Summer at the Zoo

 My Patent Etui plate camera went with me for a morning stroll through Albuquerque's Rio Grande Zoo.  

I used a roll from the recently acquired batch of expired/frozen Tri-X which I processed back home in Rodinal 1:50.  The morning light was subdued by some California smoke.  The Zoo was pretty crowded with children and parents, due no doubt in part to the presence of a newborn hippo.  I walked by the hippo pond a couple times, but the closest I got to seeing the newborn was an image on the phone of one of the attending volunteers.  Plenty of other exhibits to see, of course.

The Rollex film back for the camera is the most practical way to make pictures with it, but it does add some bulk to very compact Patent Etui.  The ten-shot film packs were a better fit and very popular in the 1920s and '30s, but I think Kodak quit producing them in the 1980s.  Knowing I would have the eight 6.5 x 9 frames of Tri-X shot well before my zoo visit was complete I also took along my Mercury II CX loaded with a roll of expired Fuji 400 color.  I managed to use most of that at the Zoo and will try to process it and post the results later this week.