My dear chums, Analogue Wonderland, recently branched out into selling vintage cameras and lenses and I was curious to see what they had on offer. There was a few things I was interested in, a Minolta 50mm f/1.7 auto focus lens caught my eye and I took the plunge and bought it. Why? To put on my Dynax 4 and round out my Minolta A Mount lens collection. I have a 35-70mm f/4 and the famed 70-210mm f/4 "Beer Can" lens, it made sense to have a 50mm prime in the kit and it only cost me £30.
In my manual focus Minolta MD kit I have a 50mm f/1.7 that is sharp as a pin and delivers sweet photos when my brain is in gear and I get my exposures right. I am told that the AF 50mm f/1.7 is the same lens design in an autofocus body and I set about finding out if it was as good as its manual focus sibling. I loaded a roll of Kodak Gold into my Dynax 4, fitted my AF 50mm f/1.7 prime lens and went for a wander to find some autumn colour.
October started with a bang as Storm Amy powered across the North Atlantic and caused mayhem in the UK, Northern Europe and Scandinavia. I feared that most of the Autumn leaves had been stripped from the trees by the powerful winds, but my fears were allayed by the time I had reached my preferred location. I set my camera to shoot in Aperture Priority and let Minolta's legendary metering look after my shutter speeds whilst I concentrated on bokeh and sharpness.
Autumn is, for me, the best time of year to shoot colour film. Despite my enjoyment of the annual Sakura display not far from my home, I love it when the trees have their "hold my beer" moment in autumn. They light up in a multitude of bright warm colours before their leaves go brown and fall to the ground.
I was spoiled for choice and took my time to choose compositions as I made my way around my preferred location, Mesnes Park in Wigan. Sadly I didn't get the sunshine I wanted, but I persevered and gave my new acquisition a good work out. I took a few shots between the Bus Station and Mesnes Park as autumn colour was everywhere I looked.
When I got to the park, the Parks and Gardens staff were busy attending to the last of the flower beds that day. Their hard work makes sure the park is a blaze of colour between early spring and early winter, the lawns were getting possibly the last mow of the year too. I appreciate their effort in keeping Mesnes Park looking good for the people of Wigan to enjoy all year round.
I was having a lot of fun exploring the colour in the park on a dull, grey, overcast autumn afternoon. The trees were ablaze with gold, orange and red foliage whilst the flower beds were a riot of autumn blooms in red, yellow and plenty of shades in between. before I had got to the Pavillion, I had used one roll of Kodak Gold 35mm colour film and loaded a second into my Minolta Dynax 4.
Using Aperture Priority was a good choice as it meant I could shoot reasonable shutter speeds without having too shallow a depth of field and therefore too much blur in my photos. Every photographer loves a bit of bokeh, but you can go overboard, depending on your personal taste of course. By the time I had almost got through my second roll of Kodak Gold, the light had really started to fade and I headed home.
I finished my roll a couple of days later on a dark, wet, cold, dull and gloomy day when I also shot a roll of Gold in my Agfa Isolette and a roll of Kentmere 400 in Baldy The Baldax for #FolderWeek. I'm not too sure of the weather sealing of my Minolta Dynax 4, so I only took it out of my bag when I found a shot I liked.
When I had finished my colour film, I sent it off to Analogue Wonderland for developing and scanning. Oddly enough I posted them on the day I shot my Frugal Film Project film from my last blog. Analogue Wonderland have looked after me over the years and just celebrated the 4th birthday of their in house Film Lab, Analogue Wonderlab!
It doesn't seem like it's been that long since Marina joined the team and set up the OG Wonderlab upstairs at Analogue Wonderland. Now Wonderlab is in it's own unit two doors down and is thriving thanks to the team that has been assembled and taken Wonderlab onwards and upwards. I will leave a link below.
A few days later I got my scans and straight away I could see the autumn colours in the park in my photos, despite them being slightly muted by the flat light on what was a dull day. To be honest i wasn't disappointed or even slightly peeved. It is the time of year when we get whatever comes our way and make the best of it. I am pleased that my photos turned out well exposed and as sharp as I was going to get on a dull day in darkest Wigan.
Here's a few of my favourite photos from my two rolls of Kodak Gold shot with my Minolta Dynax 4 and AF 50mm f/1.7 lens. As always I have placed them and more in albums on Flickr that you can visit using the links below. I hope you enjoy them.
Kodak Gold 1 - Minolta Dynax 4 - AF 50mm f/1.7
Kodak Gold 2 - Minolta Dynax 4 - AF 50mm f/1.7
Analogue Wonderland
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