There is some intense construction activity at this large building behind those which accommodate the Sunday farmers' market.  I believe it to be the one destined to house the new film-making school.  My purpose on a Tuesday morning was to visit the Wheels Museum which occupies a long, low building at the south end of the Rail Yards.  The narrow, high-ceiling rooms are not particularly well suited to housing the bulky transportation machinery on display.  The collection contains plenty of documents and images to satisfy those with an interest in the fine details o ..read more

  I visited the Rail Yards which hosts a craft and farmers' market on Sundays.  Margaret was looking for some fresh corn and garlic, but my interest is always in exploring the massive old locomotive repair shops.  The City has invested millions in the location with several proposals to make use of the site.  Extensive restorations are now in progress to devote one of the big buildings to a new media school.  There has also been a building housing the Wheels Museum at the site for some time. The site was active for about a century, used primarily for the repair a ..read more

  The Felica is compact and easy to carry.  The focusing and exposure adjustments are limited, but adequate for dealing with a pretty good range of circumstances.  I haven't yet made much use of the built-in yellow filter, so I'll try to look for opportunities for using it with my next roll through the camera ..read more

 I only shot a roll or two of film in my Anscoflex II when I acquired it in 2012.  The camera was interesting because of its unique design features, but in operation it seemed a little too simple for actual photographic purposes.  Recently, however, I have seen some pretty sharp images from the camera posted in the PSEUDO TLR group on Flickr.  So, I loaded a roll of Fomapan 100 and started it off with another walk around the neighborhood. cornered The close-up lens option considerably enhances the camera's versatility, though the reputed 3.5-7 foot range may be a b ..read more

 I have been wanting to get back to shooting some of my simple cameras, so I thought to start with my Vredeborch Felica.  Though hardly bigger than my Ansco Panda, it sports adjustments for distance, speed and aperture.  The lens looks to be a simple meniscus type, but the curved film plane helps with sharpness out to the edges. I got out into our yard before getting caught up in my usual morning routine at the computer and shot up all twelve frames on the roll of Fomapan 100 in about twenty minutes.  The thing that makes taking pictures fun with these simple cameras is ..read more

 The Vito III was a contemporary of Kodak's Retina line and the last folding camera made by Voigtlander.  I was attracted to the Vito III by my previous long familiarity with its model II predecessor. Vito II and Vito III The five-element f/2 50mm lens is one of the finest produced by any maker in the 1950s. Once the Synchro Compur shutter is cocked, the film advance knob and shutter release are easily accessed with the right hand. Focusing is quick and easy on the left. While the controls are quite logically laid out, having the viewfinder window to the right seems best ..read more

 Good writing about photography is a somewhat rare commodity.  One place it survives is in the Photo-Booth on the New Yorker magazine website.  The most recent article there is an essay by Geraldo Cadava about Low Rider culture as portrayed in the photos of Stefan Ruiz in the 1990s. The New York Times used to feature a regular column called LENS about photography, video and visual journalism.  That was discontinued in 2018, but a selection of the articles in the NYTimes archive is still accessible online ..read more

 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