MC Rokkor 58mm f/1.4

I have three of the older era Minolta(Rokkor) lenses known as the "MC" series that would have been used on the SRT series cameras from the late 60's -early 70's. My most used an favorite is the 55mm f/1.7 which has an amazing swirly "bokeh"(or background blur) which sometimes gives a 3D look(which I've written about before). I decided to shoot a whole roll with my MC 58mm f1.4 for some comparison and to make sure I wasn't missing out on something better. Physically the lens is a little larger and is a little slower to focus. I found the resulting photos to be a tad sharper and the lens has a pleasing bokeh too - but I still prefer the unique look I get with the 55mm f/1.7. I'd have to say I'd only grab this lens if I were trying to avoid the "swirl look" for a specific reason.
The lens was on my Minolta X-700 - the film was Kodak Tri-X 400 which I developed in HC-110(b).

The Galaxy

Laura and I had dinner and a few drinks on the patio of the Galaxy Restaurant in Wadsworth last week. We both had a couple of really great burgers. If you go I'd advise taking the back roads - it was a beautiful drive through the country.

Kodak Elite Chrome 100

I shot a roll of slide film(Kodak Elite Chrome 100) for the first time. I snapped most of the roll in Peninsula. Unfortunately Kodak has discontinued all slide film production - I have a few different rolls I bought when I heard the news though. The slides are beautiful but the scans don't do them justice. My scanner didn't seem to scan them very sharp and I had to spend some time in Photoshop correcting the colors(which kind defeats the purpose of shooting film). I'm hoping to eventually buy some software that has presets for different films to save some time. I really expected that my scanner would do a better job with slides than negatives but I was let down - it did a much better job with Kodak Ektar 100...

Post Holes

Anyone who has dug a fence post hole by hand will appreciate this photo of Dave and the auger. I shot this from the John Deere 6320.

Analog

Last night I read an article in Popular Photography about photo ideas around the house - one of the ideas was making flatbed scans of three-dimensional objects. This morning when I grabbed a roll of film out of my "film-vault" I realized that a bunch of film boxes would make for a cool scan. Many of these are films I haven't shot yet but look forward to using. That's one of my favorite things about analog photography - finding out the different looks of various films. Some of the films I have pictured above aren't even made anymore....

Getting There

Here are a couple photos of some young sweet corn in the Fiedler Long Rows at Szalay's Farm. Every year I claim I will do my best to maintain this blog when farming season goes into to full effect and every year I fail. So its almost worthless for me to make that promise again even though I want too. Anyways - if you don't see me here come visit me in the Valley - we open on Friday!

Brownie and Ilford

Over the weekend I tried out a new combo(and finished it up today) of my Brownie Hawkeye Flash Model and Ilford Delta 100 film. I shot this little Brownie camera once before to do nighttime, long-exposure shots but it was with Kodak TMax 100. The nice thing about the camera is I don't have to re-spool 120 film onto 620 reels as long I use a old 620 reel as the take-up spool. There is one downside, though which is the relatively slow speed of the shutter(1/30 sec.) which means most subject movement will be blurred and a steady hand is required for sharp shots. This was my first time using Delta 100 so I developed it in HC-110(b) according to the development time listed by the manufacturer(6 minutes) and my results were really good. I'm actually pretty thrilled with this film and I might even say I like it better than TMax 100(but to be fair I'll need to run a roll of that through this camera). I was thinking that a Kodak yellow "cloud filter" would be great to bump up the contrast a little bit but I barely even had to juice that in Photoshop with this film.
Am I becoming an Ilford man? That will be determined by the prints....

 

Bluegrass band jamming at the Hartville Flea Market.

Ilford HP5+ 400

I shot and developed my first roll of Ilford HP5+ 400 since high school - the film is supposed to be pretty similar to Kodak Tri-X 400 and I found that to be true. I shot it with my Minolta X-700 and developed it for 5 minutes in Kodak HC-110(b). Some people say that it is a little less contrasty than Tri-X but I didn't seem to notice that - and I'm someone who loves lots of contrast. The grain is said to be quit different too but my scans don't show it too much - it would probably come out more in prints. I shot the whole roll with a 45mm f/2 Rokkor lens - the one that came with most late 70's Minolta's - I found the lens to be far less sharp than my 60's era Rokkors and it didn't have nearly as pleasing of a bokeh. I have three of these lenses and they will probably remain on the shelf from now on....

Royal Bangs on Film

A month ago I tested out a new, new, old, old camera(a Nikon L35 AF) at the Royal Bangs show at the Grog Shop. Let me explain - I had bought a Nikon L35 AF when I first started collecting cameras year back and finally started to shoot it a little over a year ago. Unfortunately it died on me so I recently picked up another one at an estate sale. I always liked the camera(Nikon's first auto-focus point and shoot) for its accurate AF, sharp lens, and bright flash ...and think it outshines many of the film point and shoots that followed over the years. It was released in 1983 and kinda has a cult following. I shot two rolls in mine that night - and extremely expired roll of Kodak Gold 200(which came out pretty rough) and a roll of Fuji Superia 400 which looks quite nice. Its a great camera to bring along when I don't feel like worrying about expensive equipment and manual operation. I'm glad to have it back in my line-up of working 35mm cameras.

Memorial Day

Went my brothers for a great cookout - that dude can smoke some meat!

Magic Hour Walk

This evening I went for a short walk around my neighborhood - the light was great so I took the above self-portrait in Judy Irsroff Park. I also stopped and snapped a few photos of the Rotaynah statue in front of Fairlawn Elementary. I've shot the statue many times before so I went for a different perspective by zooming in tight. As I alluded to in an earlier post I probably won't be in this hood too much longer so I'm enjoying my last few chances to shoot it before I'm gone.

Wrenchin'

Today I taught Laura how to fix brakes - I did the passenger side and she did the driver side. She's a pretty good mechanic after all! 

I was proud.

Tri-X Downtown

I took a walk south of downtown to finish up a roll of Tri-X that I had mostly shot at the farm. I used a 50mm f/2 MD Rokkor which was a later era lens with a Tiffen red filter - the combination had all the sharpness of a butter knife. I forgot to take some test shots without the new red filter to know if that or the lens was the problem but I suspect the lens. Anyways - I was otherwise pleased with the extremely contrasty shots I captured.

 

Having gotten comfortably with my combination of Tri-X in HC-110 I plan to shot some Ilford HP5+ 400 next. I want to stick with HC-110 for a few different films before I try other developers.

El Averago

Laura and I had been watching in anticipation for the opening of a new Mexican restaurant in the old Yocono's building. El Ranco finally opened sometime this week and we decided to try it out tonight. The inside looks much like most Mexican restaurants - the vibe of the old place with some bright paint and Mexican paintings - the old bakery case was turned into a nice looking bar. Our waiter was pretty amateur but that's not a big deal to us - hopefully he'll learn you don't need to keep asking people if they are ready to order when they are clearly still looking at a menu. Unfortunately the food and margaritas were pretty average. With Tito's just down the street and the classic Mariachi's in the valley they will need to step up their game if we are to turn into regulars. I'll give them another chance in a few weeks but I don't think I'll be recommending them at this point.....

Sand Run Jogging Trail

Believe it or not today was the first day I had ever been on the Sad Run Jogging Trail(or maybe its "yogging" with a soft J). Nothing too photographically exciting happened on this cloudy evening - but I did like this former outhouse by the Mingo Shelter....

I'm No Brassaï, Akron No Paris

I had recently disassembled my Brownie Hawkeye Flash Model so I could clean the lens and viewfinder. I also realized that I could stick a roll of 120 film in it without re-spooling it onto 620 reels(as long as a 620 reel is used as the take-up spool). Last night I decided it was time to take it for a test drive and just for laughs I made it a real challenge. I went for a walk downtown Akron after the sun went down and used the camera on "bulb mode"(for the un-initiated this means the shutter stays open as long as you keep you finger on the shutter release). There is no tripod socket on the camera so I could only take shots from places where I could set it down on something stable. The camera has no light meter(not that they help much at night anyways) and I had no timer so I guessed at the exposure lengths by counting in my head. Most of these were 20-50 second shots. I've read the aperture on these cameras are about f/15 so most of the frame is sharp(except for when my hand shook the camera). With all that against me I'm surprised some of these turned out as well as the did - the film is Kodak T-Max 100.  

I tried this shot twice - for 15 and 30 seconds - this is the thirty second exposure. I used some mulch to prop the camera up to the necessary angle.

Cinco de Mayo

 

Last night Josh, Laura and I decided to get some Mexican food - Josh had never been to Tito's(in the former Egg Castle) so we started heading there. As we pulled up we realized the lot was full and there were people waiting outside - all of sudden it hit me, "Oh crap, its Cinco de Mayo!". We all had our hearts set on Mexican food but knew that every place would be crowded. On Josh's suggestion we drove over to Ranchero's on Cuyahoga Falls Ave. thinking it was a bit more under the radar from people who only get Mexicn on Cinco de Mayo. It was busy but we didn't wait too long, and few pitchers of margaritas made everything OK.

Gardening

Laura and I stopped out at Graf Growers today and picked up some flowers. We spent the afternoon planting and arranging them to spruce up our porch area and back deck. I hadn't been to Graf's since I was a kid - which is ridiculous because its about 5 minutes from where I live. The prices seemed to be a tad steeper than a chain store but I'd much rather support fellow, local farmers. ...and to clear up a misconception - Szalay's and Graf's do not consider themselves rivals - the owners know and like each other. Our corn is better anyways ;)