My sons' drawings of my father's Nikon F with 43-86mm Nikkor zoom

By the way, if you don't know, I like Nikon L35AFs

Um, awesome, the Vancouver Camera Show is next weekend

"VANCOUVER CAMERA SHOW The next WCPHA sponsored swap meet will be at the Cameron Recreation Centre, Burnaby, BC, on Sunday April 29th, 2012 Book your table ($50) —604 941-0300 Admission $5 10am – 4pm, Earlybird $15 at 9am."

My Grandfather's Farm

He's not well so my entire family, siblings, their spouses and their children converged on the family homestead so we could be together.

While there I was desperate to photodocument a man and a place that I love dearly. It was a grey day but nevertheless it was a beautiful sight to see my twin boys rolling in the flattened, gold grass on the fallow fields.

They visited the pond as I once did as a boy and pondered where the river would take them if they strung a raft together and packed a lunch.

The images are roughly scanned and crudely edited but I think they are good irregardless. Taken on a Konica Autoreflext T4 with a 40mm f1.8 Hexanon. The film was Ilford XP2 400 ASA shot as 160 ASA, as is my habit.

The bottom image is of my mother.

Tessar lenses and their clones like the Industar 50-2

I'm going to hazard a guess that I am not alone among collectors to have become fascinated, at some point, with Tessar formula lenses and its reputation for sharpness.

The interest in the lens goes beyond obtaining a piece of equipment with a high level of technical performance.

Indeed, if you are like me, you may have wanted to try real Tessars - that is, a lens made by Carl Zeiss in Germany as opposed to licensed versions made in Japan - not because it is sharp but because it is authentic.

One of the great attractions of camera collecting and photography is the constant search for authenticity - regardless of whether it is an uncropped, full-framed masterpiece of street shooting or gear that has the seal of approval/use of a well-admired photographer. I am certain I will never be able to find for an affordable price a Konica Omega 6x9 because it was featured in a documentary film about William Eggleston by Gus Van Zant.

Similarly, it's hard to find cheap Tessars. Instead, as a bottom-feeder collector who gathers the underappreciated or insanely obscure, I have kept my eyes out of Soviet copies of the Tessar design. And I found one, the Industar 50-2 50mm f3.5 (above) threaded to be used on Pentax M42 or Praktica mount SLR bodies. It should not be confused with the Industar 22-2 50mm f3.5 which is a Leica thread mount lens for Leica rangefinder-styled bodies. That lens has an Elmar formula.

Early this month, I finally had a chance to use the lens on a digital body, a Nikon D40, making do with the unorthodox use of a M42-Konica AR adapter (no infinity focus).

Wide open, which is my preferred way to shoot, the Industar showed a lot of glare and chroma. But once I started to stop down to f8, the lens looked great to my non-technical eyes.

At f16 to photograph the Voigtlander Vito B (below), the ersatz-Tessar did very well. The noise can be blamed on the ISO setting of 800.

All of this suggests that the little pancake Industar would be best used in sunny conditions. However, because of coatings, I suspect is is susceptible to flaring.

Note: the top image of the Industar was taken with a Vivitar 50mm 6 element enlarger lens at f2.8.

So you see, the experiments continue.

Roughed up yet wonderous: CZ Jena Biotar 58mm f2

Konica T4 with 50mm f1.4 Super Takumar (I think) with M-42 to K/AR adapter ring

Konica T4 with 40mm f1.8 Hexanon and 400 ASA film

Mamiya M 35mm point and shoot

The manual from Butkus.

The Mamiya M has a shutter speed range of 1/8 to 1/500. And an ASA range of 25 to 800. Apertures go from f2.8 to f16.

I really like the early 1980s cameras like this 1982 Mamiya. They all have threads for filters and manual ISO control. What really make this camera excellent is the pre-focus, much like the Nikon L35AF. I often use force flash in daylight so the Mamiya M is good one to use. With the Nikon L35AF, you have to trick the camera into popping up the flash unit.

Maybe this will be my beach camera for 2012.

I dislike the P&S camera that DOESN'T show what distance it has decided to focus on. The Canon MC unfortunately did just that. Certain cameras, like the Minolta Hi-Matic AF with the manual film advance, only let you know the focusing distance during exposure which is a bit too late in my opinion.

However, manual advance is always nice as it is quiet and allows the user to decide when to advance the frame - always appreciated for the street shooter.

I sold my Mamiya C33 a few years back and have regretted it. This little p&s will be my stand-in until I find a nice Mamiya TLR with a prism finder. One day.

It's been a while... but hey look, a clean Nikon FM and an E Series Lens

I am beginning to see a pattern.

Yesterday, I was short-listed for a Canadian literary award, the Charles Taylor Prize for Non-fiction, for my book, The Measure of a Man, and, indeed, I bought a camera.

As I did the last time for the Governor-General's Literary Awards.

This time I came across this nearly untouched Nikon FM. Why was it so mint?

Very early on in its life, someone stuck the Nikon E Series 50mm lens upside down on the body. Jammed real good.

But how could I resist? The shopkeep at the Sally Ann was patient and kind with me as I go there a lot. He let me spend quite a while trying to ease the tortured lens off the body. After ten minutes of cajoling, the lens released.

Everything, despite the misuse of the camera, was in perfect working order. Probably my best camera find ever. I feel like I already won a prize.

I used to own a Nikon FM2N. Black. But, as I've mentioned before, I traded it for Konica gear. The camera played a prop in one of my favourite photographs of one of my sons. I miss his pudgy little fingers. He's getting lanky now.