Three frames with the Neoca 2S
I recently acquired the beautiful Neoca 2S - made in Japan between 1955-56, it is a very nice weighty 35mm rangefinder camera. With shutter speeds from 1s-1/300th second and an excellent Neokor 45mm f3.5 lens. One interesting feature is the double stroke winder. The selling point to me was the two tone black and silver design which just looks gorgeous.
Neoca 2S
As with a lot of cameras I get a vibe of what film would suit it! In this case colour seemed right - so I loaded a roll of fresh Kodak Gold 200. With summer coming to an end and golden Autumnal light on the horizon, Gold seemed like the obvious choice to capture the change of season.
Neoca 2S - Kodak Gold 200
I do love this time of year, this morning was so peaceful and had a real glow about it with low lying mist and no clouds. It gets increasingly difficult to find new compositions on ta route that you take every day, but I took a different road to try to capture the sun through the mist, then I spotted these trees…
Neoca 2S - Kodak Gold 200
Another day and another sunrise. The position of the sun really caught me out - the spot I was aiming for was 1/4 mile to the left, but the glow was behind the copse of trees. I had a few minutes before the sun broke the horizon, so quickly jumped out of the car and ran with tripod in one hand, camera in the other across a couple of fields. With wet feet and out of breath the tripod was set up, but the Neoca would not screw tightly down! The tripod was not really needed for this shot, but I was going to take a series of about three image a few minutes apart, but never mind.
Neoca 2S - Kodak Gold 200
Eager to finish the roll, I headed for a local woodland that I hadn’t explored before looking for the dappled light through the leaves - whose days are numbered before they form a golden carpet through the woods. With the frame counter in the 30’s I carefully chose a few scenes, but it kept winding! After a closer look I noticed that when I checked that the camera was wound on by putting a bit of tension on the winder to see if it moved, the frame counter would move. I just had to keep going blindly until the end of the roll.
The Neoca produced some really nice images, and was ok to use. It isn’t the most enjoyable shooter but it definitely has the looks. Will I shoot with it again? probably not as there are more fun cameras out there, but it does look lovely in my cabinet!