Chernobyl 30 years after the nuclear disater An italian photographer on the site

"I believe that the Chernobyl disaster should be seen as the main cause of the fall of the Soviet Union." Tony Graffio

Paolo A. Restelli, author of the photo reportage I'm going to introduce you, went to visit the Chernobyl nuclear power plant after 30 years by the leakage of the radioactive cloud, because this is the half-life of the radioactive isotope derived as a byproduct of  uranium nuclear fission that powered the nuclear reactor of the central Lenin.

It's particularly significant to analyze what is happening in these days in Ukraine, which has run the country that became independent from the former Soviet Union in 1990 and has bad relations with Russia. The entire continent is very worried, considering the fact that it is essential that there is always an effective dialogue between Europe, Ukraine and Russia in order to carry out the appropriate checks and to realize the  necessary maintenance work for a containment structure of the radiations.

Photographing with little time available in a unknown risky place, in hardly favorable conditions it is not easy, despite this, Restelli did a great job.

Pripyat kindergarten 

A very sad picture that makes us understand how was the life before the disaster and makes us reflect on how many innocent children could not grow up and live a normal peaceful life for the madness of the adults.

Inside of Pripyat hospital, surgery room.

This is one of the most dangerous places in the city of Pripyat.

Here the first liquidators were hospitalized. The clothes of the liquidators were stored in the basement that has become so one of the most radioactive areas in the world, where you measure 400 microsieverts.

Chernobyl area map

Pripyat ferris wheel

Pripyat ferris wheel had to be inaugurated on May 1st, 1986 but of course, no one has been able to use it and then the amusement park takes on a sinister meaning seen to our days. How the Soviets could imagine to bring their children to play close to a nuclear power plant?

Springtime in Chernobyl

Paolo Angelo Restelli took these pictures on april the 13th and 14th 2016.

A flat in Pripyat. A sofa in an interior  

Despite the danger, many displaced people have returned illegally in their homes to regain possession of their property and their furnishings. Later other people have come to Pripyat to remove the heaters from the palaces and other metals, in order to resell them. These people have been detained by security forces. Other individuals have stolen abandoned cars, but they have not had occasion to use them for a few kilometers, as these thieves were found dead inside the cars, just outside the exclusion zone. The cars were radioactive in the order of 60 Sievert.

Overview of Pripyat seen from the terrace of a building of 16 floors that Paul A. Restelli reached on foot.

Abandoned gas masks in the school of Pripyat

At the time of the Cold War in the Soviet Union everybody had to have a gas mask to defend himself/herself from a nuclear attack (although in this case  it would be useless). The school of Pripyat was attended by about 2,000 / 2,500 pupils.

Radiation dosage chart

I want you for the Soviet Red Army!

An old Soviet image that asks to the young people to join the Red Army of the USSR. It is the Soviet equivalent of the American Uncle Sam saying: "I want you!".

Another radiation dose chart

Zalissya. Rosalia Ivanovna's house

Zalissya is a dead village which is no longer in the maps. In this house, in december 2015, died the elderly former teacher at the age of 84.

Duga, "the Russian woodpecker"

The village of the Duga was called Chernobyl 2 and did not appear on any map. The Russians have always maintained that those iron pylons that make up the radar scanner, which being built 400 meters long and 170 high, at more than km 10 away furthermore are clearly visible, were the frame of a roller coaster of an entertainment park for children. To get there there was a straight long way of km 8. Within the Duga radar station there were buildings, shops, offices and all that was to outline the life of the soldiers and their families who lived there. It is not known precisely how many people inhabited that village because that is something that has always been kept secret. The Duga was a radar they called "the Russian Woodpecker" because it only emitted signals that resembled the beating of the bird against the trunk of the trees.

Objets found in the Pripyat Hospital

Pripyat, the signs that should have been used for the celebration of May 1st, 1986

Hotel Pollica, Pripyat. This was the best Hotel of the Chernobyl Area.

The nuclear plant of Chernobyl shot from the 16th floor of a building in Pripyat.

Nikolai Fomin, 32 y.o. He is a namesake of the engineer of the head of the Chernobyl plant at the time of the disaster.

Nikolai Fomin, the guide approved by the military who accompanied Paul A. Restelli and its group of visitors during the two days in Chernobyl. In the background the Nuclear Lenin and the protective shield built by Novarka.

The harbour of Chernobyl, in the nearby slept the liquidators, or biorobots.

Chernobyl, the statue of the liquidators

The liquidators were those "volunteers" who first shoveled radioactive graphite leaking from the reactor core of the nuclear power plant. The plate shows the phrase: "To the heroes who saved the world." The liquidators had only three minutes available to them, because of the high levels of radiation, they had been fitted with a cape of 3 mm thick lead protection which weighed about kg 40. They had about 60 seconds to climb 10 floors of stairs, get on place for shoveling the material to be eliminated in 60 seconds and then going back, always in a minute. A mission impossible.

Paolo A. Restelli self-portrait in Chernobyl

All the pictures were shot by Paolo A. Restelli

All the rights reserved

To read this article in italian

Enrico Cattaneo, the photographer of the artists

Enrico Cattaneo was born in Milan, Italy, on September the 4th, 1933. He studied to become engineer at the "Politecnico di Milano", but during this period of time, in the '50s, he discovered, with some other students, a photographic laboratory inside the University, so they started to developing and printing their photos in this place. 

After a while, these students passed more time taking photos and printing then studying mathematics or physics. They were Franco Vaccari, Toni Nicolini and Enrico Cattaneo: all of them became professional photographers. Franco Vaccari (Modena June, 18th 1936) was interested in poetry, cinema and arts, his father was already a professional photographer in Modena. Toni Nicolini (Milano 1935-2012) was interested in photo-reportage, he documented the farmers migration from the South of Italy to the more industrialized North, with the painter Ernesto Treccani. Enrico Cattaneo deals exclusivly with contemporary art, documenting the activities of the art galleries in Milan and shooting the artists' work.

COUM Performance - 1976 Galleria d'Arte Borgogna Milano - Enrico Cattaneo photo

COUM Transmission was not just a group of Performance-art, it was an idea connected to the Living Theatre, a libertarian philosophy in which it was possible to explore dreams and obsessions, the potential of alternative and radical choices also in the artistic circuits and traditional medias like theater and music. It was a completely different thought (for example, an audience was not only made by university students or professionals, but also by workers and people without specific culture). The original nucleus consisted of Genesis P-Orridge, aka Neal Andrew Megson, who was born in Manchester in 1950, was an expert of Aleister Crowley, and one of the most prolific and extraordinary artists of the English underground. Cosey Fanni Tutti was a former porn actress and there was also a photographer, Peter Sleazy Christopherson.

Their performances orbited around issues like torture, war, psychological techniques of persuasion, strange murders (especially children and psychopaths), forensic pathology, venereology and life in the Nazi's concentration camps. They made more than one hundred and fifty artistic actions between 1969 and 1976, both in galleries and in alternative spaces, in which Genesis drunk blood and urine, used unsterilized needles, lied down on a bed of nails or was enchained and flogged by Cosey. The best-known performances: Prostitution, Ica (London, 19-26 October, 1976) and Gary Gilmore Memorial Society (with Monte Cazazza). After the experience with Coum Transmission, Genesis, Cosey and Peter founded the band Throbbing Gristle. (Source: Dictionary of the Show)

In this selection of pictures of Enrico Cattaneo, we can see a few artistic events occured in Milan in the '70s. Between 1970 and 1974 Milan was the second artistic market after New York.

Urs Luthi Performance, 1974 - Studio Marconi, Milano - Enrico Cattaneo photo

"I've always been very interested in art, but at the beginning, I was doing other things as an amateur. I was taking pictures of landscapes, in those days. I was doing a kind of photography that was very on the edge of amateurism. I did not do the beautiful landscape, I was photographing landfills; in the hallway of my flat I still have some of them hung on the walls I took in 1957. Landfills for me had a social connotation and then, still as an amateur, I also dealt with the first strike of metalworkers, in 1961. Just below, the Breda workers  paraded down here (next to EC flat TG note), it was a great strike against the Tambroni government. On that occasion, I was so unconscious, not having a great newspaper behind to look after these issues, I risked on my own. And the risk was great because then the police did not use his nightstick, but the rifle butt. I was working as a freelance for some secondary newspaper in Milan like "Le Ore", "Settimo Giorno", "Il Corriere Lombardo" and some other. I posted some pictures on: "La Notte", because then there were many newspapers of the afternoon that now are completely gone. This weekly called "Le Ore" became a tabloid newspaper, but then I was not there anymore, thankfully. I was very attentive to the new way of doing photography that was very different from the photographs made by the paparazzi, although in Milan there have never been the stars of the Roman night." Enrico Cattaneo from an interview with TG

Ben Vautier "Action" 1971 Studio Sant'Andrea Milano - Enrico Cattaneo Photo

9 EXERCISES TO EGO:

1. Change the name.

2. Decide what is bad and do it.

3. Never date a work exactly.

4. Go unnoticed.

5. Telling the truth.

6. Copy and imitate.

7. Committing suicide.

8. Doing all that is in our power to make happy another artist.

9. Losing completely his memory.

BEN 1969

Note: Strangely, Tony Graffio is following unconsciously 8 of this 9 points.

Alighiero Boetti - 1968 Galleria De Nieubourg, Milano - Enrico Cattaneo photo

"What do you want the critics know of me... Do you know where my embroidery come from? From my mother that made them do to kits for the Turin girls. And you know where she kept the models of those embroideries? Inside used envelopes for letter. Embroidery, envelopes, stamps... It all comes from there." Alighiero Boetti from: The adventurous life of A.B.

"Milan was the capital of the world: everything happened here. Even in our field who later became photography. Milan was certainly the centre of Italy and perhaps of Europe. All the most important publishers were here, all the major industries were here, so you found yourself around an extremely lively and active world. From an editorial point of view, there were at least two newspapers: the "Europeo" and "Epoca" of Mondadori who had their teams of editorial salaried photographers that regularly sent their shots from all over the world, from Vietnam to Chile. They were very few and certainly our desire would have always been to become one of them." Enrico Cattaneo from an interview with TG

Otto Müehl, Sharon Tate murder(Der Tod der Sharon Tate) - 1969 Galleria d'Arte "Milano" - Enrico Cattaneo photo

"In Milan there was everything, but it lacked the movie industry, although some attempts were being made also in this field. In Milan were shot very important films, such as: "Rocco and his brothers" by Luchino Visconti, "The night" by Antonioni, "Miracle in Milan" by De Sica and even Ermanno Olmi's filmography begins here with "The place" which is a typical Milanese history. These films spoke of us because I identified myself in a group which included the young escapees from the Circolo Fotografico Milanese." Enrico Cattaneo from an interview with TG

Jean Tinguely, 1970, during a very famous performance in Duomo square, Milan - Enrico Cattaneo photo.

"Every time Tinguely was here (in the flat where now lives EC. TG note) with Niki, then he organized the performance of this huge phallus that burst into Duomo square, creating endless controversy, Christo covered the statue of Vittorio Emanuele II in Piazza del Duomo, creating more controversy with the monarchists who asked and obtained to remove its cover from the statue, with big anger of Tinguely. To console the artists, the municipality of Milan allowed them to cover the Leonardo da Vinci statue in Piazza della Scala. But it was something else, Vittorio Emanuele II monument was very large. There are very spectacular Mulas' and Berengo Gardin's photographs of that performance. Unfortunately, I missed that event (the Christo's performance of the covering of the V.E. II statue. TG note) because I was busy elsewhere. I think that is a big hole in my archive." Enrico Cattaneo from an interview with TG

Ambiente (1974) On a project of Piero Manzoni dating around 1962, Germano Celant brought 100 white hens at the Toselli Art Gallery hoping to have white eggs to remember previous Manzoni's performaces where the artist marked the eggs with his fingerprints. Enrico Cattaneo photo

"Piero Manzoni had probably spoken voice with Celant about his project of the hens which then he carried it out at Toselli Art Gallery 11 years after the Milanese artist's death. The original documents of that project were not found, but in those years there were so many performances and cultural activities that also historians have difficulty finding papers. Celant hoped the hens produced a few eggs, but I doubt that this could have been happened in an art gallery." E.C.

Enrico Cattaneo (82), photographer and artist, on the terrace of the flat where he lives since 40 years. Tony Graffio Photography

Old glorious movie cameras: Bell & Howell 240 sixteen millimeters

The Bell and Howell 240 was a 16mm film camera with automatic exposure controle and a spring motor loadable with a metal crank. The control barrel on the electric eye must be preset for the right film speed on the camera before filming. The outer scale of the Electric Eye shows the film speed from 10 to 50 Asa, while the camera frame rates varies from 8 to 48 frames per second. It is possible to operate the camera without using the automatic iris control and setting the iris manually. For making single frame exposures it is strongly reccomended the use of a cable release and of a tripod, to minimize camera motion. The camera uses two Mallory PX2 cells to feed the iris control automatism. As soon as the batteries begin to lose their energy, there will be a very noticeable decrease in speed at wich the iris control works.

This camera is a sort of civilian development of a Gun Sight Aiming Point, it's very strong and can take good images in action scenes.

A camera like this has been used by Orson Wells and his micro-troupe in Spain in 1960.

The big selenium cell and the 20mm Super Comat f 1,9 lens with the telephoto attachment

The Orson Well's 16mm camera used in "The Land of Don Quixote", in 1962 was sold in an auction in 2014 for 37,500 USD.

The crank is positioned on the right side of the camera

"We shot with a crew of five: Welles, I, a sound engineer who also drove our Volkswagen truck, our camera operator and another one of the Spanish TV.  We did everything; I did the electrician and  the property master. Orson loved to shoot in a few and everyone did everything there was to do. At times we had four or five 16mm cameras, for example at the Seville Fair there were five 5 of us shooting, everyone was holding a camera in hand and if we saw something interesting we shot it.  Later on of course, he chose what he wanted." Alessandro Tasca di Cutò, executive producer of the documentary.

Orson Wells in Spain with the Bell & Howell 240 during the shooting of "Nella terra di Don Chisciotte" a tv series produced by the Rai, the Italian national broadcaster.

"How I decided to shoot Don Quixote? I had begun to make an half-hour television program, I had the money to do it right; but I fell so madly in love with my subject that I enlarged it gradually and I continued to shoot as I was earning money. I can say that the film has grown as I was working on it. It's a bit, you know, what it happened to Cervantes, who began writing a novel and ended up writing Don Quixote. It's a subject that we can no longer leave once it starts." O.W.

A psychedelic view of a glorious 16mm film camera

Classic and Rare: Herman Tecnophot (1948)

Italian people has always been xenophile, this is the reason beacause italian firms often change their names to sound more outlandish.

In the '40s the best cameras and optical products were german, so Fototecnica, a company born in Turin after the war signed its cameras Herman.

The model showed in this picture has a Galileian viewfinder, a 24X36 mm format, a Tecnophot central shutter with a charge lever on the lens. Exposure times from 1/25 sec. to 1/250 sec. plus B and T. It has a Koristka Tecnar 5 cm f 3,5 lens.

The camera is strong and has rounded corners, in 1948 it had a reasonable price, but now it became quite a rare object. You could buy one from a collector for  200 - 250 euros, or even more. TG

Herman Tecnophot Company Torino

Herman B.R.T. N° 09457

Gianni Limonta's collection is going to Shanghai to become the greatest museum of photography

The collectors' world is very mysterious: a collector generally hide himself from the public curiosity and he is very discreet about what is truly in his possession. Often, the collector searches for the rarest pieces for personal satisfaction and only a few people around him are aware of this uncontrollable desire to possess.

When I asked to Gianni Limonta if I could visit him to know his story, I had not idea of what I could find in his shop, but even less I could imagine what he sold to a chinese buyer.

When I arrived in Bergamo, 50 km from Milan, I was not sure to be welcome by Gianni, because  whe I talked to him at the telephone he was very mistrustful and brusque.

Despite this, when I arrived in via Statuto, I saw Gianni Limonta outside the shop he opened 50 years ago and I understood we could become friends. I knew this man has sold his collection a few months ago and probably this for this reason I found him.

Collectors, contrary to what you might think, sometimes do not even know each other, Gabriele Chiesa and Paolo Gosio, two of the biggest collectors of daguerrotypes in the world had the same passion for many decades didn't know to live in the same quarter of Brescia. After they knew each other started to collaborate at the same collection.

Limonta started to collect photo cameras when he was only 21 y.o. His brother in law made him a present and after a 1915 folding camera Gianni searched for older photo cameras. When his clients knew about this passion they started to bring to sell their old cameras to Gianni. Most of the time they had in exchange just a couple of film rolls because they didn't imagine the value of their pieces.

 Gianni Limonta (71 y.o.) with the crates containing his photographic collection ready to take the flight to Shanghai where will be open the largest and most important museum in the world

Now, to start a collection you have to be a millionaire, in the Internet era everybody is well informed about prices and evaluetion of every item, while in the golden age of photographic collectibles there were only books and auctions to stay updated on cameras and sales. Before many people was inexperienced and  not even imagined what was in its hands.

Gianni Limota was born in an humble family, but it seems that everything went well in his life, thanks to a particularly combative and enterprising character. He made his way in the world, he is likeable, successful in his profession and with women. Now he lives in a XVI century house that had become too chaotic for the fact that there were cameras of great value everywhere, even in the garage and in the henhouse (Obviously, not thrown there, but preserved and protected with the utmost care. I promised not to reveal this detail, but I could not resist to tell you this).

In the shop window I saw a great deal of interesting material, there are a pair of wooden stereoscopic cameras of the end of '800, all kinds of Rolleiflex and many other cameras. Inside there is a big acid green 16mm film projector made in the '50 by Ducati, yes it's the same Ducati so famous for the sport motorbikes that 60 years ago produced photo cameras, radios and later in the '70 also marine engines. In another cabinet I saw a Luckyflex, a rare 24X36 twin lens reflex camera made in Milano in 1947.

Gianni Limonta sold 3000 photo cameras and other rarity for a total of 8 tons of goods, but he still owns 1000 photo cameras.

The Fairchild Aircraft K17c (1951) used during the Korea war. There are only 2 of these cameras in the world. It weights 33 kg.

Part of the Limonta Collection

Lamberti & Garbagnati a famous italian wooden camera of the year 1900

Ducati Gioia 16mm sound projector

Part of Limonta Collection

Robot Record 24 (Single piece?)

A very special Robot was built by request of Pirelli with a chassis that can be loaded with 35mm motion picture film and shoots movies at 24 frames per second. It is a photo camera transformed into a movie camera.

Microcine Orafon 16mm with a 60 m chassis (1952)

The first sound movie camera capable of shooting a synchronized professional audio was Italian. Officially built in about 100 specimens, including 48 that were sold in the USA, by Mr. Remuzzi of Bergamo. The Orafon allowed to taking the picture with one or two films to record audio directly in the machine a variable density optical column, or to add the sound in the process of dubbing (in this case it used two films, one for the image, the other for a separate audio track). It was a very expensive camera. The sound version costed 946,000 lire. There was also a silent version at a price of 162000 lire Gianni Limonta had two of these cameras purchased by the grandchildren of the engineer who designed them. He donated one of them to the Museum of Cinema of Turin.

Part of the Limonta Collection

Gianni and his last acquisition, the Precision Micro-Projector Fkatters & Garnett made in Manchester, UK in the '20 of the XX century

Gianni Limonta sold his collection because in Italy nobody wanted to make a very important museum of photography. He was warried to get older, he has not heirs, and he had not more place to keep all his cine and photo cameras.

If you wish to know entirely his story you can find it on my italian blog: Frammenti di Cultura. Tony Graffio

One take, one frame, one camera: Asahi Pentax Spotmatic

The Asahi Pentax Spotmatic, introduced in the 1964, the year of the Olympic Games of Tokyo, was a revolutonary SRL 35mm and the camera-icon of the '60s. The other icon of those days were the Beatles. The Spotmatic was as popular as the Beatles, indeed the Beatles took their photos with the Spotmatic and the Spotmatics took the pictures of the Beatles.

The Asahi Pentax was the first optical and photographic producer to solve the problem to calculate the exposure through the lens, also if not yet wide open. This is why there is a black lever on the left of the camera that turns it on the light-meter while close the f-stop to mesure the light in a stopped down modality. We have to thank this camera if the SRL found their diffusion between the professionals and the photography enthousiats.

Fifty years ago the make of the rising sun (Asahi) was so popular that it was able to sell more Spotmatic than all the SLR cameras produced by Nikon, Canon and Minolta together.

The Spotmatic was a very desired camera, but at the same time was quite affordable for many people because it had a right price. It was very reliable, it was very well designed and it was among the smallest SLR 35mm on the market. Later on, I will tell you other interesting informations I retrieved from an old italian photographic magazine.

The camera I used for taking Sara's portrait is not the first Spotmatic, but a SP II.

The Asahi Pentax Spotmatic II, made in 1971, is not so different from its predecessor. The shape, the shutter, the controls and everything is the same of the SP, exept for the addition of the flash shoe. 

Sara

The shooting

This is a shoot enterely dedicated to the fabolous '60. Sara is a fashion designer who produces hats, headgear, caps and bonnets with fabrics typical of the '60; she also loves dressing any kind of clothes of those years.

The model was photographed in externals and illuminated by the diffused light of a cloudy day. I used a Fujicolor 200 exposed at 1/60 sec. f 4. The camera mounted the SMC Takumar 50mm f 1:1,4, an extraordinary lens, very apreciated, still now. This 50mm, like all the other Takumar lenses, has nothing to envy to the Zeiss optics of that period. On the contrary, probably some Zeiss lenses could not be as well designed like the SMC Takumar.

Asahi Pentax Spotmatic II with Super Multi Coated Takumar 50mm f 1:1,4

General appearance

The camera, like nearly all the cameras produced in this period, is strong and well made, personally I don't like the screw coupling because it takes  (You need t use 2 hands to change the lens) more time to mount a M42 lens than a bayonet lens. The possibility to mount any M42 lens, for me is not a real advantage because usually this is an economic option. Among the screw mount lenses I consider interesting only the SMC Takumar and the Super Takumar, but also in these series it's very difficult to find a fast lens. For me, there are only two reasons to chose the SRL 35mm instead of a larger format camera: portability and fast lenses. If there are not fast lenses in a 35mm camera set, it has not much sense to use that camera make. Because of this when I take pictures with my SP II I nearly always mount on it the 50mm f 1,4. Another reason to use the 50mm f 1,4 is the low brightness of the viefinder. The camera viewfinder is not really so bad, but probably the fameous Super Multi Coating treatment never involved the pentaprism or any other optical part having to do with the vision of the image.

A view to distinguish the SP II from the SP

The results

I'm glad of the photo I got with this camera. In the picture of Sara it is impossible to evaluate the bokeh because the flowers are not real, but designed on a background wall. If you wish to see other pictures taken with the SMC Takumar it's possible to see them on my other blog: Frammenti di Cultura where I used the Takumar lenses on the Pentax K-01. Anyway, believe me, the image resulting from a shoot with the SMC Takumar is very good; not so sharp as a modern lens, but very personal and recognisable.

The Beatles like special tourists on the Champs-Elysées Avenue, in Paris - 1964

Tests

To give a more precise idea of the value and of the goodness of the project of the Spotmatic I thought to summarise the results of some scientific tests commissioned by Fotografare to the Cinematography Laboratory of the Politecnico di Torino in 1969.

Here, an ingeneer studied especially the working of the shutter and its effects on vibrations and noise.

There are variables that influence the behavior of mechanical shutters, their normal running speed slows down with the decreasing of the temperature, but a photograph taken in winter can also have different effects on film speed and other factors. The same thing could occur to the cells of light-meters that could have a different reading also for other variables. 

The Asahi Pentax Spotmatic II used with a regular time of  1/1000 sec. at 20 °C has a very constant and regular shutter that produces well exposed images of the strobe flashes (used to check the shutter) in the various areas of the frame. The difference in exposure is quite low and the shutter can be considered good.

At -20°C the duration of the exposure time decreases producing slightly underexposures. With a time of 1/500 sec. the shutter can be considered good at 20 °C , while at -20°C the difference of the time of exposure could be considered acceptable.

Compared to the cameras of its time the Spotmatic shutter is slighty better of the average, turning out even better than Leica M4 and Nikon F shutters.

Most of the drawbacks to low temperatures is caused by the hardening of the tissue curtains and by the viscosity of the lubricants. One way to solve this problem, a time, was to eliminate the lubrication of the gears, which shortened the life of the cameras, but reduced exposure errors. 

There are situations such as wildlife in nature or shows and concerts in theaters where shutter noise can create hassles. The focal plane shutters are noisier than the central ones, but also among curtains shutters some are less noiser than others. The Polytechnic of Turin recorded the sound of a few cameras with a microphone to study them. Every single camera was handheld to avoid other sources of extraneous noise (such as scrolling of cable realise or vibrations) during the shooting.

At a time of 1/1000 sec. the resulting noise level is 90 dB; at 1/30 sec., 88 dB; at 1/4 sec. 87dB. 

Just to have an idea of the noise of a rangefinder camera, Leica M4 produces respectively 80 dB, 77 dB and 75 dB at the same exposure times. 

The Nikon F resulted a quite silent camera with 82dB (1/1000 sec.), 82 dB (1/30 sec.), and 81 dB (at 1/4 sec.).

In addition to the intensity of noise can also be assessed, the duration is 0.4 second, for the SP II,  except for the exposure of ¼ sec. that produces a noise for a period of 0.6 sec.

Oscillograms (diagrams of oscillations) are forked and show that there are two noises at the height of the shooting moment: at first you hear the noise of the tilting mirror and immdiately after there is the noise produced by the shutter curtains.

From the results of this tests the Asahi Pentax Spotmatic produces a noise loud enough (more noise than other SRL) and has an average duration of the noise.

Only the metal elements of the Copal Square mounted on the Konika Autoreflex T and FT; on the Nikkormat FTN (and in other SRL) are noisier than the Spotmatic with 92 dB; 91dB and 89 dB. Apart from the noise, the Copal Square shutters have vertical scrolling elements so robust and reliable that even after 50 years they can manage to keep shutter speeds precise enough.

When you press the shutter button you set in motion a series of mechanisms formed by springs levers and gears of various types which result in forces that cause inevitable jolts and vibrations of the camera, regardless of the firmness of the operator's hand. It is not easy to measure the vibrations induced by the shutter and the mirror of a SLR camera, but thanks to the use of a accelerometric head (more or less the same concept of a pick-up used on a record player) connected to a preamplifier, in turn connected to an amplifier from which then get the dates of the oscillation amplitudes.

The oscillations are caused by:

a) Action of mechanisms of transmission and lifting of the mirror

b) Start of the shutter curtains

c) Arrival of the shutter curtains

d) Return and damping of the mirror

The width and length of time of vibration of Pentax are rather contained. Much better than the average SLR of that era.

The duration of the oscillations is of 1/30 sec while the maximum oscillation is 5,4 thousandths of a millimeter (5,4 microns)

Conclusion of the test: the shutter is good, regular and precise enough; it is quite noisy, but this "big" noise has nothing to do with the production of vibrations, indeed the SP/SP II has much less vibrations compared to other SRL of those years. About this, I would say that vibrations can surely give worse effects on a shoot than noise. 

I can also add that my nearly 45 y.o. camera works very well and expose correctly the pictures I take with it.

Why to choose this camera

I bought this model of camera around 15 years ago, because I liked it, because it was and it is a cult camera and because it was a bargain. I didn't use it very much, but I had not even to do any service on it, i just cleaned it after I bought it, that's all.

The SP, more than the SP II, is a collectible camera, but it's also usable with satisfaction in our days, if we are not in the hurry to follow fast subjects.

For me, the only reason to take photos with this camera is to make a vintage shoot (like I did) with very good lenses like the SMC Takumar. You could objet that it's possible to muont a SMC Takumar on many cameras, also on a Praktica, for example, but I would tell you that a SP II is much better than a Praktica MTL 5, including the viewfinder.

Unsticked pentaprism

Problems

Last time I took the SP II in my hands to use it I noticed a strange ennoying line on the viefinder. While the prevoius day everything was fine, suddenly and without explainations I got this problem. It looks this could be a commun bother to many old pentaprisms. 

Commercial value VS real value

In 1969, the Asahi Pentax Spotmatic in Italy costed 115000 Lire, an average salary of a worker. It means that today it would cost around 1000 euros.

If you are able to find a SP in good condition and a SMC Takumar 50 f 1,4, you enjoy taking pictures with film cameras and you are not frightened by the special glass slightly radioactive of some Takumar buy them. Their prices are always lower of their value. You can find a SP II for around 50 euros. Tony Graffio