Quaffit's Art of iPhoneography: vintage

Camera App used: 645pro

Additional apps used for post processing:

Snapseed - for a little drama effect with de-saturation.

Portrait HD - JixiPix new app is meant to create beautifully painted portraits, but it's also well suited for any other kind of picture. I had no portrait picture at hand so I tested it on this one.

Blender - to blend the Snapseed version with the Portrait version. Reason was, I wanted to restore some detail on the camera lens which had been lost due to the painting effect. So I erased that part from the Portrait layer and lend it with the Snapseed layer at 88% in normal blending mode. I chose 88% because I wanted to keep part of the canvas texture still shining through on the lens.

Snapseed again - to add a little bit of drama again as well as some fine tuning of light and colors.

PhotoToaster - for the frame

A+Signature - for the copyright watermark.

A few days ago I was finally holding my latest toy in my hands, a genuine Kodak Retina IIIc vintage rage finder camera from the early 1950s that I auctioned on eBay. It came with its original manual as well as with its Certificate of Import and Ownership. Doing a little research I found out it must be a pre-1956 build after it's serial number. The camera is is great condition. The body shows only little traces of wear, all mechanical parts work smoothly and the selenium light meter reacts vividly to light changes. Today I rode out on my bike to do some first shots with the camera. Now I'm curious to bring the film to the photo store for development.

The camera is all mechanical and that's great! It's massive metal body feels great in my hands.

Below is another photo that I took with the 645pro. It's unedited.

Looks like I'm on my best way to become an addicted vintage camera collector....

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Camera Apps used:
645pro - for the main picture on this page (above) as well as the b/w version of it (below).
Hipstamatic and Hipstamatic D-Series - for all other pictures.

Accessories: Ollo Clip 3in1 lens system, Macro lens.

Additional apps used for post processing:
PhotoForge2 - for the usual High Pass filter
ArtistaSketch - for a clean sketch to enhance the outlines in the picture a bit.
Blender - to blend High Pass version with the original photo for smart sharpening. Later, Blender was used again to blend in the sketch version to enhance the outlines. Setting was very low to avoid overdoing the effect.
SimplyHDR - for a slight HDR effect with a smooth result.
Photo fx Ultra - to enhance the picture further. Filters used: Polarizer and Fog.
Pixlromatic - for the Janine film effect and later for the Dim frame.
Photo fx Ultra - I loaded the picture again to apply the Day for Night filter. I used only slight settings to tone down the colors a bit with a dark blue overlay.
PhotoToaster - for the vignetting. I love PhotoToaster for vignetting because it allows precise control of the effect.
TouchRetouch - for some minor touchups plus removing the actual date stamp in two of the Hipstamatic photos made with the BlacKeys B+W film.
A+Signature - for the usual copyright watermarks plus insertion of new dates in the previously mentioned Hipstamatic photos.

The main picture of this article shows four of the glass tubes that work in an old radio. It's a Loewe Opta Venus-Stereo Type 4771W build from 1959-1960. My set is still working fine, although its case would need some good restoration work to be done because it's in quite a bad condition. But the electrics still work fine. I thoroughly cleaned the interior before snapping my photos and I was amazed of the brilliant sound quality once more as I switched the radio on again after such a long time - WOW!

You can get additional information about this radio type at the RADIO MUSEUM.

This is the original manual, photographed with the Hipstamatic on top of the radio.

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I enjoy experimenting and I love the Hipstamatic so I tried a lot of combos and D-Series types. But I made the main picture with the 645pro attached to my tripod because I used it in low light condition to get the light effect from the glowing tubes and the light bulbs inside of the radio. I was setting the 645pro to night mode and I used the timer to avoid touching the iPhone. You can see some more Hipstamatic pictures below:

This is the version that I shared on Instagram. No post processing. Just a straight Hipstamatic shot.

Combo: MattyALN+BigUp

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Hipstamatic D-Series, Dreamy.

The transformer is behind the tubes.

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Hipstamatic D-Series, Dreamy.

The turn-able ferrit antenna was used to eliminate disturbing parasite noises when listening to long wave and .medium wave stations.

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Hipstamatic D-Series, Dreamy.

The electric current selector. You had to set the tension manually by loosening the screw and moving the little metal arm to the correct position. The circuit was protected by a little melting fuse of 0.6 Ampere also shown in this picture. The big tube partly visible on the far left reads "Made in Germany". Sadly, in our modern times everything's made in China, or other Asian countries now. The tubes had been manufactured by Telefunken in Germany.

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