The Limbo Connection's photos with the keyword: nifty fifty

During the 1970s amateur photography was dominated by the 50mm lens, partly because that's what came with the new camera you bought, partly because a different or additional lens cost as much as a secondhand car, and mostly because it delivered satisfactory results. You can photograph most things with a 50mm and no 50mm is bad; there are only grades of excellence. This photograph was made with a Nikkor 50mm f/2 on a Nikon D700. It is a modest little thing of quite stupendous resolving ability.

Nikon D2Xs, Nikon AF Teleconverter TC-16A, Nikkor 50mm f/1.8. I disengaged the AF; thus the teleconverter was providing only extra focal length, in this case converting 50mm to 80mm, which is equivalent to a 120mm lens on a full frame Nikon digital or 35mm film camera.

The photograph was taken with a Nikon D2Xs and a manual focus Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AI lens made sometime between January, 1978 and October, 1982.

Nikon D2Xs + TC-16A teleconverter + 50mm f/1.8 AI lens.

Nikon D2Xs + Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AI lens.

Fujifilm FinePix S3 Pro + Nikkor 50mm AF 1.8 lens.

This is a picture of the interior of the ‘Rising Sun’, the one remaining pub in Christian Malford. It used to play second fiddle to the mighty ‘Mermaid Inn’ on the main road at the other side of the village. Then the M4 motorway opened and the main road was downgraded. The ‘Mermaid’ closed and the ‘Rising Sun’ somehow survived despite the calamitous decline of the traditional English pub. The ‘Rising Sun’ was built in the 18th century and was formerly a smithy. Its proximity to the railway halt which was in operation between 1926 and 1965 provided a sideline selling tickets for the Great Western Railway for some, but not all, of those years. The postal address of the ‘Rising Sun’ is Station Road, Christian Malford. This is curious because there never was a station in Christian Malford. The rudimentary timber-built halt was unstaffed, had no facilities, and no footbridge over the two short platforms. Even when there was a halt, the road was not named after it. Perhaps some strange romantic nostalgia influenced the street-naming authorities who wanted to convey a sense of importance to the village long after it had become so unimportant that even the ugly little halt had been taken away. As a matter of historic fact, the street on which the ‘Rising Sun’ is situated already had a perfectly good name as evidenced by official census documents of the second part of the nineteenth century. It was known as ‘Frog Lane’. Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 AF-D lens.

For the photographer there are specific-purpose bags: rainy day bags; anti-pickpocket bags; bags which do not look like camera bags for use in tough neighbourhoods; slim-profile bags for carrying in crowded areas; bags to inspire confidence at an important event you've been hired to shoot; bags so impossibly large you use them as a supply depot where your other bags call to make changes to their contents; bags which are devoted to specialist items like flashguns or filters; medium-format bags; 35mm film camera bags; digital camera-with-lens-fixed-always bags; soiled bags that you don't mind using in dirty conditions ... the list is endless. The more camera bags I try - all sourced from eBay, the world's greatest lending library, where sometimes it's even possible to turn a modest profit on short-term acquisitions - the more I realise that what we're talking about is a sack. A sack with compartments, a sack with different dimensions to the previous sack, a sack made from different materials, but nevertheless a sack. This particular bag is the Tenba P-750 Pro Pak™ from the early 1980s, with its super-cool logo which reads the same upside down (but best not to verify this when the bag is full of kit). You often see them referred to as the ‘Tenba Equa’ because the logo suggests that is the name. It was available in rust, black, and grey, as well as the more traditional tan colour you see here. It is constructed of ‘Cordura’, a waterproof and rugged nylon. ‘Cordura’ will always win in a friction squabble with your coat or trousers. Tenba put a less aggressive pad of material on later Pro Pak™ bags where the ‘Cordura’ met the owner’s clothing. The P-750 is an unusual design with a fairly deep compartment within the lid to store 30 to 40 rolls of film, and a stout zip fastener to keep the contents secure. On the other side of the top ‘half’- i.e. on the inside of the bag’s main compartment - is a modest zipped compartment which might be for tickets and passport-type documents. There are four ‘D’ rings, for a back-harness or tripod straps, and unusual side straps which can be deployed to limit the travel of the lid or to transport a monopod. The main compartment lacks the extreme weather-proofing measures you find on a Billingham bag, like zips and secondary flaps. That is perhaps a weakness if near water or sand. It rather negates the value of ‘Cordura’ as a waterproof fabric. The coups de foudre are the two external pouches which, in combination with the hip logo, make this bag unusually distinctive in a market place stuffed with boring oblong boxes with straps. Photographed at Avebury stone circle using a Nikon D90 and an AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.4D lens.