Me And Photography (Part 3) - Exakta

My first short encounter with a single lens reflex camera, the Russian ZENIT, was not so successful. And the camera was not to blame for that. Again some time passed without any photo-activity. But one day another friend offered me one of his cameras on a longer-term loan. He was well on his way to turn professional and worked with more advanced cameras. The one I borrowed was somewhat outdated, but in excellent working order. The brand actually enjoyed considerable cult-status: it was the 35 mm single-lens reflex EXAKTA. This camera had written history in the mid-1930s, when it was known in Germany as the Kine-Exakta. It was designed for the 35 mm ”Kine”-film, the one with perforated edges, actually made and widely used in motion picture filming. As time went by the Kine-film came to be known within the realm of photography as "Kleinbildfilm" in Germany, the small-picture film. This by comparison with the common and popular 120 rollfilm which has a much larger image-capturing area.

35 mm film ("Kine-Film", "Kleinbildfilm")

Already in the 1920s Oskar Barnack had utilized the Kine-film for his groundbreaking LEICA. The Exakta though was the first mirror-reflex camera built for this film type.

This is not a picture of "my" actual camera, but very similar in appearance

"My" particular Exakta-model was from either the late 50s or early 60s, I never quite knew. Just like the original Kine-Exakta it featured a ”waist-level”- finder: upon opening the flap you looked straight down on the viewfinder’s ground glass, holding the camera approximately at waist-level. There were no other focussing aids embedded in the ground glass, though for critical focussing you could flip up a magnifying lens from the finder’s housing. There was no light-metering, exposure had to be guessed at or arrived at with external meters.

The EXAKTA had some interesting functions,  among them an enormous range of shutter speeds, a very solid bayonet lens-mount and a built-in film cutting knife. It made it possible to cut off exposed film from the unexposed. In darkness you could then open the camera, take out the exposed film and process it. The rest of the film in the camera could be used in normal fashion. You'd lose a couple of frames in the process, but that was a small price to pay for the convenience of not having to wait for a whole film to be exposed before getting at badly needed or wanted pictures.
It was possible to take the film-cutting provision one step further: Instead of winding the film onto a take-up spool you could use special light-tight cartridges on the take-up side as well. After cutting the film the exposed-cartridge could be taken out even in daylight conditions. And the rest of the unexposed film could be loaded again as usual. Else you could change over to a different film type, let's say from black and white to color negative. Nicely thought-out functions, but I never made use of them. But for more flexibility you had to wait a couple of decades until the digital cameras could produce strong images.

Lens with two-stage shutter button

Another feature was a bit reminiscent of the digital era: pressing the shutter button half way!
This was not built into the camera, but a function that came with certain lenses. The original shutter button was on the left front side of the body. That made it possible to construct lenses with a kind of extension for the shutter button. This extension came to rest just in front of the body's button after attaching the lens in the bayonet mount. What was the point? The lens button was more sophisticated, it could be pressed in two stages. Pushing it only half way stopped down the aperture and thus gave a depth of field preview. First when pushing further a pin transmitted the pressure on to the body's shutter release. If you didn't need or want a preview: Just push straight through, no problem or delay. Not bad!

It was mostly the Exakta’s waist-level finder that captured my interest. To be sure, you had to get used to it: it showed a mirror image of the scene. Quite awkward, and even more so when you tried to take pictures in the vertical format (...and to this day I seldom turn any camera into an upright position).
But there were real attractions with waist-level viewing as well. It tended to give an awareness and interest for otherwise difficult shooting angles, like holding the camera very low, tilting it upward. Over-the-crowd shots were no problem, you held the camera above your head with the finder facing down. High angles like this were great in many other situations: to help exclude unwanted objects in the foreground, to get a bit of a bird's eye-view on things or to help straightening out converging vertical lines.
Waist-level finders are good for candid shots too. In the 70s everybody expected a high quality camera to be tightly pressed to an eye when shooting. Looking down on a camera from a distance would only signal that you were engaged with adjustments and the like, not with actual picture taking...
Experiencing these advantages probably influenced my strong preference today for tilting and svivelling LCD-finders on digital cameras.

Hans and Judy, Simon Fraser Univrsity 1973

Photographing with the Exakta was an intensive learning period for me. I remember that I had stacks of photo-books from the library all over my place. At the time I was using mostly black and white negative film, developing and darkroom work kept me busy as well.

Old Fishing Harbor, Steveston B.C.

My Exakta-period didn't yield many memorable pictures, but it started habits that live on today: The photo-walks in city and nature, which on weekends often turned into car excursions.

My early course work at Simon Fraser University had little bearing on photography. But this changed overnight when I entered the teacher-training program. A considerable part of the introductory period took place in the so-called LRL, the Learning Resources Lab, connected to the Education Department. To the students' delight the LRL was much better equipped than the university's ordinary Audiovisual Center. For instance, many of us had their first contact with video filming and video-cassettes in the LRL, this technology had not hit the consumer market at the time. Popular were also the small sound studios with modern tape recorders, mixers and effects-units. Head of the LRL was a man by the name of Ed Wong, who I remember as a highly competent and  inspiring person. 
Throughout the training program photography was given a role for documenting different projects and activities. But even the production of visual teaching material and free "creative" work was strongly encouraged. In this context I once asked Janine, a fellow student, if she could act as model for a portrait-exercise, apparently a new situation for both of us.

Technically I could have done better, the negatives were badly underexposed. And due to a less than perfect film development they were also a bit too grainy. Nevertheless, both Janine and I were  satisfied with this first excursion into outdoor-portraiture.

The "creative" times and the positive and pioneering spirit in the Learning Resources Lab stand out in memory. I completed my teacher training program there with an extensive course named "Educational Media". Taking this course and getting it on my record proved later to be a significant factor for the direction of my teaching activities in Sweden.


Come to think of it, the Exakta wasn't the only camera I used in those days. The LRL had a good supply of modern SLR's, including various lenses, flashes, tripods etc. One could sign out this equipment on a daily and sometimes weekly basis. The cameras were Fujicas, nothing overly flashy, but very reliable and sturdy. Especially the Fujica's viewfinder got high marks, it presented an unusully large and bright image. This came in handy since I was using the Fujica mostly for close-up repro copying, where focussing and depth-of-field-judgements are critical.

The Fujca was my intro to thru-the-lens light (TTL) metering. TTL was crucial for this task, the copying work was done on slide film with its dangerously narrow exposure latitude. In other words, it is easy to over- or underexpose and difficult to get it it just right. The metering helps, but I had to learn to analyze the material to be copied and guess at the slight over- or underexposure that was required to get it (near) perfect.

The Fujicas had a Pentax/Praktika lens screw-mount, at that time the motorway to an enormous line of lenses. And lenses they had at the LRL.