Springtime in Naka-ku, Yokohama

March 28, 2017Chris and Carol 3 Comments

Remembering back to our time living in Japan in the late 1970s. We lived in a small area of southern Yokohama near Sankei-en (gardens). The Naka Ward was home to a large US Navy family housing area and the ever popular Navy Exchange and Commissary. Avenue D, pictured below, was the main highway from Yokohama to the Navy base at Yokosuka. In our part of the housing area, these Sakura (below) had been planted as a joint project with the military families and the local community. After the long and dreary winter we looked forward to the blossoms and warmth that signaled Spring.

Sakura along Avenue D in the Naka Ward. Base housing to the left.

Sankei-en in Spring. A short bicycle ride from our home so we visited often.

Carol spending her 100 yen wisely on a visit to Sankei-en.

More views in Sankei-en.

Photography blossoms in the Spring.

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We were lucky to live in such a nice area of Yokohama – everything was a short bike ride away. Spring was way too short and the Summers on the Kanto Plain were way too long!

Thanks for your visit! Enjoy your Spring!

Camera: Canon F-1

Film: Kodak Kodachrome 25

Chris

Ready on the Flight Deck – USS Midway

March 24, 2017March 24, 2017Chris and Carol 2 Comments

On board the USS Midway (CV-41) in the East China Sea 1979. Preparing for early morning flight operations (FLT OPS). Planes to wash, jets to fuel, pilots to brief and missiles to load. 24/7 sometimes.

H-3 Sea King helicopter and F-4 Phantom fighter at sunrise.

Missiles waiting to be loaded.

F-4 canopy opened and ready for the day.

A-7 Corsair spotted just forward of the island near elevator 1. F-4 in distant background left. A-6 just to the right of the A-7.

The USS Midway (CV-41)

Commissioned 1945… the hull was built from the plans of the next generation battleship.

Decommissioned 1992… no other carrier served longer.

Was the largest ship in the world from 1945 to 1955. Fantastic museum in San Diego now. One of the best Naval museums anywhere!

Camera: Canon F-1

Yashica Pentamatic S & a “new” old school copy stand –

March 1, 2017March 1, 2017Chris and Carol Leave a comment

Every now and then as a collector of all things Yashica, you get a little lucky. In this case my luck was finding an accessory that I wanted so badly back in the day (early 1970s). It’s not actually an accessory – more of what I’ll call ‘studio support equipment’.

Pentamatic S on the copy stand.

I know. It’s just a simple copy stand. They’re for sale everywhere. But not a built in 1971 Yashica branded copy stand – and in its original box too! Collector heaven.

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The grids are about 20 x 20 so it’s actually quite large.

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It’s definitely from another time and place. No official name for it – just a copy stand. It’s built pretty well – lots of real steel parts and no plastic. I believe the plastic looking parts are Bakelite. I’ll need to modify the tripod screw bracket a bit for use by my digital Fuji.

Yashica TL Electro-X

March 1, 2017Chris and Carol 2 Comments

One of the most successful SLRs from Yashica – the ‘Pioneer in Electronic Cameras’… the Yashica TL Electro-X. The world’s first electronic single-lens reflex camera.

A random collection of clips from Yashica sales brochures and our eclectic collection of all things Yashica –

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‘ITS’ = Integrated Technology System… maybe.

We’ve recently added this hard to find accessory from Yashica. It was still new in its original box! It will be used in our studio for some copy work.

Original box. Lucky find!

The Copy Stand listed for 20,000 JPY in 1971. About $55 USD

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Large dealer’s sign. Two sided but non lighted. Ca. 1968

Yashica ‘Sailor Boy’ with another version of the slogan and electron logo. The ‘Sailor Boy’ first made his appearance in 1962.

Elegance on ice.

Do you have something to add to our database about this interesting camera? Please feel free to comment.

Thanks,

Chris & Carol Photography ^.^

Canon AZ 1014 Super 8 Movie Camera… 1977

January 27, 2017January 27, 2017Chris and Carol Leave a comment

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Purchased new by us in 1977… wow, 40 years ago! It’s still going strong – the automatic exposure is accurate, the Canon electronic zoom lens is flawless, and all controls and gizmos are doing their things. Why? Well number one is it was designed and built super well and it uses readily available double A (AA ‘penlight’) batteries. No out of manufacture mercury batteries and their modern replacements to deal with! Thank you Canon!

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The business side of this gem. It’s a TTL Servo EE electronic exposure system using still available Super 8 film. It operates like an SLR in the sense that you focus and adjust zoom and exposure through the lens. Canon’s 7-70mm f/ 1.4 Macro Zoom (10x) Lens C-8 is razor sharp and produces vivid colors and delivers exceptional contrast.

Macro capabilities are incredible – as close as 10mm from the front of the lens! Slow motion, fades, interval shooting and time lapse plus the ability to manually control the aperture!

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The camera loaded with a Super 8 cartridge and the six AA batteries weighs in at nearly 2 kg! I can tell you that lugging it through Walt Disney World was no picnic… but fun!

Carol exploring her plants via the Canon AZ 1014. This is so 1977! Our home in Yokohama.

The photographer observed! The young lad was friendly and couldn’t figure out what in the world I was filming! Olongapo City, Philippines 1978.

Bug hunting in Yokohama… 1978.

Playing with the camera again makes me want to start filming again… well maybe not. 50 feet of Super 8 movie film disappears quickly and so does the money in your wallet. The camera is amazing but outdated – but, for the money, you can’t beat the quality of the Canon optics that cost thousands today.

Carol and I have so many cameras that we can’t ever use them all before we pass on. So we are documenting our cameras just before they go to auction via eBay and Etsy. So sad but the time’s come to thin out the heard.

Photographed with our Fujifilm FinePix S9900. Carol (photo by me) with my Canon F-1 and me (photo by Jim) was taken with some junky old Nikon! Can you imagine!

Thanks for your visit!

Chris ^.^

Sankei-en… Yokohama’s Beautiful Gem

January 24, 2017Chris and Carol Leave a comment

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Escape the hustle of the big city – Sankei-en is Yokohama’s beautiful gem.

Soon the sakura and azalea will bloom. Photographers will come. School children and couples. Families love Sankei-en.

It was a pleasant ride to Sankei-en from our house so we went often.

Admission – 100 yen. All smiles.

Sakura from long ago. Avenue D in Naka-ku, Honmoku. 1979

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Spring returns to Sankei-en soon. The blossoms will be everywhere. Come to this spot and enjoy!

Images from 1978 and 1979. Canon F-1 and Canon AE-1. Kodak Kodachrome film.

Thank you for your visit.

Chris & Carol ^.^

Fujica GW690… Fuji Photo Film’s Venerable Workhorse

January 24, 2017January 25, 2017Chris and Carol 4 Comments

Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd. – Tokyo

Fujica GW690 Professional – 1978 version. Yes it’s big. Yes it’s a bit heavy too. But who doesn’t love big 6x9cm negatives! We had an Asahi Pentax 6×7 SLR for a while in our active collection and thoroughly enjoyed the images it produced. The 6×7 and 6×9 in our opinion are great formats. We still shoot in squares though – it’s fun to compose a 6×6 frame on a twin-lens reflex. If anything will slow your photography down it’s that.

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This camera arrived yesterday and it’s all cleaned up and ready to go. This is a heavily used (think venerable workhorse) GW690 with all sorts of dings, dents and scrapes to show for it’s almost four decades of use. We imagine it’s seen more than a few tour groups in its time – now it’s time to slow down a bit. We purchased it to be a user camera for some fine art prints we want to create and sell on our online site. We normally print on 8.5 x 11 inch Canon paper with an occasional bump to 13 x 19 inches and the 6×9 format is perfect.

We’re big fans of Fuji cameras and this one will earn its keep in our studio. I’m headed out this afternoon with a roll of Fujifilm Neopan 100 Acros loaded to test it out.

It’s a simple camera – completely analog. No onboard exposure meter, no auto film advance, no auto focus – just what we wanted.

We chose the GW690 vice the “newer” models (II and III) because I’m not a big fan of the built-in lens hood on the later models (gets in the way). The shutter settings (leaf shutter) and aperture settings are right next to one another which makes it super easy to see the relationship each has on the other. Focusing is quick on this model and the rangefinder window is bright and easy to see.

A 35mm box of film gives you a comparison to just how big the Fujica is. By the way, this model was the last to be called a Fujica.

Ready to rock some Neopan!

We thought it would look good with some vintage Fuji Film beside it. The film expired in 1964!

We’ll have the results next week as we send our film out to ‘The Darkroom’ for their professional development and scans. 6×9 on 120 roll film produces only 8 exposures so I should be able to shoot in one afternoon. Let’s see… with the purchase of the film, processing and shipping it’s going to cost about $25 per 8 images. Yikes!

Thanks for your visit. Chris & Carol ^.^

Industrial Yokohama… 1979

January 23, 2017Chris and Carol Leave a comment

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Oil refinery as seen from the hill behind our house in Naka-ku, Honmoku, Yokohama. Canon F-1 (1978 version) with Canon FD 80-200mm f/4 zoom lens on Kodak Ektachrome at about 5 seconds at f/16. As best as we can tell, the refinery is still there today.

Chris and Carol ^.^

Yokosuka and Yokohama

January 20, 2017January 21, 2017Chris and Carol 2 Comments

Memories of our time in Japan – 1977 to 1980. We lived in Yokohama, Naka-ku. Lovely place. Wonderful people. Every day an adventure. As I read current blogs from Japan, it strikes me that so many signs are now in English. Back in the day (as they say) that wasn’t the case. These two signs were within walking distance of major U.S. Navy installations. No English. No problem. I’m sorry to say that we never learned to read kanji or katakana but we at least learned what the kanji characters looked like for where we wanted to be.

Yokosuka train station, Keihin Kyuko Line schedule heading north to Yokohama.

I always tried for the “green” trains at 15, 35 and 55 after the hour. These were the fastest to Yoko!

Waiting for Bus 8 to Yokohama train station. We knew to look for the kanji character that looked like an old style camera on a tripod as that was Yokohama. Hey it worked!

Bus driver giving me the look.

This was the only sign that I can remember that had English on it near our house in Yokohama. BTW, it was a hot, hazy and humid summer day on the Kanto Plain that day.

Anyway, no complaints here, but as you can see not much in the way of English (none actually). That was Japan in the late 1970s. We had a blast!

Thanks for your visit!

Chris and Carol ^.^