Burtzy Loc: Bronx N.Y. & Simi Valley, CA

I have no illusions about the capabilities or lack thereof of the lens. I have been shooting for many years. (I think I learned from Matthew Brady.) My father owned a "kidnapping" studio in in New York in the fifties and I cut my teeth on a bakelite Brownie. In California, I worked for a studio while a student in high school and as well shooting prep sports for the Hollywood Citizen News. (They're long defunct...hmm, maybe I wasn't as good as I thought I was.) I have owned and loved film cameras of all formats up to and including 4X5 all of my life and have continued shooting even during my career as a film editor. In my retirement, I just moved into M 4/3 because of the weight and size difference. I just couldn't pass up the price. I don't expect any miracles. It's just a toy to mess around with.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

For the uninitiated, kidnapping usually meant a studio designed to take senior portrait business away from the big contract school portrait companies. Those of us in that industry called them "seniornappers". In reality, the folks who went to such studios weren't going to buy from us, anyway. They usually lived on a higher social stratum and paid for better, more personalized work.

I'm a Micro 4/3 user myself (Lumix GH4 and Lumix pro lenses). I do about equal amounts of video and stills recording, and make the occasional film (film-like video) with my twins, who want to be actor/director/filmmakers. The GH4 is great for that.

It's a bit sad to see the sorry state of journalism these days. I was reading Apple News this morning. Nobody, but nobody edits their articles any more! There's an awful trend to say the same thing over and over and over again through an article, just rewording it slightly. Our local papers here are a joke. Fortunately, they have half-decent web sites, but in some ways, they still haven't figured out what to do with the Internet... the print mindset lingers.

Burtzy Loc: Bronx N.Y. & Simi Valley, CA

In the case of my father's studio, he shot mostly children's photos (hence, kidnapping). And he had a small number of photographers who worked for him who would canvas neighborhoods, carrying equipment and shoot in the homes of the families to whom they sold.

As far as the state of journalism. I couldn't agree more. Many of the writers I read...and usually groan at their ineptitude...can't seem to tell the difference between it's and its or to and too. I realize that language is an evolving form of communication but basic grammar seems to apply less and less these days. And for God's sake, whatever happened to the word much? Nothing is so fun. It's so much fun. LOL

aellman Loc: Boston MA

Spiratone was best known for cheap stuff. They went out of business a VERY long time ago, but I still have a few of their products, including a tripod and a fisheye front lens adapter, which works very well.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Back in the 1960s and '70s and '80s, Kodak sold a system for newspaper photographers called Ektamatic. It was an expensive processor that used special, developer-incorporated enlarging paper, plus two chemicals, an activator and a stabilizer. You could make a usable print in less than a minute with that system.

I bought a knock-off stabilization processor from Spiratone. I made the mistake of buying Spiratone stabilization chemicals and paper, though! One batch, and I threw out the paper and chemicals and bought Ektamatic paper and chemistry. With the Kodak materials, the Spiratone processor worked great! I used it for 20 years to make prints for immediate conversion to halftones for newspaper reproduction (and other temporary needs). You could fix the prints in regular print fixer, then use hypo clearing agent and wash them normally, but that sort of defeated the purpose.

Burtzy Loc: Bronx N.Y. & Simi Valley, CA

We were never in that much of a hurry. I had my own darkroom at home, the use of the studio darkroom where I often worked and of course the one at the Citizen News. Since I mainly shot high school sports, the stories only were published weekly.

aellman Loc: Boston MA

I used the stabilization process in the darkroom I set up for my workplace, since we needed fast action for broadcast TV. It worked well for its purpose. I hadn't given it a thought in 40 years until you reminded me. Thanks! >Alan

yorkiebyte Loc: Scottsdale, AZ/Bandon by the Sea, OR

Wow! Very interesting! However, I didn't see any that were $17.50. For $17.50, only a person wanting to have some FUN will buy it.
It's probably not to far in quality from my $5.oo Nikon E 50mm!! Or my $6.95 Minolta Celtic 35mm f 2.8!!
.... Cheaper they are, the more BANG fer yer buck!! And my PRO lenses don't get beat up. ....Whooohoo!!

Burtzy Loc: Bronx N.Y. & Simi Valley, CA

To clarify: I bought it for $17.50 at an antique shop that was closing. It was 50% off the asking price of $35.00.

It's funny what passes for an antique nowadays. For instance, they had Star Trek comic books for sale that were printed in the 1970's, 1980's and 1990's. I find it hard to wrap my brain around comics predicting a future we haven't yet and may never reach, as antiques. It's like the Accutron Spaceview watch my parents gave me for my college graduation. It was the first electronic watch. The Accutron timepiece in a different iteration went to the moon to time experiments. It is now an antique. So too would have been the Hasselblads the astronauts took to the moon and left there to make room for the moon rocks.

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

If you don't mind spending a bit more money here are a couple of examples from a lens that I spent just under $100 for, the lens is beautiful looks almost as new. Also a preset which I actually think is easier to shoot manually than the auto diaphragm lenses designed for specific cameras, the 300mm Tele Takumar 300mm f/6.3, these images have been cropped to make the bird more prominent in the pic. To get a handle on the quality of the lens the images should be downloaded. Not as good as my Canon EF 300mm prime but not really a slacker either, actually good enough and fun enough to shoot that I will pull this lens out of the stable from time to time and spend a day or two with it.

(Download)


(Download)

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

As a kid in the 7th grade, I frequented the Spiratone stores on 7th Avenue in Manhattan and their branch in Flushing on Northern Boulevard. Theses were the only places I coud afford to buy from aside for the second had dealers. As I recall, not all of the stuff was inferior- some was surprisingly decent for the money. They had lenses marketed under their own brand and there was a line of Acura merchandise. I don't think all of the lenses were "junk"- there seem to be inconsistencies or quality control fluctuations. I suppose it deepened on which Japaneses factory was contracted to produce the merchandise. I remember the owner, Fred Spira- he was fair- if I was dissatisfied with anythg, he would exchange it. I realized some of the lenses were not perfect so I just worked around some of the shortcomings.

They had a lot of neat gadgets and accessories. I had an old Rolleiflex and they had all kinds of knockoff lens shades, filters and parallax correcting close up sets that worked nicely.

In New York City, back in the day, the "kidnappers" were home portrait operators who sold coupons for low priced portrait packages- door to door. Some got leads from the diaper services. The photographers followed, equipped with a medium format camera, a couple of strobes and a white background. They coud do a dozen sittings per day- house to house. Perhas 2 dozen in a housing project or an apartment complex. Sounds crazy?- theses guys coud setup, shoot and take down in half an hour and drive like maniacs to the next shoot! If not anythg else, they came up with fantastic expressions on the kids. They managed through screaming babies, vomiting toddlers, dotting parents, cluttered apartments and usually came back with a very salable job.

Then came the PROOF-PASSER. I don't know where theses guys came form- they worked on straight commission and the turned those modest packages into surprisingly large orders. Either that, or the were forcibly ejected from the houses. I think theses proof salesmen were selected from folks who had demanding wives, 12 kids and were up to there neck in gambling debts! DESPERATE! It was quite the industry and I knew folks that did it for YEARS- they had to be made of iron!

Funny- a cohort of mine, at the time, was shooting for one of the big operators. He asked his boss if he coud do some of the proof sales. The boss refused- told him he was too nice a guy and shoud stick to shooting! Go figure!

Burtzy Loc: Bronx N.Y. & Simi Valley, CA

My father's company was called Majestic Studios. And your description of the kidnappers was exactly what dad's business was all about. He sold out his share after a few years because he moved us to California.

cambriaman Loc: Central CA Coast

I had one of those back in the late 50's that I used on my Exakta VXIIa. Considering the time and my skills, it did the job.

Archiefamous Loc: Manhattan

The lens worked as well as my Argus C3. Used the Spiratone lens on my canon Ft-ql. Then switched to Nikon and never looked back

mas24 Loc: Southern CA

I love reading stories about old bargain lenses. All of them work, but with some difficulty involved. Which makes them interesting. Some take decent photos too. Most are old telephoto lenses.