There have been a bunch of film photography threads over the years. Indeed, I resurrected one last week. I decided to create this thread so that we have one single thread for all things Film Photography.
35 mm SLR cameras will probably make up the majority of posts, but this thread is intended to cover all types of cameras/films/photography. 110? 35 mm? Medium format? Large format? Polaroid? Pinhole cameras? As long as it’s film.
Here’s a list of some previous film photography threads:
Many cameras and light meters were designed to use 1.3 v mercury batteries, which were banned almost 30 years ago. Air-activated Wein cells make the correct voltage, but they don’t last very long. There are adapters that contain circuitry to convert 1.5 v to 1.3 v, but reviews on one offered on Amazon said it didn’t work.
If a company like Wein can develop a 1.3 v air-activated cell, why can’t they (or another company) simply make a 1.3 v alkaline cell?
Surely someone will pop in with the right answer, but it seems to me that each battery technology has its own native voltage that a cell produces, hence the issues with variations on AA batteries in many gadgets (nicad vs. carbon-zinc vs. alkaline vs. lithium vs. ???)
I mainly am answering because this question is acutely relevant to me: Yesterday I ordered a Rollei 35 in very good condition from an estate seller on eBay. If his story can be believed, the original owner bought it in 1976, shot a roll, and put it away.
The seller is including the conversion gadget, so we’ll see how that works.
I’m looking forward to learning the quirks of this odd little zone-focus camera.
When I think of the professional camera of the '60s and '70s, I think of the Nikon F. When I think of an early-'70s professional ‘action camera’ (think: auto racing) I think of the Canon F-1. When I think of professional ‘adventure’ cameras I think of the Nikon FM2. (The famous Afghan Girl photograph was made on a Nikon FM2.) Or I think of the Olympus OM-1. (Olympus designed and intended the single-digit OM-series to be professional cameras.)
But what about Pentax? Release in 1980, the Pentax LX was a rival to, and from what I’ve read elsewhere was better than, the Nikon F or Canon F-1. Prior to that, though, did Pentax have a professional 35 mm SLR? I have a K1000, a Spotmatic, and an SV. The K1000 was designed and intended to be a beginner’s camera. The K-1000 replaced the earlier Spotmatic, which was basically an SV with a built-in meter. I don’t know much about professional 35 mm cameras from the '50s and early-'60s. Were Pentax cameras considered ‘professional’ in the late-'50s and early-'60s? If so, which models?
I’m not about to pontificate about the history of Pentax since that is a topic of which I know little. But with regards to the Pentax name, and in total contrast to the powerhouse legacy of Pentax, I’m shooting a little Pentax 17 these days–it’s a surprisingly fun half-frame 35mm camera. I was expecting the resultant prints to have grain like a chain link fence, but found it not to be the case. When I did some 8x10 enlargements of half-frame HP5 Plus they turned out quite worthy of hanging on my wall.
But that camera is Pentax in name only, though it is a very well made camera in its own right (I think it was made by Ricoh)
I have never used a proper Pentax SLR. The world loves the K1000, which I would call a student’s camera rather than a beginner’s camera. I lean toward the Canon side, so the equivalent “student camera” would probably be the AE-1.
For some reason, the AE-1 and AE-1 Program are more popular and more expensive than the A-1, which is a superior camera. I have an A-1 and an AE-1 Program, both in pristine condition, and whenever I want to go out shooting with an SLR, the A-1 is my companion and the AE-1 sits sadly on the shelf. One of these days I hope to find a Canon F-1 in perfect condition.
Me too. I haven’t used the A-1 yet. A cousin was a professional photographer in the '80s, and I coveted her A-1. It looked so much more professional than my AE-1 Program.
We’ll have to compare notes on Monday then, after you and your Canon F-1 go out shooting and after I take the Rollei 35 out shooting.
I’m expecting all of the shutter speeds to be wildly off, so it might be a bust. I do have a shutter speed tester from some guy in Romania, and I will go through the speeds to see if it’s even worth shooting a roll right away.
Yesterday I worked on a FreeCAD model for a lens cap that has a hole in it to hold the shutter speed tester’s light source, and I printed one for Mamiya TLR lenses and tried it out. As soon as I get my hands on the Rollei I’ll print an appropriate light-source-holder cap for it and run it through its paces.
I made my own shutter speed tester out of an arduino, a photodiode and a little OLED display. It’s been sobering and a little sad to use. Even after CLAs from respected respected services, the highest speeds just aren’t there. Even after careful adjustment, nothing can compensate for tired old springs. And the only exact replacements are old stock and donor parts that are just as tired. My Crown Graphic and my Kodak Medalist IIs are both good to 1/100s, about 25% off at 1/200s, and wildly off at 1/400s. My RB67 lenses, being a few decades newer are doing a little better, but are off 15-25% at the highest speeds.
I had thoughts on making such a shutter speed tester. I remember sitting at the lunchroom table with my buddy talking over the nuances. We realized that there is more to it than just “start the timer when the light is detected, stop when light stops” Specifically, even with a leaf shutter there is a ramp up and ramp down.
I verified this with some slightly high-speed video of my Mamiya C330 lens shutters…the ramp-up took a frame or so, and so did ramp-down. And that’s not to mention complications with curtains in a focal plane shutter!
I think I would have had more confidence had I had an oscilloscope–I’d look at traces from the photo detector and decide how to properly handle “area under the curve”
But I don’t have one and don’t know enough about electronics to be able to properly wield one. It was easier just to buy the ready-made device from the Romanian guy.
And you are right, the numbers are sobering, and encouraging. My shutter speeds are all over the map, but at the end of the day the film turns out “properly exposed” and I can make good darkroom prints. That tells me that unless you are Ansel Adams trying to squeeze every bit of dynamic range out of a view camera, you can really play fast and loose with exposure.
The times I went out and spent a day shooting using “Sunny 16” produced just as usable film as days I carefully metered.
It’s sad to hear you didn’t get much improvement from a CLA. I’m going to send my Canon A-1 and AE-1 off at some point for a proper CLA and am hoping to get accurate shutter speeds out of them, but your own experience is not very encouraging.
ETA: Cool gear! Especially the Crown Graphic. I’d love to shoot with one of those.
Well, as one of the repair guys told me, the dirty secret of those old mechanical shutters is that many of them were never all that accurate in the first place. He also advised me not to worry about the open and close time for my leaf shutters. He said the professional testers did not do much about that, and that minimal amount of partial-exposure time was a tiny factor compared to the rest of the tolerances.
I’m fortunate that I don’t have any curtain shutter cameras that I care about shooting with so my simple tool is plenty good. I have an Olympus 35RC that has sentimental value, but I don’t like to shoot 35mm so it just sits.
I wouldn’t say that I didn’t get much improvement. The Medalists and the Crown Graphic were super unpredictable before CLA. Gummy lubricants meant that shutter times were not only off, but randomly so. The helicoid lens extension on the Medalist is just so delightful to use. Heavy feeling, but precise with no stiction. I would have loved it if the shutter speeds came back perfect, but that’s a lot to ask from an 80 year old unregulated mechanism with dozens of unique, hard to replace parts.
I think you’ll have better luck with your Canons I just because their shutters were far better devices than the crude 40s era contraptions I have.
I took my 35RC out four years ago. I don’t remember if I used an adapter, or if I set the ISO for -⅔ stop. It was fun to shoot with. I also have a Canon Canonet QL17, but I haven’t gotten round to trying it out yet. When you have a dozen or so cameras and very limited time, it takes a while…
I took a look, and my 35RC has a PX625 battery in it, meaning it’s 1.5 V. The film speed is set to ASA 250. Since I’m sure I used ASA/ISO 400 film, this means that I compensated for the increased voltage by reducing the film sensitivity by ⅔ stop.
The Canon QL17 has a Vinnic 1560F cell in it, so it’s 1.5 V. Per the manual, this camera also requires a 1.3 V mercury battery. The ASA is set to 400. As I said, I haven’t used this one yet. So it appears I’ll need to set the ASA to 250 on this one as well. One thing about the Canon is that it doesn’t deplete the battery when it’s not used. Olympus seems to have an aversion to Off switches or anything else to stop battery drain.
Factual question:
My Olympus 35RC has the 42 mm Zuiko lens on it, of course. On top of this, I have a Tiffen 46 mm UV protector filter, just to keep my grubby fingerprints off of the expensive glass. I presume that one of these lens caps will fit. Can anyone confirm and/or make a suggestion as to a lens cap I can gert for my Olympus 35RC?
If you like lens caps or if your camera’s light meter always burns electrons when the cap is off, by all means use one.
…but, once I have a UV protection filter on a lens, I toss the cap into a box with all of my other lens caps. They serve no purpose whatsoever except to provide something that can be accidentally left on and something that can be lost.
Even my modern Fujifilm X-mount lenses all sit in their little bags with no caps on them. If something hits the front element, the filter will take the hit. And if they get grubby, a quick pass with microfiber takes care of it.
Not a direct answer to your question of course, this is definitely an area where opinions vary.
What is your general workflow for your medium format stuff?
I ask this because I had been shooting 6x6 and happily scanning them in, but when I started doing darkroom prints of them I realized that the square format is slightly inconvenient on regular paper sizes.
Do you simply crop them to more traditional aspect ratios for prints?
This is it. My OM-4 even consumes the batteries when it’s in Manual mode, with the lens cap on, and shut up in the case. I think it’s an Olympus thing.
As you can surmise from my previous post, I needed to buy an adapter for the UV filter I’m using as a lens protector. The lens is 42 mm and the filter is 46 mm, so I had to get a step-up ring. I just couldn’t find a 42 mm UV filter four or five years ago. But I do want a cap, so as not to drain the battery. I just want to make sure one of the caps on Amazon will fit.
Well, the RB67 is, uh, 6x7 and the Medalist is 6x9, so I’m already thinking rectangular in term of my composition, so generally I just crop. If it really kills me, I’ll print the full frame and trim.
Edit: I’m not doing any darkroom printing in this case. My best, darkest room is still a hassle to make fully dark so all I do is develop film. Any printing I do is through a service.
I was in Stockholm in 1982 when I saw a tall ship (that was used as a hostel, but it was full so we couldn’t stay there) across the bay. I set my AE-1 Program with its 50 mm f1.4 lens and Fuji slide film on a piling and took a shot. After the film was developed and I was back in California I had the landscape image cropped vertically and printed onto Fuji 11" x 17" paper. Even cropping a photo taken from a long distance with a smallish subject, the print came out wonderfully. I wish I still had it, but I gave it away. The slides are in the storage unit somewhere.
I am pleasantly surprised with how well larger prints turn out from my funky Pentax 17 half-frame camera. Of course, something tight-grained like TMax 100 is preferred (I shot with that last Sunday), but even grainy HP5 Plus doesn’t look as bad as I expected.
Ansel Adams made a comment while discussing sharpness and circles of confusion to the effect that sharpness is dependent on how the photo will be viewed: if it’s 11x17 viewed at 5 feet, even half-frame grainy HP5 Plus will be just fine.
I am so used to looking at photos on my huge iMac screen, zooming in, that I have to pause and remember that it is not a fair assessment of how it will look printed and hanging on the wall.
The flip side of that is that now that I have this giant, bright monitor, or even my new iPad with the new screen technology, I don’t always appreciate prints like I used to.
It’s a little bit like how fun it is to look at slide film (esp medium or large format) on a light table. A print isn’t going to quite go there.