My photographic showcase 2024

The ghost town of Bodie, California.    

To the left, you can see the Methodist Church, with the steeple, and a long line of telephone poles bringing electricity to both the town and the Standard Stamp Mill. The terrain here is just desert scrub brush, with no trees for miles around.

A dog wearing a “I ate Santa’s Cookies” shirt at the 2024 Sunnyvale Halloween Pet Parade. The parade took place on October 24 in downtown Sunnyvale.

Welcome to Bridgeport--Gateway to Adventure!  Bridgeport is a small town, about 10 miles northwest of Bodie.  This was our base of operations for the one week vacation to the famous ghost town of Bodie.

Front headlights of a classic GTO at the Campbell Car Show, June 29, 2024 in downtown Campbell.  This is the second car show that was hosted in Campbell.

Welcome to another posting of Saturday Shootout. For this shootout, we’re comparing two replacement copies of M42 lenses that broke down. On the left, we have the Mamiya-Sekor 50mm f2 lens in chrome. On the right, we have the Auto Chinon 55mm f1.7 lens. How are these replacement lenses going to stack up to each other?

Introducing the Auto Chinon 55mm f1.7 M42-mount lens. I had a first copy of this lens at Starbird Apartments, but ended up breaking it in an attempt to clean fungus inside the glass elements—a ball bearing popped out from the aperture ring and was lost. So I purchased a second copy from eBay for $50, mounted on an old GAF L-17 SLR film camera. So it is time to test my second new Chinon lens with flowers.

I was deciding on a Canon ultra-wide L lenses. I selected the Canon EF 16-35mm f4L. I purchased the lens for $573.

But then I found a near mint condition a Canon EF 17-35mm f2.8L lens off eBay for $407. This ultra-wide lens is in beautiful condition, with a fast aperture of f2.8. I snatched the 17-35mm lens up. Now, I have to take both the 16-35mm and 17-35mm lenses out for a Saturday Shootout—actually a Sunday Shootout at San Jose State University on June 2, 2024.

Close focusing images of flowers with moody color lighting.  Lighting was set with a single multi-colored bulb on a light stand, shining directly on the flower.  I tried different colored light on the flower, to produce different results on the color of the flower.