rick_janes

A brushfire is advancing in the dry hills behind Cal Poly SLO. My vantage point is right across the street from the house.

Last week I wondered about some loud helicopter overflights of my house, stepping outside the cause was obvious! Canon T90, New FD 100-300 5.6L, Ilford Delta 400

Crisper, with more neutral bokeh. Green hair and dimples is a nice combo!

Leprechaun? I've heard the term "painterly bokeh" before, and in this case it ain't hyperbole!

Nice shots Chuck! I like how the propellers appear naturally, as spinning and not frozen.

That film captures textures so nicely! I'll ask the local camera shop (remember those?) to look into stocking Ferrania. Peggy has lots of film shooting customers!

Jaros, I went Google-searching for images of Canon EF internals and found a few, well hidden amongst countless shots of modern EF gear. Disassembling an EF looks like a most delicate operation with the plethora of age-embrittled flex circuits and soldered wires. And within the metering circuitry is a Toshiba mosfet component which can be destroyed by even minor static electricity discharges. I think the technical term for working on an EF is "WOWZA".

That R 58/1.2 is a rare beast, especially one with a freely moving diaphragm!

The EF has different electronics and a Copal vertical shutter instead of the F-1's horizontal titanium light slicer. Perhaps these cameras share some common parts but they seem like two very distinct designs underneath (almost) matching tuxedos.

Jim, yep! A repurposed "Pocket Rocket"!

Handsome it was, but the EF's original market placement was as a wealthy amateur's camera. It had some great features like the silicon metering system and shutter priority AE, but I think its lack of a motor drive and user-interchangeable focusing screens demonstrate that Canon never intended it as a competitor to the F-1 or other system cameras. Further, I do not believe the EF comes anywhere close to the F-1's professional-quality ruggedness and reliability. Indeed, none of the three used EFs I have owned was ever 100% functional, something of a first for Canon products in my long experience! Even old Canonflexes can arrive ready to play, and that is saying something.

Black RP with black meter and R 100/3.5:

Speaking of Canonflexes here's a Canon R 100/3.5 of the same era. It's tiny- front cap is 40mm! Manual aperture and 10-blade diaphragm. Just gorgeous!

Happiness is a Canonflex, a fresh roll of black & white, and the Sunny 16 Rule!

Tom, if you plan to manually focus an EOS camera then I recommend a body with interchangeable focusing screens. Screens with a manual focusing aid are usually a big help! Here's a list of suitable EOS bodies and focusing screen types. Personally, I like the EOS 1N and 1V bodies for manual focusing within the EOS System. https://www.learn.usa.canon.com/app/pdfs/quickguides/CDLC_FocusingScreens_QuickGuide.pdf

To be sure, I cannot recall anyone here bagging on the Canon EOS film cameras! Nor should they- that's an outstanding system, and I own some of it myself. When I chose to shoot 100% film for the recent Europe trip there were a number of reasons for going with an all-FD kit. First, and this sounds odd, is that the FD cameras and lenses are usually more compact and lighter: compare a New FD 85/1.2 L to the EF equivalent and see for yourself. Second, I truly enjoy real optical viewfinder manual focusing and for that the old lenses just have a more precise and satisfying feel. Third, there is no need to haul battery chargers around...more weight and bulk savings. Fourth, it's less expensive. Fifth, and this is really subjective, is the aesthetics and tactile feedback of FD gear...it still inspires me.

Canon F-1 sitting on a shelf. Deck 3 starboard forward, Queen Mary 2.

Jim, great choice of both model and optic...that FL-Fluorite 500 is a masterpiece of design and construction. Truly, they don't make 'em like they used to! And that is some real smooooooth background blur!

Vacation can be tiring, woof! My T90 takes a nap.

Thorium is a very common terrestrial element in soil and rocks. Its most abundant isotope is Th-232 (comprising 99.98% of all natural thorium) and with a 14 billion year half-life you'd have to be a very patient man to see a given atom of it decay. I think the most exciting gamma in its decay chain to stable lead-208 is a 2.6 MeV gamma sometimes emitted by thallium-208. But in the greater scheme of things...not very scintillating! Some years ago I would undergo periodic whole body counts to determine if I'd ingested any radioactive materials at work, and my trace always showed a very healthy potassium-40 spike! Yep, that's from the daily banana! Tasty, but again not very exciting.

I have a pair of 55 Asphericals: the 55/1.2 AL SSC (a beautiful piece!) and a later 55/1.2 SSC Aspherical. The difference between them is easily seen through a viewfinder: the former's glass has browned substantially, while the latter remains very clear. I have also seen 55/1.2 SSC Asphericals which were almost beer bottle brown...seriously. So whether Canon made a running change in glass formulation or these anomalies are related to slightly different trace elements content (like thorium) I do not know, but to me the second theory seems more likely. It's interesting to read Leica expert Erwin Puts' comparison of the top standard lenses done some years ago. When all was said and done, he called Canon's FD 55/1.2 Aspherical the best of the best!

Hey, those beer logos look reversed! Check that compass!

Thanks, and I apoogize for the low-rez lab scans, Jim!

Here's a good report on the rescue, with photos and video: Queen Mary 2 Rescue at Sea Chuck's question is also answered definitively.

Chuck, I don't know...my guess is he became a special guest of Cunard aboard QM2. Mr. Wheatley came down to the ship's theater a couple days later and gave a real good chat about what happened, along with Captain Wells. A very fit 73 year old ex-Royal Marine with that British knack for understatement and perfect delivery, he said his first indication of trouble was finding himself hurled out of the bunk at 2am. That was because Tamarind was inverted, mast steeply down, seawater coming in through a broken porthole, his socks and food floating everywhere...even at that, he was not ready to declare an emergency and only did so hours later when he realized her steering was damaged beyond repair. Mervyn said he was fortunate that his radio did not go overboard, "...that would have been...(pause)...tiresome". I laughed out loud at his choice of words! He said leaving Tamarind was very painful, even moreso since this was the first time in eight attempts he led the OSTAR race. At this Captain Wells looked over and wisecracked, "But Mervyn, you still ARE leading the race!" Perfect timing, guys! Mervyn talked about the tanker's futile rescue attempts, during which he was informed by the patrol plane that QM2 was en route and would arrive mid-morning. "Well then, sir, if I have any say in the matter..." We all laughed! He continued, "It's not so much about the luxury, but being a passenger ship she has doors down near the waterline where perhaps I could enter...but since that time the Captain has disabused me of the idea that he would open those doors while out at sea!" Another priceless moment came during our Q&A period...when asked what was in the big bag he tossed aboard the rescue boat (and nearly lost over the side!) he said the rescue beacon (with its hefty deposit), passport, wallet, some clothing. Again, Captain Wells looks over: "And hopefully your credit card!" Absolutely hilarious! A really nice touch was Captain Wells bringing the rescue boat's three man crew on stage and introducing them. Bravo, guys, bravo! What a brilliant operation they have. Disembarking at Brooklyn I saw huge arcs of scratched paint almost down to bare metal on QM2's hull, from Tamarind's wildly swinging mast. That was a pretty intense rescue mission!