In one week I managed to break the plastic rewind cranks on two old cameras that I like, the Nikon EM and my two-decade-old Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim. Luckily for me I had a spare crank for the VUWS, and the Nikon EM was put back in working order thanks to the generosity of a friend.
So, time to test the repairs. I headed over to the Los Poblanos fields to see if I could find some wintering Sandhill Cranes. Thee were plenty of birds, but none were willing to allow me close enough for a picture. I had to settle for a shot of an old cottonwood which showed no objection to being photographed.
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| Nikon EM |
The next day I took both cameras to the Tingley ponds. The little Ultra Wide was loaded with Kendtmere 100. In the Nikon EM I had a roll of slightly expired Fuji Neopan Presto which Jim Grey sent me some time ago,
I had walked around one of the ponds with the Vivitar 70-210 Macro Zoom on the Nikon EM. That gave me more than enough reach to shoot the lounging ducks and geese. Back at my starting point I rewarded my subjects with a single slice of bread which caused quite a lot of excitement. There is a sign at the pool's edge requesting that people not feed the birds, but I figured my small transgression would not be noticed.
Shortly afterward this woman arrived in an suv and distributed about forty pounds of bird food to the ducks and geese. She told me she did this daily! I captured the scene with the Ultra Wide.
With two rolls of film to process I decided to do them together with semi-stand development in highly diluted HC110, following the technique developed by hjlphotos. That turned out well with the Fuji Neopan 400. The Kentmere 100 from the Ultra Wide did not like that choice however, and I had to resort to some careful photoshopping to get something acceptable.
