I ran into an old friend, Gerald, at the the park on Independence Day. Gerald’s wife Doreen took my photography class a few years back, and long before that, my wife worked for Gerald.

Gerald told me that he had an old camera and a few lenses for it, and asked if I would I like to have it to possible show to my class. Sure, I said, I never turn down a camera.

A few days later, a smallish camera bag appeared in my office, and I eagerly dug into it. I found, to my delight, that the camera was a Fujica ST705, one of the bigger brothers of the Fujica ST605, the first SLR I ever owned (link).

The 705 is the same size as the 605, and, in this case, came with the same lens, the lightweight, plastic 55mm f/2.2. The 705 has a full shutter speed value faster than the 605, at 1/1500th, as well as open-aperture metering.

Also in the bag was a 35mm f/2.8 Kamero lens, which interested me the most, since I have an adaptor to put M42 screw-mount lenses on my Fujifilm X-T10 mirrorless digital camera.

I made a few frames with the 35mm, and was not disappointed, but also not surprised, since most normal and wide angle prime lenses are pretty sharp, even wide open.

I also found a Soligor 80-200mm f/4.5, a very common lens that is well-made and good-looking, but optically mediocre at best.

I had fun photographing this stuff, since I took the opportunity to shoot on one of my glass dining tables, allowing me to bring some light in from below.