Episode 56 • A Night at the Opera

“On Wednesday evening, at the start of the opera in the St. Margarethen quarry, the unbelievable happened: Carmen survived.” And this is just the start of Episode № 56 of I Dream of Cameras, which features a harrowing escape from certain death, an enigmatic Central European supermodel, exotic cameras from East Germany and Czechoslovakia, and Jeff Bridges! Tune in for all the intrigue.

* On the final night of his Central European trip, Jeff was almost killed at an outdoor performance of Carmen
* Cameras of 1967:
* Olympus Trip 35
* Hanimex Praktica Novo I B
* Zenit E
* More on Jeff’s recent observation of fashion shoots, including two different professionals’ use of the Olympus Stylus
* Look for many behind-the-scenes XPan shots on Jeff’s Instagram
* Gabe finally found his long-lost Leica R6.2… he’d sold it to LA Film Camera!
* Our composer Fred Coury went to an LA Photography Club meetup and got hooked
* The Argus C3 is terrible — fight us on this!
* On Alan Peres's recommendation, Jeff visited FotoŠkoda in Prague and it was incredible
* Picked up a Zeiss Pentacon FM and a Carl Zeiss Jena 35mm f2.4 Flektogon lens
* In Český Krumlov, Jeff visited the fascinating Museum Fotoatelier Seidel…
* …and found a Czech-made Meopta Stereo-Mikroma at a local antique store
* Gabe got a black Olympus OM-2…
* …and a Nikon D700…
* …and is seeking a waist-level finder for his Contax 645
* The challenges of shooting film abroad: do you wrestle with unsympathetic airport security personnel? Ship your film home and risk it getting x-rayed along the way? Process it locally? After equivocating for days, Jeff rolled the dice and took 18 rolls to the lab at FotoŠkoda… and it was a smashing success!
* Also: Portra 400 is totally worth it, and the XPan is a great travel camera
* Exciting news: a new Widelux is inbound from Jeff and Susan Bridges and the team at Silvergrain Classics
* While the Widelux has a 126° field of view, the XPan with 45mm lens covers 71° — is that panoramic?
* What do we think of the Minolta P’s and other “fake” panoramic 35mm cameras which merely mask the frame?
* Finally, a dip into our prodigious mailbag!