[Ira]

Mike, Indian came back in the early 90s after a long absence. Someone bought the name and built the bikes more or LESS based on the original ones, but I think they went out of business again. And to my knowledge, the old tooling was long, long gone, let alone the difference in production techniques between originally and later. It was more about just buying the brand/trademark.

I'm not a bike guy, but I did ads for the economic development magazine I worked for back then for the town/city that they put the Indian plant in. Can't even remember the state, though.

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Last edited by Ira; 06-27-2010 at 12:04 PM.

[WiseOx]

Finally get to join this club. Picked up an old SMC Takumar 55mm f1.8 off of Kijiji a while back...and took delivery of a cheap M42 adapter from HK. Decided to turn my old backup *ist DL into an M42 shooter. Just love how the water looked. Now....how much is the lens....and how much is that great old Sony sensor...that's the question.

[Mike Cash]

Mike, Indian came back in the early 90s after a long absence. Someone bought the name and built the bikes more or LESS based on the original ones, but I think they went out of business again. And to my knowledge, the old tooling was long, long gone, let alone the difference in production techniques between originally and later. It was more about just buying the brand/trademark.

I'm not a bike guy, but I did ads for the economic development magazine I worked for back then for the town/city that they put the Indian plant in. Can't even remember the state, though.

The Indian motorcycles I see here are the genuine article....the old original Indians. Japanese bikers have an affection for old Harleys and Indians that is really quite remarkable. I guess they bought up a lot of the old bikes and parts back during the bubble economy and it is not unusual to see old Harleys tooling down the road here, though I must admit that seeing an Indian being ridden is not that common. I do know of a couple of shops in Tokyo that handle them, though.

Pentax K20D
S-M-C Takumar 135/3.5

I'm getting quite fond of shooting in black and white.

[Mike Cash]

Blue, I hate to sound critical but I believe you might want to adjust the WB on that second photo.

Pentax K20D
S-M-C Takumar 105/2.8

[captainslack]

This taken at a Carolina Hurricanes Season Ticket Holder Party.

Pentax K10d
Super Takumar 55mm/1.8
ISO 1600

[Ira]

This taken at a Carolina Hurricanes Season Ticket Holder Party.

Pentax K10d
Super Takumar 55mm/1.8
ISO 1600

It's sad when our cherished Tak Club members display memory loss.

Because unless I'm mistaken, you posted this one before.

[Ira]

The Indian motorcycles I see here are the genuine article....the old original Indians. Japanese bikers have an affection for old Harleys and Indians that is really quite remarkable. I guess they bought up a lot of the old bikes and parts back during the bubble economy and it is not unusual to see old Harleys tooling down the road here, though I must admit that seeing an Indian being ridden is not that common. I do know of a couple of shops in Tokyo that handle them, though.

Pentax K20D
S-M-C Takumar 135/3.5

I'm getting quite fond of shooting in black and white.

Do you have her number?

And I have a question for you:

At a prior job, I worked with two Japanese girls, right off the boat as they say. And I asked her about something I saw on an episode of Andrew Zimern's (spelling?) Strange Eats on the Travel Channel.

Isn't there a name for the type of small eatery that sells the really weird stuff by both western standards and Japanese standards, like turtle and such? I know that what Americans consider weird isn't weird there, but this type of restaurant basically serves the kinds of things that most Japanese don't want either.

It's a generic term, like delicatessen or luncheonette.

[Ira]

Finally get to join this club. Picked up an old SMC Takumar 55mm f1.8 off of Kijiji a while back...and took delivery of a cheap M42 adapter from HK. Decided to turn my old backup *ist DL into an M42 shooter. Just love how the water looked. Now....how much is the lens....and how much is that great old Sony sensor...that's the question.

Ox--it's the LENS! And that's beautiful!!!

You're going to soon discover that it's not so much the camera that you cherish, but the vintage glass you're shooting through. Can't be replicated with modern lenses.

I have the Super 1.8 but never use it, because I also have the 1.4. But by many reviews and standards, people say the 1.8 is actually sharper.

I hope you hang around with us here for a LONG while, and learn to appreciate these lenses and the work needed to get the image. It's really something special.

Did you use a polarizer on that to get the water looking like it did?

[Mike Cash]

Such small eateries are known as "shokudou"(食堂), but the term has nothing to do with the nature of the menu. The term applies to small lunch rooms which have a simple interior, tend to be mom-n-pop operations, and which have a more varied menu than places which specialize in dishes such as sushi, ramen, udon, soba, unagi, etc.

I like the shokudou a lot, but they are an endangered species these days. I'd be surprised to find any at all still operating ten years from now, and five years would probably be a more accurate guess. They can't compete with fast food joints and chain restaurants with their own parking lots. And in the last few years Japan has adopted the mega-mall craze, further ensuring the rapid death of the old traditional downtown areas which is where the shokudou are typically found. Mega-malls and the unbelievable proliferation of private auto ownership has vastly changed the way the Japanese shop and the change engendered is just as visible as in any American small town where McDonalds killed the greasy spoon eatery and Wal-Mart killed the entire downtown area. The difference between the Japan I live in today and the one I lived in 25 years ago is like daylight and dark.

[dude163]

I let my 6 yr old girl take out my Old rebel XT , but before I did I took off my 35mm Super tak f3.5 and popped on a 50mm autofocus canon for her , when we downloaded the pics I found these that I had taken with the tak 35mm a few weeks prior

One unfortunately is soft due to ISO 1600, but the 2nd one I dropped to ISO 400 and it came out a lot better IMO, loving the TAKS!

[Mike Cash]

It's sad when our cherished Tak Club members display memory loss.

Because unless I'm mistaken, you posted this one before.

Photographs featuring attractive females may be posted a maximum of infinity minus one times before it is appropriate to ask that they no longer be shared with us.

Pentax K20D
S-M-C Takumar 105/2.8

[Ira]

Such small eateries are known as "shokudou"(食堂), but the term has nothing to do with the nature of the menu. The term applies to small lunch rooms which have a simple interior, tend to be mom-n-pop operations, and which have a more varied menu than places which specialize in dishes such as sushi, ramen, udon, soba, unagi, etc.

I like the shokudou a lot, but they are an endangered species these days. I'd be surprised to find any at all still operating ten years from now, and five years would probably be a more accurate guess. They can't compete with fast food joints and chain restaurants with their own parking lots. And in the last few years Japan has adopted the mega-mall craze, further ensuring the rapid death of the old traditional downtown areas which is where the shokudou are typically found. Mega-malls and the unbelievable proliferation of private auto ownership has vastly changed the way the Japanese shop and the change engendered is just as visible as in any American small town where McDonalds killed the greasy spoon eatery and Wal-Mart killed the entire downtown area. The difference between the Japan I live in today and the one I lived in 25 years ago is like daylight and dark.

Yep--that basically describes what I saw.

Sometimes, when I wax nostalgic about how good things used to be, I attribute it to my age. But no--the reality is that it's becoming a homogenized, boring world.

I would have hoped the Japanese would have resisted crap like McDonald's, but I guess we're all human.

[LensScribe]

Photographs featuring attractive females may be posted a maximum of infinity minus one times before it is appropriate to ask that they no longer be shared with us.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's the official formula

[hangu]

Photographs featuring attractive females may be posted a maximum of infinity minus one times before it is appropriate to ask that they no longer be shared with us.

Pentax K20D
S-M-C Takumar 105/2.8

She's OK, I give her a 6, maybe.

[Mike Cash]

She's OK, I give her a 6, maybe.

I long ago quit comparing the beauty of one female to another or attempting to rate them on some sort of scale. I noticed about myself that one of my few joys in life was seeing attractive women and one day it dawned on me that the most surefire way in the world to maximize my enjoyment was the simple expedient of lowering my standards.

I now try to appreciate each on her own merits and realize the pointlessness of doing something so picky as rating women I'm never going to meet or speak to, much less court or marry. My subjective assessment of them doesn't alter them and I won't be called upon to interact with them, nor to ever again behold them in most cases, and it is silly to deprive myself of whatever degree of happiness may be derived from appreciating them, be it great or small. So I consider an incredible range of women "pretty". It costs me nothing, harms no one, and makes my days more pleasant.

Pentax K20D
Super Takumar 85/1.9

I find that one of the benefits of getting older (I just turned 45) is that it broadens the age range of women it is socially acceptable to admit I find attractive. For example, were I twenty and said I find the lady in the above photo attractive many people would think me odd, but at 45 the reaction would be different. Conversely, whether I were twenty, forty, or eighty I could state that the young lady in the striped shirt is attractive and no one would consider it odd, as she fits the age range in which it is universally acceptable to society to consider a woman physically appealing. A silly notion, as no matter what the age of the beholder neither the age nor the appearance of either of the two would be any different whatsoever. Feminine pulchritude is displayed in units of one and that, to me, is the only reasonable quantity in which to appreciate it, without resorting to comparisons to others.