The Canon F1 is a flagship camera released in 1971 and in production until 1981. Built of brass and glass, it’s a tank! Fully mechanical (no battery required), it’s built to endure 100,000 shutter cycles, temperatures ranging from -22F to 140F, and 90% humidity. The camera below is nearly 50 years old and is fully operational. They don’t make them like this anymore.
Canon F2
Newport State Park is a 2,373-acre Wisconsin state park at the tip of Door Peninsula near Ellison Bay, Wisconsin. Protecting 11 miles of shoreline on Lake Michigan, Newport is Wisconsin’s only wilderness-designated state park. A great place to hike and explore.
Fishing Tug C. W. Bohman basking in the morning light at Waters End, Door County, Wisconsin 1998.
Built at Algoma, Wis. in 1980 by Charles and Mike Bohman, and operated from that port. An all-steel 42 ft. fish tug equipped with a Murphy diesel. The boat was later sold to Mike LeClair, Jacksonport, Wis. Confiscated by the state of Michigan, in an illegal fishing matter, the boat was then sold back to another owner in Wisconsin.
I love TMAX 400 (TMY) B&W film for general shooting; it’s a great film. Lately, I’ve been dialing in my TMY development process using developer HC-110 , which provides fine grain, high acutance and excellent tonal contrast control. Also, HC-110 comes in a liquid concentrate that is easy to work with and has an unbelievably long shelf life; it’s very economical to use. I mix Dilution-B (1:31) directly from the syrupy concentrate, and use it one-shot. I typically like to process at 68°F; however in late August my cold tap water is almost exactly 72°F which I use and adjust my processing time accordingly. With this developer, I shoot TMAX 400 at an exposure index of 200, which gives me great shadow detail and negatives that print and scan well.
Density Plot (click for detail)
A sample photo scanned from the test roll:
Popokikeiki (a.k.a. flame-head) shot on TMAX 400 (EI 200) developed with HC-110-B @ 72F for 5.5 minutes (Nikon F100, Nikkor 50mm 1.8D)
When I was a kid growing up in a small Wisconsin town, I remember riding my bicycle over to the local department store. At the end of the isle near the toy department there was a circular rack of pocket-sized books published by “Golden Press”, typically edited or written by Dr. Herbert Zim; the Golden [science/nature] Guides . I loved these books; they were well written by experts in there field and covered a wide array of nature and science subject matter; they really fed my young curiosity at the time. When I could afford it, I would buy one of special interest to me, titles like: Photography, Color and Light, Rocks and Minerals, Oceanography, etc. I still have them in my library today.
As an adult, what is interesting about these books is the book design aspect. Each book is a highly readable package with simple straight-forward colorful illustrations, well laid out pages, good typography, organized into nourishing bites of information. The body copy typeface is Futura, which is a geometric sans-serif designed by Paul Renner and released in 1927 in Germany. Some may argue the Futura may not be the best choice for book body copy, but for this application it seems perfect. These books are pocket size, set at a relatively small point. Futura is clean and elegant and has an appearance of efficiency and forwardness.
It consists of simple geometric forms: near-perfect circles, triangles and squares. It is based on strokes of near-even weight, which are low in contrast. The lowercase has tall ascenders, which rise above the cap line, and uses nearly-circular, single-storey forms for the “a” and “g”, the former previously more common in handwriting than in printed text.
“Futura is one of the most rhythmical sanserifs ever made. Its proportions are graceful and humane-close to those of Centaur in the vertical dimension. This helps to make it suitable for setting extended text.”
— Robert Bringhurst
Futura goes to the moon:
May this year give you the opportunity to follow your dreams, love like there is no tomorrow and smile unconditionally.
Happy New Year!
One cool cat.
Studying a Gold Finch
Happy Birthday!
On the bench is a 1945 Midland Radio Model M6B chassis; electronically restored and ready for RF alignment.
© 2024 Richard Feich
