The zoo
May 7th, 2007 by 
James
Short blog with some shots from the zoo. Shot with my new Bessa R2M & Ultron 35mm f/1.7. Still getting used to my first rangefinder. Pimpin aint easy with this beast.
APX 100 developed in XTOL, 9min 45 sec just above 20C. I’m wondering how people use XTOL 1:1 @ 20C. Do they chill the bottle of XTOL first or what? I had trouble with mine. I made my water a little under 20C, then poured the XTOL in, which was above 21C – to get the temperate down I had to put the measuring jug inside a bowl of cold water to try and cool the solution inside the jug. I may buy a fridge to store my XTOL & fixer, so I can have them at 20C all the time.
Met up with Tanya and we got some Breakfast McMuffins. I’m an avid hater of McDonalds, but I have a soft spot for Bacon & Egg McMuffins.
Met up with Brandy. Sandra woke up at the time we were supposed to meet at Camden Town station, so we had to walk around for a while.
1 hour 15 mins later than planned Sandra turns up and we go to the zoo.
First stop: ‘Animals in action’ tent. Rats, Meerkats and Hawks running/flying about. First up were a pair of Macaws displaying their many talents, including dropping turds while standing on ropes above the crowd.
This young giraffe tried to eat the door open to get to the tree’s leaves. I think his mum ate all the accessible ones.
Llamas are pretty cool. Sandra thinks the one in the middle resembles her.
This pig is very dangerous. See how dangerous it is. Very dangerous.
What I remember most from the day were the hordes of crying babies. There must have been 50 babies crying in the zoo at any one point. I’ve decided I’m going to make photos of crying babies.
Posted in Friends, Street | 
11 Comments »
May 8th, 2007 at 11:40 AM
Dangerous pigs and lookalike llamas. What a day. Bessa seems to be working well, nice shots. How did it compare to lugging and SLR around in terms of practicability (if that’s a word)?
May 8th, 2007 at 5:15 PM
I’ll compare it to my adored Nikon FM – it’s smaller, lighter, makes less noise. It’s much less noticeable, especially when you compare the size of the lenses. I’ll get all my cams together and take a photo of them so you can see the difference. In terms of practicality it’s fine as long as you have the right film for the weather – on a bright sunny day you’d be wanting some ASA 25 film to use at 25 or 50!
Ultron vs my Nikon 35mm f2 – I prefer focusing on the nikon lens because I can focus faster than I can on the Ultron – would be nice if it was a little bit looser. With that in mind I’ve had a play with Severin’s Leica which has the 35mm F2 Summicron – focusing with that is lovely, and it even has a focusing lever protruding from it, enabling people to basically shoot with one hand. Focusing on the nikon is easier for me because when out of focus the focusing panel kind of chops the image in two – with the bessa you get double vision instead. As I get used to this different way of focusing I may not have a preference.
I feel I should have bought the Bessa R3M with a 40mm lens instead of R2M with 35mm – this is because the minimum focusing distance of the Ultron is 0.9M so I can’t use it close up (the min. distance on my canon 35mm is 0.25m), and the plus of the R3M is that the viewfinder is 1.0x so i can shoot with both eyes open. The R2M has the 35mm framelines, the R3M has 40mm instead.
Anyway the rangefinder is quite awesome in its own right. Having a lot of fun with it!
May 12th, 2007 at 11:19 PM
I love the picture of the Macaws…it just makes me laugh.
May 18th, 2007 at 11:16 AM
some great shots there
Not sure about your comment about the R3M – I’ve got the R3A with 40mm, and the framelines are only just visible at the extremes of the viewfinder – not actually that easy to use
If you like wideangles have you seen the R4’s that have just come out. I use my 40mm on that – its a bit small in the viewfinder but works for me
May 18th, 2007 at 12:18 PM
Thanks for your comment Glyn. Yes I have seen the R4s – I chose the R2M over the R4 because of the price difference, and I have a 24mm for my Nikon FM.
Thanks for telling me about the 40mm framelines – there’s nowhere in London to see bessas in the flesh before you buy so I had a very tough time choosing between the R2M & R3M!
May 18th, 2007 at 5:08 PM
I’ve had that problem – I spent weeks deciding between the R2A and R3A. For a while I thought I’d made the wrong choice but the R3A and R4A combo works really well
May 20th, 2007 at 11:26 PM
Some nice shots here. The tones in the giraffe one are lovely, and the first llama shot is awesome!
If you can, give Paterson FX39 a shot with APX100 – that’s usually what i use for that film, and it turns out really nice.
Also, I would always go with 35mm framelines over 40mm, and anyway, it’s just the ultron that focuses at 0.9, most other m-mount RF lenses go to 0.7. 40mm seems kinda silly to me.
Enjoy the bessa!
May 21st, 2007 at 5:15 PM
I had a look for Paterson FX39 at my local store but they do not have it, I’ll look around some more to see if I can get some, thanks!
May 22nd, 2007 at 12:07 AM
Cool, it’s like HC110 in that you only use a bit of it everytime, instead of mixing up a huge vat of it. For apx100, it’s 30ml FX39 to 270ml of water per roll :)
May 22nd, 2007 at 10:12 AM
Aha, similar method to LC29 then. My brother taught me how to develop using LC29 which is 29 parts water + 1 part LC29. Or 1+19 for a faster developing time.
June 3rd, 2007 at 3:48 AM
YOu totally should do pictures of crying babies. I have a few of my own which I quite enjoy.