A Vintage 350mm Lens on a Small Digital Camera

A few months back, Mike delivered a carload of vintage camera stuff here.
After cleaning a bunch of it, charging batteries, some mild testing, I wrapped and boxed it all and it's been dormant in the basement.

Today I got the bug again and peeked in one of the boxes and pulled out an Soligor 350mm/f5.6 that was kind of a dirty mess. Cleaned the shell with rubbing alcohol and the glass with photo glass cleaner. And.... miracles do happen, it has a vintage Pentax 42mm mount on the camera end, and I have an M42-to-Fuji adapter, and Yikes..... it fits on my cameras.

I mounted the setup on my tripod, but sadly it weighs too much and was kind of wobbly, so I put a 2 second delay after the shutter click to help. Also had to shoot through the dirty porch window screen, but ..... ! TaDa !!!

I am happy, though no doubt will sell the lens, as 350mm is way beyond my comfortable handling range. Though I will play with it for a long while first.

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Just found a Vivitar 200mm lens in that box. The glass retaining rings are damaged and the glass falls out so ... the blue tape. Looks like someone in the past tried to take it apart and didn't know what he was doing. Will study it some more. Haven't looked at what camera mount, but I suspect same as the 350mm above.

Back in the Ebay Game

As noted recently, I am once again motivated to review and sell off camera gear. And happily, keeping with this feeling, Angela took away Gabe's gear that I had to evaluate, so that's out of my mind and off my to-do list.

So ... what's next to sell off? I've decided on the Graflex StereoGraphic and the ZeroImage pinhole cameras. These have been in my cabinet for, I'd guess, 15 - 20 years, totally unused by me. Time to sell and feed my Paypal account.

The next dilemma ..... current market values .... must check Ebay for that.

Woke up this morning with a song in my head. Haven't heard this in many many years, have no idea why it came back to me. Anyway .... file this under "They just don't sing 'em like this any more" ....

They are The Four Preps and this is 1958 - The Giselle McKensie TV Show.

(Video clip shamelessly stolen off Youtube, edited in Handbrake).

One of my favorite Youtube channels these days is Eli from Russia. She has travelled around the world and made some very entertaining videos. Charming personality; I think that she looks Scottish more than Russian, but yeh so?. Love her accent.

Dave's Journal

I started this website (www.davesjournal.net) in July 2007, and the files on the server are many. Very many. I believe 6310 picture files - just image jpg files alone.
And the front index page has gotten too clunky (the one that is up there today is the new lean and mean front page).
So, I am pulling a lot of "vintage" monthly pages off the server, and some of the other front page stuff that is not within the monthly pages. Only pages from last last 3 years will show up here. I haven't yet actually deleted those files on the server, but the day is coming soon.

Going to Print and Hang This One

(That is Deb sitting under the tree.)

(I hope this works ....)

Well, it works on some browsers and some OS's. (Color fades in and out slowly.)
It is not a GIF or a video .... it's a *.webP file which has layers like a GIF but is better image quality and *much* less file space. Not a big deal, but nice to learn something new.

The posiiblity now is making small animations (using layers) that don't take GIF-size storage.

Roll Call

Loretta is busy today with craftwork (stuffed animals going to the market) and the eggmakers (Isabel, Rosemarie and Agnes ).

Mike reports that Saoirse is pretty as ever.
Here she seems to be quoting that famous line from Titanic ....
"Draw me like one of your French girls."

Catherine, however, is down with ??? maybe COVID ??? maybe the flu ? Getting better but not out of it yet.
(Reminds me to check where I am with booster shots ... I lost track.)

Breakfast at the Dream Diner .... nice place, we need to go there more than we do.

While I'm taking that picture, the waitress comes out and yells at me "Are you going to make us famous?" ... Well, kiddo I will do my best.

It's 1940 and you need a closing scene ....

Don Ameche putting on an Argentine accent (!!) didn't work, and Betty Grable dancing like Carmen Miranda didn't work either. But this movie is so fanciful, I love it. Wonderful escapist flick.

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Don Ameche was born as Dominic Felix Amici on May 31, 1908, in Kenosha, Wisconsin. His father, Felice Amici, was a bartender from Montemonaco, Ascoli Piceno, Marche, Italy. His mother, Barbara Etta Hertel, was of Scottish, Irish, and German ancestry.

Elizabeth Ruth Grable (December 18, 1916 - July 2, 1973) was an American actress, pin-up girl, dancer, model and singer.

Her 42 films during the 1930s and 1940s grossed more than $100 million, and for 10 consecutive years (1942-1951) she placed among the Quigley Poll's top 10 box office stars (a feat only matched by Doris Day, Julia Roberts and Barbra Streisand, although all were surpassed by Mary Pickford, with 13 years). The U.S. Treasury Department listed her as the highest-salaried American woman in 1946 and 1947, and she earned more than $3 million during her career.

Yesterday - Party for Deb's HS Classmates

Boat ride around Webster Lake (very nice), then dinner at local restaurant (very noisy).

The New Botanic Gardens, Maine, COVID

Well .... Deb was up to York, ME for 3 days (left yesterday) and I went to the totally renovated botanic gardens. They did a fabulous job - some pics below!

After about 8 hours, Deb got sick, turns out it is COVID ("I don't need no stinkin' booster shot") and she drove home this morning in the rain. She's coughing something awful. Anyway, she's upstairs and the doctor hopefully comes through with some meds.

I always look for this lady at the botanic garden.
Yesterday they had her in a corner of an empty room with concrete walls.

August.31.2023

Weather was exceptionally nice today. Maybe the best one day in 2 years.

Deb's fighting COVID and doing okay. I am on the porch reading stuff and watching Youtubes. So . . . . here is the porch right now .....

I guess that's it for August 2023 :)