Kennebunk, Maine

Just returned from a week long trip to Kennebunk, Maine to visit family. This was my second trip in as many years and it was another wonderful visit. My sister-in-law comes from a large Italian-American family and many members live in Kennebunk or surrounding towns. The area is beautiful in summer and a beehive of tourist activity. Pretty little towns with interesting local sights, shops, restaurants and pubs. And being July, all were decked out with American flags and bunting. Love a town which displays bunting! 

In addition to exploring Kennebunk and Kennebunkport, we made a day trip north to Boothbay Harbor. Another pretty little town full of tourists and bunting. Boothbay Harbor boasts the longest footbridge in the country. It connects one side of the harbor to the other. We visited on a beautiful day with blue skies and white puffy clouds. Many lovely old homes and shops lining both sides of the roadways and harbor. To be sure there are a lot of shops selling touristy Maine stuff but there are also a few working shops selling to the fishermen / lobstermen fleets in the area. There is also a thriving marine boating scene with dock moorings as well as anchorages and the many types of businesses to support that specialized population. 

We enjoyed lunch at a waterside pub overlooking the harbor. Interestingly, the service staff were all from Eastern Europe. Most were working for a company which supplies a steady stream of students who are out for the summer. A few had ended up staying in the U.S. and were splitting their time in the restaurant business between Florida and Maine. Wonderful, engaging young people who were happy to speak about their home countries. I'm presuming local employers are finding problems hiring locals to work and that is the reason for "outsourcing" to foreign nationals. Several years ago on a visit to West Yellowstone, Montana, I had a discussion with a shop owner who had issues finding good, local workers and who had engaged with a similar company to bring in Eastern European students to work the shops. While I haven't done a study of this issue, I suspect a reason may be that young locals are leaving these small towns for better opportunities elsewhere. These foreign national students fill the void.

For this trip I brought two cameras, one digital and one film. For the digital I brought three lenses, 25mm f/2.8 (Zeiss), 50mm f/1.5 (Voigtlander) and 90mm f/2.8 (Leica). Of those, the 25mm was most used followed by the 90mm. I'm finding that while walking in town, 25mm provides the wider angle context I desire in my images. Perhaps a bit too wide for landscapes and for those I tend to use the 50mm or the 90mm to shoot a series of three or four images then stitch them into a pano in Capture One. In Maine the 90mm was used for detail images and for a few landscape shots where I wanted to capture only a portion of the scene. As always I shot way more than necessary. The good news is that I am learning to cull quickly through images during the upload process. Anything remotely off about the image and I delete it. For the seven day visit I'll probably keep only 40-50 images, that's about 6-7 keepers per day of shooting. Perhaps still too many but I'm moving in the right direction.

The other camera was my 1983 Olympus XA-2. This camera figured in a recent post about a trip to London. In Maine it again performed very well and although this was mostly about digital I did manage to shoot one roll of Ilford HP5+ that was developed and scanned at home upon return. I am pleased that the old workhorse XA2 "point and shoot" continues to capture great images 40 years after I bought it. Well done Olympus!    

This trip helped focus my thoughts regrading the two remaining big trips for this year - six days in Olympic National Park and seven days in Munich and Vienna. The Leica M10R with 25mm and 90mm seems to be a perfect setup for my style of photography. Wide angle best suites my sensibilities as it captures a large dose of context in each image. And, it gives me a lot of real estate for post processing. I find that most of my images are not level and the leveling process crops into the images. Additionally, I tend to crop in anyway to clean up framing. As 25mm is well outside the M10R viewfinder I'm not always sure, as I fire the shutter, what lurks at the edges of the frame. This was the same issue I had with 28mm as well. As a glasses wearer I couldn't see Leica's well lit 28mm frame lines. In fact, I could only just barely see the 35mm lines. As a result, cropping is a standard part of my workflow. Fortunately, the M10R's 40mp sensor allows a generous amount of cropping in and that is very helpful. All this to affirm my belief that 25mm will be a key go-to lens going forward.

In addition to the M10R, I plan to bring along the Leica M3 and a handful of Ilford HP5+. On that camera will live a 50mm f/1.5. While I don't use that focal length nearly as much, it is an incredibly sharp lens and the viewfinder of the M3 was designed with 50mm in mind. It is much easier for me to capture critical focus on the M3 given the 0.91x viewfinder versus the 0.72x on the M10R. Super convenient that the three lenses I'll have with me are interchangeable on the two camera bodies I'll bring.

A few of the images from Maine are below. It was a wonderful trip and I am looking forward to another visit next year.

The Colony Hotel in Kennebunkport. Olympus XA2 and Ilford HP5+.

The field behind the B&B. Olympus XA2 and Ilford HP5+.

Murphy on watch over the field. At any given time of the day the field was populated with deer, wild turkey, groundhogs, hawks and heron. He paid very close attention to that field. 

Olympus XA2 and Ilford HP5+ 

This old soda pop fridge in Mike's American Diner caught my eye. Love the colors. Leica M10R and Zeiss 25mm f/2.8.

Route 11 chips in Maine!! A favored chip maker from the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. 

Lunch at a deli in Wells, ME. Leica M10R and Zeiss 25mm f/2.8.

Breakfast at Mike's American Diner. They also serve milkshakes. 

Leica M10R and Zeiss 25mm f/2.8.

Murphy posing in Boothbay Harbor. Leica M10R and Zeiss 25mm f/2.8.

Super Fujica 6

 Yes, another medium format film camera to share time with the Yashica TLR. This one is a mid-1950s era Super Fujica 6, folding 6x6 rangefinder with a 7.5cm f/3.5 Fujinar lens. Saw it on eBay for $150. It looked to be in good condition and the seller, a camera shop in Japan, offered a 30 day return policy. Within a week of ordering, the camera arrived and it was indeed in very nice condition. I immediately loaded a roll of Kodak Gold 200 in 120 and the next day was out and about shooting the 12 images. The film was home developed and scanned the day after that. 

Super Fujica 6

The good news was that the exposures looked great. That told me the shutter speeds were accurate over the range I shot and that the aperture worked properly as well. The other good news was that the bellows and the light seals did their jobs - no light leaks!

The bad news was that the images were either out of focus or very soft. I had used the rangefinder for all of the images. However, what I hadn't checked was whether or not when the images were aligned, the distance on the lens seemed accurate. When I checked following scanning and looking at the images I found that the aligned rangefinder did not match the actual distances to subjects. That left me with the question, "is the issue with rangefinder adjustment or is the lens itself not properly aligned?"

A day or so later I loaded a roll of Kentmere 100, attached a "target" to my fence and marked off the distances of 4, 6, 8, 10, 15, 20 and 25 feet. The target was a 3'x3' sign with a variety of text sizes and a large, intricate  logo. I then attached the camera on a tripod, placed it at each of the distances with the the lens set to that marked distance and shot an image of the target.  In addition to determining the focus issue, I also rechecked shutter speeds and aperture settings. 

After developing and scanning the film, the resulting images showed the target was tack sharp at all of the marked distances. That meant the distance markings on the lens were accurate and that was great news. The problem was that the rangefinder was out of alignment - a not uncommon problem with rangefinders - and a problem I could easily live with. 

The "target" at eight feet

Had proper operation of the shutter or aperture blades been in question or if the bellows or light seals exhibited light leaks, I would have returned the camera. However, guesstimating distance and setting that distance on the lens is easy to do. While normally that would slow down shooting, this camera is not designed to be operated quickly. One example is that in order to fire the shutter, a lever on the lens must be actuated to cock the shutter. I keep forgetting this and will need to use the camera more before that becomes part of my muscle memory.  So long as I am having to set aperture, shutter speed and the cocking lever, I'll have plenty of time to set subject distance as well. And for the most part I don't expect to be shooting a lot of close ups, where setting a more accurate distance would be required. For distances over about 15 feet, depth of field will put subjects in focus. 

Bottom line, I kept the camera.

Since then I've put two more rolls through the camera to great effect. In fact, my submission for a recent 52 Frames challenge (https://52frames.com/photographer/25913) was shot on the camera.

52 Frames, Week 24 shot on the Super Fujica 6 - "Demolition"

I am very much enjoying the camera as I continue to shoot medium format 6x6. The Super Fujica 6 compliments very nicely with the Yashica TLR 6x6. The camera is not very large, and it's easy to load and to shoot. 

Pulling a freshly developed and rinsed 120-sized negative strip from a developing tank and off the reel is a life affirming experience! Those huge negatives are beautiful! There is a whole world of old-school medium format film cameras on the market at very reasonable prices. Anyone wanting to experience 6x6, or larger, negatives should not hesitate to give it a go.