Yorktown Heights, NY – An old railway station

by Posted in Black & White, Buildings/Structures, Film, Pentax ME Super, SMC Pentax-M 50mm f1.7 Leave a comment
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According to the Town of Yorktown website:

The Putnam Railroad began business as the New York and Boston Railroad on May 21, 1869. Its goal was to link Westchester and Putnam counties with railroad lines serving upstate New York and New England into Canada. In the 1880s the railroad station was the center of town, surrounded by five stores, a school, a hotel, two locksmiths, a wheelwright, and two churches. When the rail line closed, the Town of Yorktown eventually came into ownership of the station and the surrounding property, which became a town park.

In 1976/77, the Town repaired the station house exterior. In 1981 the station was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and in 1994 the Historical Society undertook exterior renovations. Today the Railroad Station stands at the side of the North County Trailway and is again in need of repairs, but ultimately the Town would like to open it as a small snack shop.

Taken with a Pentax ME Super and SMC Pentax-M 50mm f1.7.

Yorktown Heights, NY – A couple of artillery pieces

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artillerypieces-1

I took most of the pictures with the Pentax ME Super while walking around Yorktown Heights, NY as I waited for my wife to finish with her dental appointment. Shortly after I left the car I came across, in quick succession an American Legion Post and a Veterans of Foreign Wars post.

Outside each of them was a small artillery piece. I have no idea what they are. I’ll have to consult with my friend, a former artillery lieutenant-colonel. Although these are probably long before his time he’s usually pretty good at “ferreting out” the required information.

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Taken with a Pentax ME Super and SMC Pentax-MM 50mm f1.7

Film Camera 2018/1 – Pentax ME Super – Results

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Bicycle Shop, Yorktown NY.

This post considers the results from using the Pentax ME Super mentioned in an earlier post (See:Film Camera 2018/1 – Pentax ME Super).

My first reaction on getting the scans back from processing was one of surprise. I thought I had put in a roll of Tri-X and so it was a bit of a shock to see the images in color. Then I realized that I must have used the last of a number of rolls of Fuji Superia X-TRA 400, which I bought because they were inexpensive. I’ve used this film a number of times and I can’t say that I like it very much. A post on the Phoblographer describes it “…as being moderately saturated with little contrast and a sometimes almost matte look when underexposed”. I’d agree. To me it also has a quite pronounced green tint, which I find unattractive. Could it be that this is because it was quite old and the color had shifted?

Since I had it in my head that I was getting black and white images and I didn’t much like the colors in what I did get I decided to convert the pictures to black and white.

Otherwise I was quite satisfied with the results. The camera seemed to function as desired apart from one possible issue: a couple of the frames suggested that there might be a problem with the shutter at the highest shutter speeds. Unfortunately, I didn’t record what shutter speeds I used so I can’t say for sure.

Taken with a Pentax ME Super and SMC Pentax-M 50mm f1.7

Film Camera 2018/1 – Pentax ME Super

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pentaxmesuper-1

I made a New Year’s Resolution in 2016 to use a different film camera every month. I did pretty well in 2017, using 10 cameras rather than the anticipated 12. Towards the end of 2017 going into 2018 I somehow “lost the thread” and haven’t used a single film camera since last October.

So I’ve decided to start again and try harder. I still hope to use 12 cameras during 2018, but clearly my former way of naming them (e.g. January Film Camera; February Film Camera etc.) isn’t going to work. Instead I’m going to use a numbering scheme. This is the first: Film Camera 2018/1 and it’s a Pentax ME Super.

It’s the first Pentax camera I’ve acquired. Some old friends from the UK were visiting and we were browsing around in the antique/bric-a-brac stores in Cold Spring, NY. I’d found a couple of cameras, but nothing that really interested me. I was about to leave when my friend came over and, knowing my interest in old cameras, brought me over to a cabinet I’d missed. In it was this Pentax ME Super and SMC Pentax-M 50mm f1.7. Everything seemed to be working and the price was absurdly low.

A Quirky Guy With a Camera has a good review (ME Superb! The Pentax ME Super) of it so I’ll try not to duplicate and focus more on my own impressions.

I liked this camera a lot. It’s small, light and consequently easy to carry around. It offers my preferred aperture priority exposure. There is also a manual exposure option, but I found the need to use two small buttons on the top plate rather “fiddly” and I didn’t try to use it. The viewfinder is large and bright and the combination of micoprism and split image rangefinder in the center made it very easy to focus. A series of shutter speeds appears along the left side of the viewfinder along with a green LED indicating which one has been selected. When the chosen shutter speed is too low the LED turns yellow.

I couple of things I didn’t like: 1) No depth of field preview; 2) I found it difficult to move the control dial from ‘auto’ to ‘lock’. You have to press a small white button and then turn a dial and somehow I struggled to get it to move.

I don’t have much to say about the lens at this point. I’ve finished a roll and sent it off for processing. I’ll have more to say when I get back the results. I’ll also know better whether the camera is functioning as well as it seems to.

Taken with a Sony A77 II and Tamron A18 AF-18-250mm f3.5-6.3.