The last few weeks were especially wet and annoying here in San Sebastian. I don’t particularly enjoy shooting in the rain – everything looks the same because of all the umbrellas – but a couple of times I still took my camera with me when we were heading out for the grocery shopping.

All pictures taken with: Olympus Pen E-PL3 and Panasonic Lumix 20mm f/1.7 ASPH.

I love how everything is doubled in this one. The kids, the umbrellas, the buttons on the coat of the lady on the far right, the cars and even the street lanterns in the reflection.

Curious look at people coming from the shopping.

People with phones are boring unless they are leaning against the doorway inside a bakery for no reason.

It was that kind of a day.

Ezequiel’s comment was: “Hooligans up to no good”. Up to no good, maybe, but hooligans?

The guy seemed to have a moment of recognition.

Heavy shopping.

Our local fishmonger in the supermarket. It’s always very interesting to watch them clean the fish.

It’s a great place to see some really alien looking monsters. I hope he doesn’t taste the way he looks. So far we weren’t brave enough to try one of the really ugly ones.

Do you know what that is? It’s piranha! No idea where they got those from in Spain. Not exactly the right climate for these guys. We should have asked where they were caught. Of course we also weren’t brave enough to try them either.

We always see him when come back from the grocery shopping, because he always sells his lottery tickets at this spot. And he’s also always on the phone.

Serious smokers.

Another day. We wanted to have a quick look at the sea, but then it started raining again, so we turned back. It almost qualified as a walk. Almost.

Football is not my kind of sport. Especially not when it disturbs my peace and quiet. There is someone in our building shouting “gooooooal” whenever he watches football. The other day Ezequiel pointed the guy out to me and he really didn’t look the type to be shouting at the TV. Well, appearances …!

Another day. This time we were stubborn and persisted although it was raining.

Thinker pose while walking. That’s definitely new.

These are not nurses in case you were wondering. They are hairdressing students. Why they are forced to wear white is a very good question. Probably to torture them a bit.

I like the monster jumper.

Man at work.

His colleague below.

No need to hold the cigar. I can only assume that the smoke doesn’t sting the eyes the same way as cigarette smoke does. I gave up smoking years ago by the way.

Some can share, others can’t. The girls don’t only need separate umbrellas but separate buckets of Chupa Chups lollipops.

This little guy seemed very happy with all the driftwood on the beach.

One of those days as well.

More umbrellas.

Fascination with the little ones.

I like the hand parallels on the left and the runner who is stopped by a street.

Jaywalking!

He was not amused.

 

Yesterday my Yashica Electro 35 cc finally arrived. Due to an ebay confusion it had first ended up in Germany and then finally made its way to me in Spain. When it arrived I was disappointed though: The rangefinder didn’t work at all and something was loose in the top plate that occasionally blocked the light meter arrows. The yellow rangefinder square was visible, but it wasn’t moving when focussing the lens. The seller had pointed out a couple of scratches, but claimed that everything was working fine, so I was not too happy. I didn’t want to give up on it though, because the light meter seemed to be working fine and this is actually quite a rare camera. Even broken it usually goes for more on ebay than I paid for it.

In the end Ezequiel and me opened the camera up and poked around inside it for a while. A plate and a pin fell out, but the rangefinder wasn’t just being blocked by the plate, it still didn’t budge after moving the plate out of the way. With the help of several websites we then tried to figure out how the rangefinder worked. It didn’t make sense, nothing seemed to be moving or even be able to move. One of the lenses of the rangefinder seemed to be missing as well when comparing it to the rangefinder of the Yashica Electro 35 GSN. However, since the square was visible and roughly the size that it was supposed to be, I can only assume that the rangefinder of the CC is different from the GSN.

In the end I removed the viewfinder plate and the rangefinder assembly entirely. Only then it became apparent that the thing supposed to be moving was a mirror in a corner that was invisible while the assembly was in place. I had loosened a few screws to figure out which one held the assembly in place and this is what must have repaired it. After taking the assembly out it magically started to work! I then screwed it back in place and adjusted it to infinity as best I could. The moon is normally a good guide for this adjustment, but with the weather as it is at the moment it wasn’t visible. I adjusted it to the roof at the end of the street for now and will check it again when I see the moon the next time. It seems to be roughly alright for now. I then glued the viewfinder plate and also the plate that had fallen out back in place. The second plate that had come loose actually covered the light meter LEDs. Before the repair the LEDs themselves had been visible in the viewfinder and not just the arrows. One of the most difficult steps was actually to get the top plate back on, because the spring of the shutter release and the battery check button kept falling out. In the end I disconnected the flash sync by accident in the process, but at least both the shutter release and the battery check button still work! Since  I never use flash I don’t care about the flash sync. If I ever need it, I will have to solder the connection back together, a minor repair in comparison to figuring out the rangefinder! So, there you have the reason why I didn’t post any pictures yesterday: I was poking around inside a camera instead.

It seems that all my second hand cameras and me need a bit of a bonding experience before we can get to like each other. My Zorki 3C had a faulty shutter – someone had changed the shutter speed without cocking the shutter first – and my Zorki 4K needed a bit of heat-shrink wire insulation on the film forwarding lever because the plastic end was missing. I never had to poke around inside a rangefinder assembly before though, so I learned a lot in the process. Since the rangefinder of Ezequiel’s Voigtländer Vitoret is badly misaligned this was actually a good learning experience to get this camera into shape as well. If you deal with cameras that are 40 years old or even older (Zorki 3C 1956, Zorki 4K 1975, Yashica Electro 35 CC ~1971, Voigtländer Vitoret 1961-1971) it is to be expected that there will be a need for repair. If they had been produced nowadays though, they most definitely wouldn’t work at all if you think about the life expectancy of gadgets nowadays.

Imagine going into the future 40 years. Will your favourite digital camera work in 2054 with a bit of glue and a loosened screw? I very much doubt so. In fact they are usually hopelessly obsolete if they even survive past the guarantee time! And repairs usually need much more than glue and a screwdriver if they are possible at all.

And think about what it means for the style and look of your pictures. Planned obsolescence and living in a time of fast technological advancement makes it almost impossible to give your work a coherent look. No wonder that so many people feel compelled to go back to analog. I hope my new/old Yashica keeps going for another 40 years.