The Story of Why There Is a Minolta Gear Repair Page
Once upon a time, I bought a Minolta XG-M to get the ultimate XG camera and the excellent Minolta MD 28-85mm lens that came with it. A review on the Rokkor Files had raved about the lens, calling it as good as a prime at some focal lengths. The bad news forContinue Reading
Zombie Plants? Yes, it’s A Thing…
When people at a nursery warn you about a plant, believe them. Here are my four cautionary tales. I had never heard of bee balm before deciding to dig up the yard. It earned a spot in the garden because the flowers are so oddly shaped. They resemble jester’s hatsContinue Reading
In Praise of Autofocus Cameras
Viewfinder diopter adjustment is, for me, is an essential camera feature. Since many manual focus cameras lack this feature, using a manual camera can be problematic. However, even when adjustment is possible, it never compensates completely for my changing vision. Autofocus makes this problem moot. Viewfinder magnifiers are available andContinue Reading
There Are Way Too Many Hostas
Hostas were a favorite of my mother-in-law. I, on the other hand, was only vaguely aware of them, having seen them before but paid little attention. Once it became clear that the front yard next to the porch was always going to be shaded, I became interested in hostas. IContinue Reading
Life at 30…
Between February and July 2019, I shot about 30 rolls of film. Except for four rolls, two Tri-X and two HP5+, which were shot for a darkroom class, all were done to test gear bought online. On receiving the scans, I gave them a cursory look to check for lightContinue Reading
The People by the Side of the Road
Have you ever had a moment of inexplicable sorrow? Have ever you visited a place, then left, but it refused to leave you? Though I’ve lived in Atlanta for nearly 30 years, the northwest quadrant of the city is mostly foreign to me. It is mostly residential, and I knowContinue Reading
Choosing Flowers: Beyond the Pretty Colors
Flip through a gardening book or magazine, and there will be page after page of beautiful flowers nestled together, colors flowing, blending, complementing—a paradise on every page. Wonderful! But time to get back to reality. Those pictures represent hundreds of carefully-considered choices and never-mentioned mistakes. A brand-new gardener with EdenicContinue Reading
Buying Camera Gear on eBay and ShopGoodwill: Finding Bargains, Avoiding Junk
Buying cameras based on images and brief descriptions can be rewarding or frustrating. Happily, even though I have purchased many items from both eBay and ShopGoodwill, my experiences have been overwhelmingly positive, with only a few duds. There was the person who sold me a Maxxum 70 that “probably worked,”Continue Reading
Making Peace with Bees (and Wasps???)
Gardening magazines and books joyfully extol the wonders and pleasures of having a flower garden. At the top of the list of reasons to have one is the fact that a flower garden is great for pollinators. What they fail to mention—maybe it’s in the fine print—is that pollinators, likeContinue Reading
Collecting Minolta
Around the time the fifth camera arrived, it dawned on me that I had become a Minolta collector—that certainly wasn’t my goal initially. My first purchase, the Maxxum 7000i, was solely for the purpose of solving the bokeh problem. Awareness of the 7000i had been with me for years asContinue Reading
