Hello everyone, I bought an old Kodak Retinette 1A in a fleamarket. It seems to be in working condition, although I’ll only know for sure after I developed the first photos. I found a manual for a later version (or a different one, the manual is in English and the camera is from Germany) but the lense and the labeling on the lenses are very different from mine.
I was hoping maybe someone with more knowledge of photography could help me make an educated guess. I assume the part labelled with an “m” is distance in meter, but otherwise I have no clue.
Update: Unfortunately the developed Film came out empty, so either I made a terrible mistake or the camera is broken :(
in the top down picture the ring closest to the body marked 3.5 to 22 is the apature and the other is the shutter speed in fraction of sec. with B for “Bulb” ( shutter stays open as long as the release is pressed)
The lens on picture the outer ring is the apature and inner ring is the focal length, I assume in meters because you said it was from Germany.
Edi: spelling, correction on shutter speed
The top-down picture shows depth of field for each aperture. The black triangle points to the focus distance, and the f-stops on either side indicate the depth of field from the focus plane. Wider f-stop gives deeper depth of field. In the pictures the focus is set to 20m, and the f-stop is set to 11, so the depth of field is from infinite to 4m.
Now all you need is a light meter, unless the camera has one built in. Optionally, you can use a chart like this to set exposure, it works well-enough for B&W film, and small over or underexposures are handled during printing.
That sheet is very handy, thank you.
Manuél Exposure, PhD (Doctor of Photography)
Correction:
…shutter speed in fractions of 1 sec.
1/30, 1/60, 1/125 etc.
Correct, fixed.
Thanks!
Just to avoid confusion what @DarrinBrunner refered to as top-down view I refered to as lens on view. But Darrin is correct it shows depth of field.