Carl Zeiss Jena 58mm f2 Biotar

by Posted in Flowers, Lenses, Nature Leave a comment
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I posted earlier about my acquisition of an Exakta VXIIa, Exa and three lenses. I’ve already provided a little more detail on the Lydith. Now it’s the turn of the Biotar.

I’ve haven’t tried it that much yet, but from an initial test (the inevitable flowers) I think I will probably use it quite a lot. My copy is quite large, rather heavy and more than a little “beat up” (for example the filter threads have been damaged and now won’t accommodate a screw in filter (doesn’t bother me much as I don’t use filters). As mentioned in the earlier post the auto preset level is rather sluggish and I’m sure it wouldn’t stop down the lens fast enough to be useful. This doesn’t bother me much either as I’ll probably mostly use the lens on my Sony NEX 5N and usual subjects are stationary and give me lots of time to stop down manually.

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There’s an “interesting” (and animated) discussion on photo.net concerning the relationship between the Biotar and the Zeiss Planar – interesting that is if you like Kingslake‘s “A History of the Photographic Lens” for bedtime reading (as I do). As far as I can tell the Biotar is a variant of the original Planar design.

More posts on this lens to follow.

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Update: Rick Drawbridge recently did a post on this lens in Testing the Biotar on photo.net

Old (Pre Kodachrome) Color Photographs

by Posted in Film, Photography Leave a comment

Rule Britannia: Characters in a pageant – Britannia and her colonies and dependencies – on the grass in Southampton in 1928 – Source: Daily Mail Article – “1920s Britain at work and play: Glorious National Geographic colour photographs capture an innocent age a century ago” by Mark Duell, August 20 2015.

I was at the Metropolitan Museum in NY City a while back and saw my first autochromes there. I immediately fell in love with the delicate colors. Unfortunately I’m not willing to go to the trouble of covering glass plates with potato starch grains and so was unable to produce them myself. I tried to find a plugin or something that would emulate this look with a digital image, but so far I haven’t found anything I like. I was very pleased to come across these old images. They must have caused quite a stir when they were first produced.

From Boy Scouts on a hike to children playing on a beach, this wonderful set of photographs captures British life almost a century ago.

The images from the 1920s and 1930s also include scenes of postmen on their rounds, police directing buses and characters in a pageant.

They were taken by Clifton R. Adams, who was sent to England by National Geographic magazine to photograph life in the country.

Mr Adams, who died in 1934 aged just 44, had instructions to record its farms, towns and cities, and its residents at work and play.

He took the images in colour using Autochrome Lumière, which was the most advanced colour photographic process of the day.

The plates were covered in microscopic potato starch grains coloured red, green and blue-violet, with about four million per square inch.

Light passed through the colour filters when an image was taken, with the plate then processed to produce a positive transparency.

via Clifton R. Adams' photographs of 1920s and 30s Britain using Autochrome technology | Daily Mail Online.

Man on a Boat

by Posted in Black & White, People Leave a comment
Man on a Boat

Back in October, 2011 we went with some friends on a boat ride on the Hudson. This is one of the other passengers. He was wearing a straw hat and soon as I saw him I was taken by the magnificent beard and the expressive wrinkles around his eyes. This was taken at f10 at the extreme end of the zoom range (450mm equivalent) and I was using a monopod.

Generally speaking I haven’t been all that impressed by the lens I was using – A Sigma 70-300mm f4.5-5.6. I bought it because I wanted a longer focal length than the kit lens but I didn’t want to spend a lot of money. I realize now, however, that many of the problems were with me rather than with the lens. OK it’s not a brilliant lens but it’s definitely possible to get better results that I was getting. On the plus side the lens is solid and has decent out of focus areas. From 75-135mm it’s pretty good wide open. From 200-300mm f8 would be better. Autofocus is a bit slow, particularly in bad light. You really need lots of light with this lens. Either that or some way of stabilizing it (e.g. a monopod or a tripod). Of course if you end up using a slow shutter speed then action shots are pretty much out, which is fine for me as I rarely take them.

I’ve heard of people having trouble with stripped autofocus gears. I’ve had the lens for many years and haven’t experienced any problems (but then I haven’t used it much either). I looked a bit closer and got the impression that the problem occurs more with later model Sony DSLRs, which have both a slow and a fast focus speed. The fast speed is too much for these Sigma lenses and Sony recommends setting the camera on the slow speed. My camera (an old Sony Alpha 500) only has, as far as I can tell, a single speed.

All in all for casual use without paying a lot of money it’s not all that bad.

Ossining Reservoir

by Posted in Landscapes Leave a comment
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The pictures are not so great, but in trying to find out more about this little park I found some interesting local history and a link to a recent TV show.

The park is very near to our house in Briarcliff Manor and it’s usually cleared of snow pretty quickly in Winter so it’s one of the few places I can easily walk our (small) dog in that season. I’ve often walked the dog there and never really thought much about the park’s origins. I didn’t even know it’s name.

Apparently for a long time it wasn’t even a park and didn’t really have a name. One source referred to it as “an old, overgrown algae-covered man-made pond near the Chilmark Shopping Center known simply as The Reservoir”. This is pretty much the way it was when we arrived in Briarcliff Manor in 1998. By that time it was no longer being used as reservoir and had been replaced by some large, bright blue water tanks with graffiti all over them. It’s raised several feet above Pleasantville Road and, to be honest I didn’t even know it was there.

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Then some time in the early 2000s it was all cleaned up and a walking/running path running around the pond was built – three times around equals one mile. The water tanks were painted dark green and are much less noticeable now. The fountain seen in the picture was also installed and benches and picnic tables sprinkled around the area. It’s really quite pleasant now. The dogs love it and it doesn’t seem to bother them that they’re going round and round in circles. It even has a name now: The Richard Wishnie Park, name after a former county legislature.

Once upon a time, however this was the village water supply. At one end of the pond is a brick structure. I’d seen it and always thought it was a storage shed of some kind. It turns out that it’s actually the old pump house. A plaque on the side (which I’d never noticed) reads “Intermediate Service Reservoir. Sing Sing Water Works. Constructed 1869.” The New York Real Estate Blog (also the source for the quote above) states:

As the stone says, Ossining used to be known as Sing Sing, an Anglicization of Sint Sinck, the aboriginal natives of the area. To differentiate the village from Sing Sing Prison, the name evolved to Ossingsing and then Ossining. Ossining High’s mascot was the Indian for many years to honor the Sint Sinck, but political correctness ended the Indian mascot. The neighborhood across Pleasantville Road from the Reservoir is known informally as the Indian Village, as the streets are all Native American names, such as Mohawk, Pocantico and Iroquois.

I’ve never watched the TV series “Mad Men”, but I gather that some major characters live in Ossining and that this park is even mentioned in one episode. A post on the Westchester Real Estate Blog says: “This past weekend’s chapter had Betty meeting with an adviser to the governor about the “Pleasantville Road Reservoir” and the plans to erect a 3 million gallon water tower to replace it”.