2015, nearly done and dusted

Soon to be gone, 2015. 

Only memories left of the year as we know it, and a new year is knocking at the door as we speak. 

So, what did 2015 bring then... you might ask yourself. Lots, I would say, even though not all of it was good. As it should be, probably. 

How would it look then, my 2015 seen through a few snaps?

You get them here... collected in a matter of a few minutes. I have probably forgot something in the process...!

Me and my wife started off the new year going to Orkney, together. She had never been here before, and it turned out she loved the place and the people. Of course!

The grandson Rohan Alexander was born late march, and a great little kid he sure is I tell you! The last snap is from his christening though... so that'll be a few months later.

Some came, others left. My wife lost her father only a couple of days after Rohan was born. It was very sudden, and very sad, as it allways is when someone leaves to never come back.

A fantastic good weekend out in the very outer skerries of the northwestern coast of Norway we had! Me, my wife, my sister and one of our common friends. Kayaking and doing all sorts of good stuff.

Me and my father walking the streets of the old parts of Trondheim later in the year. It was a cold, wet, misserable and fantastic great day out with him! We have not done anything like this in years, and it was pure joy and simply fantastic :))

All snapped on film, of course... different cameras, different kinds of film. All scanned negatives, not even taken away the slightest track of dust... as I do, you know.

Then I just want to wish you all of my readers a Happy New Year for 2016! 
Really hope to see you all again soon, and hope I'll get a bunch of new readers through next year :))

Sometimes...

Sometimes I'd love to stand all alone, inside a huge cathedral, screaming til my voice cracked and died... I think today would be a good day to do just that! To scream and hear the echo of my voice slowly fade away in between a thousand years worth of more or less bad memories, headstones, bones and altars and what good have we.

Instead I have to stick my head outside in the great wide open Orkney landscape and do the same thing. There's no echo here as such, which obviously would take the punch and point totally away. 

Still, I'm really feeling the temptation...

See? The german cameras has flaws as well! The curtains didn't quite follow each other on this one. I think this was done on the elder one of the two I got... the M3 from 1960. It's the only time it happened though... I think. 

The big party season

It's kind of the time for them... all those parties going on around here, there and everywhere. 
I'm not a part of them, though! Not this year, anyway. 
I'm at work, you know... so no partying around this parish. End of!

The wife herself, trying to follow some sort of conversation... Me busy trying to sort out the best way to produce a decent snap of the situation. Very low light, slow shuttertimes, as you might guess!

We like to take people home, every now and then, me and my wife. We like to have our friends around, especially when the weather is good in the summertime and such. Not very often then, as the norwegian western side is more wet than dry more or less all year around. Usually we take a look at the forecast on a thursday, and decide to get the friends along on friday or saturday the same week. It allways ends with horrible weather instead of the predicted good stuff. 
We never seem to mind too much, or learn!

The wifes brother usually stick well onto film. Not so this evening, but the good thing is that he was definitely not alone, as you sure will find out further down...

These snaps are from sometime last "summer", when the temperature never reached very much over ten degrees. This evening it was more like five, or thereabout.
It was a lot of great fun though, and a lot of good laughs and talking going on around the cottage walls. 

This bunch, snapped on the old Rolleiflex machine, was not exactly sticky either. They moved a bit, but the person behind the camera tried his very best! The good old father is back there, as well!

I'm looking forward to summer again, and to have people gathered.
But first of all I'm looking forward to the second or third of january... because then I'm getting home from here. It's allways good to get home from here!

My sister won't stick to anything less than superspeed film... no matter how much light you got around. This evening there was not much of it, so this is what you'll get of her for now. 

The Christmas day Ba went doon!

So, it went in the harbour, again. The Ba. Which is the wrong way, at least seen from inside of my head and out. But OK! There's always the new years day Ba left, and new chances to get everything sorted in just a few days. 
I brought a few cameras to the Ba, but as you know it will still take a few weeks until my film snaps can get online. They might even turn out totally useless as well... but we'll find out some other day. This means I got to break one of my principles on here, if I decide that I want to show you a couple of memories from the Christmas day Ba-game. I brought some electronic pixel collector as well, you see, just to be in a position where snaps can be shown instantly if needed. Not that it's needed, as such, but it might be wanted at some point. And then I can dig them out from that electronic card... you know the story. Bits, bytes and pieces, 0's and 1's all stacked together in a pattern I know very little about. I still have decided to post them, so you'll either have to turn your eyes into a safe direction, or just go for it and have a look. 

"The pack" getting ready for the Ba to be thrown into the middle, never to show up for most people until the scoring happens, six hours later...

A short time after the game started, the participating teams has already turned the heat up a wee bit, and started to produce some good old steam. 

I might just as well throw in a word or two about the camera then! It's a Fujifilm X-pro1 thing. Black box, OK size. Earlier I used to carry a huge DSLR when I wanted electronic images, but I gave the thing away... My son got it now, and he is quite happy with the old thing. Of course he is...! He got himself a semi-pro Nikon digital camera, and his father got loads of great old lenses that fit straight on the thing... 
The Fujifilm X-pro1 is a different breed, actually. It's quite handy, and if I was using digital cameras a lot more than I actually do, I might really like this thing. 
I don't own a dedicated X-mount lens for this camera. I use it with old Nikon or Leica lenses, and find it to be good enough for my use. As I told you, I don't use it that much. Checking through the memory card I can trace my first snapped photo inside this thing back to the 4'th of august 2014, which probably was the same day I got it. I took some photos on that day, and then I took some a little bit later in august 2014... in a wedding I was playing a big part in. Then there's nothing until february 2015... and then these pictures from the 25'th of december. So, I'm not a big user of this thing, as you might figured out allready. 

And they managed to move a bit around with the Ba... just over the road, as it happens, towards the old cathedral and thereabouts. They did not manage to tear that pole down, but I think they were pretty darn close to it...

Some fists flying, as they should on a day like this...

I just leave you with the snaps from the Ba, and sit here and wait for you to fire off a few questions instead. A six hours struggle this year, to get the Ba into the sea. Most of the time it was stuck into a corner up at the car park, but somehow they got it out of there and further down towards the harbour. 
I hope for a different outcome on new years day... as you know. 

Night came creeping at one point, and the Ba was completely stuck into a corner around the car park. I have seen it stuck here before, and the best thing you can possibly do is find the nearest pub for some refreshments for a short while... an hour or two should be fine. You'll find the Ba at a later time.

And the steam just kept on rising from "the pack". There's some energy being let loose in there for sure!

Action in the middle of the night...

Moving around, with a goal...

And when the Ba has finally touched the water, the big fight for the trophy starts inside the winning team. This can take forever, but this year they ended the discussion quite fast... maybe after ten minutes or so.

The winner has claimed his Ba. Now the party starts... and that's often a never ending story as well

When a man gets the flu...

I'm sure you know everything about it, either you're a man or a woman.
Yesterday I had it thrown at me, but I managed to make it through most of the working day before it struck. Then, there's the "black hole" feeling when I try to sort out what's been happening from then up until a couple of hours ago. 
It was a tough one, I tell you! No kidding at all! Have been swimming in fever around in my bed all last night, and today as well. Luckily the team down in the engine room was more or less finished yesterday, and todays work has more or less been hovering around one of our turbo chargers. There was some problems with it the last time we tried to change it as well, and the same thing happened again with a different cartridge. One of the great mechanics sorted it out in the end, but it took some skills and loads of thinking and looking. My old mate Thorgeir, found where the trouble was hidden... if you remember the guy I snapped back in time around a million years ago?

I like this old window, as you should all know by now anyway. And I guess you all can see why, anyway. Probably seen through those huge Sekor lenses attached to those Mamiya RZ's. The snap is oldish, so I got no idea here and now which film was used. It sure was B&W though!

Well... this post was more or less done just to make you aware of my health, or the lack of it, and to get some real heartfelt sympathy. Man-flu, you know... I've actually seen, in written somewhere, that when a man gets the flu it's serious business! And tell me about it, 'cause I know! 
Right now I'm on every medication you could possibly think of, just to try get the man in me back and kicking at some point tomorrow. I feel a bit better now, so I really hope it's going the right way now. 

Ah... here it is: Broadstreet in Kirkwall. You know you're there once you can actually quite safely drive a car without having to stop in the middle of the street to pass the one coming against you. Oh, and sure, you will know because you are right there by the cathedral. That's a bit hard to miss, to be honest. I was there, with my wife, which means this is more or less exactly a one year old snap.

And it's christmas time very soon! My wife just moved to the cottage today to stay there over both x-mas and new year. All kids are out of the house, and she wanted to have a real quiet time by herself. She's getting visitors though. More or less all the time. I think it's more that she want to go away from the house over to where the waves can be heared all day and night, over to where the sound of silence may be found when she needs it.
We have had very silent and quiet christmases the last few years, and it's good. My wife and my younger daughter will go to the church earlier in the day, then we eat good christmas food... and that's more or less it. And it's all good!
Nothing much happening before christmas either. There's a very few presents to be bought for the small children we still got some sort of contact with, but everything else has been sorted out in a different way, meaning almost no presents at all. Just a very few, and small ones. And that's just the way we like it. 

It's nothing special. Just a crow on a lamp post, back in my home town. And you see the restaurant on the hilltop there, where the town has put some change together to buy new steps all the way from the park. It should be a nice walk, but I have not tried the new stairs yet. I used to go to school straight below that rocky thing in the middle of the photo, and each physical lesson we used to run up and down these stairs just to end off the day like you got nothing left to give. 

Meanwhile I'm over here, in Orkney, at work. And that's what I'm going to be doing until the 2'nd of january. I would rather be elsewhere, but this is my job... and this is the one part of my job that I don't like too much. But I've done it quite a few times now, and it does not bother me too much anymore. 
I hope you all are staying safe and well!! And I hope you didn't get the same flu I got! It's bad, I tell you that.

We're getting closer!

It's always like that. You get closer to something you're looking forward to, and then it's suddenly over. You might never even noticed it, more or less, but it's still over.
Nothing is over here, as for yet, but we will get there. 
The engine overhaul is coming towards an end, and we got a million different other bits and pieces going on as well, which also probably will come to an end, soonish.

Just to make sure you can all see that I used to be able to get sharp images and all... a few years back in time. It might have been under influence of the sun shining a bright light and what have you, but it was also seen through a great 24mm Nikkor lens. The snapper was a very well beaten Nikon F3 P... the press version of the thing. You know the one with the noisy motor thing attached? 

It's huge, and great!

The ship is down manned during christmas. All project crew will be home well before the festive days starts off, the few of them that's still left on board that is. The other ones have been home for days already. When the last few of them get away from here, it will leave only the ships maritime crew left on board. That's cool enough, to be honest. As there is no work for the ship during christmas, it means we will stay alongside right here where we are right now for the next couple of weeks with no one on board telling us anything about how we should do this, and how to do that. It seems like we're the idiots, and whatever the project people finds being a good idea really is a good idea. I wonder what makes these people such great and experienced sailors, never stayed even a few minutes on board a vessel without getting seriously sea sick. 
Nothing wrong having the habbit of getting sea sick, by all means, but don't both act like a sailor of all seas while you're prone to hang over the toilet a few minutes after the vessel have left port. Please! It looks a wee bit stupid, you know.

The young one of the daughters eating her lunch at a bench by the sea on a warm summers day. I don't actually know the full story around the headgear, which she usually used during winter time... but anyway, that's what she decided was the coolest thing to wear this day, the warm one in the summer. Further I think this is from the same film as above, thus also done on the F3 P version.

Well! Enough about that, I think!
Just wanted to say that I'm still alive and kicking. Both sideways and upwards! 
And hey... I don't know if this blog is getting more followers, or if there's just the few usual ones reading it many times over... but I got a few more readers now, it seems. And how great is'nt that, you think? 
Keep on reading folks, and if you want to throw a link around the interweb as well, just to get even more readers over towards me, please be my guest! 
And now I need to go to a bloody meeting. Something the captain has found being a very bright idea... I kid you not!

All this talks about ships and maritime stuff, and no snaps on that theme?! No way! This is what you all see it is. On the UK sector around the northern end of the Shetland area somewhere way out at sea. Not that I've seen this thing that often, but we did a few jobs up there a lot earlier this year. I don't have a clue about the snappermachine used, but it could be of german origin for what I know.

Take care folks!

This is going to be busy!

The next couple of weeks, that is... on the ship tied up in Kirkwall and all. I will say no more about that right here and now, but it started off badly, and will probably get worse over the next few days. 

I know... there's dust to be found if you look carefully. Of other things you see the most powerful, swedish champion and olympic team member in karate doing a quick training pass of around 150 of these things after finishing work for the day. He used to be my first engineer not to long ago. I don't know which part was the strongest, his mind or his body, but I've never met anything like this bloke. Period!

Anyway... I'm still here, and I still got my few cameras which I have not been able to put into any great work as for yet this trip. I will though, when all the rumble starts in town during the festive days coming up. Christmas is allways a special thing over here in this small town. The Ba game to be played, and what have we all.

The streets of Kirkwall. The battleground during the Ba-game two times each year where the Uppies and the Doonies clash together measuring strength and bodyweight just up the street here. You see the point where they throw up the Ba up there, where the cars are parked. This snap must have been taken a day or two after the battle. There will be no cars in the streets during the game, but a few more people will be seen around this place. 

I've seen it before, and I really love it for some reason. Actually I've seen it quite a few times concidered the fact that I'm a norwegian and should therefore normally have stayed at home with my family at the time this game is being played each year. Or, they actually play two times each year. The 25'th of december, and the 1'st of january. One week between the games, or 51 weeks... depending a bit how you usually counting the days. 

Still in the streets of Kirkwall, but a bit further down the road where the Ba rarely shows up. Still you never know, of course. This is a game with no rules, which means there's a million more or less dirty tricks invented over the last hundreds of years to get the Ba transported to your goal. It's interresting, if you care to follow the game for some time.

I wish I got some film snaps from the Ba-game for you to show up here on the blog, but as for yet I have not managed to bring a decent camera to any of the games I've watched over the past five years. That will change a bit now though, as I'm armed with a couple or more fine snappers that should manage to do the trick neatly enough should the operator be able to point them in the right direction at the right time. That could, at times, be difficult enough though, so we'll just have to wait and see what we end up with. 

Nothing to do with the Ba-game, mind! It's just a fence-scape from Orkney. Out there at Yesnaby somewhere out west. See, it still stands upright for some reason, even though the wind out here is getting crazy at times. It looked quite new though, which probably means it leans a bit inwards from the sea today. If you care go have a look at it.

Well... there's still a few days to go before the good old Ba-game starts, which means I got loads of work to get done until then. We are just now tied up alongside in Kirkwall and ready to start a major overhaul on one of our big diesel engines. That's going to drain some energy from me the next few days, I suppose. 
See you again, some day soon!

Bracing myself!

The first two weeks of the trip at work nearly done. Usually it's a relief to get to the point where you can look forward to less days on board than the ones you have allready done. Not so this time, I'm afraid. There's major overhaul to be done, and the clock is ticking towards the day we just have to start on the big job. Friday, it is. Friday this very week. It's probably going to be hard to manage the whole thing, but I just have to pretend everything is in hand. As I usually do...

This was snapped from the bridge wing of the Subsea Viking alongside Hatston Pier, Kirkwall, Orkney on a very much better day when the sun was shining, the sea was all flat, and we still had a helicopter landing pad out front. Not so today, where half of it was ripped off during a pretty rough storm a few weeks ago. There's a lot of power in all that water, I tell you! I think this was seen through my 35mill german lens and ditto camera.

Anyway. Since we will get the big thing started friday, this means that we should be done before the big hollidays. Well... hollidays at home does not automatically makes it a holliday on board, as you might expect. Still, we will probably be able to relax a bit as well even though there will be a few extra people on board working on different equipment. 
Cool thing that I just discovered a very few minutes ago is that a long time friend and co-worker of me from days way back in time, will also join to be a part of the team that will do and have the responsibility of the work being done to the main engines. I'm really looking forward to see him again. It's been around 15 yrs. since we last worked together now, so it's probably about time we catch up a bit.
I even think I got an old snap of him around on my hard-drive, snapped back in time when we travelled the world fixing huge diesel engines. He is still in that same business though, while me myself decided to move to the shipping industry to get a bit more relaxed life. 
I need to snap him up again in a few days, of course!

See... there he is! To the right, straight from the early 90's some time, my old pal Torgeir. He's the kind of guy that will look exactly the same today, twenty-something years later. He might eat a bit less, but I'm not too sure about that either. The other boy is Runar. I still see him every now and then. Last time was just a few weeks ago, through the bottom of a pint... I must say though, that I'm a bit surprised that I can be out here at sea, and still have things like this to draw up when needed. Don't look at the scan though! This was done on a truly bad thing bought ages ago... I better start rescan a few of my films... I think this was probably done on that old Nikon F401, or maybe even on that only Canon I ever owned, the AE-1.

And before I had finnished putting these words together and had them posted, the good old man wrote a message to me on facebook... he had seen my name popping up as he was preparing for the job on board my ship. Great...! Then we should have the best team possible to get this job done and dusted! 

I will keep you informed as the days go by :))

I got these square and bulky Mamiyas, you know

You know the kind of instrument which takes great snaps, if the person behind it kind of point it towards great stuff and are able to adjust it roughly into an area where something might fasten on the film inside the back, that is.
I give you a few right here and now, of things I have looked at through the finder of one or more of these cameras. They are all negative scans, mind you!

Monstermachines at Hatston Pier, Kirkwall, Orkney. Weird lens this one. 37mm short, but big as a truck anyway. Fits and was made for that chunky Mamiya RZ67 some years ago. I think I was like half a meter away from that hook or something. You really need to be careful when using this thing.

Just to update you all: We are back at sea, free as the whales or something like that. Out here trying to earn a few coins before we go ashore to use it all on spareparts and manpower towards christmas. Got a couple of main engines to get done. Overhaul and stuff like that, as we do every now and then.

My wife is not the snapper kind of person, but she insisted to go for it one day, with one of the big Mamiyas. She managed to do this one, of yours truly catched in a very rare moment of sort of smiling. I honestly don't know where that came from :)

Oh, and I for sure got this extreme lens, which you might have allready noticed, which I can put on those Mamiyas if I like. 
Well, I don't like it that much, even though it's a great lens as such. It's a bit on the "fishy" end to my taste actually, but I got it and sometimes I get tempted to use it. 
I even used it down in the engineroom a couple of years ago. That's the two last snaps in todays post. Not the best of luck with the exposures, but heck... it's not too easy to guess exposure at places like that anyway! Just find yourself a big, deep engineroom and try for yourselves, then report back you findings in this direction :))

Port side engineroom of Subsea Viking. You'll see parts of two main engines here, with a bit of luck, and a bunch of pipes, coolers, pumps and other engineroom stuff. The starboard engineroom is exactly the same. It's a DP3 class vessel, so we got double of everything, just in case one side suddenly gets useless because of flooding, fire or whatever Murphy throws in our direction...

Hope you all have a great time the last days before the festive days ahead of us. I will stay on board the ship until past new year, so you all know where you got me. No family to see this year, as more or less usual. 
I will survive though! I have tried this quite a few times already, so nothing new about it.
I got a couple of cameras you know, and a few rolls of film. Will try to get something snapped, so just make sure you follow this small and tiny blog in the future to be able to catch up at some point.

Looking down the line of crankshaft hatches of one of our 4 main engines. One engine are able to produce 2400 kW of energy out on the generator attached to it, and we got four of them. Make us able to power up something big, if needed. Oh... and there are more pipes, pumps, coolers and things there on the left hand side. 

Have a nice week folks, and I hope to be able to post something more every now and then :)

We actually did not drown, or blew off the road!

Was out yesterday. Out and about with a bus driver who thought we were completely nuts and crazy wanting a sightseeing on such a day. What the heck...? I thought these locals still had some of that old guts and no fear stuff inside. Well, obviously not all of them.
Anyway, he was a great driver as he still managed to keep that big bus on the road instead of all over the moorland beside of it.

This is also on Orkney mainland, but we were not around this place yesterday. This is a snap from about one year ago. Made through a german lens of 3,5 cm length. It's a good one.

I had seen it all before, but luckily we (or me, myself as it happens) managed to convince him that Yesnaby would be a good spot on such a breezy day. I can inform you that it most certainly was! Maybe not for the bus driver who had to turn his big wheely thing around down there in the gale while we were outside playing with cameras and stuff. It was great!

No worries! It's just a picture of the captain having his morning coffee one day this summer. He managed to drink it all without spilling anything on the floor or anywhere else. It was one of his better days ever, probably!

I mostly snapped electronic pixelized images yesterday, just because something strange happened as I was going to change the film inside my real camera. There was just no new film there!! I had totally forgot that I had put it into a different bag a couple of days ago, and so left behind at the ship. Well... that's life as it is. I had to manage with the pixelator from then, and I'm not to sure if that's apropriate to post here in any way. I think I need to sleep a wee bit on that one, so please bear with me for a few moments or so.

This is definately an Orcadian! He showed us his church, or actually it's a cathedral if you ask him, and he was also pointing in absolutely every thinkable direction while talking. All the time. I snapped this, and just found it lurking around in between my scannings on a red hard drive. It was quite nice actually, even though the light up there around the ceiling of that big cathedral was pretty much on the low side of things. 

Otherwise... it's all good! I was just dropping by to tell you a few words about the trip, and that we actually made it through the whole thing without anything serious happening to us.
How good is that, taken into concideration that the bus driver - the local one, you know - was particulary convinced that we probably would not make it. None of us, that is.
Well, I guess we thought him a good lesson there, don't you?

This? Just the extremely furry thing we got lurking around the house doing absolutely nothing. Right here shown in her favourite position as she does what she knows best.

Continued from yesterday, more or less...

A maybe less surprise, at least seen from my inside my head, would be that I also brought a Nikon FM2 to work this time. It's like I can never go anywhere without having one somewhere near me. It's right here on that table over there, loaded with a good roll of that old, great, legendary Tri-X you probably have either tried or been reading about, at some point. Not the new stuff, mind you, but the proper thing. From the mid 70's some time. I simply can't wait to wash that roll in some Rodinal or some other great soup. Well... I need to expose it to the right ammount of light first, of course, but I should manage to get that done during the next month or so.

It's scenery like this we got over here, on this island I'm staying on at the moment. Snapped on film with some Nikon FM2 about one year ago these days. We were here right after the big feast, even before the new year started. 

Ever tried an FM2? I tell you it's got to be the best battered thing I got lurking around in my bag. Lightweight, all manual, no batteries needed unless you are totally addicted to light meters, simplicity, no fuss at all, and it takes some beating very well. I got a few of them, and have never managed to do anything to harm any of them as for yet. They can stay for years somewhere inside a cabinet or something, and when you finally finds them and pick'em up and fires the shutter they just works. On all shutter times and all. It's just bloody great! Other cameras seem to need CLA, which usually mean TLC, both now and again through a lifetime. The FM2 not so. Or it looks like that, anyway, again as seen from inside my own head.

More scenery. West side of Mainland Orkney. This is what it looks like, actually. It's simply just like I like it to be.

On a good day I would even claim it's at least as good as any german snapper I know. It's not any bigger either, than the germans. The only disadvantage would be the clikketyclack, mirror you know. It's shouting where the germans are whispering. 
Anyway, it just works. And that's the big point I would say. That's also why you will allways find one of them in my bag.
There is a welfare tour, kind of sightseeing thing, being arranged today as we are sitting more or less idle here in Kirkwall and never get the chance to get anywhere else than on the ship. Sometimes I end up wondering which camera to bring on tours like that, but always seem to end up with a FM2 or one or both of the german ones. It's just a habbit folks, but I like these japanese left overs from the eightees. 
I might bring the pixel collector as well, just to make sure I got evidence to show off either here on the blog, or somewhere else. We'll see, I think.

Maybe it's a bit early, but we might even find one of these scattered around one of the beaches when we go for the tour a bit later. Who knows? This one was seen and duly documented in Windwick last year, or in the very beginning of this year. The mother was lurking in the area... just sayin'.

Have a great sunday, friends :)

Some clocked in at 34 years, others lived longer

Sure, that's right. On this very date, 48 years ago, I saw the light of day for the first time. At least that's what I like to think, that there was some kind of daylight present. It happened quite early in the morning, so it was definitely dark at the time, but probably got a little bit better throughout the day.

But that was not the reason for this very short post! I just got the news, that the Holga camera never got any older than 34. They have laid up the business, selling too few cameras these days, even though there's a lot of them still around.
I don't own a Holga, but I got an example of it's cousin, the Diana F+ It's the same thing, more or less. Totally flimsy plastic, loads of leaks, and a bit of fun and unpredictability. Which is good, at times.

Anyway, here's a bit more history to read around the old Holga.

Even more cameras...

You may believe it or just leave it be, but I also brought that bulky and plasticky Nikon F-401 I told you all about just a couple of days ago. The sibling to my first Nikon, as you should know by now. The story why I ended up with one of these again, quite recently or a couple of years ago, was because I had been looking for a free lens for some time. A 24mm Nikkor, one of those great ones with a largeish aperture, you know. That usually means you got to bleed for it, but I kept on looking for one of those rare good second hand deals anyway. And I found it, in the end. Some old man put this camera up for sale, with two lenses, and wanted just a few good old norwegian kroner for the thing. The attached lens was the usual 35-70mm thing, of which I got a few from earlier camera purchases. But there in the background, the lens I was looking for, and not even stated in the ad as anything more than "an extra lens" or something like that.

This old one from the late eighties may, or may not, have been made inside the same kind of Nikon F-401 as I'm talking about today. Only difference is that it's from a different camera. The one I got rid of some time in the mid 90's or thereabout, when I bought my first FM2 instead. 

Well, I ended up with the lens more or less given to me in the end. And the day was good. I threw the camera in the garbage camerabin and forgot all about it, as it didn't seem to work. A few weeks ago I decided to have a closer look at it. Luckily I have opened a few cameras before, and this was a simple case as the problem was found to be nothing more serious than a bad contact point. 

This very bad scan is also from an old film, definitely drawn through that old Nikon. It's of my middle child, Malin, who has grown a bit since this was snapped, and who is now pushing a lille bit bigger but still very similar thing in front of her as she strolls the streets.

The camera is working now, and I have just brought it over to Orkney to give it a good go in some rough conditions. It might not work when I get home, but we'll see. Anyway, this is a love and hate kind of thing I got towards this snapper, but I promise to try give it a fair chance and look at it with a pair of half freshish eyes. 
I must admit though, that it's kind of cool to have a working example of this camera in my bag once more. It's been a long time since the mid 80's after all.

Last one today. My oldest child, Glenn, working on agricultural machinery here. Today he is an electrician, working on the GSM mobile antenna systems in the area. Nikon F-401 around 1994 or something like that.