• Industar-69 28mm f/2.8

    Since getting an A7, I’ve been on a vintage lens buying spree. I’m planning to spend an extended period of time with each of them in order know how each handles and draws, so you’ll see a series of posts (in time) with my thoughts on each of them.

    The Industar-69 was produced for the Soviet Chaika half-frame (18x24mm) camera, which from 1965 to 1974 sold over 2 million copies. This explains the vignetting seen when mounted on the full-frame A7. It’s not very sharp at all, but its drawing makes its black and white results exceedingly endearing. Its size is a huge plus point as well, behooving it for a full day out on the streets.

    The lens had to be modified slightly though; its flange distance is slightly off of the M39 mount, so I couldn’t achieve infinity focus right out of the box. The poor quality control of the Industar-69 worked in my favour - after disassembling the focus ring, I discovered that the focusing helicoid still had a few threads left, so I simply tightened it slightly.

    These are some pictures I took on a day out. Post-processing done entirely in Lightroom (black and white conversion and some mild curves adjustment).

    This post is a work in progress.

  • Switzerland - Day 2

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    Day 2’s cover photo, a sweeping landscape of the city of Lucerne, was taken from my hotel room, the morning after our first night in Switzerland.

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    Vantage point: an attached balcony covered in freshly fallen snow.

    It’s an 8-image panorama taken with my 35mm Zeiss. I must impress on you just how sharp this lens is. These two images are cropped at 100% magnification from the cover above. Note how finely resolved the tree branches are. Beautiful.

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    The rest of the day is spent exploring the city of Lucerne itself. The first notable place I visit is the Löwendenkmal, or Lion of Lucerne. A sculpture of a mortally wounded lion carved onto a cliff face, it commemorates the 760 Swiss Guards who died in 1792 during the French Revolution protecting the Tuileries Palace from the revolutionaries.

    Of the Lion of Lucerne, Mark Twain writes, in A Tramp Abroad:

    Around about are green trees and grass. The place is a sheltered, reposeful woodland nook, remote from noise and stir and confusion — and all this is fitting, for lions do die in such places, and not on granite pedestals in public squares fenced with fancy iron railings. The Lion of Lucerne would be impressive anywhere, but nowhere so impressive as where he is.

    Festivities are in full swing and the entire city is decked out in decorations. I take the chance to explore a portion of the old city walls, and come across some kids playing at a playground. I wave hello to them and make my way back into the hubbub, joining a crowd at an open-air market that has been set up in a town square. The warm aroma of coffee, the ringing of bells, the hollering of hawkers, the occasional passerby bursting in song; they all make the winter a little warmer and a little more bearable. Children who have no business being at a market are relegated to a miniature merry-go-round.

    Night falls, and the crowd thins, making their way home for dinner. I, too, have my dinner - a large bradwurst sausage with some sort of relish - before heading back just in time to catch the bus back up to the hotel.

  • Switzerland - Day 1

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    The start of a long overdue photo series on my trip to Switzerland and Italy in 2010. It was to be the last family trip overseas in some time, and I still treasure these moments.

    The above spread was taken at the Rhine Falls, near the town of SchaffHausen in northern Switzerland and the largest waterfall in Europe.

    After the Rhine Falls, we make our way to Titisee, which lies in the southern Black Forest of Germany. We reach the border customs, and the benefits of Schengen Area makes itself apparent. We make it through without a hitch and reach Titisee without much fanfare. By now it is dusk, and we wander around for a while, visiting the famous cuckoo clock shop.

    We retire for the night at a hotel up a small mountain overlooking the city of Lucerne, but not before the bus is retrofitted with snow chains, in the middle of the dark, while we are making our way up.