Medieval time is still current.

Throughout old Europe, there are always large and small festivals that cheer the Middle Ages. That's no laughing matter. People need the right clothes and the right attitude. Then, such an event will have success. And of course you need a real castle. Here in Thuringia are a myriad of old, reconstructed, renovated and crumbling old castles and palaces. We have no problem to celebrate many medieval festivals. Every week a new festival, if need be. For photography lovers, such a medieval festival is of course a good thing: you can see a lot of people that dress strange and behave even more strange. Also, I could not restrain myself and have diligently photographed with the Leica. The photos are from the castle Leuchtenburg nearby Jena and the old castle at Ranis. Have fun looking at the photos.

Once in a blue moon: the Canon 135mm f/3.5 LTM

Fuji X-E1 with Canon 135mm LTM  f/5.6 1/200s, ISO 800

The presented photo lens is not so very rare to find. Canon has, like many other companies in the 60s and 70s produced lenses for their own rangefinder cameras and of course especially for Leica. The lovers of old lenses can buy it for relatively little money, even when it is not often offered. I purchased my copy for less than a hundred Euros. For this small sum of money, it is then very good. This gives a small masterpiece of metal and precision. True engineering.

Here some pics of the lens on my Sony NEX-3N. You see very well that it is compact and relatively lightweight. It is therefore very well suited for system cameras such as Olympus, Panasonic, Samsung or Sony. However, you need a matching M39 (LTM) - adapter.

The Canon 135mm f/3.5 lens was produced in the years 1952-1975. It has a minimum focus of 1.5 meters and has ten blades. The filter size is 48mm, it has a weight of 425 grams, is 54mm wide and 100mm long.

At long distances the Canon 135mm does exhibit mild halation at F3.5, but when stopped down to F5.6, sharpness and contrast are superb. Near focus performance is excellent even at F3.5. If shooting handheld it best to keep shutter speeds at 1/200th or faster. Due to the built lens hood you have'nt any problems with side or back light. There is little chromatic aberrations at full aperture. But that hardly bothers. Only on the optical power wise, it is even better than the legendary 135mm from Olympus. I can really recommend this lens.

All the following photos were taken at maximum aperture.

Ccrazy collectors and hobbyists among themselves: an exhibition of stationary motors in Unterwellenborn

Nearby there is an industrial monument. Here are old huge machines with which we used to generate electricity from gas. Once a year, it brings together a lot of crazy people. These people build from old parts back together machines and get them to work. That makes a lot of noise and is particularly well for many children a lot of fun. Children can for the first time in her life see right machines that work. At the same time here spare parts are exchanged and sold. Here you can see oddballs and geeks. There some photos of the exhibition and the collectors and hobbyists.