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My first 35mm camera.

Like I said in my first blog.  I had never handled a 35mm SLR before I got my 201.  Even at sixteen I had learned that jumping into something you know nothing about usually results in failure. I most definitely didn't want to break my new camera so I read the instruction book.  Nervously I removed the PX 13 battery from it's package.  Being very careful to handle it with my handkerchief, as the book said that oil from your skin could cause the battery to not work. (Today I just open the package and put them in with naked fingers, no handkerchief insight.)  Attaching the lens.  Carefully I removed the rear lens cap from the 50mm and the body cap from the camera.  Making sure I lined up the The red dots, one on the lens and one just below and between the "n" and "o" on the name plate on the prism, and rotated clockwise. You can't take any pictures without film (at least back then you couldn't).  So I carefully loaded the film.  Making sure it advanced.  Back in that day film speed was known as ASA or DIN.  ASA stood for American Standards Association while DIN stood for Deutsches Institut fur Normung.  Today we know film speed by ISO, International Organization for Standardization.  I had no idea what film to use but the local newspaper editor told dad to get me some Kodak 400 speed film.  Film loaded, battery in, (without being touched by human fingers) and lens attached.  But how do I know what speed to use and what f stop.  By the way what's and f stop. Back to the book. The f stop I found out was the opening of the aperture of the lens, like the iris of our eyes.  A lower f number and the more light was let in,  larger less light is let in.  Then it talked about depth of field.  Take a picture of a picket fence with a high f number more of the pickets will be in focus, lower number less will be.  Today photographers will go to great lengths to achieve bokeh in pictures.  I don't understand what the big deal is.  If you want one subject in focus and the rest blurred you increase your shutter speed and lower your f number.  Of course you have to do this in "M" or manual which many of today's photographers have no idea how to use.  To obtain the correct exposure on the 201 you looked into the view finder and moved the shutter speed or the aperture until the needle with the circle at the end was over the straight needle.  Very simple metering but it always worked and I still think it was one of the best meters I have ever used. The 201 had two micro prism focus rings in the middle of the viewfinder.  When it was in focus they looked smooth, out of focus and they were rough.  Not the best focusing system but I soon got used too it. Actually I got quite fast focusing the lens.  Which if you remember I never take too long to shoot a picture.  Later in high school I shoot basketball games for a local paper, with sports if you take your time you won't get the shot.  
Ready to shoot some pictures.  My first one was of my sister-in-law who had stopped by the house. From then on I've been shooting anything and everything. Looks like I've used all the exposures on this roll.  I'll load another roll and get back to you later.  

Let's Give This a Try

I’ve never written a blog before.  I’ve read blogs and follow some.  But this is a first for me.

I’m a 54 year old guy that always loved photography but didn’t choose it as a profession because of one adjective, “starving”.  I didn’t want to be a starving photographer and also at that time I didn’t want to leave the small Southern Illinois community where I had grown up.  So my life took a different path, while photography was just a serious hobby for me.  Now due to my age I and some other issues I’ve started pushing the career I should of chosen many years ago.

I started taking pictures at a very young age with a Kodak 126 Instamatic a very cheap Kodak 126.  I suppose my parents got me this camera because I was always wanting to use theirs.  My father had two cameras.  A Argus C3 which he shoot slide film in and a Rolleiflex twin lens that he brought back from Germany after the war.  My mom had a Kodak 126 Instamatic but it had a motor winder that advanced the film.  I have no idea how much her camera costs but she didn’t like a young kid handling it.  After all I might drop it and break it.  And so I started shooting pictures.  To the amazement of my mother I never took long to take a picture and I would get the shot. I still don’t take long and I get impatient with photographers that do.  Push the button, take the damn picture and move on!!  My next camera was a Kodak Instamatic 110.  I wanted a camera that I could slip in a pocket and wouldn’t be a burden to carry around. (My wife would like it if I still only used that camera today, especially when we travel and I load four bags and cases in the car.)  Taking pictures on school trips made me popular with everybody, and for a kid that wasn’t popular that was important to me.  Everyone wanted me to take their picture and then see the pictures when I got them back.  Fame. As a side note it was a camera that got me a date with my first girlfriend but that’s another story for another time.  A few months before I turned sixteen my family went to the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis. I noticed all these people taking pictures of the flowers with their 35mm cameras.  What they were doing looked neat and interesting.  A Pontiac Trans Am or any car for that matter was out  so I decided I wanted a camera for my sixteenth birthday.  I didn’t know anything about 35mm cameras and I didn’t have anyone to ask, so I started doing some research.  Now remember this was a long time before the internet and I lived in a rural community so I had limited resources.  National Geographic a few other magazines and Bennett Brother’s Blue Book catalog from Chicago. National Geographic was a major source of research for many young men before the internet.  I think I read every ad about cameras in all the magazines and about every camera the Blue Book had listed.  Most of it was greek to me.  Nikons were the choice of professionals but I knew my dad wouldn’t go for spending that much money for a camera so I settled on a Minolta SRT 201.  Which was in the middle between a SRT 200 and a 202.  Now which lens?  The standard lens in the day was a 50mm and since I didn’t know that much about f stops I choose the f1.7 rather than the more expensive f1.4.  When my birthday came I had no choice than to read the book.  After all I had never even handled a 35mm SLR let alone load film or set the exposure.  Reading that book taught me things about photography that I still use today.  (I’ll discuss a Minolta SRT 201 and bokeh later.)  The first picture I took with my new camera?  My sister-in-law standing beside her car.  That’s all the shoots on this roll.  I’ll load a new roll and get back to you later.