Paddington and reading

Thinking a little about the past in which photography played a part taking pictures of my childhood, two things that almost run into each other were the television series for children "Blue Peter" that I may write a bit more about one day and Paddington Bear who apart from having fictional adventures that I read certainly in my junior years also had a tv animated series on the BBC.
One link also was that for a number years that cover my infant and junior school years in each book published yearly that outlined the last twelve months of Blue Peter, there were exclusive short Paddington Bear stories illustrated in each edition.
In 1973 as I recall it being mentioned in the Radio Times underneath each entry for that show a book compiling them from 1966 through 1972 entitled Paddington's Blue Peter Story Book came out that had these stories of him being involved in the program and having a copy of it.

May Day edition

One thing that does come to mind as we've entered May is the Maypole Dance which is something as a boy in juniors I well remember taking part in at the start of the month usually connected other school events that day, taking time out from lessons to practice our steps.
I love to watch children today maintain that centuries old link.

St.Georges memories

St. Georges Day was five days ago, the Twenty-third and was always marked at my Junior School the subject of School Assemblies and the flag being put up on our flag pole apart from what my friends in the Cubs did there as he's the Patron Saint of Scouting.

Often as shown here, the story of st.George would be retold through a play boys would take part in.

Boys at play

Although this picture goes back a good number of years, to me it is a well observed and captured study in boys play, the kind I grew up with with structures in the park you climbed over.
Play is a social activity and here we see that interaction through body language such as the eye contact and the closeness of each others hands signifying the bond between them.
Their uniform is similar to that I remember wearing and have never really forgotten.

The magnificence of Trees

While I was away a couple of months back I saw this lovely specimen of a tree and although lacking my usual Minolta kit, took this picture using a digital compact camera. 

The mask slips...

A favourite photograph from April 29 2011 wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton showing the page boys and brides maids mask of seriousness slipping and reverting to their innate childish state, sharing a joke.

135mm F 2.8

How many variations on theme is something one could ask when it comes to telephoto lenses and even telezooms but the honest answer has to include something like "when each has it's own strength" that is of use in the field.

 

Take this, a example of the ever popular during Minolta's manual focus hayday classic 135 mm lens where I have a mid 70's MC series example in F 3.5 and the later post 1982 type III MD F3.5 with it's minimum aperture lock for the X700 introduced that year.

 This shot of the rear of the lens shows the big difference of this Type II MD F 2.8, that wider aperture that can make focusing a tad easier in gloomy conditions although it comes with 100 gram extra weight. It uses thicker glass that aids the optical quality compared to the last type III version of 1982/3.

 

 The all important Japan Industries quality mark is on - a sign of quality - that aided your confidence way back then and note the focal length is marked clearly in orange. 

The rear showing the automatic diaphragm pin which is sprung enabling  focusing at the widest aperture for rapid picture taking with the camera shutting it to the set value by the camera during exposure.

The meter coupling and minimum aperture pin for the XD5/7 and X700 shutter priority and program modes respectively can be seen.

This lens is one I've always coveted not least having used F2.8 designs before and I'm looking forward to using it soon.