Tag Archives: Stereo Samulette

“Tanks A Lot”

by Steven Lederman

This is my brother-in-law, Gordon, and yes ladies, he’s single!  This is another shot from last year’s beer run.  Gordon plays an international online tank game, so we stopped on our way to the beer store in Vermont to shoot an avatar image for him.  I captured a few shots with a Fuji W3, and then I bracketed some exposures with the Stereo Samulette.

I have another version of this shot that I like slightly better, as the background is sharper and there’s an American flag present, but the setting sun washed out some of Gordon’s features and his pose was more rigid, so you get to see this one instead.

I realize there’s a scratch or some sort of anomaly on the left film chip.

This was handheld, shot on HP5 processed by dr5 – I think the f-stop was 16, 1/100th of a second handheld, and the distance and hyperfocal estimation was guesswork (there’s no through-the-lens focusing on this camera).

“General Store”

by Steven Lederman

My brother-in-law Gordon is a bière connoisseur.  He makes regular pilgrimages to Vermont to frequent a specialty store there that stocks micro-brews from around the globe.

Last year I decided I’d accompany him on one of his beer runs to Vermont via the quaint Quebec countryside so that I’d have an opportunity to shoot with my folding medium format camera.  If I did all the driving, I’d have control over where we stopped for a photo op.   I am pleased with how the camera performed.  I enjoy the vintage feel of this shot, marred only by the snout of the more modern vehicle peering out from the rear of the truck bed.

This scene reminds me of the subject matter that my late friend Earl Bennett was attracted to when he painted.  He studied with Thomas Hart Benton in the 1930s and for the most part painted works that dealt with small town, mid-Western life.

This image was shot on HP5, processed by dr5. I wish I could say the shutter speed was 5 and the f-stop was 5, but no such luck.  The f-stop was 32, handheld at 1/100th.

The camera was created by Sam Smith, fusing together two 1950s-era AGFA Isolette II folders.  It has AGFA’s intermediate-level f4.5 Apotar lenses on S-Prontor shutters.  When folded shut, it fits into a jacket pocket.  It’s resplendent in faux ostrich skin.  I wanted to name it “The AGFA Stereo Smith-O-lette”, but Sam liked the sound of “Sam-O-lette” better.   For some reason, when I say “Sam-O-lette” I think of Frank Zappa’s “Camarillo Brillo” and the lyrics; “She had a snake for a pet, and an amulet…”, so since Sam told me to name this camera “whatever sounds good”, I’ve named it “The Samulette”.