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Vintage Lens Collection

10/28/2014

In the past year, I've been collecting vintage cameras and lenses, these are almost all of them. It's a lot of fun, but they do take up a bit of space.....

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I took a few minutes the other night to try some HDR using the built in function on the Sony NEX-3N. It allows you to specify whether you want a 1.0/2.0/3.0/4.0/5.0/6.0 stop spread of the 3 exposures. I generally found the 3 or 4 stop spreads to give the best balance of the effect without looking garish. I then edited them in the computer to further enhance the dynamic range while still avoiding the obvious "HDR look" that so many have come to despise.

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Canon FD 200mm f/2.8

10/24/2014

... and as a follow up to yesterday's victory, I was able to successfully de-fungus this lens as well. There was significant wear on this guy so I suspect it was a favorite, but after a good cleaning, I was able to put it back together and take it for a test drive. Like the 300mm it has very nice bokeh and is capable of very sharp pictures, although it does show quite a bit of Chromatic Aberration at f/2.8, which you can remedy by stopping down to f/4.0 or with the CA removal tool in Lightroom.

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Canon FD 300mm f/4.0 S.S.C.

10/23/2014

I got this lens from a kind soul that's been selling off part of his camera collection on Craigslist. I've bought several items from him and on my last trip he gave me two lenses for free because they had quite a bit of fungus inside. I was trepidatious at first about taking these lenses apart since they were pretty high end units in their day, but curiosity won out and I dug into the bigger 300mm first.

It was touch and go for a while since there are no manuals that I could find on the Internet, but I figured it out eventually. The fungus cleaned off very easily and I'm really liking the results this lens is producing. Now on to the 200mm f/2.8 that still needs cleaning!

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Minolta XG-M

10/19/2014

I acquired this camera as part of a group of 3 from a retired couple. They were moving to Florida and wanted to unload old stuff before they left and these cameras had been sitting for some time. There's tons of information on the web about the specifics of the camera so I won't re-iterate it all here, but one thing I didn't care for was the electronic shutter. If they on-board computer thought the exposure was too high, it simply wouldn't shoot. That got old really fast and I found myself switching off of Av mode and using manual quite often. Nonetheless, this camera/lenses produced some of my sharpest film pictures yet, so I really have to give props to the Minolta and Vivitar glass I was able to use.

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Slow Shutter Speed

10/16/2014

I had a chance to do the old "slow shutter waterfall" trick. I used my EF-S 18-135 at f/25, ISO 100, and a 2 sec. shutter. Of course to keep it from overexposing I used my variable neutral density filter set to its darkest setting. It also helps when the setting sun is nice and golden!

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Black Beauties

10/12/2014

Generally, I prefer the two-tone silver and black SLR's but along the way I have collected a few all black ones. So, I thought I'd feature them in pictures taken with the two-tone Pentax SP500. The cameras shown from left to right are:
1. Yashica FX-3
2. Minolta X-700
3. Nikkormat FT
4. Konica FP-1
5. Chinon CM-5

The only one I have plans to shoot is the Minolta X-700. That one was the top dog in Minolta's lineup in it's day.

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Yashica 230AF

10/9/2014

This rather ugly camera is from the late 1980's and is now an abandoned platform. Yashica had been bought up by Kyocera and had a beautiful lens with the Kyocera and Yashica brands on it. The lens is super heavy duty and produced very sharp images. (I have the 28-85mm). The camera was produced in response to the success of Minolta's auto-focusing units, but it never gained the popularity, and sadly there are no modern DSLR's that use this mount so the lens is only useable on the old cameras. (unlike the Minolta lenses that can be used on new Sony DSLRs, and the Canon, Nikon, and Pentax AF lenses that can also be used on their modern counterparts.)
The funny looking flash actually slides on to the hotshoe and uses the main camera battery for power. It's ugly, but it works well as most of the indoor shots you see are with the flash.

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Pentax Spotmatic SP500

10/8/2014

Well, I had high hopes for this camera as it is in excellent cosmetic condition for its age and has the highly vaunted Super-Takumar lens. This camera is the one on the far right of my header picture, and as a side note, it doesn't have a flash hotshoe, what you see in the picture is a cold shoe attachment made by Mamiya/Sekor that slides onto the viewfinder.
Unfortunately, I discovered the light meter was not working right and it told me everything was overexposed when often it was underexposed. I figured it out halfway through the roll and switched to using my phone with a Light Meter app I found on the Google Play store. It works OK, but it tended to underexpose my pictures so I just couldn't win. I also experienced a couple occasions when the mirror would stick in the up position and would stay that way for the next frame or two.
On the upside, the lens was fairly sharp and even though the Solaris 400 film was pretty blueish in daylight, I was able to correct for it in Lightroom once I scanned the prints.

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Is Art Important?

10/3/2014

So, lately I've been mulling over the concept of art. Not the question of "what is art?" because I think it's been beat to death already, but more the question of "does art matter?". and more personally, "does art matter to me?"

As a musician, I've never really approached music from an overly artistic standpoint. I've always thought of myself as a technician that performs music to fulfill a function. Whether as a pit orchestra musician, dinner music pianist, or worship team member, I've generally approached music as a means of serving a larger purpose than the music itself. Even when I was in High School or College orchestra, I never felt all that connected to the music. Looking back, orchestra was mostly a means for me to hone my skill on the bass, and to play concerts for people that would clap.

I know that sounds fairly cynical, but that's where I'm at.

I've spent the last year learning photography and videography, once again for the purpose of facilitating weddings, or other events, but certainly not for art. Lately though, I've been watching a YouTube Channel called the Framed Show (https://www.youtube.com/user/framedshow) and it's had me re-thinking my opinions on art.

I'm a long ways off from turning into a reclusive-anti-social-starving artist, but I do enjoy creating something that evokes an emotion. Maybe because I'm so new to it, I'm still surprised when a single picture can make you stop and think. It makes you wonder what was going on, and look for the story.

In music, there is very little that I've heard or played that has moved me emotionally. I like music that is fun, raucous, and technically adept. (think Stevie Ray Vaughan). But, anything you'd describe as dark, moody, or evocative, is just boring to me, and I'm reaching for the scan button on the radio.

So while art is certainly intriguing and fascinating, is it really important? As I've heard it stated recently, it certainly doesn't matter in the hunter/gatherer paradigm. But does it rank at least as important as say... coffee or socks, or more?

I'll stop there because this post is getting long, but this might be a topic I'll come back to, and I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

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Vintage Lens Collection

Sony NEX-3N Auto HDR

Canon FD 200mm f/2.8

Canon FD 300mm f/4.0 S.S.C.

Minolta XG-M

Slow Shutter Speed

Black Beauties

Yashica 230AF

Pentax Spotmatic SP500

Is Art Important?

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