully! The last one was an unintentional double-exposure and a cool surprise.
The Kodak Retina Automatic III is a fixed lens, non-folding, rangefinder that was manufactured in Stuttgart, Germany and sold, quite well, in the States. It has a built-in selenium light meter that, as the photos suggest, still works perfectly to this day. It has a single focal length of 45mm with a widest aperture of f2.8. Unfortunately, you don’t get to use it much in daylight, as the fastest shutter speed is 1/500th of a second. Perhaps I’ll have to find some of that ASA 25 film since it doesn’t have threads for a neutral density filter.
I love the camera and enjoy shooting with it. Unfortunately, at nearly $20 these days per roll of film (materials and processing) and with local film processing rarer by the day, it’s unlikely I’ll take it out too often. Which is a shame. It’s a brilliant camera with no need for batteries or computers. Along with the cost of film, the tactile nature of the camera makes easy to be immersed in careful and relaxed photography.
