Adventures with the Rollei

My good friend Kevin recently traded me his old Rolleiflex for one of my old Leicas. He came over this past week and we ranged the land (donating a goodly share of blood to the mosquitoes and acting as public transport for far too many ticks) in search for interesting subjects to photograph. He with his new 1949 Leica IIIc and I with my new 1954 Rolleiflex MX-EVS. (I had 100G Kodak Chrome film in my rig...Kevin was shooting Tri-X, I believe.)


A soft old stump down on the back acreage.


The remainder of this last winter's wood stacked up near our carriage shed (center) and the garage (left). We plan to re-roof, re-sheath and rebuild this 220 or so year old timber-framed garage into my new office someday in the next year or three.


Kevin photographing an abandoned egg we found on an old logging road in the woods.

Homeschool Fieldtrip - Land End

Took the family for a sunset drive up the coast to Lands End on Bailey island. It is a most beautiful drive, especially at the golden hours surrounding dawn or sunset.

My baby sister has new baby!

Wyatt Fairfield Bérubé Gray (with his mom Angela, his dad Craig and his big sister Charlotte.)
Born: 23MAY07

First IIIf shots

A photo of the PWCA with my new (55 year old) Leica IIIf and a similar era Summarit 50/1.5. This was shot wide open (1.5) on 160 ISO Fuji NPS handheld, available darkness at about 1/50 second. NPS is a very soft portrait colour film anyhow and the Summarit is a characteristically very low contrast lens also so I quad-toned the image and added just a little snap in Photoshop.

New Editions

I have recently added a 1952 Leica IIIf Red Dial to my 'just for fun' cameras as well as trading my venerable old IIIc to my dear friend Kevin for his rarely used 1954 Rolleiflex MV-EVS with the Schneider-Kreuznach Xenar 75/3.5 lens!



I hope to mostly use these for my BLOG photos in the near future. The point and shoot Canon is nice because it is so small, but there is a definite glee in using film for fun in cameras that are over half a century old and made so well.

Homeschool Field Trip - Boston

We hadn't been anywhere for educational purposes recently, so we took some of my last 'free time' left before the wedding season hits and went to Boston on the DownEaster train.

This is a great way to travel if you live in southern Maine, want to go to Boston for the day and don't want the hassle of driving to Boston, navigating the streets, dealing with traffic and trying find a parking $pot.

There is an on-board cafe and a nice dining car where the kids can snack or draw to bide the ride...




Once in Boston, we went to that birthplace of Revolutionary unrest: Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market...



We ate lunch at the Green Dragon Tavern (the 'Headquarters of the American Revolution"...and just coincidentally the upstairs was my brother Freemasons met at lodge in the Revolutionary period!)

We shopped some more at the Prudential Center Mall and went to the Aquarium. The Aquarium was the biggest hit with the kids of course.



My two favourite photos from the day: