To all who commented, thanks! DL

Impressive bird!

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A simple portrait of a beautiful bird!

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A favorite bird!

Thanks, UTmike

Thanks!

Thanks!

He tried three times before catching a fish.

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One of my favorite birds.

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A wood stork feeding /

Thanks kpmac!

Thanks UTMike

Had a lot of BJ births this year.

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[quote=woodyH]Hey there, Exakta 56, who are you? I was a Navy photographer in Japan 56-58, had a couple Exaktas for slides and bought a Rollei at the Atsugi NAS PX, and then was given a Miranda (which could take Exakta lenses via an adapter) for writing an English instruction manual. Norwood Hazard, GreenHaz@aol.com
Yes, Exakta, fantastic idea for a camera, way ahead of its time. With some ideas, like left-hand operation, not subsequently adopted, despite their usefulness. Weaknesses: shutter is a fabric curtain traveling immediately in front of film, plus a mirror which did not return to viewing position until film was wound, therefore an image of the sun could be formed on the curtain during that interim, the burned hole producing an overexposed spot on subsequent frames. The traveling shutter had a lubricant on its bearings which congealed overtime, resulting in inaccurate shutter speeds and even the leading edge of the curtain getting jammed at an odd angle. Both of these might be a problem for amat66. The deal with the Exakta is that was on the market 10 years before Pentax, Minolta, or any other excellent but late-arriving through-the-lens cameras. I went to Topcon because it had a built-in light meter, removable reflex finder, interchangeable focusing screens, and could use the Exakta lenses (which included Steinheil and Zeiss lenses, as good as Leicas at the time); the Navy & National Geographic followed suit as well.
As for shooting film with amat66's camera; do you really want to learn photography? It would be a good platform to start with. But photography has a lot of science in it, whereas digital does a lot of the science for you. And results are now, not a week from now after the film has been processed and the prints made![/quot

There was something about the whole process which is fascinating. Back in the 50s I don't remember many cameras having a built-in light meter, if any. I had a Weston master three, which still works, amazingly. My camera is the Exacta Varex IIA, which is the european model. which I purchased in western Germany when I was stationed there in the 50s. It still works today! Even though I've been in the digital age for years I still don't get the same enjoyment of taking pictures that I did with my exacta. It was downright fun! I bet if you ask many Exacta owners they'll say the same thing.

Waist level finder is in the image.