I bought ten rolls of cheap Kodak color with the intent of shooting them mostly in my Olympus Pen-FT, five Kodak Gold 200 and five Ultramax 400.  Of these pictures on the Gold 200, the first four were shot at the zoo with the Olympus E. Zuiko 3.5/100mm.  The rest were from the Olympus F.Zuiko 1.8/38mm.

Coming off the scanner the colors looked a little muddy.  It may be that I let the Cinestill C-41 developer age a bit too much since I last used it.  I'll try an extra stop of exposure on the next roll to see it that gets better results.

I've been somewhat intimidated by the prices for lenses to fit my Olympus Pen-FT, so I was surprised recently to find an ebay listing for a 100mm telephoto for just forty bucks, shipping included from Japan.  It was clearly a risk on several levels, but there are no blemishes on the glass or the external surfaces and the focus is smooth.  The small size of the lens is a bit shocking, particularly because the 100mm actually corresponds to 140mm on a full-frame 35mm camera

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No complaints about the image quality from the 100mm; it seems to me that the contrast and resolution are up to what I expect from Olympus.  However, the 3.5 maximum aperture did challenge my focusing ability with the cloudy day lighting.

 We awoke to heavy clouds and wet streets.  It seemed a perfect day to visit the Rio Grande Zoo with my Spotmatic and the 75-230mm Yashinon zoom.  The big old lens retains good sharpness even wide-open, but the lens' f/4.5 aperture and the not-too-bright screen of the SP makes finding the perfect focus point a challenge.  With the zoo animals always in motion, one is never sure if the decisive moment made it onto the film.  At the end of my visit I was really uncertain what my scans would reveal.  As I pulled out of the zoo's parking lot in my truck I switched on the radio, and there was Dave Brubeck playing Take Five !  I took it as a good omen.

Complaint

Pretender

Snack

Bird Watching

We visited Albuquerque's Rio Grande Zoo on a fine Autumn morning.  My intention was to test a restored Vivitar 70-210 zoom lens.  The testing, as it turned out, ended up being more about  the operator and the camera, my Nikon FE.

Given some heavy morning shadows and a desire to avoid camera shake I made a lot of shots wide open.  That showed up as some softness in the images.  I don't think that said much about the capabilities of the lens however.  With the lens fully extended, the small central focal spot on the screen tended to black out and critical focusing became very difficult.  

 I had better results in the past with a 75-230 Yashinon zoom.  I think, however, that may have more to do with the fact that the Yashinon was mounted on my Pentax SP.  So, I need now to go back and look at the different possible combinations of lenses, cameras and focusing screens so I can actually sort out the meaningful comparisons to be made between my zoom lenses.

I have made pictures I like at the zoo with quite a variety of old film cameras.  In terms of productivity, the champ is my Pentax SP with the Yashica Auto Yashinon Zoom 1:4.5 f=75mm~230mm.  I've used the big old zoom for little else, but at the zoo where the subject distance is largely under control of the animals the zoom gets me the tight compositions that I am looking for.   The maximum 4.5 aperture provides a slightly dim image in the viewfinder; that, along with the limited depth of field at 230mm, makes focusing on moving targets challenging.  However, with proper focus and an adequate shutter speed the resolution of the lens leaves little to complain about.

Savannah Dreams

Matilda will be a year old on July 20th.

 I was one of the first visitors through the gate of the Rio Grande Zoo on Friday morning.  I was alone for much of the hour circuit of the exhibits.  As it turned out, there were also few animals to be seen as most had yet to be let into their outdoor spaces.  I decided to head back toward the exit by way of the Africa section and found to my delight that the hippos and their month-old baby were in the pond.

I think it has been determined that the baby is a female.  I believe that she weighed about fifty pounds at birth.  She is playful and active and seems completely comfortable in her aquatic environment.  While I watched, the mother several times swam under the bridge over the pond, and there was a good deal of thrashing and bellowing underneath as she was apparently letting the big male know that he was expected to remain in the small section of the pond well away from the little one.

The Universal Mercury II CX has always seemed to me to be one of the most interesting camera designs produced in the U.S.  or anywhere.

The half-frame format was uncommon at the time, the rotary shutter was rugged and accurate up to 1/1000, the coated Tricor lens was sharp, and the price was very competitive.  In spite of those unique qualities, the camera today is frequently the target of derision on photography forums.  The criticisms seem to come most often from people with little or no actual experience with the camera.  While I sometimes feel a slight urge to post responses to some of those opinions, it always seems more worthwhile to just go out and make some pictures with the camera.  These latest were made on a recent outing to Albuquerque's Rio Grande Zoo.

The film was some well-expired Fuji 400, the twelfth roll processed in my current batch of Cinestill C-41.