Attended the second night of the New Castle Cruise Nights this past weekend. Held in downtown New Castle, 7/1/10 – 7/2/10, this event ran concurrant to the Back To The 50′s show that was also taking place in town at Cascade Park. Many cars present I saw at both events, and from talking to some of their owners, many make it a point to attend both as the atmosphere is completely unique to each event. Truth be told, I think the Cruise Night is the better of the two because it’s more open and has somewhat of a festival feeling to it. This year it also seemed to have more spectators and the ones there seemed to be having a better time. Same for the car owners too, based on what I heard from those I spoke to.

In any case, this year I went more to relax than to shoot, so I decided to try an experiment and took my ’63 Konica Auto-S with some 200 ISO print film instead of my usual gear. Lightweight and easy to use, the Konica caused no stress at all, and with its fast f1.9 lens and excellent low-speed handheld capability, let me shoot well into the evening. Considering it’s 47 years old, it did a bang-up job. Sharp, clear pics with excellent contrast and color, minimal distortion, and a nice vintage feel that went well with the cars, especially since many were contemporary to the camera in its day.

Here’s the gallery link for the full set. I only shot one roll because it was late and it got dark fast, but that’s enough to give a feel for the show. Definitely, I plan on shooting another show with this camera; I’m thinking the Steeltown Shakedown would be an awesome match-up for it!