This is the City County Building, essentially the Marion County Courthouse, in Indianapolis. I made this image with my Kodak EasyShare Z730 in 2008.
A television production company asked if they could purchase the rights to use this image in a documentary they are making for the Discovery Channel. Apparently, the story they are telling involves a criminal case tried in this building, and they hoped to use my image as an establishing shot. They found my image on Flickr.
Their contract was reasonable: I grant them a license to use and modify this image for the purpose of this television production in perpetuity worldwide, but I retain copyright and all other rights.
With what they paid me, I bought this Pentax ME SE.
My Pentax ME’s light meter quit working, despite the camera having been CLA’d in 2017. I paid all of $16 for that body, and it was well used when I got it. I wondered if sending it back to Eric Hendrickson for repair would be throwing good money after bad. Could my ME be like that old car that just keeps breaking down?
I decided I’d go looking for a much more lightly used body. I came upon this very clean ME SE at Victory Camera, which had given it new light seals.
The only differences I can detect between the regular ME and the ME SE are the brown leatherette on the body, and the split prism in the viewfinder is canted at -45 degrees rather than horizontal.
I’ve got a roll of Fomapan 200 in it now and will soon report on my ME SE’s performance.
💻 You hear people label others as “toxic” – a toxic family, a toxic workplace. Stewie asks us to see beyond that and look for the unmet needs that drive the behavior. He also clarifies that we shouldn’t excuse the behavior. But in short, labeling others as toxic dehumanizes them. ReadStop Calling People Toxic
📷 The Petri Flex 7 is a funky-looking 35mm SLR from the mid 1960s. It has some quirky usage, which John Margetts details in his review. ReadPetri Flex 7
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On the far east side of Plainfield, Indiana, within sight of the west border of Indianapolis, used to be an old alignment of the National Road and US 40. This is what it looked like in 2006, when I first visited. Eastbound:
Westbound:
Notice the orange Road Construction Ahead sign in the photo above. Ahead, the road was closed as the Ronald Reagan Parkway was being constructed. I didn’t know that the plan was to close this alignment permanently; it would not provide access to the new Parkway when that road was completed.
I further didn’t know that the plan was to remove this road entirely. Here’s the scene from my Ride Across Indiana this year. Eastbound:
Westbound:
I wonder why the city went to the expense of removing the road. They could have simply closed it at much lesser expense.
Pro roadgeek tip: whenever you see a line of utility poles like this, you may be looking at a place where a road used to be.
We still get lovely sunsets here on the western edge of Zionsville overlooking the highway and the Toyota dealership. Lately, they’ve been more subtle than striking. Here are all of the ones I photographed since last time I shared these. See my sunsets tag for more.
Nikon Df, 50mm f/1.8 AF-S Nikkor Special EditionApple iPhone 12 miniApple iPhone 12 miniNikon Df, 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6G AF NikkorNikon Df, 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6G AF NikkorNikon Df, 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6G AF NikkorNikon Df, 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6G AF NikkorNikon Df, 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6G AF NikkorNikon Df, 50mm f/1.8 AF-S Nikkor Special Edition
A long time ago I bought a Yashica TL Electro, an M42-mount 35mm SLR built like a brick outhouse. When I got around to loading film into it, I found out that it was broken in a couple fundamental ways. I paid just five bucks for it, so I wasn’t broken up. But I’ve never forgotten it. Not long ago I came across its forebear, the Yashica TL Electro X, in very good condition. I scooped it up. This time I paid all of $35.
Upon its 1968 introduction, the TL Electro X was significant as the first commercially successful 35mm SLR with an electronic shutter. That allows the shutter to operate steplessly. Shutter-speed settings from 1/1000 sec. (top speed) down to 1/30 sec. all click into place, but you can leave the shutter-speed knob in between two speeds and the camera figures out the fraction of a second to use. Shutter speed settings of 1/15 sec. and slower do not click into place; the dial operates continuously in this range.
The TL Electro X was one of the first SLRs to use lights in the viewfinder, rather than a needle system, to indicate exposure. Two red arrows, → and ←, sit at the bottom of the viewfinder. Press the stop-down button, which is on the side of the lens mount panel, and when exposure is not right one of the arrows lights. When you see →, turn up the aperture or shutter speed until the light turns off. When you see ←, turn down the aperture or shutter speed until the light turns off. No lit arrows means you have good exposure. It’s intuitive; you turn the aperture ring or shutter-speed dial in the direction of the arrow until the arrow disappears.
Otherwise, this is a typical SLR of its period. It’s large, heavy, and solid. The shutter button is solid and sure. The winder, rewinder, and shutter-speed dial all require mild force to operate. By the late 70s, camera makers had figured out how to make SLR controls operate with a much lighter touch.
The TL Electro X was designed to take a 544 mercury battery, but those are banned. My camera came with a 28L lithium cell inside. The silver-oxide 4SR44 and alkaline 4LR44 batteries are the same size, and I hear they work fine in this camera.
Do you like classic SLRs like this one? Then check out my reviews of the Canon FT QL (here), the Minolta SR-T 101 (here) and SR-T 202 (here), the Nikon Nikomat FTn (here), the Nikon F2A (here), the Nikon F2AS (here), and the Pentax K1000 (here) and KM (here). Or check out all of my camera reviews here.
I first loaded a roll of Kodak Max 400 into the TL Electro X, but set the ISO guide to 200. I like this film overexposed by a stop. Fulltone Photo developed and scanned the roll. Here’s my favorite photo from the roll.
The TL Electro X handled a little ponderously, but that’s not uncommon with large, heavy, stop-down SLRs of this era. The controls all took deliberate action, and of course the body is large and heavy. The 50mm f/1.7 Auto Yashinon-DX lens focuses smoothly but with more effort than I’m used to. I don’t like ponderous handling, but I accepted it as endemic to this kind of camera and kept on shooting.
The way the lens renders things through the viewfinder delights me; it’s such a classic old-lens look. But on the scans it was clear that the lens delivers mild barrel distortion. You can see it in the parallel lines of this photo. I corrected it on other photos where it was apparent — it was a +4 correction in Photoshop.
However, the lens is sharp and contrasty, and renders color well. It leaves a nice smooth background and a subtle but pleasant bokeh. It also focuses in reasonably close, to about six inches. I like that.
In my TL Electro X, the arrows are hard to see under very bright conditions. → is noticeably dimmer than ← and can be hard to see under any conditions. Also, I find the meter to call exposure good over a fairly wide range of settings. It didn’t inspire much confidence as I used the camera. Yet my exposures were generally fine when the images came back from the processor.
I kept going with a roll of Fomapan 200. Because I had more money than time, rather than developing this roll myself I sent it to Fulltone Photo. This isn’t the most interesting image from the roll, but it shows the sharpness and contrast I got. My younger son gave me both of these drinking vessels as gifts, one when he was not yet ten more than half his life ago, and the other for Father’s Day this year. The Father’s Day gift perfectly represents his offbeat sense of humor.
I coaxed a little bokeh out of the lens in this shot.
I coaxed a little more bokeh out of the lens on this photo of an ash branch.
This tire isn’t an interesting subject, but the silky sidewall texture sure is compelling.
I took the TL Electro X on a number of walks around my neighborhood and in downtown Zionsville. It’s heft made it less than an ideal companion when slung over my shoulder for a few miles.
About halfway through the roll of Fomapan, I grew weary of this camera’s ponderous ways. I shot images of whatever to just get it over with. That’s my main beef with 1960s SLRs — most of them are fatiguing to use. During the 1970s, camera makers figured out how to make all-manual cameras lighter with smoother, easier controls.
But I have to hand it to this Yashica TL Electro X — it’s built like a tank, and will probably work even after I don’t anymore.
As I bicycled through Downtown Indianapolis on my way across Indiana on the National Road, I had a challenge to solve: how to get across the White River. The White River State Park and the Indianapolis Zoo were built over the original path of the National Road and US 40 there. I shared the history of this alignment, and the many bridges that used to cross the river here, in this post.
In the map excerpt below, the National Road (Washington Street) enters and exits just above the center of the image, but curves south to skirt the park and the zoo. The bridge that once carried traffic on the original alignment still stands and is visible in the image.
If you read the post about the history of the road here, you know that the original path of the National Road here is now the walking path that passes by the NCAA Hall of Champions marked on the map excerpt above. Here’s the beginning of that path, which begins at the Eiteljorg Museum. Here, the path is part of the Indianapolis Cultural Trail.
It also passes by the Indiana State Museum. I remember when this museum was in the old City Hall on the other side of Downtown. That was 25 years ago, and the new museum was built shortly afterward. I still think of this building as new, even though it’s not.
The path crosses a road that leads to parking. Those are the signature Cultural Trail crosswalk markings in the road. This is about where the path becomes the White River Trail.
The White River Trail shortly crosses the Central Canal over a narrow bridge. That’s the NCAA Hall of Champions on the right. On the left, way in the distance, is the Washington Street bridge that used to carry US 40. It’s marked by the rows of lamps.
Here’s where the original National Road alignment ends at the White River. Once upon a time, there was a big covered bridge right here, on the left, at about a right angle to the riverbank.
From that spot I turned to the left to about the angle of the former covered bridge here. This was the view. My understanding is that in the covered bridge’s era, the White River was narrower than it is now, and the west bank would have been closer in.
From here, I backtracked and rode over to the Washington Street bridge, which is now open only to pedestrians.
Here’s the view from the deck, as I bicycled westward.
At the end of the bridge I faced a choice: follow the White River Trail around the zoo’s north edge, or backtrack all the way to where I started and follow current Washington Street back over the river. I chose the former because it was shorter and avoided a lot of traffic.
Shortly the trail opened up and followed the White River.
Soon the trail met the White River Parkway, a local road. I followed it south to where it intersects with Washington Street, which resumed its original path following the old National Road.
Until this point, the National Road was pretty neatly an east-west road across Indiana. From here on out, it runs west southwest all the way to Illinois.
