K1000 Spring

I decided to try out some newly-acquired K-mount lenses on my Pentax K1000.  The camera is a bit bulky compared to my other Pentax models, but the lack of a split image in the viewfinder is actually an advantage for shooting zooms or with a telextender as it does not black out the center.

I walked around in the National Hispanic Cultural Center and made quite a few shots of the trees which had flowered right on time for Spring's arrival.  The patio beside the restaurant always has nice light too.

The Cultural Center is in the historic Barelas neighborhood and not far from the Rail Yards.

The gates have been opened into the irrigation acequias, but there is not going to be much water coming down the Rio Grande this year.

I shot the church in the Plaza Vieja with the 28mm.  This may be the first time I have used a wide-angle for this subject and it has given me some new ideas for depicting this landmark building.

These two big parabolic reflectors sit outside the children's science museum near our home.  People standing in front of the reflectors can carry on a whispered conversation at a distance of about seventy-five feet.

THE UNDEAD

My Pentax K1000 came to me in poor shape.  I was able to revive it enough to shoot a roll of film, and then I put it aside for a long while.  There was still a small issue with the lens, and the through-the-lens meter looked dead.   Yesterday, I decided to take another look at the camera.

The 50mm f-2 Pentax-M lens was clean and sharp, but the rubber focus ring was loose and slipped at either end of the scale.  Looking at the lens more closely I saw that the rubber focus ring could be lifted up and off with a small screwdriver.  A couple drops of glue solved the slippage issue.
     The light meter problem was also easily diagnosed.  Removing three screws allows the camera's bottom plate to come off.  Taking out three more little screws frees the battery compartment.  Not unexpectedly, the wire to the battery holder was corroded and disconnected.  Splicing in an extension to reconnect the wire to the bottom of the battery compartment seemed an intimidating task because of the tiny diameter of the wires.  Really nothing to lose, however, so I screwed up my courage, picked up a little Weller soldering kit at ACE Hardware and tackled the job.
     Stripping the tiny wires is tricky.  If you try to use a knife or a wire stripper, the likely result is that the tiny wires will be destroyed.  It turns out, however, that you can just use a lit match to burn off the insulation.  I took a short piece of small-diameter wire from an old video card and joined it with my solder gun to the battery holder and the stub of wire from the camera body.  My soldering won't win me any ribbons at the county fair, but it was good enough to bring the meter back to life.

I like the uncluttered view through the K1000 finder, and the meter seems to give me the exposure I am looking for better than some of my more sophisticated cameras.  I only have a couple of normal K-mount lenses at this point as I gave away my previous K1000 kit with the wide-angle and telephoto lenses.  I guess I'll see if I can find a couple more lenses.  Even if I decide against keeping the K1000, I could use the lenses with the nice little Pentax ME which is just one step from being fully restored.

Update: 
Through the generosity of a friend I now have a good kit for the K1000 including 28mm, 50mm and 135mm SMC Pentax lenses.  I also added a 2x telextender and a +4 close-up lens.

Resurrection: K1000

I was sent a Pentax K1000 to evaluate for use by a photographer new to film photography.  The camera had a working shutter and a lens that could be cleaned up, but the the meter and the frame counter were inoperative.  It could make pictures, but seemed a poor choice to start with.  So, I sent off my own K1000 kit to the new user and kept the slightly lame camera.

The meter on the old camera looked like a lost cause, but I was able to clean up the lens.  The frame counter also proved to be an easy fix.  I shot a test roll of Fuji 200.

This Pentax does not have as sharp a focus screen as I remember in my other one.  The rubber cover on the focus ring is a bit loose.  Two frames in my test roll showed a severe light leak.  So, there is still some work that could be done on the camera.  I'm not sure I'll get around to that, but at least I got some pictures that will keep the camera from going in the blue recycle bin out back.

a sweet goodbye

My Pentax K1000 is going to a new home in Arizona.  I decided to run one last roll of film through the camera, the cheap but colorful Lomography 100 which has always given me good results with the Unicolor C-41 color negative chemistry kit.

The 36-exposure roll includes two trips to the Rio Grande bosque, a walk in the Sandia Mountain foothills, and a brief visit to Santa Fe.

I haven't made a lot of pictures in the past year.  The outings with the K1000 were a good reminder of what I like about photography.  While making pictures is the goal of the effort, the bigger reward is the opportunity which photography provides to become totally immersed in the moment; I am able to focus my attention completely on the details of my surroundings with no other concerns of life crowding my consciousness.  Photography allows me to partake in a small way in the Navajo aspiration to walk in beauty.

Kodak HC-110 Developer

 I shot a roll of Tri-X in my Pentax K1000 at the zoo yesterday.  As I often do to get close to the subject and eliminate foreground clutter, the camera was mounted with a 135 Super Takumar plus a Vivitar 2X telextender.  The film was processed in HC-110 which has long been my favorite for black and white work as it seems to handle about any film well, and it does particularly well with TMAX and Tri-X.

The liter bottle of HC-110 which I popped open yesterday was the first I've used in about two years since the price doubled.  BHPhotovideo where I usually get my film won't ship HC-110 any longer, so I put in my order with Freestyle where I also get my Unicolor kits for color work.  The price for the HC-110 was $35.99 plus about four bucks for USPS shipping.

While I was sufficiently irritated with the price gouging to avoid buying the HC-110 for a long time, the truth is that even at the current price the developer is still one of the most economical resources for home black and white film processing.  The concentrate is used by most people in the 1:32 one-time-use Dilution B form.  That means the liter bottle will produce nearly 8.5 gallons of working solution to process around one hundred rolls of film.  In fact, it is possible to go to Dilution H with little loss of quality, and get twice the mileage.  For the specifics of mixing and using HC-110 the best source of information is still the old Covington Innovations web site.

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4/2/2026

I have filled the 27-inch screen of my iMac with the tiff file of the Snow Leopard as my current wallpaper choice.  Looks fantastic.  I don't know if I'll get back to using tri-x and hc-110 again, but it is certainly tempting. 

winter flower

This plant flowers in mid-winter in the Mediterranean Conservatory.  I have made quite a few pictures of it over several years with a variety of old cameras.

Pentax K1000

Pentax Spotmatic

Kodak Recomar 18

balloons

This year's Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque got sandwiched in with the remnants of a couple hurricanes from the Gulf of California, but it has gone pretty smoothly.  I don't have much tolerance for the crowds at the launch site, but an early morning breeze often brings a good number of balloons over the neighborhood and one often lands nearby.

Even in calm air it is a tricky business to bring a balloon down on city streets.

This star spangled craft touched down in a dead-end a couple blocks from our house.

The chase vehicles delivered fresh propane bottles and a new load of passengers.

The balloon took off again and joined the pack heading south.

I decided one morning to try following one of the balloons with my motorcycle.  I thought I would intercept the landing near Old Town, but I ended up on a tortuous chase which took me deep into Albuquerque's South Valley.  I watched the balloon come to ground finally in a mobile home park near Coors Blvd.

I used 135 and 50mm Takumar lenses on my Pentax K1000 for these pictures.  I thought the combination did a pretty good job, though a zoom might have made the shoot a little easier.

cougar

I've made a lot of pictures of the mountain lions at the Rio Grande Zoo.  Several years before we moved to Albuquerque I met up with a cougar in the wild.  I didn't get a photograph at the time, but the memory is indelible.

Rio Grande Zoo -- 2014

In the Organ Mountains

11/3/05

When we first came to Las Cruces I used to spend much of my free time exploring the Organ Mountains that are just a few miles to the east of town. It is a small but rugged chain that rises up suddenly out of the surrounding Chihuahuan Desert flatlands, like many of New Mexico's mountains. I was back in the Organs recently, one of the very few times I have visited them in many years now. My last old dog is no longer up for such hikes, so I was alone.

I went up over the first set up steep hills and down into a valley that has a narrow streambed that snakes east to west out of the peaks. I shot a few pictures of the hills and plant life, including some fall foliage in the bottom of the arroyo. I was surprised at that point to hear quite close by a yowling cat sound; it was the same kind of ready-to-fight call that our housecat, Richard, makes when he spots a coyote or a rattler through the south patio windows. This sound had a good deal more timbre to it, though, and I began to hope that it was a bobcat or smaller. Of course, it was a mountain lion.

The big cat jumped down into the dry stream bed about fifteen feet from me, way too far inside my comfort zone. I could only clearly see its head through the boulders and brush. I very briefly considered trying to get a picture of the animal, but my old folding camera was not cocked or focused, and I felt that I could not afford to let my attention stray from the nearby cat because it was not more than a jump-and-a-half distant from me. On thinking about the situation later I surmised that the noisy and aggressive approach probably meant that the lion was a female with nearby cubs. I think she was just acting the way she might if a wandering male cougar had come into her territory.

I had read enough accounts of lion attacks to understand their quickness and power. One doesn't want to run from any aggressive wild animal, but unlike similar confrontations with bears, there seems not to be an option with the big cats of playing dead. If attacked, one is well advised to fight just as hard as possible; once those teeth are into the windpipe there is no appeal. As I looked into her large, dark eyes in the space of a few brief moments, it was clear to me that the lion was quickly going through the same set of calculations that I was.

It seemed to me at that point that the only practical alternative was to take the initiative. I stepped forward, threw up my arms and yelled at the cat. She turned away, still looking in my direction. Then, with a single bound she was gone, only briefly showing me her tawny back and long, powerful-looking tail. After the first leap, there was no sound of her movement through the thick brush of the arroyo bottom.

I immediately began moving cautiously up the arroyo. It seemed likely the cat would not follow, but I still paid careful attention to my backtrack. After travelling about a hundred yards, I moved up the slope out of the arroyo bottom and carefully scanned my surroundings, starting with the near ground and then out to the middle and far distance. I could hear some jays and other birds making some noise quite far to the west, so it seemed that the cat was continuing to head away from me. I shot a few more pictures, but had some difficulty concentrating on the task, and I decided to head back to the car. I kept to the high ground north of the arroyo and eventually put a big hill between me and the valley.

From the ridge crest, I could see the great number of houses that have been built close up to the flanks of the Organs in the past few years. My guess is that their owners are experiencing some missing small pets. I'll be surprised if there are not also some reports of unfortunate human-cat encounters in the not far future. My sympathies will be more with the mountain lions. As for me, I'm sure I'll return to explore the Organs again, but I'll probably find some sturdy dog to take along.

(My favorite cougar shot at the zoo was made in 2008 with my trusty old Spotmatic)

walking by the river

The summer rains have made the Rio Grande Bosque very lush.  The muddy trails are also discouraging the joggers and bikers, so the place seems nearly abandoned except for the birds.

This shot is from my Pentax K1000 and a new 135mm lens which I acquired thanks to the help of a fellow Down the Road.  I also picked up a 2x telextender, so hope to get some shots with the combination soon at the zoo.

ready for my close-up

I hiked along the river south of the Hispanic Cultural Center to a place I visit around this time each year to photograph a stand of yerba mansa.  It turned out that I was about a week early for the full show, and there were relatively few of the plants in bloom.  

No shortage of other subjects, however.

I haven't used my Pentax K1000 much since I found it in a local thrift shop, though it is in very good operational order.  The problem has been that I don't have any additional lenses beyond the standard 50mm f-2 lens that came on the camera.  I made some small progress toward fixing that issue recently when I found a 49mm +4 Hoya close-up lens at another thrift store.  I'd still like to find a good telephoto and wide-angle like the ones I have for the Spotmatic, but the additional flexibility provided by the close-up accessory lens will encourage me to get out more often with the K1000.