> > On 20 Aug 2004 at 20:46, John Francis wrote: > > > Once again this year while I was shooting in the corkscrew at > > Laguna Seca somebody had left a Contax RTS with the 85/f1.4 > > just sitting there on the concrete wall. It looked lonely. > > If it was an RTSII that is a dream combination, I bet the owner nearly had a > seizure when they realized they'd left it.
I'm pretty sure the owner was somewhere within 200' - it's not the first time I've seen that camera sitting there. An 85mm is quite a nice focal length for that location. The lens looks odd if you're used to Pentax SMC coatings; it looks almost as though it's made of blue-white diamond, not glass. I know Contax gear is expensive, but even so... I don't know enough about the various Contax models to be able to tell them apart. But this camera is obviously owned by someone who uses it quite heavily; it looks as though it has had a decade or more of serious use, not just sitting around in a collection. The Monterey Historics is an odd sort of gathering. Quite a few of the cars on the track are worth seven-figure sums, and a lot of the folks with photo passes would consider the cost of a Canon 1DMkII with 70-210US/ISM mere pocket change.
