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Nostalgia

Godfrey

Well-known member
Tic tic tic tic tic tic goes the scanner on frame 14 of 36.

Today I'm scanning the first roll I shot with the Nikon F that I acquired last year. Acquiring it was really more nostalgia than anything else ... I paid $30 for the body, it's the black body F, now fitted with a plain prism finder, that I always wanted in 1970. I had a chrome one, bought the year before. Compared with the Leicaflex SLs that I acquired a couple of weeks back, it feels crude and clunky.

But the old pre-AI Nikkor-H 85mm f/1.8 and slightly newer Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 AI-S still shine. It's pleasing to see such nice negatives out of an old friend like this.

I hope I have time to shoot with the Leicaflex SL sometime soon.

G
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
Follow on ...

The Nikon Super Coolscan 9000 ED scanner that I bought earlier in the year makes me really wish I'd bought one back in 2005-2006. The 35mm negative strip tray allows me to load 12 exposures at a time. I drive it with VueScan. Set to "Batch - ALL", it automatically steps through all twelve negs when you click Preview, allows me to go back and do minor tonal and crop adjustments on each one, and then steps through all twelve when you click Scan and does its thing. It isn't fast (I run it on Fine mode all the time for 4000 ppi scans), but the scan quality is just terrific and the automation makes it painless.

This scanner is turning out to be one of the most productive equipment purchases I've made in a long while.

This roll of 36 included exposures ... Ah, no great art but some wonderful images showing the lovely image rendering of these two great old Nikkors. Even straight out of the scanner they're ok, a little adjustment in LR and they come alive. I'll render a couple of them tonight or tomorrow for posting.

My exposure guesses with the plain prism finder matched pretty closely what the iPhone Foto Meter Pro app recommendations were, and most of them were pretty close to the mark. I've also received my Lumi (a hemispherical incident meter accessory for the iPhone, great Kickstarter project!) and that works well with the Pocket Light Meter app. So why do I still want a Sekonic L-358? Um, dunno but I do. But I think I'll pull out the Photomic FTn head, put some fresh batteries in it, and see if it's on the mark. Nice to have the Nikon CWA metering in-camera.

Nostalgia ... with a wonderful old lumpkin like the Nikon F, it ain't half bad. ;-)

G
 

kendo1

New member
I look forward to seeing your results. I'm thinking of buying a scanner as I have loads of Kodachrome to digitize.
And I've recently purchased a Zorki 4 and an F75...
 

Bob

Administrator
Staff member
Well I have been shooting a bunch of film larely, both with an F6 and a Hassy 503.
The major event for me was the acquisition of a Flextight 343.
-bob
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
Well I have been shooting a bunch of film larely, both with an F6 and a Hassy 503.
The major event for me was the acquisition of a Flextight 343.
-bob
A top-notch film scanner sure makes a difference if you work with film.

I don't know how a Flextight 343 compares to the Nikon 9000ED, but I'm happy that the latter does what I want to the point that I see little reason to go hunting for specs. :)

The local camera shop has a Flextight of one description or another available to rent time on. If it's substantially better performing than the Nikon, I'll just go rent time there when I have something truly special to scan.

G
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
I look forward to seeing your results. I'm thinking of buying a scanner as I have loads of Kodachrome to digitize.
And I've recently purchased a Zorki 4 and an F75...
Very little time today to process, but this one popped out at me ... a casual snap of a friend at the breakfast table on Saturday morning with the 50/1.2:


Nikon F + Nikkor 50/1.2
ISO 400 @ f/1.2 @ 1/125 s (approx)

All the rendering work in that was to apply my characteristic curve for XP2 Super and then add the border, output to size with annotation.

G
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Great thread everyone!

Sigh. The good old days.

It was all so simple and uncluttered.

A tank like Canon FTB or F1, a pocket full of film I had loaded into reusable canisters myself ... and off I'd go. It seemed to be all about hunting the image with little thought or endless discussion about the tool.

Funny thing, any nostalgia I feel now is for the images produced. Time has clouded any definitive memory of what was used. No exif data to remind me. Just the photographs and a vague sense of what was used ... probably because what was used wasn't that important.

Then came the Leica M and 30 years of shooting it almost exclusively.

I went through my second "photo childhood" some years ago now. A few oldies but goodies, ending with a Nikon F6 and adapted Zeiss lenses and a 203FE that I would have killed for in my photo infancy. All made digital capable with a Imacon 949 scanner that most would kill for now.

Then my eyes, laziness, time, ended it all. A beautiful darkroom gathering dust. 100s of rolls of freezer film taken out it's protective environment last month as we ditched the energy gobbling freezer.

The only film capable camera I now own is a Mamiya RZ Pro-IID. It would also be gone if I could get any decent money for it ... otherwise I can't stand the idea of giving away such a great camera for a song. I'd rather give it away to someone that would make it sing again.

My only real regret was that I never got my hands on a Rollie TLR. I think it would have suited me to a T.

Sigh.

- Marc
 

Swissblad

Well-known member
Ah, film reloading - that brings back memories!
As does the Canon F-1 (old and new) - what a superb camera.
Don't know if I'll ever set up by DR though... it was a lot of effort - something which got lost in the craft today.
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Ah, film reloading - that brings back memories!
As does the Canon F-1 (old and new) - what a superb camera.
Don't know if I'll ever set up by DR though... it was a lot of effort - something which got lost in the craft today.
The only thing I remember about the old Canons was never worrying about them working, and they could "take a lickin' and keep on tickin'". I once stepped out to shoot some winter shots, slipped on an icy step, swung the FTB by the strap in a full arc onto the cement stair, wiped it off and it worked just fine ... off I went ... albeit with a slight limp :rolleyes:

I still have a book of 5 X 7 B&W prints I made with those Canons. It was before I had a darkroom. I worked in Ann Arbor then, so I used to have a UofM student process and print them for me. It was back when paper was very silver rich.

He's an interesting thing I discovered: :thumbs:

I have hundreds and hundreds of B&W prints I made in the darkroom. The hard thing was getting multiple prints to look alike. When digital came along, I took to flatbed scanning those master prints and the results were not only identical, they could be made better because of the ability to very precisely manipulate the files that far outstripped my darkroom techniques. I once read that Irving Penn (I think) had analog prints made, and then scanned them rather than directly scanning the negs.

- Marc
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
Went to a party today. Carried the Polaroid SX-70 and a pack of IP Silver Shade Cool..

Eight photos of friends. Everyone was enjoying the heck out of them. Lots of engagement. You don't get that often with digital.

There's something in this old stuff...

G
 

Swissblad

Well-known member
The SX-70 was a great camera - as visionary as Dr. Edwin Land.
Great to see that film is available again.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
The SX-70 was a great camera - as visionary as Dr. Edwin Land.
Great to see that film is available again.
Sure is on both counts.

I've been working with the SX-70 again since my uncle gave me his last year. It's such a remarkable camera. The Impossible Project films have come a long way even in the year and some I've been using them, the latest Color Protection and Silver Shade Cool have become much more consistent and easier to work with. IP's SX-70 scanning fixture also makes it a simple job to capture the images into digital for image processing as well.

I've acquired the tripod mount and remote release as well, which expands the capabilities of the camera a lot. I think I need to do a whole series of projects with this setup now ... :)

G
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
Speaking of nostalgia...

The San Jose Pride Festival was today. I decided to use it to test one of the Leicaflex SL bodies. Pulled out the chrome one and fitted the Summicron-R 90. Loaded it up with XP2 Super.

Oh my. My first shooting experience with an SL for real. What an awesome piece of equipment! The feel is amazing, it is carved from a solid block. Easy to hold, controls perfectly placed, the viewfinder is shockingly good.

The real shock came when I rewound the film. I've never felt a film rewind before that could so perfectly be described as "buttery smooth."

If what I saw in the viewfinder is any indication, the lens lives up to Leica reputation and price.

Very pleased. This slow boat down memory lane is a very nice place to be.

G
 
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