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Winter Stations in the Beaches 2026 Edition

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 The Beaches Winter Stations Installation is an annual event where teams from different arcitecture schools and design firms design shelters around, or, near by lifeguard chairs at Woodbine Beach. I usually photograph them near the end of the month around March Break, this time around at the beginning of the month, usually mother nature and people aren't kind to the installations.  This is also another opportunity to shoot with the Leica R6, the first time around was Ilford HP5 400, and photographing the Beaches ice build up which is all gone by the end of February/early March. The first time around I used the spot metering feature, on this roll I used Large Field Averaging which was Leica's answer to I guess Matrix metering or perhaps closer to Minolta's CLC metering.  I also shot with Lomo Colour 400 C-41 a chance to push Large Field Averaging metering along with seeing how prime Leica R glass played with colour film. The skies were mixed being more cloudy than sunny wh...

Leica R 3 Cam 35-70 F3.5 Vario Elmar Lens and Leicaflex SL2

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 Didn't shoot all that much for February, got sick with a cold, not the worst one but I did get stuck with a souvenir cough. That left me some free time and started doing some research on a walk around zoom for my Leicaflex and Leica R fleet and read a lot of positive comments around the 35-70 F3.5, a 3 Cam Vario Elmar made in the 1980s and Leitz got a lot of help from Minolta with the design and even supplying lens blanks. Some would sniff this wasn't a pure Leica lens but I will point out Ernst Leitz pursued an engineering partnership with Minolta for a reason, they had great zoom lenses. Minolta also provided the 80-200 F4.5 telephoto zoom (another Vario Elmar) and the 24 F2.8 (an elmarit, and be sure not to mount this on a Leicaflex, bad things can happen and it will end in tears and regret. I want a 24 F2.8 Elmarit but it will be just for the R5 and R6.  My 35-70 F3.5 Vario Elmar came from a  Facebook Marketplace purchase in late February when my cold subsided enough...