Argus C3 Standard test roll

[Mos6502]

I recently acquired this 1959 Argus C3 Standard. After attempting to adjust the rangefinder (which did not believe anything could be more than 15' away) I went and shot a test roll. The focus is still off by about 6" but I could not reign it in anymore than that no matter how much I fiddled with the rangefinder.


At f5.6 - a little miss on the focus - though at this aperture everything is going to be slightly soft anyway.

Crop showing CA and coma. The quality of Cintars is highly variable, some will produce quite pronounced "swirly bokeh" - this one is rather restrained. The bokeh near the center is actually quite nice though I think. But everything is usually quite nice in the center with triplets.






There is something about the way the Cintar renders color that I just don't like. I'm not sure what it is, but color prints from C3s always look "dirty" to me. On the other hand I shot many rolls of b/w with a couple of C3s I had previously and the results were great (color was bleh though).

I have a Sandmar 35mm lens coming for it, so I'll have to see what that can do. I always wanted one but balked at the expense of having to spend maybe $25 on a lens for a $5 camera - lol

Speaking of Cintar's uneven quality: I had an Argus C3 Matchmatic once that I would have sworn had a flipped center element. It didn't, but here's a pic from it:


Could've fooled me! I guess the QC was on vacation that day.

[Katastrofo]

The Cintar, which was copied after the Leitz Elmar were all made in the US
for the C3, and presumably for the match-matic model. I have the
match-matic and the first two and daisies pics are Ferrania 400, the rest are Fuji 200:









These are test shots, too, trying different film and scanned at home on my Epson.

I've noticed a flare problem with this lens and bought a Series V hood but
have yet to try it. It may help, it may not, don't think the coating on these
lenses were all that good.


Looking forward to seeing some results from that Sandmar!

[Mos6502]

I don't think the Cintar is patterned after the Elmar. The Elmar has four elements, and the Cintar is a classic cooke triplet. Further the Elmar has the stop between the two front elements, and the Cintar in keeping with other triplets has the stop between the center and rear element.

I did get some flare when shooting towards the sun but that is to be expected. The older C3's which don't have a recessed front element seem to be a lot more prone to flare (for obvious reasons I guess). But the more shade the better, you'll probably find the hood helps. Hoods help a lot on my other single-coated/uncoated lenses.

[Katastrofo]

Yes, I'm mistaken, and do agree the Cintar is a Cooke triplet. This source
led me astray:

http://www.shutterbug.com/content/argus-cameras-american-firm-made-miniature-photography-affordable-page-2

Under the Personal Observations heading

I'm happy with the rendering of this lens, but of course it didn't have near
the QC of Leitz.

[luisalegria]

I am intrigued by this point re the Cintar lens.

I have a spare Cintar that is badly fungused. I will take it apart to clean it, so I will have a look at the construction. It should be easy enough to tell if the rear cell has a single element or a cemented pair.

[martinsmith99]

It looks like a bit of swirly bokeh going on in one of those pics.

[Mos6502]

Some do swirl a bit. Katastrofo's seems swirlier than mine. I'll see if I can get some wide open shots next time I run a roll through. The C3 was known to vignette at f3.5, especially on the early models - but it's a fault in the shutter design rather than with the lens that causes this. That is that the shutter opening is too small, f3.5 barely works - and there's a reason nobody ever made a 2.8 for the C3.

Of course back in 1939 f3.5 was still considered really fast. Funny how quickly things changed.

[Scheimpflug]

[Mos6502]

The lens goes through the full 180 degrees. The rangefinder was just out of adjustment.

Interestingly they designed a new rangefinder for the '58 revamp - but I guess it goes out of adjustment just like the older version does. And annoyingly it also offers a magnified view which makes it harder to use than the old version.

I would have rather Argus had their engineers put in a bigger viewfinder...

[Scheimpflug]

[Mos6502]

Yes. But when the rangefinder indicated a distance of 15' for the mountains in the distance, I concluded the rangefinder was out of adjustment.

[Scheimpflug]

Ahh, Gotcha.

[Mos6502]

Or the mountains could have been really close. In retrospect I should have walked the 15 feet to find out.

[LucisPictor]

Good photos and nice film processing, decent lab.
I wish our local one would be as good.

[Mos6502]