First Photos From the FED-2

I was really excited to receive back the digital scans from the first roll of film shot through the FED-2 camera.

I use North Coast Photo  for film developing and scanning. Since this was an unknown camera to me, I chose to use their budget scanning option. As always, I opt to have the photos uploaded to their cloud so I can download them before the developed roll and CD are returned to me by USPS.

The photos are low in contrast, unfortunately. However, the film I used was also expired and that may account for some of it. The sparkly appearance in the right hand of each image is due to light leaks in the cloth shutter; so it is safe to say I will at a minimum need to have that replaced. The other exposure elements, shutter speed and aperture, seem to be working accurately. For most shots, I used a light meter app on my iPhone to try get a good set of parameters for the shutter speed and aperture. Where the recommended shutter speed wasn't available on the FED-2, I used the next higher speed. The focus alignment seems to be quite good as well, which is very encouraging. I still need to fix the vertical alignment of the rangefinder, but this is strictly cosmetic.

This weekend, I also made time to keep on with the maple syrup process. We successfully canned 3.5 quarts of maple syrup. I cook it down in large pans over the wood fire until the liquid is very close to syrup. At this point, I transfer the syrup to a regular 8 quart pot, and finish the boiling on an electric burner for easier control. During the transfer, I filter the syrup several times until the liquid flows very easily through the filter. Then the sap is boiled until it reaches roughly 219.5 degrees Fahrenheit. At this point, I ladle some out into a hydrometer test cup and check to ensure the density is right for 67% sugar content. If it checks out, we can it up. If not, I cook a little longer in order to get the density right.

While waiting for the sap to cook down, I spent a good part of the weekend moving the last of our firewood stock from outside into the garage. I feel like firewood is split a lot larger than it used to be, and it's not conveniently sized for our wood stove, so I re-split most of it before stacking it in the garage. It's great exercise!

Winston made sure I was doing a good job!

Roughly two full stacks in the garage is enough wood for us to heat the house throughout a standard winter. The goal is to keep a year ahead. I really enjoy working with the firewood.

Plenty of firewood for the 2021/2022 winter!