From Excelsior Needle Co. to Timken: The Rise and Fall of Torrington's Standard Plant

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The Standard Plant and a Century of Making Things It was a hot May week in 2023, and J and I were already sweating through our shirts before we even made it to the entrance. We turned into the driveway off North Elm Street and passed a large Caterpillar backhoe holding up the red, white, and blue at the top of the arm. Patriotic machinery. Only in Connecticut. We moved toward the back of the complex with our eyes open, scanning for any sign of people or activity. We found cameras instead. A few of them, well-positioned across one of the buildings and up on an electrical pole, covering angles that made our original entry plan useless. We backed off, found a Plan B, and stepped into a dark room washed in tinted green light, then took the stairs down to ground level. The former Standard Plant sits along North Elm Street at a sunken grade, one story, with another building rising over the roadway to the far right when you're standing in front of it from North Street. It's the kind o...
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Buds of Spring (2013)

Canon 600D/T3i w/Vivitar 135mm 1:2.8 Telephoto Lens w/LR Punch Preset 



Took a few snaps of budding greens from my window using a Vivitar 135mm 1:2.8 Telephoto lens w/a  M42 mount. So far the lens offers great bokeh at f /5.6 and cropped you can still the vivid detail lines of green on the leaves and bark of the bush on the side of my house. I can see this lens really opening up a bit during the nighttime in a busy city with all the flashing lights in a composed photo with great nice round balls of bokehlicious deliciousness. Too bad I am in the wilderness up here in the suburbs.




The cropped image above.




I think I'm having a bad case of G.A.S. (Gear Addiction Syndrome). I have bought three more lenses since I debuted on here the Samigon 35mm lens. I need to catch a grip or my wallet might go on strike.




Lens Gunner





More testing and reviews are coming up. Stay tuned!

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