Normalcy

 In the Plaza Vieja it is a line of restored classics, with the owners sitting in the shade nearby.

Thanks mostly to the determined leadership of the governor, New Mexico has done pretty well in holding down infection levels compared to its neighbors on either side.  In Albuquerque the rate per 100,000 is just 2.6.  There are some trouble spots in the southeast corner including Chavez County which has a rate ten times higher.  In Lea County nextdoor with a rate of 13 per 100,000 a Republican legislator is trying to sue the State for preventing the reopening of public schools there because of the spike in cases.

rescued

I found this Kodak Retina IIa at the Fairgrounds Flea Market.  It is identical to one I already had in regard to both function and appearance.  The shutter, lens, rf, film advance and counter all seemed fine.  There was no way I could leave it stranded there on the table among a pile of junkers given the $10 price.

I loaded a roll of Kentmere 100 in the camera and shot it on visits to the river and to Old Town.  The last shot of my cat at home was wide open at f2.  I developed semi-stand in HC-110.

Fly-in

I took a drive over on Albuquerque's west side on Saturday with no particular destination in mind.  Passing the Double Eagle airfield I noticed that there were a lot of cars parked near the entrance.  It turned out I had stumbled on a fly-in airshow.

I had a couple frames left on a roll of Kentmere 100 in my Retina IIa, so I shot those and then loaded a roll of Fuji 200 color.  If I had known where I would end up from the beginning, I might have chosen to bring along an slr and a couple lenses, and maybe a medium-format camera.  However, I can't complain about the performance of the Kodak rangefinder and its fine Xenon lens.

The half-dozen sleek little planes that were lined up beside the runway put on a nice aerobatic show, complete with smoke trails.

I think this is the third light plane show I have seen at the west side field.  The previous show featured rides in a Ford Trimotor, which I believe is due back in Albuquerque in November.

Kodak Retina IIa

I like all the Retinas, but the IIa model is my favorite because of its easy handling and compactness. To me, the camera seems ideally designed for candid and low-light work. The fine f2 Xenon lens is very sharp, even at large apertures. The Kodak designers packed a lot of functionality into a very small space, so the construction is somewhat more complicated than earlier models with its coupled range finder and auto shutter cocking.

I've done some shutter cleaning and range finder adjustment on mine, but I've never attempted a full cleaning and adjustment on this one for fear of getting in over my head. However, these cameras are not as hard to work on as some others of the same era, and there are competent repairmen around who can get the job done. A very large number of Ia and IIa cameras were sold in the 1950's, so the cameras can be had for very reasonable prices in spite of their high quality. The most vulnerable parts are the frame advance spring and the shutter cocking rack. Those parts are interchangeable between the Ia and IIa models, and not terribly difficult to find.

In the unlikely event that I ever needed to choose just one camera to keep and use from my collection, this one would likely be it.

Some sample photos from the IIa:

The Retina IIa Manual is at the Butkus site. 

C-41 B&W

Digging around in my refrigerator bin for film, I found a roll of Kodak B&W 400, a C-41 film that is processed in the same chemistry as color negative film.  I shot the roll in my Kodak Retina lla and took it along with the color roll from my Vito II to Picture Perfect.

Railrunner -- Santa Fe to Belen

Albuquerque Station

Explora -- the Albuquerque Science Museum

Tiguex Park and the NM Museum of Natural History

I used to shoot a lot of this stuff as it was cheap, nearly grainless and wide-latitude.  You can still get it on line, but the cheapest I've seen is $6.50 per roll at B&H Photo Video.  Add in shipping and processing, and you're looking at fifteen bucks for a roll of negs -- more than I'm willing to spend these days.  It does make some nice pictures, though.

Santa Elena Canyon

Spring arrives in mid-February in the lower elevations of Big Bend, including the mouth of Santa Elena Canyon where the trees are leafing and there are already many wildflowers in bloom.

History

Margaret was the keynote speaker at the Growing Through Loss Conference in Las Cruces on March 2nd.  Her topic was the history of Mesilla Valley Hospice where she worked for about twenty years, most of that as the Executive Director. 

When Margaret first started working with the organization in the early '80s it was mostly supported by the hard work of a few volunteers based in a store-front office to provide in-home end-of-life care.  Margaret gradually built the staff, the patient census and the support of the community to create a first-class hospice that presently serves about a hundred patients at a time.
    Most people still are able to receive the needed support to stay at home, but there is also a residential facility, La Posada, which can provide residential care for up to 28 patients and their families.  No one is turned away from hospice services because of an inability to pay, thanks in a large part to Margaret's early effort to convince the State of New Mexico to make indigent care funds available to hospice and other non-profit social service and health care organizations throughout the state.

Mesa del Sol

Albuquerque architect Antoine Predock incorporated an energy-conserving glass facade  in the Mesa del Sol Town Center building which can also serve as a public theater backdrop for video projection.  The building was meant to be the center-piece of a large community with an integrated business park and housing development on Albuquerque's south mesa.  Given the state of the economy, however, it seems unlikely that the city will support the construction of hundreds of newly-built homes any time soon.








These pictures were made with one of my two Kodak Retina IIa cameras.  I recently adjusted the rangefinder and it seems to be working well.  That is an easy repair on the camera, but reassembling the advance and counter mechanisms is a little tricky.  I'm also going to take a close look at the other and, if I can get both cameras working equally well, I'll put one up for sale here.

in the neighborhood

Some color from my Kodak Retina IIa.













I have five different models from Kodak's line of Retina cameras. All are excellent shooters, but the IIa rangefinder model if my favorite because of its high-quality construction, compactness and reliability. The lens diagram below illustrates the IIa lens, the Schneider Xenon 50mm f/2.0. As shown, the lens consists of six elements in four groups, arranged symmetrically around the shutter. It was easily equal to anything in its class when introduced in 1951.

December in Albuquerque