Never Underestimate...

...The power of a charity shop!  I'm a big fan of charity shopping - some people turn their nose up at it but i dont mind owning second hand stuff and if the money i pay for it can help someone else then thats even better.  Lately though charity shops have seemed a bit "dry".  There was a time when you could wander in and pick up great used cameras and darkroom stuff for next to nothing, but it seems that since film has had a sudden resurgence in the past few years, so have charity shop camera sales.  But yesterday i struck gold!

  As some of you may have read i have recently moved house to an area called Kirkham which is just outside Preston.  It's only 20 minutes away from where i used to live but Jess got a good job here and she doesn't drive, plus we were over here 5 times a week anyway so it made sense.  We moved at the weekend and i booked Monday to Wednesday off work (which means i'm back in today unfortunately).  We got our friends and families to help us shift everything over to the new house and then we blasted out most of the unpacking and did a little decorating.

  Yesterday we decided to have a little wander into the village which is literally 1 minute walk away from our new house.  It's quite strange having every shop you need so close to your doorstep.  There's hardware stores, a Morrisons, a greengrocers, cobblers, banks etc; and, of course, charity shops.  We decided to pop into the first one you come to on the high street and lo and behold sat in the display cabinet was this:

  And it came in a camera bag!  All for £20.  Needless to say i bagged it immediately.  As you may know i dont usually shoot 35mm but i thought i may as well get this camera as i have a box of 35mm film i got given when i bought my darkroom and sometimes you just want rectangles instead of squares.  So, whats in the kit i hear you ask?  Well...

• A Yashica FRI camera body with TTL metering (complete with manuals)
• A Yashica 50mm f1.9 lens
• A Yashica 28mm f2.8 lens
• A Tamron 80-210 CF Telemacro f3.8 lens
• A Tamron 500mm SP Telemacro lens (with hood)
• A shutter release
• Cokin ring adapter with linear polariser
• A camera bag to keep it all in 

  Not too bad a haul in my opinion.  Im not too sure if the camera or lenses are any good but i cant complain at £20 can i?!  I shot a quick roll of Ilford Delta 100 yesterday afternoon with it and developed it and the negatives look good.  I did a quick scan and got this:

   Focus is a bit off but i think it came out ok.  I hate scanning film though and im sure the darkroom prints will come out way better (once the darkroom is set up).  Speaking of which - although there's no room in the house to create one, Jess wants met o get a shed and convert it.  No doubt that's a project ill be doing a few blog posts about soon enough.  But for now, hit those charity shops!  It may take a while but you'll eventually find something awesome!