Hand held. Taken outside Red Hat on the River in Irvington, NY
RX100 in Cold Spring
As I get older I’ve been gradually ‘downsizing’ my equipment. I switched from a DSLR to a Sony Nex 5N (via a Panasonic LX3, which I love but which in terms of quality is not as good as the Nex and it’s also just a little too big to use as a ‘carry everywhere’ camera). For a ‘carry everywhere’ camera I had been using a Panasonic ZS7. There was much to like about this camera. It was very small, had a long zoom range, great macro capabilities etc. Because I always had it with me I got a lot of nice pictures that I would otherwise have missed. Admittedly the low light performance was poor, as was the dynamic range and some of the pictures looked a bit like watercolor paintings. It served me well though.
I thought that the Nex5n would meet all my needs and disposed of the ZS7 . Unfortunately the Nex is still a bit too big to carry around all the time. Although the body is small the lenses are, of necessity, large. It’s certainly not pocketable. I soon began to regret not having a camera small enough to put in my pocket.
When the Sony RX100 came out I was interested, but it was just too expensive. Then the RX100mii came out. Even more interesting, but even more expensive. But then the price of the RX100 started to come down. Eventually while browsing around at Best Buy I came across an open box RX100 at a very significant discount. It was around my Wedding Anniversary so it seemed a good time to suggest to my wife that this might make a good anniversary present.
I’ve only used it once, but I like the results. Clearly it’s not really a replacement of a DSLR (at least not in my opinion). But I’m not replacing a DSLR. I’m replacing a Panasonic ZS7 and the RX100 is a vast improvement.
When I go out specifically to take pictures I’ll take the NEX, but I’ll pretty much always have the RX100 with me.
Valentine’s day is coming
Antique store window
Eagle – or is it an owl?
Old House
Tunnel below the railroad tracks
Corvair
Christmas in a window
The Roundhouse at Beacon Falls
View across Fishkill Creek to SWIFT, the restaurant at the Roundhouse. The two large windows are at the restaurant.
My wife is back from her European (Switzerland and the United Kingdom) excursion. We went for lunch at SWiFT in the Roundhouse at Beacon Falls. It’s a very nice location and the food was good. The bar also looked like it would be a nice place to go for a drink. In Summer there’s an outside seating area with great views of the Falls. Beacon looks interesting. I’ll have to come back and take a walk around. Unfortunately I forgot to take a camera so these were taken with my wife’s iPhone 5s
The view from our table.
Eirah enjoys her spicy pear collins.
One of the other buildings in the area
Nikon N90s
I love this camera. Everything about it feels right: the weight, the way it fits into my hand, the controls are where I want them to be. Thom Hogan has a nice review of it on his site
The funny thing is that I didn’t even buy this camera. In some cases I see listings for a camera with a lens. Sometimes I’m just looking for the lens, but if the price is right I’ll buy the combination. The body is a plus. In this case the listing was just for the lens, but when the lens arrived there was a body with it: this Nikon N90s (or F90x as I believe it’s called outside of the US).
It’s a very solid camera, which I very much enjoyed using. I also tried a different film: Fuji Superia X-tra 400. It was on sale at Walmart for about $7 for a pack of four. It’s not bad but the results had a little too much contrast and were a bit too green for my taste.
My last attempt a having film developed and scanned at CVS was not a great success (although that could have been because the film had been in the camera for a very long time). So this time I decided to try something different. I sent it off to “The Darkroom“. I haven’t yet received the CD and the negatives, but the scanned images were made available on their site within a day or two of them receiving the film. All in all I’m pleased with the results.
There are more pictures (this time in black and white) of the Maple Ave. Cemetery (And Combined Church Cemeteries) in another post.
Christ Episcopal Church
Gravestones
Patterson Presbyterian Church
Presbyterian Church and Maple Avenue Cemetery
The rear of the Presbyterian Church
A gift from a neighbour
One of our neighbours had been to the house and noticed that I collect old cameras. She mentioned that she had some old cameras lying around somewhere and that she would try to find them. A little later I bumped into her and she mentioned that she had found one and was looking for the other. Last Friday she passed by to drop of the camera she had found.
It’s a Minolta SrT 201. As you can see from the pictures it’s not in great shape. There are a number of dents and the the leatherette is coming off in places. More significantly the shutter won’t fire. It came in a worn bag with a number of other items: what looks like a 75mm f4.5 Kodak Anastigmat (completely corroded and with a tube of some sort crookedly attached to the base); something labelled a Kevtar 20-32mm f14 zoom lens that seems to have lost it’s base entirely (the focussing helical is exposed); A handle, which looks as if it was attached to a bracket or a winder at some point; A Hoya 49mm +4 filter; a Minolta SR-meter-2, which might work if I put a new battery in. Finally there is a Certificate of Registration for Personal Effects Taken Abroad dated 8/24/82 and signed by a Mr. Louis Bernstein so I guess he must have left the US (perhaps on vacation, perhaps on business – who knows?) and taken the camera with him.
It also came with two lenses. The first is a Telesar 37-105mm f3.5 macro zoom -two touch with zoom and focus separated. It’s a very heavy lens with a 72mm Spiralite coated skylight filter attached. Something is loose and it’s quite hard to focus. With a little effort, however, it can be focused. From my research I find that Telesar lenses were not considered to be very good. This one is very soft wide open, but quite a bit sharper as you stop down. It also seems very prone to flare. You’d definitely need a lens hood. I don’t really see myself using it much.
The second lens is a different story. It’s a Minolta MD Rokkor-x, 50mm f1.7 (with Vivitar 55mm Skylight filter and slightly beat up Minolta lens cap). It works perfectly.
I already have an adaptor for using Minolta MD lenses on my NEX 5n so I tried them out (I didn’t go far with the heavy Telesar though). As mentioned above I wasn’t too happy with the results from the Telesar. I was much more impressed with the Minolta. Pictures can be found in two other posts: Around Canopus Lake and On Pelton Pond.
I have a weakness for Minolta cameras. My first serious camera was a Minolta Hi-matic 7sii (I still have it) given to me as a present by my wife. My first digital SLR was a Konica-Minolta 5D and my current digital SLR is the Konica-Minolta derived Sony Alpha 500. I had been thinking about getting an SrT and this prompted me to spend a few enjoyable hours researching older Minoltas. It’s a pity the shutter doesn’t work on this one as I could have lived with the dents and the worn leatherette. I might still get an SrT and I now have a much better ideas of which one I would want. I also got a nice lens I can use on older Minolta bodies and on my Sony NEX. So thanks to our neighbour Muriel for the gift.