Medium Format

I took my Yashica-Mat for a walk in the Botanic Garden.  There were few other visitors on this sunny winter morning.  I have been disappointed in the increasingly manicured look of the place, but it is still a nice plece of nature to have nearby when I might not feel like going to the river or the mountains.

The conservatory always has an abundance of flowering plants regardless of the season.  This time of year I look forward to seeing and photographing the exotic lilies.

 

 The dry climate side of the site has native plants from the southwest deserts.

The medium format images from the Yashica-Mat have a kind of solidity which is particularly nice compared to what often comes from even the best of the 35mm cameras.

Having the close-up lens kit for the Yashica-Mat adds quite a bit of versatility in subject matter possibilities.  An eye-level finder like I have for the Mamiya C-330 would also be nice as shooting high with the waist-level finder requires a more flexible neck than the one I currently have.  I do have a steadying hand-grip which fits the camera, but I couldn't find it before this outing and my success rate suffered a bit as a result.

Medium Format

 Of my twin-lens cameras the one I enjoy shooting the most is the Yashica-Mat.  It has a very bright finder, a fine lens and it is light in weight.  When I decided to use the camera recently I thought I would maximize the advantage of the big negatives with some 100-speed film.  However, when I looked in the refrigerator film drawer I found that the closest to that I could get was an ancient roll of Ilford SFX 200.

I decided to give the film an extra stop of exposure to compensate for the sixteen years it had gone past its expiration date.  That seemed to be about the right match for the HC110b processing, judging by the results.  

I started off by documenting a bit of an ordeal we are currently experiencing.  The street that runs by the south side of our house in the process of repaving.  The work starts off noisily about 6AM daily; that has been going on for about three weeks, and it looks like the job is about halfway to completion.

The upside is that it is pretty interesting to watch the big machinery being operated close-up.  Also, the early start of the workday is understandable given the near-100 degree temperatures we have had recently.  (Some shots through that window with my little Lumix digital camera are posted on my other blog.)

I finished off the roll during a couple walks through Old Town.

Plein Air

South Plaza

I made several shots of this gorgeous 1948 Chevrolet, but could not quite capture the excellence of the restoration.

I think I would be very uncomfortable driving around in such a car, fearful of damaging such a perfect and expensive project.

Close to Home

 This wicker chair has been sitting for months beside the road a half block from my house; I pass by it daily when I'm walking the dog.  I have made pictures of the chair with several cameras. This is the one I have liked most so far; it was shot on Kentmere 400 in my Yashica-Mat.

The summer monsoon weather pattern has been bringing some nice clouds overhead.  I saw these above the alley a half block to the west of our place late in the afternoon.

Twin-Lens at the River

 I took my Yashica-Mat twin-lens reflex to the river to make a few more pictures of the Yerba Mansa in bloom.  There are still abundant flowers, but many are starting to turn red now as their seeds mature.

 

 

It was nice to get back to shooting with my Yashica-Mat, which has a very sharp lens and a bright viewing screen.

I have not made a lot of pictures with this TLR, but I am motivated to do more with it now since I have acquired  a No.2 close-up accessory lens, which allows focusing as close as 14 inches.

With the accessory lens the Yashica-Mat still does not have the focal range of the Mamiya C330, but the viewing lens requires no adjustment for parallax and there is no need to adjust exposure as is the case when the C330's bellows is extended.

Summer Light

 New Mexico's intense summer sun can often overwhelm photographic aspirations.  Some respite can always be found in Albuquerque's Botanical Garden.  I went there on a Friday morning with my twin lens reflex Yashica-Mat.

When I return home with one or two frames remaining on a roll of film I frequently call on my cat to help finish up the roll.  In this case I also used the opportunity to make a shot with my new accessory close-up lens set.  This time I relied on the accessory's automatic parallax correction to fit the subject properly in the frame.

Getting Closer with TLR Cameras

 I picked up an accessory close-up lens set for my Yashica-Mat recently.  To my surprise, I managed to misframe all the shots on the first roll of film I put through the camera using the new lenses. 

I had assumed that I would need to aim high to get the image properly centered as I do with my Mamiya C330.  However, it turns out that the Yashica close-up viewing lens is constructed to automatically compensate for parallax error.  So, the Yashica-Mat is actually somewhat easier to use than the C330 which really requires the Paramender on a tripod to properly capture the image on film as it is seen in the viewfinder.  Close-ups with the Yashica-Mat also do not require any exposure compensation as is the case when the C330 bellows is cranked out for close shots.

A tripod is actually a good idea with both cameras as depth of focus at close distances is very narrow.

 

These two shots were made with the normal 80mm lens which provides greater DOF.

TLR

 I found a couple rolls of 2006 Delta 100 in my refrigerator film drawer, so I loaded one in my YashicaMat and took some walks through the neighborhood and along the trails of the riverside forest.  

The last photo was made in the park near our home.  The girl's mother said she liked my old camera and added that her grandfather had been a photographer, possibly using a similar camera.  She said one his nature photos made it into National Geographic.  The little girl was very interested in our conversation; when I asked if she would like me to make a picture of her, she gave an emphatic "yes", and her mother helped her to pose for the camera.

Sanctuary

I visited the National Hispanic Cultural Center this morning with my Yashica-Mat.  I was surprised to find a couple roosters hanging out in the back courtyard.  One was pecking around under a big cottonwood, but the other was lying down beside a food dish and it looked pretty lethargic.  A couple staff people showed up and explained that the roosters had gotten into a fight the day before.  There were no obvious signs of injury, but this one was clearly pleased to get some personal attention.  They said the two roosters just showed up one day.  The staff started feeding them, and they became very tame.

Twin Trouble

I took my Yashica-Mat twin-lens reflex to Chaco about a year ago hoping to do some pictures of the ruins, but the film advance jammed on the first shot.  I tried another roll recently on a walk through Albuquerque's Old Town and found that it still has a problem with the shutter release and the film advance.  I was able to get past the problem with some jiggling of the focus control, but a good cleaning and adjustment is clearly called for.  I found a good service guide on the web, so will try to motivate myself to tackle the job some time in the future.  I have several good tlr cameras in addition to the Yashica-Mat, but the Lumaxar lens on the Yashica is a stellar performer.

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

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

Shooting the Yashica-Mat

I took my Yashica-Mat for a walk this morning at the Albuquerque Botanic Garden.  It is a camera that deserves more attention than I have given it.  The medium format negatives and the excellent resolution of the Lumaxar lens yield startling sharpness.
    The camera is light for its size, but still a bit awkward to handle, like most twin lens reflex cameras.  With the shutter release on the right and the focus on the left, one is constantly juggling the camera to arrive at an exposure.  What overcomes most of that problem is the addition of a hand grip.  With that accessory in place, it is then possible to reach all the controls without moving either hand very much.  A Bay 1 lens hood is also a worthwhile addition.
    A tangential benefit of carrying the Yashica-Mat is that it never fails to attract interest and friendly conversation.  Many younger people have obviously never seen a tlr before, and the camera often sparks nostalgia in the older photographers.