I suspect a lot of people, when they first encounter a Minolta Hi-Matic 7s wonder if the fully automatic exposure system is really going to work.  It just seems too easy to simply press the shutter release and get a perfectly exposed picture every time. I experimented a bit with mine, checking the metered values when the camera was on full auto, and then with the shutter and aperture set manually.  It did seem to be consistent in its performance, so it seemed the next step should be a real-world test.  I started a roll of Kodak UltraMax 400 on Wednesday at the National Hi ..read more

The Olympus 35RC looks like a traditionally designed rangefinder camera, but it is scaled down to palm size while still making full-frame 35mm images.  The shutter-priority auto-exposure is reliably accurate.  Shutter speeds range from 1/15 to 1/500.  The lens is a sharp 2.8/42mm 5-element E. Zuiko.  The viewfinder is  bright and the rangefinder features good contrast and fast focusing.   I loaded a roll of Kodak UltraMax 400 and carried the 35RC around for a week, visiting my usual haunts around Albuquerque's Old Town.  I've gotten in the habit of giving mo ..read more

 This wicker chair has been sitting for months beside the road a half block from my house; I pass by it daily when I'm walking the dog.  I have made pictures of the chair with several cameras. This is the one I have liked most so far; it was shot on Kentmere 400 in my Yashica-Mat. The summer monsoon weather pattern has been bringing some nice clouds overhead.  I saw these above the alley a half block to the west of our place late in the afternoon ..read more

 I decided I really needed to put more film through my Olympus Stylus Epic so I loaded a roll of Kodak UltraMax 400 and carried the camera in my pocket for a week, with walks through Old Town and the UNM campus. Dane Smith Hall A lawn art statue representing the UNM Lobo mascot I had not been on the campus in some time and it seemed a lot bigger than I remembered it.  I visit the Plaza Vieja in Albuquerque's Old Town at least weekly and it is much less of a challenge to my limited mobility.  As usual on a Friday morning there was a long line of restored cla ..read more

 I took my Yashica-Mat twin-lens reflex to the river to make a few more pictures of the Yerba Mansa in bloom.  There are still abundant flowers, but many are starting to turn red now as their seeds mature.     It was nice to get back to shooting with my Yashica-Mat, which has a very sharp lens and a bright viewing screen. I have not made a lot of pictures with this TLR, but I am motivated to do more with it now since I have acquired  a No.2 close-up accessory lens, which allows focusing as close as 14 inches. With the accessory lens the Yashica-Mat still does ..read more

 The Yerba Mansa has bloomed along the Rio Grande a little earlier than usual this year, perhaps because of the unusually warm weather and high water. From a 2009 blog post: I first encountered Yerba Mansa in a little bog between the road and the Rio Grande about twenty miles north of Las Cruces. The photo of the flower was made on June 9, 2002 using a little 1.3 megapixel OLYMPUS D360-L. A lot of water has flowed down the river since then. So my initial knowledge of the plant coincided with the beginning of digital photography.  Since I made that first picture with the simple li ..read more

I picked up a Vivitar PN2011 twenty years ago at a Las Cruces thrift shop for two bucks.  I was impressed with the sharp pictures that the simple point-and-shoot could produce.  I only shot a couple rolls with that camera before I got distracted with all the others I was finding at bargain prices at that time on ebay.  The best of the PN2011 pictures came from a Campo Santo in Las Cruces and from a trip to the most southern Chaco outlier on Alamosa Creek.     I turned that original PN2011 into a pinhole camera and never used the panoramic format option.  I found ..read more

 The Mamiya 6 meduim-format folding rangefinder camera was made over a period of fifty years with many model variations.  In spite of that long history, high quality construction and unique features it is curiously rare on web sites devoted to vintage cameras. From the front the Mamiya 6 resembles other popular medium-format rangefinders of the same era such as the Zeiss Ikonta and the Soviet Iskra.  A top/rear view shows what sets the Mamiya apart from all others in its class.  The thumb wheel to the right adjusts focus by moving the film plane rather than the front lens ..read more

 Relentless Spring winds have pushed me indoors and strengthened my resolve to do more with still life ..read more

I found a half dozen of the Olympus Infinity Stylus (mju) camera over the years at Albuquerque thrift stores, with prices ranging from $2 to $10.  A short time into the revival of interest in film photography I started seeing them being sold on ebay for as much as $300.  Lately, they seem to be obtainable for around $100.  I suppose the demand is driven by the same factors that made the camera very popular when it appeared in 1990.  Focusing, exposure and film advance are all automatic.  It is small enough to slip easily into a pocket, and requires only that you flip o ..read more