adetorrent; photography, lifestyle.

I'm sure I'm not the only one that loves taking photos of coffee cups, preferably with coffee in them. I don't know why this is. Something about coffee just wants to be photographed. Is it because a lot of photography lovers (creatives generally) spend a lot of time in cafes?  No idea. For me, it's one of the subjects for testing out a new lens, or a new camera. Here is the one I took with the Spotmatic and Super-Takmar f1.4 lens.

Can you believe it's almost mid August?  Before you know it, Autumn will be upon us. Like many people in the northern hemisphere, I've been doing some travelling, and taking lots of photos. Consequently I've got a bit of a backlog of rolls to develop.  I do also have many photos developed but yet to be sorted out. Many of them are from the plastic film point and shoot cameras I've been playing with all summer. Some have been total disasters, but some have really surprised me. The Olympus cameras are really kicking butt with their Zuiko lenses. Meanwhile here are some photos from the Asahi Pentax Spotmatic with the legendary Takumar f1.4 lens taken while casually walking from Holborn to St. Paul's Cathedral in London.  I really love the handling of this camera now.  I'm usually a rangefinder style guy, but the Spotmatic, and the Zenit-E before it, have really kept me loving SLRs too. Thanks for reading.  Please help support my hobby by click...

After throwing my toys out of the pram a couple of weeks ago about the Asahi Pentax Spotmatic + Super-Takumar 50mm f/1.4 setup + Expired Kodak Gold 200 setup, it's clear now that the fault was all mine.  I did not have a full grasp of the properties of expired film.  Sure, the behaviour of expired film is capricious, but apparently there are some rules of thumb I could have employed. In my second attempt, I used a fresh Agfa Vista 200 instead.  Apart from a little loss in contrast because of the almost head-on light source it was all good. I did get some looks from the restaurant staff, and a smile from a certain older gentleman across the room as I composed the photos.  A 35mm lens would have been more fit for purpose, but where can I get a 35mm f/1.4 lens without having to swap a kidney for it?

I had been cured of GAS, briefly. I came across this beauty for a very affordable price and I had to have it.  The Asahi Pentax Spotmatic itself wasn't what caught my attention at first, but rather the lens mounted on it - the Super-Takumar 50mm f/1.4! I couldn't believe my eyes. I assumed something must have been seriously wrong with the camera. I picked it up for a quick inspection; looked through the viewfinder expecting to see a giant fungus obstructing my view, but no, my view was crystal clear.  I then went ahead to play with different shutter/aperture combinations and sure enough, absolutely smooth on every setting. I grabbed it, parted with very little money, and jumped on my imaginary getaway horse and rode hurriedly into the sunset. After both my Prakticas broke  and the Helios lens on my Zenit-E got slightly damaged, I'd been looking for another reliable SLR.  I couldn't wait to take the Spotmatic out for a spin, so I loaded a Kodak Gold 200 film w...