Major decline: Metrocenter Mall and Robinson Road, Jackson, Mississippi (B&W film)

Metrocenter Mall, Jackson, Leica M2, 50mm ƒ/2 Summicron-DR lens.

Metrocenter Mall and former Piccadilly Restaurant, Leica M2, 35mm ƒ/2 Summicron lens.

When I first moved to Vicksburg in the mid-1980s, Metrocenter Mall in Jackson was fresh, active, vibrant, and (I presume) prosperous. The mall opened in 1978, and Sears Roebuck anchored the west end, McRae's the east. The food court was busy, and numerous smaller companies occupied stores on two floors. The parking lot was crowded. Other companies occupied buildings nearby, such as Toys-R-Us on Hwy 80, and Service Merchandise in a nearby building.

But as the 1990s progressed, Metrocenter became seedy and merchants left. One by one, stores closed. The anchors lingered until the 2000s. McRae's became part of Belk, which continued at Metrocenter until 2009, and Sears closed in 2012. Sears had already abandoned its Vicksburg store and, as far as I know, there are no other full-line Sears stores anywhere near Jackson.

As of 2019, part of the complex is still occupied. I wanted to take some closer pictures, but odd cars lingering and other crapped-out cars meeting the first ones did not bode well for security.

Robinson Road view north

Robinson Road, west of Metrocenter, is pretty bleak. Buildings are empty, and crummy cars and dude-mobiles rattle along.

At least one former restaurant has been converted into a church. That is an effective use of space, but the city loses the property tax revenue.

Former Piccadilly restaurant, Robinson Road, Jackson

The former Piccadilly restaurant was secure but clearly no longer used.

Some businesses are still operating. We were well-served by the efficient employees at the Metro PCS mobile phone store. The parking lot had some interesting transportation machinery.

What can revive an area like this? Why was this area prosperous in the 1980s and, only 30 years later, has become a scummy backwater? Why is so much of west Jackson a wasteland?

I took these photographs on Fuji Acros 100 35mm black and white film with my 1967-vintage Leica M2 rangefinder camera. I used the 50mm ƒ/2.0 Summicron-DR and 35mm ƒ/2.0 Summicron (version 4) lenses. A medium yellow filter helped add texture in the clouds. Acros is a superb fine-grain film. I scanned the frames with a Plustek 7600i film scanner.

Older Jackson Articles

Jan 2010: Mississippi Basin Model
Jan 2010: Hawkins Field
Jan 2010: Naval reserve Center
Feb 2010: Hinds County Armory
Nov 2010: Jackson Municipal Library
Apr 2013: Hinds County Armory update
May 2013: Oil Mill
May 2013: Mill Street corner store
Apr 2015: Lock business, Pascagoula St.
May 2015: Mill Street
Jun 2015: West Capital Street
Jun 2015: Masonic Temple
Nov 2015: Mississippi Basin Model continuing decline
Dec 2015: West Porter Street
Jan 2016: Near the State Capital
Sep 2016: North Mill Street
Jul 2017: Grayson Court
Dec 2017: Old House Depot
Feb 2018: Basin Model update
May 2018:  Fortification Street
April 2019: Woodrow Wilson Ave.
Aug 2019: Bailey Ave. restaurant

Abandoned Resort Hotel, Nerantza, Greece (black and white film)

The hulk of the Angela resort hotel looms above the coast road in the little town of Nerantza. Nerantza is a seaside resort or summer-home community about 10 miles west of Corinth, facing the Gulf of Corinth. The town had a building boom of sorts in the 1960s and 1970s, which led to this 4-story concrete hotel. It may have once been known as the Angela. My brother-in-law recalls teaching wind-surfing to tourists in the 1970s, and he said the hotel closed in 1981 after a major earthquake caused structural damage. The hulk has been empty since then.

The fence around the back lot has fallen down, so it is easy to enter the grounds. In 2011, I took digital pictures inside, but now the structure looks dangerous, and I did not want to venture inside. The former kitchen area had a mess of fallen debris on the floors. The courtyard in the second photograph above formerly had a metal framework to support awnings, but the steel has been removed.

Someone had dumped bricks and building material into the pool. Hmmm, mosquito-breeding habitat?

A short distance to the east, an unfinished concrete edifice sits along the coast road. Is it awaiting another developer??? Awaiting hope?

These photographs are from Fujifilm Acros black and white film, exposed at EI=80 and developed in Xtol by Praus Productions (Rochester, New York). I used a 24mm Super-Multi-Coated Takumar lens with an adapter on my Leica M2 camera. Framing is a bit difficult because I do not have a 24mm viewfinder, but a wide lens is valuable for close quarters in this type of setting. I scanned the negatives with a Plustek 7600i film scanner.

UPDATE OCTOBER 2022:  The hotel is being restored. Some company is ambitious.

Railroads of Greece 7b: The Corinth Railroad Station with Black and White Film

When I visited the now-unused train station in Corinth, Greece, last October (2018), I had two cameras with me. The little Yashica Electro 35CC had color Kodak Ektar 100 film, and my Leica M2 was loaded with Fujifilm Acros black and white film. Last week, I showed you some of the color results. Here are some of the black and white frames.

Corinthos train station (not in use), 35mm f/2.0 Summicron lens, Leitz polarizing filter. 

Control lever for points, Corinthos, Greece

Being a sunny day with the classic brilliant Greek light, the setting does not have quite enough of that urban decay aura. The Acros film is very fine grain and does not look gritty, unlike 1960s Tri-X.

When I was last here in 2011, there was more rolling stock on the tracks, but much of it is now gone.

I am surprised that these rotating water spigots were preserved. I have seen other spigots at stations throughout the Peloponnese.

End of the line, Corinthos, Greece.

Dear Readers, you can decide if you prefer color or monochrome for this type of setting.

Ticket for the full-gauge Athens Suburban Train.

Photographs are from Fujifilm Acros film exposed at EI=80. I used a Leica M2 rangefinder camera with a 35mm f/2.0 Summicron lens, with yellow or polarizing filters to darken the sky. This is the Type 3 35mm, the pre-aspherical model. The film was developed in Xtol by Praus Productions, Rochester, New York. I scanned the negatives with a Plustek 7600i film scanner controlled by Silverfast Ai software.

Successful Experiment: Pentax Takumar 24mm Lens on my Leica M2

Background

When I travel overseas and need to pack light, I often take my Leica M2 rangefinder camera with its compact 35mm and 50mm f/2.0 Summicron lenses (and light meter, filters, and hoods). But recently, I have been thinking wide, which must go along with my increasing girth. Some options:

1. New Leica 24mm f/1.4 Summilux-M lens. $7500 in USA. (Wow)
2. Used (OK, "pre-owned") Leica 24mm f/2.8 lens. About $1800. (Lesser wow)
3. Used Zeiss Biogon 25 mm f/2.8 ZM lens. About $750.
4. New Skopar 24mm f/4.0 lens. About $400

Of course the genuine 24mm M lens or the 25mm Zeiss would be best, but realistically I would not use them all that often. But we have a clean Super-Multi-Coated Takumar 24mm f/3.5 lens for the Pentax Spotmatic in the cabinet. It has a longer register distance to the mount than true M lenses, making room for an adapter. So I bought a $20 Fotodiox M42-Leica M adapter from Amazon and did a test run. (Note: all the M42 thread-mount Pentax Takumar lenses are excellent performers on film.)

Chinese specialty companies make adapters to fit just about any older manual SLR lens to most so-called mirrorless digital camera bodies. This gives new life to many beautiful classic film lenses. Most longer focal lengths, around 50mm or more, perform really well on digital bodies. The wide angles sometimes have problems with digital sensors, but in that I was using film, I was going to use a lens designed for film on the correct sensing media.

Results

The good: The optical results were better than I expected. I do not have a genuine Leica 24, so I have no basis for comparison. Sure, it is not as "sharp" as my 35 Summicron, but so what? Sharpness phobia consumes pseudo-photographers on digital camera web pages. For $20, I am pleased.

The clumsy: Framing is a problem. If I move my eye left and right and up and down the maximum extent across the M2's eyepiece, I think I see most of the 24mm coverage. The lens blocks part of the view, and using the genuine Takumar hood is hopeless. To do: buy a 24mm auxiliary finder. Focus is totally manual.

The heavy: The Takumar with its Fotodiox adapter is a bulky and rather heavy cylinder.

Here are some examples from Romania and Greece. The film was Fujifilm Acros, exposed at EI=80. Praus Productions in Rochester, New York, developed the film in Xtol. I scanned the film with a Plustek 7600i scanner using the Tri-X 400 profile (the SilverFast software does not have an Acros profile).

Rooftops, view from Kronhaus B&B, Braşov, Romania, 24mm Takumar lens. 

Room with a view, dormer window at Kronhaus, Braşov, Romania. Leica 35mm f/2.0 Summicron lens. 

Room with a view, dormer window at Kronhaus, Braşov, Romania. Takumar 24mm f/3.5 lens. 

Our room at a bed and breakfast in Braşov, Romania, had interesting views over the old tile roofs in the historic center. The two photographs above show the difference in coverage between the 35mm lens and the 24mm. The exposure is a bit different, and I think the 35mm Summicron does a slightly better job at distinguishing subtle tonal variations.

The view of the upper town and the Gothic tower of the Lutheran Cathedral of Saint Mary in Sibiu, Romania, is from the Council Tower. I used a yellow filter on the 24mm lens to darken the sky. The photograph is through glass, which you see in the upper left.

This abandoned hotel, possibly once called the Angela, is in Nerantza, Greece, a few km west of Corinth on the Gulf of Corinth. I have photographed here in 2011, but the 24mm lens with black and white film gives an appropriately gloomy look to this 1960s hulk.

Never-complete hotel, Nerantza, Greece

Conclusions

The 24mm Takumar lens works well on the Leica M2. Framing is clumsy and you need to guess the distance of your main subject, but that is not too critical with a wide angle lens. I already had the 24mm lens, so $20 for an adapter was a bargain way to get wide angle coverage. A 24mm auxiliary finder would be helpful.

Other photography articles

Please click the links for other articles about equipment, informal tests, and film:

• Decay with the Leica
• Decay with the Rolleiflex
• Kodak Panatomic-X film
• Decline of an industrial empire, Eastman Kodak Company
• Leica IIIC camera repaired and perfect
• Another look at the Leica IIIC camera
• 1950s 50mm Dual-range Summicron lens
• 135mm Takumar lens
• Olympus Trip 35 compact camera
• Another look at the Olympus Trip 35
• Fuji GW690II camera ("Texas Leica")
• Yashica Electro 35CC compact camera
• Kodak BW400 film
• Kodak Ektar 25 film
• 250mm Sonnar lens for Hasselblad
• 35mm Takumar lens for Pentax
• Fomapan 100 film
• Kodak Technical Pan film
• Quick test of a Leica Monochrom vs. film

1950s Excellence: the Leitz 50mm ƒ/2.0 Type 2 Summicron-DR lens

Leitz 50mm ƒ/2.0 dual range Summicron lens in original box. 

Introduction 

Leica's 50mm Summicron lenses have been famous for optical and mechanical excellence for over 60 years. Leica's term Summicron means a lens with maximum aperture of ƒ/2.0. They have been improved over the decades and are still in production - how many other consumer products have lasted over a half century? Even more amazing, a new lens will fit on a 50-year-old Leica M body, or a 60-year-old lens will work on a brand new film or digital body. When you consider the longevity, Leica lenses are reasonable price, despite the hatred (= envy) from many modern digital users.

A convenient summary with photographs of the different versions is on Ken Rockwell's site.

5cm ƒ/2.0 Summitar lens in extended (ready to photograph) position

Summitar

Ernst Leitz produced the predecessor lens, the 5cm Summitar, from 1939 to 1953, with 170,761 units total. War-time lenses were uncoated, but from 1946 on, they were anti-reflection coated. Eastman Kodak and Zeiss had coated optics for military use during World War II, but coating all air-glass surfaces on general civilian optics became widespread only after the war. The Summitar had a complicated design of 7 elements in 4 groups. Human computers using mechanical calculators and trigonometry tables must have made a heroic effort to compute the ray paths. The Summitar's central sharpness is superb, but the edges fall off and there is field curvature. This can be used creatively, and regardless, "sharpness" is not normally the factor that makes a photograph successful. For examples, please look at some of my 2017 Nepal articles. In 1953, the Summitar lens cost $158 in USA.

Summicron Type 1

E. Leitz introduced the first Summicron, the Type 1, in 1952. It was an update of the Summitar, also mounted in a collapsible barrel. This lens was also manually computed, although surely the workers used electrical tabulating machines. The first electronic computers after World War II were used for ballistics analysis, atomic weapons research, rocket trajectories, and military optics. The 1953 USA cost for the Summicron was $183.

A note on collapsible lenses: When the E. Leitz company introduced its first camera in 1923, it used perforated cine film but doubled the frame size to 24×36 mm. All other cameras then used much larger roll film or individual sheet film. So the new small image surface became known as miniature format. The cameras were intended for travel or adventures like mountain climbing. Therefore, the manufacturers wanted to make the cameras compact and portable. One way to do that was to build a lens in a barrel that could collapse into the body. As the years went by, cameras grew larger and heavier (like automobiles or, most grotesquely, American SUVs). The Zeiss Contarex of 1960 had grown to 910 grams for just the body. The Nikon F with its metering head was a big package, as well. And today, the digital single lens reflex (DSLR) in "full frame" size is a bulbous thing graced with a protruding penile lens that points at its subject like a cannon. Just tell DSLR users that they really have the miniature format.

1963 Type 2 Summicron lens with single focus range.

Summicron Type 2

E. Leitz introduced their Type 2 Summicron in 1956. It was in production until 1968. To improve the precision of the glass alignment, Leitz mounted Type 2 optics in a rigid barrel. It was a masterpiece of mechanical precision and elegance, but the construction of brushed chrome over brass made it heavy. This lens was also hand computed.

Leitz began computer-aided lens computations after about 1960 at their factory in Midland, Ontario, Canada, under the guidance of Dr. Walter Mandler (from Erwin Puts). It is an interesting history of international competition about this time. Japanese optical companies such as Canon, Nikon, and Topcon were also exploring new lens designs with the aide of early computers. They were able to market lenses with almost as refined optical characteristics as Leica but at lower price. The brilliance of the Japanese companies was to bring superb optics to a wide audience at reasonable price.

Leitz made two versions of the Type 2 lens. One had a single focus range covering 1m to infinity. The photograph above shows a 1963 lens that I bought from a friend in town. It was available in M-mount  (63,055 units) as well as the 39mm thread mount (1160 units; now a rare collector item).

1967 Dual range Summicron without goggles.

Dual range Summicron with goggles attached on the flat plate. The lens has been extended to its closest focus distance.

The second version had a dual focus range and is known as the DR. The normal range was 1.0 m to infinity. But if you wanted to focus on a closer object, you slid a spectacle viewfinder attachment onto a flat plate on the top of the lens. The goggles depressed a button, which let the lens focus from 0.48 to 0.88 m. The goggles correct the parallax of the rangefinder view. It was a clever way to let a rangefinder camera focus more closely than the normal 0.8 or 1.0 meter. A reflex camera does not have these limitations, but in the 1950s, most miniature camera photographers were still using rangefinders. Total production was 55,145 units.

Note: the goggle units varied slightly in design over the production period. You must have the correct unit for your lens for it to mount and focus correctly.

My stepdad bought the DR in the pictures above in 1966 or 1967. This lens and M2 camera took family pictures in Greece and traveled to Asia, Africa, the Indian Ocean, and North America. Now it photographs urban decay in Mississippi and Louisiana. This one has pristine coating.

I could not find a complete Leica price booklet from the 1960s, but I found a few prices in US $ for M2 body and lenses:

• M2 w/50mm ƒ/2 rigid Summicron 423.00
• M2 w/50mm ƒ/2 DR Summicron 465.00

Optical unit and focus mount of Summicon-DR lens. Serial numbers must match.

Special note: the optical unit can be unscrewed from the focus unit. If you buy a used DR lens, the serial numbers must match. Do not accept an unmatched lens. 

I also have a Type 4 50mm Summicron from 1984 or 1985 production. I will write about it in a future article. It is mounted in a lighter weight black alloy barrel as opposed to the gorgeous brushed chrome of my DR unit.

Examples with Kodak BW400CN film

On a recent day trip through rural Mississippi south of I-20, I grabbed a roll of Kodak BW400CN. I have had mixed results with this film in the past. Sometimes it looks muddy, but sometimes I like the tonality. Could there be differences in the C-41 chemistry? Regardless, here are a few samples from my Leica M2 and the 50mm Summicron-DR. I was surprised how the film renders green as quite light, but only for long exposures in settings such as dense underbrush. I do not recall seeing this before. The BW is pretty grainy, but I like the effect. (Click any picture to enlarge it.)

Abandoned farm house, Rte 18 in Brandon, Mississippi.

Remains of a gasoline station, Raleigh (with polarizer filter).

Big Smittys, MS Hwy 149, Mendenhall. This is a former Pan-Am filling station. 

Main Street, Mendenhall. Polarizer used to darken sky.

Shop on MS 28 east of Georgetown.

Historic Crossroads Store on Old Port Gibson Road, Reganton.

References

Laney, D. 1994. Leica Camera and Lens Pocket Book, 6th Edition revised and updated, Hove Collectors' Books, East Sussux, UK, 142 p.

Other

An interesting 2007 article about Leica cameras is in The New Yorker, September 24, 2007 issue, Candid Camera, The cult of Leica.

Update Dec. 2020: Here are silos in Delta, Louisiana, taken with long-expired GAF Versapan film. Click to enlarge.

Silos, Levee Road, Delta, Louisiana (GAF Versapan film, Summicron-DR lens, orange filter)

Burmese Days 9: Yangon Central Station in Tri-X film

Dear Readers, the Yangon Central Railroad Station is such an interesting site for people-watching, I returned with my Leica M2 camera and Tri-X film early one morning to record the scene in black and white.

This huge building was built after World War II between 1947 and 1954 to replace an earlier building that had been destroyed by the fleeing British when the Japanese forces entered Rangoon in 1942. Unfortunately, I could not find any family photographs from the 1950s showing this station. Maybe we never came here.

The ticket booths are old-fashioned and manual.

This is the waiting area for passengers on long-distance trains. We read several accounts that the train to Mandalay is a bumpy and rather uncomfortable overnight trip.

If you plan to take the local commuter Circle Train, you cross the tracks on a crossover and descend to tracks 3 and 4. The guard will direct you if you look confused.

The Circle Train is popular with tourists, and at less than 600 Kyats ($1), it is a bargain. Take water and be ready for humidity, although as of October 2014, there is at least one air-conditioned train.

Pansodan Street crosses the rail yard on an overpass. There are good views of the rail yard from the overpass.

Some of the rail yard looks only partly used. Surely it was much busier in the British era. The men in the lower photograph may have been waiting for work assignments. They all had shoulder bags - possibly lunch or work clothes?

If you visit Rangoon, the Central Station is an interesting stop for people photography. Highly recommended. Please click the link for my earlier post on the Circle Train.

All photographs taken with a Leica M2 rangefinder camera with 35mm or 50mm f/2.0 Summicron lenses. The 35 was the 7-element type 4 Summicron from the late 1990s. I exposed the Kodak Tri-X film at ISO 250 and developed it in Kodak HC110 developer, dilution B for 4:30 minutes. I scanned the negatives at 3,600 dpi with a Plustek 7600i film scanner using Silverfast software.