On film photography
A while back a got a mail from Brian where he told me about a new blog, a film photography blog. I think it looks god, but overwhelmed with work I have not had time to check it out thouroughly. A task for this weekend. Hope you’ll pay Feeling Negative? a visit too.

And more…
I have a new site in production myself, a place where you’ll be able to create a blog of your own :) But it’s not quite finished for viewing yet.

Something I believe peope should study more is the master of photography, or arthistory in general. I can’t say I’m an expert on the history of photography myself, but I have an interest and have studied arthistory as a student, which included some photography. Get inspiration from the Internet:

• The user PhotographyMasters has a lot of interesting things to look at.
• Rangefindergeneral has a film on Diane Arbus.
• If you feel a need for a timeline Photo.net has one
• Robert Leggat has made site with information about early photography
• And there’s always the linklist from Witcombe, a resource I used a long time
• You might also find a lot of places who sell prints and stuff, like

If you have tips, please post a comment with the link :)

I have started to publish wallpapers shot with manual lenses on our swedish development site, http://designbilder.se/desktop. The first one out is a pictures from the lake the other day, a tree with fog. If you have suggestion for backgrounds let me know :)

Don’t forget to check out the wallpapers here on Retrocamera, with cameras and lenses.

I have started two user Ipernity groups for Yashica and Takumar on the community (Ipernity reminds of Flickr, bur a little bit different and for more documenttypes). I see it mostly as another place to meet people who like this old crap lenses ;) Building the network… But I also got the feeling that Ipernity is more for serious discussions, Flickrs has become a bit of fishing for awards and nice comments and almost noone writes critique. Anyway, welcome to join the groups at Ipernity!:

The Takumar-group and the Yashica-group.

• How to de-yellow an old lens
  A youtube film where a guy clears the glass in a yellowed Super-Takumar lens.
• Retrothing-blog on Voigtländers new medium format cam
  Retrothing is a great blog writing on different retrothings – games, cameras, vehicles, grammophones etc. Here they write about the Voigtkänder Bessa III.
• Alessandros photoblog
  Lots of food photography, both in italian and english.
• Free to use Camera Images
  A nice archive which it seems is free to use in webdesign.
• Masters of photographgy on Youtube
  One of several of these on youtube, good for some quick inspiration I think.

We are now 120 passionate Yashicausers on Yashicaforum.com – I’m very glad I started the forum. But I wonder, why are there no forums on this domains? Maybe you should start one?:

• www.agfaforum.com
• www.voigtlanderforum.com
• www.mamiyaforum.com
• www.m42forum.com
• www.jenaforum.com

Of course these were ideas just taken on the top of my head, I’m sure you can find even better ones … or why not compete with me and start yashinonforum.com ;) Competition can be healthy.

A member on the YashicaForum posted pictures of and with this great Yashinon 55mm/1.2 lens – which makes me droooool! ;)

I have decided to start posting photolinks in this way, this is part 1. The idea was stolen from Brian and my swedish friend Bengt (thanks Brian and Bengt!) ;) My links will be about old cameras, lenses or art and photography in general. I would appreciate if you give some tips on links I should include (I can not guarantee I will though) :)

• “Common Sense Lens Selection Philosophy”
  I respect any photographer writing the line “The market for used lenses is incredible.” Go read Jeff Lynch’s article about common sense, the thing that made a lot of us choose manual lenses.
• “Then & Now: Kodak Movie Cameras”
  I have discovered this site with a similar name to mine, Retro Thing. And they do write about cameras and optics sometimes. Great! :)
• “Time Tales”
  A final place for forgotten, discarded photographs to rest. Somehow it’s very interesting looking through these old pictures.
• “When is Manual Focus Better than Auto Focus?”
  An interesting article on digital Photography School. I guess you know my point of view? Manual focus is always best ;)

The last year was a big one for my photography, I discovered a new world in 2008. I’m talking of manual lenses and old cameras, but also my own views and skills in photography.

The start of this blog
24th July – Installation and first post (modest) on Retrocamera.net as an international version of my swedish blog. At the end of the year – 21st December – I reached 4500 unique visitors on my article “5 reasons I love manual lenses”

Retrocamera article

Winning a contest
21st – 27th July I participated in a contest in Sweden which I won. One picture a day from nature, for seven days. Partly using manual gear. I was very proud of this, since the competition was some photographers I respect.

Set with the 7 images I won with

Circle of lenses
I started cheap last spring trying Pentacon 29mm/2.8 on and ended testing Yashica ML 50mm/1.4 on the same spot in the woods. I have reached a collection of lenses I like, except for long telephoto.

With Pentacon 29mm in march 2008

With Yashica ML 50mm/1.4 december 2008

1000 posts on YashicaForum.com
During the year two brands in particular caught my attention, Asahi (Takumar) and Yashica. Asahi/Takumar/Pentax sites exists, but I wondered why there was no YashicaForum.com so I decided to start it. Before new year we reached over 1000 posts and 77 members.

YashicaForum

What does 2009 have in mind?
Well, looks like I will participate in at least two exhibitions, of which one is my own. Me, me and myself ;)

Have a good year 2009!

As seen in the article “Digital to Analog, and Back” on Luminous Landscape, more people then me make use of the old ways ;) After reading my previous post “5 reasons I love manual lenses”, martin on YashicaForum.com gave the link to Stefan Heijdendael’s article from 2004. Thanks for the tip, martin!