More 1960s Excellence: The Canon 50mm ƒ/1.8 Leica Thread Mount (ltm) lens

The 1960s was a decade of amazing innovation and creativity for the Japanese optical companies. They sold equipment equal or superior to many of the German offerings at the time and eventually dominated sales in the USA. 

Long-term readers may remember that I bought a Canon 50mm ƒ/1.4 ltm lens in 2019. It was superb optically but was a big cylinder that blocked too much of the viewfinder of my little Leica IIIC. I reluctantly sold it and looked for one of the smaller ƒ-stop Canon lenses. 

As I noted in the earlier article, Canon mounted their early post-war lenses in heavy chrome mounts. I wanted one of the lighter weight mid-1960s versions. Problem: many (most?) of these 50mm black barrel ƒ/1.8 lenses suffer from the infamous hazy or etched inner elements. No one has a solid answer why this happens, but the haze was likely caused by gas from the lubricants used in the aperture mechanism. Many of the 1.8 lenses are totally ruined and cannot be cleaned, but once in awhile, one shows up on the infamous 'Bay with a clear interior. 

There's a fungus among us

Precise engraving; brass and aluminum helical mount

I bought one of the 1.8 lenses with clear glass but minor fungus. The Japanese vendor was honest and the price was right. I have used fungus before. The 35mm ƒ/3.5 Leitz Summaron lens that I bought in Buenos Aires in 1982 was a fungus farm. A technician cleaned off the inner coating to remove the fungus, and I proceeded to use the lens for another 15 years. No issues at all, and barely any flare problems. As usual, I wish I had kept that lens.

Here are some initial examples from my Canon 50mm ƒ/1.8 lens in and around Vicksburg, Mississippi on Fuji Acros film. 

2917 Drummond Street (empty for years)

Kansas City Southern rail yard, Levee Street (1/60 ƒ/4.0½)

Have a seat, Valley Street (1/60 ƒ/5.6)

Stouts Bayou footbridge at Avenue A

Stouts Bayou from Letitia Street

Need a mask? Letitia Street

Morgan Lane (1/100 ƒ/5.6, yellow-green filter)

Alma Street, Vicksburg (1/60 ƒ/8)

1920s or 1930s cottage, 2613 Alma Street, Vicksburg (1/60 ƒ/8.0½)

With Vicksburg's hilly terrain, many older homes have serious steps.

Bowmar Avenue house undergoing endless renovation (1/200 ƒ/8, yellow-green filter) 

Conclusions

This is a nice lens optically and mechanically. I have no complaints. Oops, one issue: this lens uses 40mm filters, an odd size (while dozens of German and Soviet lenses used 40.5mm). With an adapter, I can use Series VI filters. The correct Canon screw-in filters would be more convenient and faster in the field but are seriously expensive from the Japanese sellers. All flaws in the photos above are those of the photographer's. I have sent the lens to Don Goldberg (DAG Camera) for cleaning and checking. When it is back, I will use it regularly, along with my 1960s Soviet Jupiter-8 lens and my 1949 Leitz Summitar. (Yes, I know, I have far too many cameras and lenses....)

Update July 2022:  The little Canon lens is back from its cleaning. Now to make time to use the little Leica IIIC.

Levee Street Railroad Yard, Vicksburg, Mississippi

The Kansas City Southern rail yard on Levee Street usually has interesting patterns, shapes, and textures to photograph. Long-term readers know that I have photographed here many times before, but I usually find new material when I explore. Nowadays, it is a rare treat to walk next to or within a rail yard that is not fenced off with security razor wire. The two big rail yards in Jackson are off-limits. 

Fairground Street Bridge, closed since the early 1990s

The rail yard is much quieter than it was before the 2011 Mississippi River flood. I do not know where all the rolling stock went. For older articles on Levee Street:

• Historic Cotton Compress
• 1800 railroad warehouse/shop
• Tank farm

These photographs are from Kodak Ektar 100 film. I used a venerable Honeywell Pentax Spotmatic camera. Most of the rail yard photos are with my 135mm ƒ/3.5 lens, an inexpensive optic in its day but excellent mechanical and optical quality. Northeast Photographic in Maine developed the film and scanned the negatives with a Noritsu system. I reduced the saturation with Photoshop CS6 software.

Last Time Ever: 135-size Kodak Panatomic-X (Abandoned Films 05b)

Dear readers, this is it, the last time for 135 size Kodak Panatomic-X film. I exposed my last roll in and around Vicksburg and will likely never use any again (although I still am using 120 format rolls for medium format cameras). The Panatomic-X from eBay sellers is usually older than the rolls I used, and they almost never have information on how it was stored. Here are some examples from this last roll of the famous Panatomic-X. I exposed it at exposure index (EI) = 20 and sent it to Northeast Photographic in Bath, Maine, to develop.

 

Vicksburg, Mississippi

Cherry Street bridge, Feb. 16, 2021 (Jupiter-8 lens, yellow filter, 1/30 ƒ/8)

This was one of our two unusual snowfalls in February.

Kroger supermarket, Pemberton Blvd. (Leitz 5 cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens, deep yellow filter, 1/100 ƒ/4)

This is the site of the short-lived K-Mart store, which was poorly run and seldom had customers. This is a new building because the Kroger company tore down the K-Mart structure.

Pemberton Blvd., Vicksburg (Leitz 5cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens, deep yellow filter)

Parking lot north of Bunge terminal, Levee Street, Vicksburg (Summitar lens, ½ sec ƒ/11.5)

Kansas City Southern rail yard, Levee Street (Leitz Summitar lens)

"America" moored at the Vicksburg Waterfront, view down Grove Street (Leitz Summitar lens)

Kansas City Southern rail yard, Levee Street (Jupiter-8 lens, yellow filter, 1/20 ƒ/11)

Port of Vicksburg

Vicksburg Forest Products (formerly Anderson-Tully)

Vicksburg Forest Products, view north (Jupiter-8 lens, deep yellow filter)

Ergon Bio-fuels, Haining Road (Summitar lens)

DTE PetCoke company, 745 Industrial Drive

DTE is at the north end of Industrial Drive. I often bike there, and one of the ladies who works at DTE has given me bottles of chilled water on hot days. DTE stores and handles pulverized petroleum coke.

Falco Lime from Port Terminal Circle (Leitz Summitar, 1/60 ƒ/5.6)

Louisiana

Port of Lake Providence, Louisiana (Jupiter-8 lens, deep yellow filter)

Former cotton gin, Tallulah

Barn on Rte 602 near Tallulah (Jupiter-8 lens)

Po-Boy Don's, Louisiana Rte. 602 near Tallulah

Summary

 

This ends my Expired Film Treasures (Films from the Dead) series as it pertains to 35mm size. This has been a fun exploration, but I want to concentrate on contemporary films and stop experimenting. 

• Panatomic-X was a beautiful film and very characteristic of the 20th century black and white aesthetic. 
• The last two rolls of Panatomic-X that I used were more grainy than I remember. Possibly this is a result of development, but more likely it is a result of the film being 30 years old.
• Today, Fuji Acros, Ilford Delta 100, and Kodak TMax 100 have a higher and more convenient film speed. They are finer grain and higher resolution, as well, showing the benefits of several decades of photo-chemical research and development. 
• Once you scan film and display it on the web, honestly, it is hard to distinguish different types of black and white film.
• Some of my pictures had out-of-focus areas. There may be a lens alignment problem with my Leica IIIC, and I sent it to DAG camera for a check-up. (Update: the camera is back and I need to test it.)
• I recommend that you do not seek out Panatomic-X film unless you can be sure that the rolls have been frozen all the years. Even then, having been discontinued about 1991 or 1992, it is bordering on being too old, although some bloggers say it has almost indefinite keeping properties.
  

Thank you for reading. Keep exploring your world and take pictures of things, people, or scenes that move you.

Expired Film Treasure: 135-size Kodak Panatomic-X (Abandoned Films 05)

Introduction

Oh, oh, trouble. A fellow on eBay advertised a brick of Kodak Panatomic-X film in 135 size (for regular 35mm cameras) that he said had been frozen. Long-term readers know that I have been using my dwindling stash of 120-size Panatomic-X for the last few years with great success (please click the link). Many photographers on the web claim to miss it. And now I could try some of this classic film in my 35mm cameras? This was too good to resist; I bought six rolls and loaded a camera. 

Eastman Kodak introduced Panatomic in 1933. It was designed to be an extremely fine grain film, which meant it could be enlarged for large prints and still retain details. The early version was on nitrate base, but around 1937, Kodak reformulated it on safety base, renaming it Panatomic-X. Sadly, Kodak discontinued this well-loved product around 1988 or 1989, claiming that TMax 100 could serve as a substitute. Maybe this is true, but many photographers regretted the loss of the older film. Used with top-grade lenses and careful technique (that means a tripod), the detail in a Panatomic-X negative is remarkable, even in this age of high-megapixel digital cameras.

There is always a risk with using expired film, but slow speed black and white emulsions usually age well with minimal fog problems. If the films have been refrigerated or frozen, they typically are completely usable. Long-term readers may recall that I had great results with 1960s GAF Verapan film packs that had been frozen for 50 years. Color film is much more susceptible to color shifts and other issues, but if you find some old black and white film, by all means try it.

Here are scenes from in and around Vicksburg, Mississippi, from my new/old Panatomic-X film. Judge for yourself if you like the look or tonality. I resized to 1600 pixels on the long dimension. Click a picture to enlarge it. Please comment if you have some observations.

Levee Street

Former cotton compress, Levee Street (35mm ƒ/3.5 Super-Takumar lens, yellow filter, ¼ ƒ/11.5, overcast with drizzle)

Former tank farm, Levee Street (28mm ƒ/3.5 SMC Takumar lens, yellow-green filter, ⅛ ƒ/8)

Tugs on Yazoo Canal (28mm ƒ/3.5 SMC Takumar lens, yellow-green filter, ⅛ ƒ/8)

Levee Street has remnants of Vicksburg's industrial infrastructure. There is a lot of barge traffic on the Yazoo Canal. The old tank farm in the photograph above has been unused for at least three decades, but in late 2020 I saw that one of the tanks had been removed and the piping had been cleaned and painted. These photographs are from an overcast day with occasional drizzle.

KCS rail yard, Levee St. (Leica IIIC, 50mm ƒ/2 Jupiter-8 lens, yellow filter, 1/20 ƒ/11)

Second Street

This stucco-clad house on the corner of Second and National Streets has been uninhabited for three decades, but it is not abandoned. Someone painted the exterior not long ago. A neighbor came over when I was photographing and said the sheriff pays him to mow the grass. The old Plymouth and pickup truck have been in the carport for decades. Status: unknown.

Yazoo Street

Yazoo Street (35mm ƒ/3.5 Super-Takumar lens, 1/30 ƒ/4.0, hand-held)

Yazoo Street runs south from Army-Navy Drive past the City workshops and dead ends almost under the North Frontage Road bridge. Decades ago, you could see more houses in this quiet corner of town, but now only this one house remains. The air was misty, accounting for the glow in the tree canopy.

Clay Street

Adolph Rose Antiques, 717 Clay Street (Leica M2, 35mm ƒ/2 Summicron lens, 1 sec. exposure)

Thank you, Malcolm and Karen, for letting me take some photographs in the interesting Adolph Rose Antiques. 

Lot behind 1220 Washington Street (Leica M2, 25mm ƒ/4 Color-Skopar lens, ¼ sec. ƒ/8.0½)

Lower Clay Street, near the Yazoo Canal, was once lined with commercial buildings and warehouses. A few still exist. Just west of Washington Street, an alley gives access to the back lots of some of the old commercial buildings. 

Washington Street

 

2016 Washington Street (35 mm ƒ/2 Summicron lens, yellow filter, 1/125 ƒ/2.8½)

This forlorn building is one of the few commercial buildings remaining just south of downtown. Notice the brickwork on the right unit, evidence of fine construction a century ago. 

Rifle Range Road

Abandoned (or forgotten) timber rail cars (55mm ƒ/1.8 Super-Takumar lens)

These rail cars are parked on the tracks next to Halcros Chemical, just south of Rifle Range Road. Status: unknown.

US 61 South

Church, 3922 US 61 South, Vicksburg (Leica 50mm Summicron-DR lens, yellow-green filter)

Natchez

C&M Crawfish, US 98, Natchez (25mm ƒ/4 Color-Skopar lens)

This is another former gas station on US 98 a few miles northeast of Natchez. I liked the light shining on the cracked driveway. 

Jackson

Pump house at Mississippi River Basin Model, Buddy Butts Park, Jackson (25mm ƒ/4 Color-Skopar lens)

This is a pump house at the US Army Corps of Engineers' Mississippi River Basin Model, the largest hydraulic model of a watershed ever built. The site has been neglected for decades and is finally being cleaned by the Friends of the Mississippi River Basin Model non-profit organization. I have written about the model many times; please use the search button to find older posts.

Conclusions

This is another pleasant surprise! This long-expired Panatomic-X film appears to be totally viable. 

I cannot recommend one way or the other if you should seek out rolls of Panatomic-X. But if you find a stash in a relative's house or closet, go for it. I suggest you expose it at EI=20, making this largely a tripod film. It certainly is not as convenient to use as Fuji Acros or Kodak TMax 100, but the Panatomic-X has a different look (Sorry, I cannot describe it any differently). 

This is another example of the sophistication and precision of photographic film manufacture that was achieved more than a half century ago. Don't let anyone tell you that film is primitive or obsolete. 

My friend, Mike, from Photography & Vintage Film Cameras in Albuquerque shot one of these rolls and also got excellent results. Click the link for his interesting blog.

This is no. 5 of my irregular series on Abandoned Films ("Films from the Dead").