Film Camera 2019/5 – Olympus IS-3 – Results

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Boat passing under the Broadway Bridge over the Harlem River, New York City.

You can find this camera for a very low price. I can understand why. It’s quite large, quite heavy and it’s impossible to put it in a pocket. It has a fixed lens, so no opportunity to changes lenses if you need to. The power zoom might be off-putting to some. The lens (f4.5 to f5.6) could be a little faster, but I don’t do much low light photography so I didn’t have a problem. All in all it’s a rather odd camera, the precursor to later generations of bridge cameras.

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Iris in Law Park, Briarcliff Manor

However, I found that I rather enjoyed using it. Yes, it’s large but I found the ‘heft’ to be reassuring. I feels like it’s well built and I found it comfortable to hold. I did find the power zoom switch to be uncomfortable at first, but it didn’t take me long to get used to it. Yes, you’re limited to a fixed lens but I found the 35-180mm focal length to be useful and at least I didn’t have to cart around additional lenses. As my eyes worsen with age I found the autofocus to be helpful, as is the use of easy to find AA batteries. The lens is excellent. Any problems with sharpness in the pictures are probably because of me rather than the lens. I tended to forget that at its long end this is a 180 mm lens, and that consequently I should make sure that my shutter speed is at least 1/250 of a second. I suspect that this caused some lens shake problems, but surprisingly not too bad.

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Bull statue outside a Ben and Jack’s Steakhouse in New York City.

I had one problem that was specific to my particular camera. There’s some kind of LCD bleed in the viewfinder that makes it hard (at times impossible) to see the aperture and shutter speed settings. I can always look at the rear panel for this information so it’s not much of a problem.

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Two mallards in Downing Park, Newburgh.

So I’m happy to have this camera and I’m quite impressed with the results delivered. Since the one I have is “cosmetically challenged” and has the LCD bleed problem I’m considering getting another one – in better condition.

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Fountain in Law Park, Briarcliff Manor.

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Statue in our garden.

For more pictures taken with this camera see:

A Woodland Path
The Chrysler Building
Another view of the Polly Pond
Ducks and Ducklings again
The train now arriving…
Lifeguard on duty

Pictures taken with Fujicolor Superia X-TRA400

Bee on a flower

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I waited patiently for a long time hoping that an insect would appear. How I wish that was true, but unfortunately I fear that I lack that kind of patience. What actually happened was that I was trying to take a picture of this Coreopsis when all of a sudden, right before my very eyes, this bee decided to alight on the very flower I was taking a picture of. Talk about lucky…

Taken with a Sony Alpha 77II and Minolta AF 50mm Macro f2.8.

Flowers in our garden – Rhododendron

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We have a huge rhododendron on the side of our driveway. The picture (above) doesn’t do justice to it. We can only reach the lower branches to prune it. Another strange thing about it is that, at a quick glance, it looks as though three different colored blossoms are growing on the same tree. This isn’t actually the case. If you look carefully there are three distinct trunks, the branches of which have all grown together. Below the red blossoms, and the purple blossoms. I don’t seem to have taken a picture of the third.

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Taken with a Sony A77II and Minolta 50mm f2.8 Macro.

Flowers in our garden – Kalmia latifolia

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Otherwise known as mountain laurel. It’s quite beautiful, but apparently highly toxic. Since we found out we’ve tried to keep our dog away from it – just in case.

According to Wikipedia:

Mountain laurel is poisonous to several different animals, including horses, goats, cattle, deer, monkeys, and humans, due to grayanotoxin and arbutin. The green parts of the plant, flowers, twigs, and pollen are all toxic, including food products made from them, such as toxic honey that may produce neurotoxic and gastrointestinal symptoms in humans eating more than a modest amount. Symptoms of toxicity begin to appear about 6 hours following ingestion. Symptoms include irregular or difficulty breathing, anorexia, repeated swallowing, profuse salivation, watering of the eyes and nose, cardiac distress, incoordination, depression, vomiting, frequent defecation, weakness, convulsions, paralysis, coma, and eventually death. Necropsy of animals who have died from spoonwood (Note: an alternative name) poisoning show gastrointestinal hemorrhage.

Taken with a Sony RX-100 M3.