Cold and Cameras

I met this fellow on my way home this morning. He didn't run away, probably because he lives with someone and meets lots of people along this street. I approached with my iPhone and, noticing that my shadow was in the frame, moved around until it looked like a shadow making a picture of a cat from a close distance. Well, that's what it looks like to me because I was there. I'm not sure it's obvious to someone seeing the picture for the first time with no explanation.

This photo looks pretty good on my iPhone screen and maybe it looks okay at the small size it's displayed on this blog. But at 100% the picture quality is pretty terrible. The cat is a grey and white mass of mush. Maybe it's human error.

I had another camera with me on my walk, a Minolta X-700. I made something of a resolution to use only digital cameras this year, but when I got up this morning I put a roll of Portra 160 in the Minolta and left the house. I wanted to use the Minolta simply for the pleasure I get out of handling a film camera, but also because the frame counter has stopped working and I wanted to see if the camera was broken or if it's just the counter. The film safe-load indicator was moving, so I guess the film was advancing.

Alas, the biggest problem with the camera this morning was the batteries being made unusable by the cold. The shutter worked, but the shutter speed indicator in the viewfinder dimmed out and disappeared so I don't know if the shutter was moving at the correct speed or just some random speed. I turned off the camera for a while and that restored enough power to get me to the end of the roll. Maybe it's the end of the roll. No frame counter . . . I'm going to send the film off next week and see what I get back.

I had thought about bringing that camera with me to Seoul later this month, but I won't be doing that now. It'll be colder in a few weeks and the camera doesn't work well in freezing temperatures. What to bring, what to bring . . . ?