Long time no see... again...
It's so easy for life to overtake all one's plans for play. I'd forgotten brownie to blad!
The Brownie 2C is still here sitting unused on a shelf, but it has been reunited with its lens at last so there's hope for it yet.... but not right now. After all those unfulfilled good intentions trotted out in my last entry I'm going to wind things back a little before moving forward.
My first 'proper' SLR was a Zenit EM, bought as a teenager in 1980 with some Christmas and birthday money I'd saved. I still have it! But the wonderful Pentax ME Super that I graduated to a year on got lost later that decade during a grape picking (drinking) holiday in France. Last week, I saw one in a shop window, complete with a very sad looking gadget bag, lens, flash and case, all for £20. Brownie to blad popped into my head... all except the last post about the 2C of course... and so I bought it there and then, sure in my mind that there must be something in the 'kitty' to cover the twenty pounds and give the project a bit of a reboot.... again!
Ignoring the detour to the 2C for now, I'm going to get back on track to the blad with this Pentax. What of the kitty? The Kiron cleared about thirty-five pounds and there was eighteen there already, so there's £33 and this ME Super to move off with.
So it's resurrection time for this blog. Do people still 'blog'?
Into the bin went the gadget bag and the ever ready case, which were rotten, followed by the flash which was broken and wouldn't hold a charge. That left the camera itself and what turns out to be a rather nice zoom lens. More of that in a moment.
The camera is in very good shape. I've cleaned it up, renewed the light seals and added a battery so it's ready for its first film. In fact it's in fantastic condition for a 35 year old camera and took me right back to 1982 as I turned it over in my hands. I must have paid the best part of £150 then... It was a toss up between this and an OM10, which was the dilemma of many at the time as they were the top selling cameras of their day. It was those little buttons to change the shutter speed that clinched it for me and it was a good choice, one that am going to enjoy revisiting over the next few days.
The lens is a little newer than the camera, but only by a year, It's one of the first group of SMC A lenses that were produced to accompany the release of a new 'Auto' enabled camera in 1983; the 'Super A'. This SMC A 35-105mm f3.5 has picked up a cult label... the 'stack of primes'. There's something to put to the test! The lens is also in remarkably good nick so I'm expecting good things.
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