Band and Audience

Koni Omega Rapid 100, 90mm f3.5 Super Omegon, Kodak 400CN (expired 5 years!)

I was given a Koni Omega 100 to try. It's a medium format, 6x7cm, interchangeable lens, rangefinder camera. This KO has the 120 film back. I think this camera is about 30+ years old. At 6x7cm, you get 10 shots per roll of 120 film. It's a total beast of a camera. It was built super tough, truly like a tank, but it was a lot of fun to use it. On one of our walks downtown, I decided to take the KO out for a test session at Union Square.

I got a lot of funny looks when people saw me using this vintage press camera. Even though it is big and heavy, the controls are well laid out, so I had no problems at all using it as a street shooter. The biggest drawback was the fact that I only had ten shots per roll, and it was so fun to use that I shot the two rolls of 120 film that I brought with me in no time at all!

I found out that the one major problem area on these old KO camera is the winding mechanism. Frames are prone to overlap because the film advance mechanism would malfunction. Sure enough, my KO has this problem. I was disappointed to discover this when I got my two rolls back and looked at the scanned images.

Nevertheless, I was able to salvage this image from the roll of expired Kodak 400CN film. There was a high school marching band playing at Union Square. I liked how the kids at the front of the stage were watching the band so intently. This is cropped to a square format from the original because there was some overlap on the two ends of the 6x7 frame.

I carefully lubed the wind mechanism, and now it seems to work better. I might try another roll just to see if it cured the problem. The camera also came with a 60mm wide angle lens that I didn't have a chance to try yet. I'll keep you posted on the results if I ever take it out again.

--Warren