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!

A linktip today, I have a wrynecktorticollis (is that the english word?) so no photographing this friday.

Check out Robs blog. He’s a frequent poster on MFlenses.com and ManualFocusForum.

As you might notice Rob has some images form a church there. I love churches eventhough I’m an atheist. I specially like cistercian abbeys, they way they built for the light. One of my favorite books are “Cistercian Abbeys: History and architecture” by Jean-Francois Leroux-Dhuys and Photographs By Henri Gaud, great photographs in there.

While I feel inspired, here’s a perfomence made by the Tallis Scholars. Last year I bought their christmas recording, time to take it out from the shelf again :)

Do you remember the project I wrote about – Something new from DIYPhotography? You swap gear temporarily with a photobuddy. It’s ten days left on the deadline. If you live in the city, I think you should give it a try. Here are some ideas on how to do it.

I’m trying myself, but we’ll see if I make it in time. I need to go on a photowalk with Susanne (if she want’s to? :) ), shoot a roll of film, develop it, write about it…

Something New

If you missed this: Life magazine has published there photos on the web.

Short update on the progress of YashicaForum.com: we reached 500 posts today. We are now 42 users. Yesterday I linked from the Yashica @ WikiPedia and Yashica @ CameraPedia, hope more Yashica enthusiast will find us.

Se a Carl Zeiss Planar 85mm/1.4 ZE over at forum.mflenses.com. User LucisPictor has got his hands on one of these lenses and I guess he will post more intreseting things about it :)