Back to the beginning, Olympus OM-10: dltphoto

Many, many, many years ago I had gifted to me, by my oldest brother, my very first SLR. The Olympus OM-10 with the 50mm Zuiko 1.8 lens. WOW. I remember first getting it, sure it was used but it was in mint condition and I was thrilled. A real camera. This is where it all began.

Recently I acquired a Mint Condition OM-10. As luck would have it it seems to work perfectly. The 50mm lens is a little cloudy from maybe moisture or mildew but nothing one will ever see in the images.....

I can easily recommend one of  these cameras as a teenagers first REAL camera. Simple, small. Sure it uses film but then film has been fine for  most of it's long history and out of my roll of 36 I only had one that was an instant throw away due to my error. With scanners getting more available and cheaper its not terrifically hard to get them digitized should you need to or just find a friend with a scanner (Wink Koopmans).

Olympus XA2 V2.0: dltphoto

Thanks to Mr Koopmans for the very nice gift of an Olympus XA2. I had acquired one recently for nothing and it was working fine until half way through it's second roll and then kaput. Seemed the shutter only wanted to stay open for a 2 second exposure only. Oh well. So this is the XA2 V2.0, which I think has a small underexposure issue but its something I can live with.

The XA2 is the perfect pocket camera. Small, quick and  sharp images as long as you remember to Zone Focus it. A touch of lovely vignetting finishes the image quite nicely.

The Murky Underside of the Stunning Upperside: dltphoto

Many moons ago I acquired a wonderfully different camera to add to my Nikon collection. The Nikonos V film camera, as posted previously somewhere, sometime ago, on a blog post far, far away.
I resurrected it for some fun underwater antic's. Our kids hesitance to swim in the gorgeous green lake this year, without life jacket, was mildly frustrating. All of them now are very capable swimmers but I guess the massive lake must be a tad intimidating. Until of course I splashed out the Nikonos V and then off came the life jackets and on came the diving underwater with reckless abandon. It was quite the turnaround. I created monsters.

Working with the Nikonos is kind of odd, apparently water has some defraction non-sense that means when I focus a certain distance its actually not that distance blah blah blah... I found a technique of my own. GUESS IT.
Along with the "GUESS IT" technique, I applied the "hold the camera underwater and GUESS that they are in the shot!" technique. With the 28mm lens its fairly safe that I will get most of them in the shot as for hands and feet etc... well, that's part of the fun for me. So featured below are some of the better "GUESS IT'S" that I ended up with.

Pal M4: dltphoto

Another treasure that I have recently inherited from the UK is the Pal M4, back in its day it was the worlds smallest full-size 35mm camera. As compared to the the Voitlander it is a little smaller, but with this treasure I have another component.

So as stories go, this one started off well. Having been in my Dads camera box for eons, it has since been given to me. Figuring its not just a shelf piece and everything seemed to fire I decided to put a roll through it to see if it really was all still operational. So we went on a little visit to Seattle and around Abbotsford and I shot the roll though. I sent it off during the vacation with great anticipation to check the roll, when pickup time came the roll was not there... Eeeeek! I waited impatiently for another week but alas all seemed doomed. So I decided to give it one more roll and the camera trigger decide to give up. After some encouragement and a "technical tap" in several directions it freed up and decided to work again. Then by some stroke of fortune I found the missing roll...Joy of all joys...So now I have a working camera and the first roll through it in maybe 20 years.... or maybe more!!

enough now, here are the results.

Yellow, Yellow and yellow

Olympus XA2, gone but not forgotten: dltphoto

Heres a few "winners" from a roll of film I found from the Olympus XA2 which I acquired from somewhere!
The XA2 was an interesting little camera, super small but so simple. It was introduced in 1980 and was a more simplified version of the XA. The only "negative" (pun) of this little camera is the silly zone focusing system. Three little symbols, one that looks like two snowmen, the next is two people shapes like bells holding hands and the third is the classic symbol for a mountain.

A wintery winters day, the Film Chronicles: dltphoto

After our dump of snow a short while ago I broke out my amazing Nikon F5 for the harsh cold temperatures. Why the F5 I hear all of you asking... since its weather sealed to death and robust as heck and its my favourite film camera.

Anyways, the girls and I built "turner mountain" in the front garden and the girls revelled in sledding on their boogie sleds.