Yashica Mat-124 (front). A solid garage sale find.

What’s new?

A lot of new and exciting things have happened since I last blogged.  I know it’s been a while.  But where have I been you ask?  What could have kept me away for so long?

More international travel!

I was able to work it out with my new manager to allow me to take a week off to travel to Italy.  I was going with a group of my friends from college, to celebrate the marriage of my old buddy/college roommate Thien, and his husband, Stephen.  I was honored to be one of his three best men. It was my first time there, and I would love to go back again.  I will likely blog about this in a separate post, just like I will for my trip to Europe last year, or my road trip last year.  I have so many photos to share, it’s pretty ridiculous.  But, my blog isn’t a buffet, it’s like a soup kitchen.  I don’t want my readers to over-stuff themselves on the abundant, but slightly bland heaps of 12 different types of pasta, but to appreciate it when I provide tiny tasty morsels every once in a while.  So, hopefully you haven’t died of starvation, and you’ll be coming back for every tasty bit.

New Digs!

I finally moved into my new apartment, in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago.  I’ve been slowly organizing my stuff, and one the things I’ve really enjoying is having my photos printed, cutting some mats, framing them, and hanging them.  I had a few unfortunate mishaps, as I found out the hard way that Command adhesive strips aren’t quite strong enough to support some of my larger frames.

And lastly, but not leastly…

New Knee!

So, this one is a bit of a bummer, but unfortunately for me, I tore my ACL playing soccer, when an opposing play collided with my fully extended (and quite shapely, might I add) leg.  It looks like I will have to have surgery if I ever want to be as active as I want to be, but it’s not urgent, and rehab is typically about a year.  I haven’t scheduled it yet, but I’ll probably wait until the end of the summer to do it, when I have less stuff I want to do.  I can get around just fine for the time being, as long as I’m not trying to run or anything.

New cameras!

In the past month, I’ve been able to buy 4 new cameras.  Well, to be honest, I bought 3 old used cameras, and received 1 new camera that I had bought in March.  The cameras I’m referring to are the Yashica Mat-124, the Kodak Duaflex II, the Voigtlander Vito II, and the Nikon D800. I actually got my D800 a few weeks ago, but haven’t really gotten the chance to use it. And for the other 3, if you’ve been following my instagram, @justinjle, you might have seen them already, and know that I found them at a garage sale in Minneapolis.  I am so stoked about these old cameras though, as I got the 3 for a great deal (I think, anyway).  My friend, Anh-Tram went garage-sale-ing, and came across a box of old cameras, and showed me a pic of them on her iphone. I just had to get down there and check them out for myself, and I ended up walking away with these 3 for $75. I’m not sure the Voigtlander works, and the Kodak is a bit scratched, and pretty dusty, but the Yashica seems to be pretty clean, in great condition, and the light meter seems to be working as well.  In any case, it’s really nice to look at, and feels really solid in the hands.  I ended up buying a roll of 120 film to run through it to see if it works.  In any case, it’s so nice, I thought I’d post a couple photos I took of it with my D800 & a couple of old Nikon manual focus lenses.

The Yashica Mat-124

Yashica Mat-124 (front). A solid garage sale find.

The Yashica Mat-124 (top-down view through the waist-level viewfinder). Inside of the viewfinder, is the Kodak Duaflex II.

Pretty cool stuff, right? Also, the detail with that D800 is pretty dang awesome! I’m hoping to be back to blogging in a few weeks, and posting more photos from my other trips, but not this week (I’ll be turning 30, and celebrating it like I was still 29).

But until I get back to blogging, I’d like to hear from you… So here’s my question:

What’s the best garage sale treasure you’ve found so far?

I hardly do any garage-sale-ing, and tend to opt for looking occasionally on craigslist, fredmiranda, or the National Camera stores I lived near in the Twin Cities, but with this great score, it makes me want to start going more often. I used to love going as a kid, as that was the only time me and my siblings got new toys, and we loved it.  Much simpler times then.  Anyway, what’s some good stuff you’ve found lately?