Mesilla

A two-day stay in Las Cruces allowed a morning visit to the nearby community of Mesilla where I often walked with my old cameras when we lived in southern New Mexico.

The surrounding farm land has largely been taken over by ostentatious mansions surrounded by token groves of pecan trees, but the area around the old town plaza still retains much of its charm from centuries past.

I was pleased to get a roll of film through my Yashica-Mat with no difficulty.   The last time I had tried using it in Chaco Canyon, the camera' shutter and advance locked up on the first frame.  That turned out to be nothing more than operator error.

I had noted a problem with the film advance and had cranked the advance lever and fired the shutter numerous times trying to figure out what was going on.  Some subsequent web searching revealed that you should not crank the camera and fire the shutter with an empty reel in the camera's take-up side.  Fortunately, I had not forced the crank in trying to clear the problem.  I removed the empty reel and cranked and fired the shutter a few times.  Then, I was able to insert a test roll of film and work my way through it with no difficulty.

San Albino