Realgrumpytyke

By Realgrumpytyke

Trying to get with the birds

A visit last week to the lavender patch and a young silver birch outside our kitchen window, by a couple of goldcrests, what I think was a coal tit, and frequent visits by a pair of bluetits, decided me to try to join the bird blippers. To try to attract more visitors I bought a couple of bird feeders and put them in the tree - one specially for finches and one, with fatballs, to suit the tits.
The bluetits did come this morning but by the time I had the camera they had gone and if they have come back it is not while I'm at the window. They seem to avoid the area when a pair of blackbirds, very frequent visitors, are around.
So, I've dug out another of my classic cameras which I bought specifically for its 'focus trap' facility - a Yashica 230AF; when it was introduced it was the first slr to have it. I haven't used it for 3 years or more. It has 14 shots left on a colour film and surprisingly the batteries seem still to be good, though the date on the data back is wrong (easily reset).
I intend to set it up as shown looking at one of the feeders. I've put the 135mm Zeiss Sonnar on it with a 1.6x adapter. With this adapter the manual 'legacy' lens becomes autofocus, but of course with focus trap it will be focussed manually. No good for blipping as it's a film camera, but it will be interesting to see what I might catch.

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