Monochrome Germany

A roll of Ilford HP-5 run thru a ≈60 year old Yaschica Lynx while in Frankfurt and Hamburg Germany, July 2024.

First up, Frankfurt, a rather boring German city with *some* interesting architecture. From my hotel room:

Bridge over the Main (river):

And snapped from said bridge:

Downside of using a rangefinder - parallax error. The boat is not positioned exactly where I thought it would have been as the camera's viewfinder and lens are on slightly different planes:

The Platz (city center):

And main train station:

Finally, I like how the camera glitched out a bit and didn't quite advance properly, slightly double exposing each of these two adjacent frames:

And then on to Hamburg for about 30 hours. I had a weekend to kill and Hamburg > Frankfurt. Hamburg is Germany's second-largest city and is a port city with more bridges than any other city in Europe. I'd previously been there four or so times and have always found it to be incredibly photogenic.

Tour boats on the Alsterfontäne:

More water and canals:

And some architecture:

I really like this cycling-themed signage. The shop in this building had art prints of it available. Cool, but not 160€ cool:

The Stylus with the Lens Leak

A friend of mine buys pallets of old cameras from a local e-waste organization and then trades or sells the ones that seem to have potential to still be good cameras, and he gifted me with this Olympus Stylus Zoom.

It's a nifty compact point-and-shoot with a remarkably sharp 35-70mm zoom. Fully automatic, so sadly creativity is somewhat stifled, but alas. It's still pocketable and quick to use. Unfortunately it also has a "lens leak," as I discovered when I ran the first roll thru it. Guessing I must have pointed it directly at the sun at some point midway through the roll. Honestly I'm not disappointed as the light leaks produced streaking that seemed to perfectly frame the subjects in most of the shots. Or it just gives a nice dramatization of California's fire season. 

Kayaking a rather full Lake Sonoma:

Local classic VW repair shop:

Some shots snapped on the ride home from work one afternoon:

And some snapped out in the local countryside:

Next door neighbor's house:

And the dog.

As interesting as these results were, not sure I am going to do another experiment with this camera anytime soon. At least not with the current prices for film and developing. Probably just a one-time happy accident.