2026-06-15 Pentax P3 Camera

   The Pentax P3 was made from 1985 to 1989. Then a slightly better model—the P3n—was made from 1989 on to 1997. Together Pentax sold 3 million of these two cameras.
   It isn’t hard to see why. While other manufacturers had leapt on the built-in motor drive style—after jumping on the craze of accessory motor winders—Pentax instead stayed with manual advance. It allowed the camera to be small and light. Many, many people preferred that style.
   The Pentax P3 has Program and Metered Manual exposure and finally—with the Pentax dedicated Auto flash—a Programmed Auto flash Mode where the flash automatically sets the proper aperture and the 100 sec sync shutter speed on the camera. Note the flash /camera do not have through-the-lens metering.

The P3 has to use DX coded film—from ISO 25 to ISO 1600. The camera has an exposure memory lock on the lens mount (facing camera it is near your left hand’s fingers. If a Pentax dedicated auto flash is used this memory lock does not function! That side also has a cable release socket.

   The camera has a self-timer function built into the on/off slider. Caution is made that you should block the eye-piece during self-timer shots as light coming in through the viewfinder would result in incorrect exposures.
   The 100–lightening bolt pictograph shutter setting does not work with the metering system. It is there as aid for those using other electronic flash than dedicated ones.
   If you do use the Bulb shutter setting be aware the camera’s batteries will run down in about ten hours.
The P3 has a depth-of-field preview lever on the lens mount on the shutter release side of the camera. You have to set the lens to the aperture you chose and then use the preview lever. You cannot use the depth-of-field preview lever when the camera is being used in Programmed AE Mode.

The camera came in a very nice case (that I seem to have dented?).

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2026-03-14 - History and Evolution of the Kodak Logo

While working as a junior clerk at the Rochester Savings Bank, George Eastman first began commercial production of dry photographic plates in a rented loft of a building in Rochester, New York in April 1880. In the next few years, Eastman became very successful and expanded the company several times. His company started as the Eastman Dry Plate Company in 1881, later became the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company in 1884, and soon after the Eastman Company in 1889. The last name change occurred in 1892, when the Eastman Kodak Company of New York was organized. The company has been called Eastman Kodak Company ever since. The word "Kodak" was first registered as a trademark in 1888. The letter “K” had been a favorite of Eastman’s, he is quoted as saying, "I devised the name myself. The letter 'K' had been a favorite with me; it seems a strong, incisive sort of letter. It became a question of trying out a great number of combinations of letters that made word...

2026-03-20-Manfrotto monopods

Sometimes collecting is a matter of persistence. The Manfrotto “GRUPPO” 434SSB monopod (shown top) showed up one day at my local thrift store. They had a price tag of $25 on it. I had bought the lower Manfrotto Compact MMC3-01 monopod at the same thrift store for $3. So I asked, “Why so much?” They answered their “expert” had found it sold for $200 on the internet. I find experts—who almost never clerk in the thrift store, so are unreachable—hard to deal with. There is also the matter someone might actually pay them $25 for a 2.27 kg (5 pound) aluminum pole, so I decided to let the Gods-of-Collecting decide if I was going to ever own it. For weeks I would pick it up, check the price tag to see if they had come to their senses, and return it to the shelf. I did try various clerks to see if they would lower the price, but they said they were not authorized to change prices. I plodded on, week after week without much hope. ...

2026-03-25 The Kiron 70-150 mm F/4

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