Pentax 67, back with a vengeance

It's been kind of weird the last few months, not having a Pentax 67 kit to shoot. Back in April my main Pentax 6x7 camera just totally locked up while shooting, and my backup body stopped winding film properly. This was after my first Pentax 6x7 body stripped a gear in the winding mechanism. So yes, I had 3 cameras break on me in a short period of time. Not a good time for the Pentax. I've been meaning to send all 3 to get repaired (and sell the extras) but so far I haven't had the chance.

Then I happened upon a very, very good deal on a Pentax 67ii kit. I took the plunge and bought it so I could upgrade to the 67ii model, which I've wanted to do for years.

I've been ecstatic with this camera. The Pentax 67 system is by far the most versatile medium format kit I've ever shot. It only has a few drawbacks - first, it's big and heavy. Second, the flash sync sucks, at 1/30 of a second shutter speed max (though the two available LS lenses mitigate this). Finally, the mirror slap can be a downer in those clench moments when you need a 1/30 exposure time or lower, sans tripod. But other than those issues, it's pretty much the perfect system. I almost have every lens made for the system, from 35mm through 500mm, so I use it for everything from landscape to portraits to wildlife.

Anyway, of course I needed to put the camera through its paces so I shot a few rolls in the last week. I love the AE mode in the newer model. So much faster and easier to shoot on the fly. The weight is a tad lower on the newer body, and if I'm not mistaken, the shutter is slightly better damped. With a careful approach and using MLU while hand-holding, I was able to shoot at 1/30 with a 2/3 success rate or so. Not bad.

Here's some images from Grand Bay and around Drexel Park:

 

Azalea Festival 2014

I shot some stuff at the Azalea Festival last weekend. I'm not particularly happy with these photos but oh well.

I used my Bessa R2S and 35/1.8, 50/1.4, and 85/2 Nikkor lenses.

 

 

 

 

 I also took a few instant shots with my Linhof. Some of them had some weird problems...I need to clean my rollers, among other things. Here they are though:

Carl Zeiss Jena 16.5cm f/2.7 Biotessar Test Shots

I jumped at a sale for this lens that I've always wanted to try. It's an extremely fast lens for 4x5, almost as fast as the famous "Aero Ektar" lenses but much lighter and easier to put in a shutter so they don't have to be used on a Speed Graphic (though using it wide-open in full sun you might wish you had a Speed Graphic's FP shutter!).

Anyway, since the whole point is speed and shallow depth-of-field, I shot a few images with a lot out of focus. It's definitely a very different way of seeing the landscape. I also discovered that this lens seems to exhibit focus-shift when stopped down, if you focus wide-open, so I'll have to be mindful of that in the future.

Here's the photos, taken before I went to work at Drexel Park:

 

Expired Kodak E100G brought back to life

Some time ago I got a few rolls of E100G (35mm) for free. They were way out of date. When I shot a roll, it ended up being horribly blue-shifted and looked absolutely terrible.

I took some snaps while enjoying the weather the last couple of days. I figured as a good experiment, I would use a deep amber filter on my lenses to see if I could fix the blue-shift with this old film in camera. It worked better than expected!

For these I walked a bit around Drexel Park as well as Langdale Park. I used my Nikon F2 and either the 35mm f/2.8 pre-AI lens or 50mm f/2 pre-AI. Developed in the Tetenal kit I am still using. I left the film border on for a couple of them because I liked it:

Azalea Festival 2013 Part 2

Here's the color photos from this years festival. First, here's a few images on Fuji 160NPS 120 film made with my Yashica 124G:

 

 

I also took a couple of pictures with my Polaroid 900 and some expired Portra 400NC:

I still have two 4x5 b&w negatives to develop but likely won't get to that till next week, so this probably wraps up my Azalea Festival photos. Hope you enjoyed.