The Limbo Connection's photos with the keyword: Domke

A Safrotto copy of a Domke F-2 bag, and surprisingly good. Jim Domke created the original bag bearing his name which was so popular that he founded a company in the U.S. to produce them. That was in 1976. In 1990 he sold his company to a firm called Saunders. Saunders sold the operation to a big American photographic company called Tiffen in 1999. However, Tiffen went bankrupt in 2003, and Topspin bought their assets, including Domke bags. The company continues trading under new ownership, but this is yet another example of the name surviving for marketing purposes. On the web you can find customers' complaints about the deterioration in the quality of Domke camera bags in recent years. They claim that the canvas is thinner and that some of the fittings are now plastic. Some comment that the Safrotto lookalikes are made using better materials, and with small design improvements, at a cheaper price. If they are to be believed, the Safrotto bags are more like Jim Domke's original than the current offerings from Tiffen. Safrotto bags are made in China and sold extensively in the U.S. market. They seem a good deal less common in the U.K. I bought this one second-hand for £6, which represented the bargain of the year for me. It’s every bit as sturdy as Domke bags I have previously owned, including an F-2 Emerald and an F-4AF, but as they too were second-hand, I never knew under whose ownership those bags were made. Although some Safrotto products are very similar to Domke camera bags, they are not marketed with the same model designations. I have read on the web that at some point in the troubled history of bankruptcy and changes of ownership, Safrotto bought the rights to the Domke designs. One contributor remarked that the Domke name owners have never brought any legal action against Safrotto, which would be odd if they were making unauthorised copies. Instead they had some text on their web site for a couple of years asking viewers not to buy the "inferior knock-offs". Photographed with a Nikon D700 and a Nikkor O.C 35mm f/2 lens, factory converted to AI capability.

Photographed with a Nikkor 28mm f/2 lens.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 180mm f/2.8 AF lens. A Limbo Lockdown Production™.

Photographed with a Nikon D700 fitted with a Nikkor 50mm f/2 AI lens. This is a wonderful and simple lens with origins as ancient as Stonehenge. I got rid of my 50/1.8 (its successor) because this f/2 version has more soul. It's one of the last in the manufacturing line and has the AI capability, but is basically a cosmetically improved Nikkor-H. Not actually as pretty as the Nikkor-H but just as nice to use.

I bought a Domke F-6 camera bag from a bloke on eBay. It came cheap because he'd lost the strap. Domke spare parts are quite expensive, and so I found another eBay trader who made straps to fit. They mostly served the equine community. In some respects the replacement strap is actually an improvement and quite a bit cheaper. Nikon D2Xs with a Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 lens in poor lighting.

I used a Micro-Nikkor 55mm lens to photograph this.

Four years ago I won an eBay auction for a 2x teleconverter. The seller did not know it was a teleconverter and had advertised it as a 50mm Tokina lens. In fact the only Tokina thing about it was a lens cap and even that was difficult to discern in the awful photographs the seller had posted. It turned out to be a Teleplus NAS Macro MC7 from the pre-autofocus days, designed to appeal to photographers on a budget and wanting to extend the capability of their one and only lens with a close-up macro feature as well as a doubling of its focal length. I had hoped it might be a more up to date version with AF, but no. I haven’t used it much, but I think it was worth the £4.99 I bid. Here it is coupled with a Nikkor-P 105mm f/2.5 lens.

Close up shot with a Factory AI’d Nikkor-O.C Auto f/2 35mm lens on a Nikon D2Xs, where the field of view is akin to a standard 50mm lens on a full frame camera. The 35mm Nikkor-O.C Auto f/2 is a decent lens. According to Thomas Pindelski "This lens is fully the equal of any Leitz or Leica 35mm Summicron on a Leica M, regarded by many as the standard at this focal length". This is praise indeed, since Leica’s reputation as a company is almost entirely based on its 35mm Summicron for the Leica M rangefinder. It is quite hard to find the Nikkor-O 35mm f/2 on the secondhand market. Mine was manufactured around 1973. Thomas Pindelski has an interesting and useful site; if your appetite is whetted this is the page about the Nikkor-O.C which made the picture above: pindelski.org/Photography/2012/05/05/nikkor-o-35mm-f2-lens

Photographed with a Nikon lens on a Canon camera. Not that this is particularly remarkable, although the adapter is a sloppy fit and thus the sharpness comes as a welcome surprise. I think the lens used was a 135mm f/2.8, but I tried several and could be mistaken. I should make notes. Recalling the all-manual film camera where my interest in photography began, I am resolutely continuing in deploying the manual setting for exposure, and I have discovered that I like many subjects to be under-exposed by some margin. I suppose exposure is like art: nothing is actually right or wrong. Perhaps I am on the threshold of developing a photographic style.

The manual focus 28mm f/2 Nikkor lens stood at the top of the tree. Owners of the f/2.8 version think their lens is somehow better, but I doubt that can be so.

A Safrotto copy of a Domke F-2 bag, and surprisingly good. The shoulder pad is from the Billingham range; otherwise all original. Jim Domke created the original bag bearing his name which was so popular that he founded a company in the U.S. to produce them. That was in 1976. In 1990 he sold his company to a firm called Saunders. Saunders sold the operation to a big American photographic company called Tiffen in 1999. However, Tiffen went bankrupt in 2003, and Topspin bought their assets, including Domke bags. The company continues trading under new ownership, but this is yet another example of the name surviving for marketing purposes. On the web you can find customers' complaints about the deterioration in the quality of Domke camera bags in recent years. They claim that the canvas is thinner and that some of the fittings are now plastic. Some comment that the Safrotto lookalikes are made using better materials, and with small design improvements, at a cheaper price. If they are to be believed, the Safrotto bags are more like Jim Domke's original than the current offerings from Tiffen. Safrotto bags are made in China and sold extensively in the U.S. market. They seem a good deal less common in the U.K. I bought this one second-hand for £6, which represented the bargain of the year for me. It’s every bit as sturdy as Domke bags I have previously owned, including an F-2 Emerald and an F-4AF, but as they too were second-hand, I never knew under whose ownership those bags were made. Although some Safrotto products are very similar to Domke camera bags, they are not marketed with the same model designations. I have read on the web that at some point in the troubled history of bankruptcy and changes of ownership, Safrotto bought the rights to the Domke designs. One contributor remarked that the Domke name owners have never brought any legal action against Safrotto, which would be odd if they were making unauthorised copies. Instead they had some text on their web site for a couple of years asking viewers not to buy the "inferior knock-offs". Photographed with a Nikon D700 and a Nikkor O.C 35mm f/2 lens, factory converted to AI capability.

Factory AI’d. Made in Japan between 1973 and 1975. Photographed with a Canon EOS 30D and a Chinon 55mm f/1.4 lens. Dante Stella has observed that manual focus 35mm f/2 SLR lenses are thin on the ground. www.dantestella.com/technical/lenses.html According to data at www.photosynthesis.co.nz/nikon/serialno.html between the introduction of the manual focus Nikkor 35mm f/2 lens in 1965 and its withdrawal in 2005, 438,411 were manufactured, with 246,793 being to AI standard, along with some of the other 191,618 which were converted, such as mine, in the photograph. You would have thought that with this quantity of 35mm f/2 Nikkors having been made it would be easy to pick one up on the second-hand market. Why is this not the case? Thomas Pindelski has remarked, ‘this lens is fully the equal of any Leitz or Leica 35mm Summicron on a Leica M, regarded by many as the standard at this focal length. Having owned and used 8 element and 6 element spherical Summicrons and the Aspherical model, I can testify to this’. So perhaps those who own one of these lenses hold on to it because it is so good. Perhaps also, it was chiefly professional photographers who bought this focal length and speed, and simply wore them out, despite the excellence of their construction. For some time I searched for a 35mm f/2 Nikkor in AI configuration before I found this at one of the UK’s expensive boutique Nikon stores at a price commensurate with its relative scarcity. By the time I found it I had already settled for a slower Nikkor-S Auto f/2.8 35mm which had also been factory AI’d, and found it pretty decent; certainly very well made and a pleasure to use. But in comparison to its faster stablemate, it is ordinary: whilst it has good contrast, the f/2 has outstanding clarity and definition. In case you’re wondering, the AF 35mm f/2 Nikkor which succeeded the manual version was a new optical design, and is not as well regarded. Just to add insult to injury, early versions had a reputation for getting oily iris blades. Anyway, with the decent depth-of-field of the 35mm focal length, AF is probably not vital. Good luck to all who seek one of these splendid lenses.

Photographed with a Sigma 15-30mm F3.5-4.5 EX DG Aspherical DF lens on a Nikon D2Xs. Optically, the lens is capable, although suffering from flare if pointed towards a source of light. It is versatile too, being compatible with full frame Nikon cameras as well as APS-C format. But it is a big lens occupying a lot of bag space, and although well-built and in Sigma's professional range, I did not think it was the sweetest lens to handle.

Domke F-4AF Pro System camera bag. Nikon D2Xs + AF Nikkor 35-70mm f/2.8 lens.

Nikon D2Xs + AF Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 lens.

This is a detail of a Safrotto canvas camera bag. These bags are made in China and sold extensively in the U.S. market. They seem a good deal less common in the U.K. Safrotto bags - at least this one - are very similar to Domke camera bags. Perhaps Safrotto bought the rights to the Domke designs. Jim Domke created the original bag bearing his name which was so popular that he founded a company in the U.S. to produce them. That was in 1976. In 1990 he sold his company to a firm called Saunders. Saunders sold the operation to a big American photographic company called Tiffen in 1999. However, Tiffen went bankrupt in 2003, and Topspin bought their assets, including Domke bags. The company continues trading under new ownership, but this is yet another example of the name surviving for marketing purposes. On the web you can find customers' complaints about the deterioration in the quality of Domke camera bags in recent years. They claim that the canvas is thinner and that some of the fittings are now plastic. Some comment that the Safrotto lookalikes are made using better materials, and with small design improvements, at a cheaper price. If they are to be believed, the Safrotto bags are more like Jim Domke's original than the current offerings from Tiffen. I don't know if this is the case. I bought this bag to see if Safrotto products were decent, and because it was blue, and because it was a secondhand bargain. The bag seems reasonable; not built like a Billingham bag, but many times cheaper new or used. The velcro dividers are a disappointment but better than nothing. I don't yet know how it holds up in the wet, nor how it wears. Domke bags have straps which often wear badly, so that might be a weak point. If you need a camera bag, and you like blue denim jeans that are faded with much wear and laundering, and you favour simplicity in design, you might very well enjoy using a bag like this one.

Not an exact copy of a Domke bag, but close. Bought secondhand from a man who got it new when visiting China, where it was made. Information on the brand is scant on the internet, but it would appear these bags were in production around 2005. www.clubsnap.com/forums/showthread.php?t=158905 There's plenty of capacity and a wonderful floppiness, improved further by jettisoning the velcro'd dividers. A newish Domke bag feels stiff in comparison. This one is khaki green; there was a grey version too. One day my search for the perfect bag will end. I don't know if this particular product is rainproof - I doubt it is - but it has a lot of character. Good gauge canvas and some very sturdy hardware suggest it could be durable. Nikon D2Xs and Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AI lens.