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

Getting back to the Welta Perle

I found this Welta Perle a year and half ago and shot just two rolls of film in it.  It made some ok photos, but needed a focus adjustment which I only recently completed.

Shooting 6x4.5 cameras takes a little getting used to because the long axis of the camera is 90 degrees rotated from what might be expected.  I like the 6x4.5 format a lot because it yields a negative much larger than 35mm but still allows 16 exposures on a roll of 120 film.

My Perle is one of the best preserved old cameras I have come across.  It shows little surface wear, and the bellows had not a single pinhole.  The camera lacks a top-deck shutter release, but has a nice viewfinder which snaps into place as the lens is extended.  Like other similar folders from the same era, the front focus lens does not offer any easy way to attach a lens hood.  That is a bit of a weak point of this type of camera as the sharp but uncoated Tessar lens is rather low in contrast and has a tendency to flare in bright light conditions.  Still, one can learn to take those limitations into consideration when making pictures with the Perle and it can produce excellent results.

A Little Snow

A little snow goes a long way in Albuquerque. We got about a half inch last night. This morning, university offices and all the public schools closed for the day.

Most of my spare time lately has been devoted to getting my plate camera ready to make pictures.  When I've taken a break from that project and gone for a walk around the neighborhood, I've carried along my little Olympus 35rc.  It is a marvelous little rangefinder designed by the incomparable Maitani.

Alternate Realities

When I placed an order recently with B&H Photovideo for some Tri-X I added in a couple rolls of Arista Edu 400.  I loaded the 120 format Arista Edu in my Yashica-Mat and took a couple morning walks around town.  The resultant images seemed a little grainier than Tri-X, and I was not able to get the combination from it I expect from Tri-X in regard to contrast and subtle tonalities.  Still, the results weren't bad, and I don't think the differences I am perceiving probably count for much.

I processed the film with Kodak HC-110-B as I would for Tri-X.  However, that is likely not the optimal developer for the Arista Edu 400.  On top of that, there are the usual variables of scanning and post processing which can make a big difference in the final images.  I also noticed that there was quite a difference in the appearance of the images displayed on my old XP machine, and on the monitor attached to my newer Windows 7 computer.  Much of this could be sorted out if the ultimate objective was a print on paper.  It seems, however, that digital image displays are always going to be a moving target.

Mural by Virgil Ortiz