Minolta Super-A in the grass
It was a sunny day with intermittent gusts of warm air breathing life into the long grass of the meadow. Elongated stems laden with blooms swayed and swirled in the midst of this flowing sea. A rabbit crossed the worn path, heard but unseen, as small birds filtered and crows fought.
It’s an equal struggle to portray my experience in words as it is in pictures. I cannot convey how at times like these the wonderful memories of a childhood seemingly spent entirely enveloped in long grass surge. I’m unable to show how the grass moves moments after the leaves rustle. So I can only do my best even if it doesn’t’ meet my own expectations.
As for the camera it’s muted leaf shutter seemed well suited to the quite sounds of nature. There is a severe limitation with a 1/200 second shutter on such a bright day but the inaccuracy of the aged meter led me to over expose anyway. The lens appears to have some sort of coating but it is likely a single coating and doesn’t do a great deal for the lack of contrast when used with colour film. Focusing with the range finder patch was difficult when so much of the scene appeared so similar so I resorted to focusing by using the scale on the camera. As I stated in an earlier post the Super-A has framing lines for the 50mm lens within it’s larger 35mm accommodating viewfinder. This is a nice way to see outside the frame for items to include or exclude from the image. It’s an interesting camera and one I enjoy looking at but it’s heft and other limitations will likely force it to remain largely a display item.