Film Dog

I suppose the thought occurred to me first when, late last year, some of my favorite films were out of stock everywhere I looked. No Portra 400, no Pro Image 100, no Tri-X! And I thought about it again a few weeks ago when I visited one of my favorite camera shops and spent over a hundred bucks on a few rolls of film. As I got into my car and tossed the film into my camera bag, I did the math in my head. With processing and scanning, shooting my favorite C-41 film was going to cost me nearly $40 a roll all in. Photography as a hobby isn’t cheap and I have certainly blown wads of cash on expensive cameras and lenses, but as I see myself inching closer to retirement, I’m starting to become more frugal. The money I spent on this last batch of film kept poking at me. And not in a good way.

I am an old film dog but…I started considering digital photography. Again.

I’ve had my share of digital cameras and none of them have really given me the joy that shooting an old film camera does. I owned a Nikon D700 for a while and made some terrific pictures with it. But the Nikon DSLR was big and heavy and its controls and menus didn’t romance me, so I sold it.

Sonoma Coast, CA, Nikon D700 with Nikkor 50mm f/.14 AF-D

I also tried several Leica digital rangefinders, the M8, M9 and the Leica M-P (typ240). Those Leica lenses were spectacular, but I am not a rangefinder guy and I also always felt quite nervous carrying around that much money on my shoulder. Luckily, I sold every Leica I ever owned for a profit, so I recouped my investments after the Leica test drives.

Market Street, San Francisco, Leica M9 with 35 Summicron

So, was there a digital camera I could love?

I knew it needed to be small and light. I wanted a simple and easy-to-use photographer/camera interface with dials rather than multi-function buttons. Some digital cameras have menus that are science projects—I didn’t want to spend hours reading an owner’s manual. And because, based on my past history with digital, I wasn't sure how long this dance would last, I didn’t want to spend a fortune.

I considered the Nikon Df. I have many manual and auto-focus Nikkors and the Df reminds me a lot of my beloved Nikon FE camera. But I had taken a Df out on loan when the camera first came out and for no particular reason, the Df and I didn't gel. The new Nikon Z cameras sure looked nice, but the prices were all out of my budget. I also read quite a bit about the dizzying array of SONY mirrorless Alpha bodies. The earlier models were closer to my budget but I have read that the SONY menus can be confusing and that might discourage me.

My research eventually led me to Fujifilm’s X series of cameras, specifically the XT single digit DSLRs, aimed at pro photographers. The XTs are small, light, precise and made out of metal, reminding me of my favorite mechanical film cameras. The current model is the X-T5 and it retails for around $1700 which was more than I wanted to spend. The line started in 2014 with the X-T1 and you can find that camera on the used market from $300 to around $500. The more I read about the 16 megapixel X-T1, the more it appealed to me. Nine years is a long time in the digital world, but online reviews and You Tube videos convinced me that this camera is still a very competent performer and I could get into the Fujifilm X system with body and lens for well under a grand. As luck would have it, one of my trusted eBay sellers had a body for sale that belonged to his wife. It was well cared for and I picked it up for $350. I decided on Fuji’s kit lens, the XF 18-55mmF2.8-4 R LM OIS that I found used at Camera West in Walnut Creek, CA for $325.

My new-to-me Fujifilm X-T1 with 18-55 kit lens

Once in hand, I was immediately impressed with how well made the X-T1 is. Engraved metal, nice body covering material and a generous and comfortable grip. Even with the 18-55 zoom out front, the camera is light, easy to carry and well balanced but feels substantial. I wanted to find my way around this camera without reading the owner’s manual and to my surprise, everything is very intuitive to a long-time film photographer. I charged the battery, set the camera to automatic and took the ferry out to Alcatraz Island on a beautiful Bay Area Saturday afternoon.

Once I get to know this camera better, I will do a more detailed review. On my first day out, I kept it simple. I think the camera did a fine job of autoexposure under different kinds of lighting situations. And I got some satisfying images considering I had no idea what I was doing.

Of all of the digital cameras I have tried, the Fujifilm X-T1 seems the most natural in my hands…reminds me most of my favorite film cameras. I definitely bonded with this camera. I love the electronic view finder, fast autofocus and the Fuji film simulations. It was set on Provia this day. There are also all sorts of “recipes”available to create simulations for other film stocks including Kodachrome. The menu is easy to navigate. And transferring images from the camera to my Mac was easy peasy. I carried my X-T1 in a new Think Tank Photo Urban Access sling bag, one of the best carry bags I have ever used. I will review that soon as well.

Also nice is that for about the same price as one roll of color film and processing, I picked up an adapter that will allow me to use all of my vintage Nikon lenses on the X-T`1. Similarly priced adapters are available for my Pentax M42, Canon FD, Olympus OM and Minolta glass as well. It will be fun trying my various vintage lenses on the X-T1.

I am not by any means abandoning film photography. I love my film cameras and I love shooting film. I might limit film use to black and white, processing and scanning at home. We will see what happens to the price of film. For now, this old film dog is learning some new tricks.





Film $$$

This weekend I visited a town near the California coast where I used to live and the mom & pop photo store that was one of my favorite haunts. I needed film and decided I wanted to give them my business rather than ordering online. I was surprised to see a very good selection of film…Kodak, Fuji, Ilford and Cinestill. They had just received pro packs of Kodak Portra 400. Last time I checked the price of Portra 400 pro packs, they were $78. This weekend, at the local store, they were $120! Needless to say, I did not buy the Portra. However, what you see below was $107. Film photography is getting very expensive.

Big Cameras

As a kid, I was fascinated by the technology of television production. Back in the 60s and 70s when I was growing up, you rarely got a glimpse of television cameras or other production equipment. Occasionally, directors would “break the fourth wall” allowing those of us at home a glimpse behind-the-scenes. Here’s Gene Rayburn getting testy with a cue card person on a Match Game program from 1976:

Match Game was produced at CBS Television City in Hollywood. The cameras you see in this clip were Norelco PC-70s. These cameras were manufactured by the Philips Company in Holland. When Philips wanted to sell their television cameras in the US, they were blocked from using the Philips name because its name was too similar to Philco, a US manufacturer of electronics. So, Philips used their Norelco brand (yes, same as the electric shavers) on cameras exported to the US. Ironically, some years later, Philips bought Philco. I was a pretty decent artist as a kid and remember spending hours with pad and pencil drawing television cameras from this era. These Norelcos were some of the first cameras I drew. I wish I had kept some of those drawings.

CBS used Norelco cameras in the 1960s and 70s because the other big television equipment manufacturer at the time was RCA. RCA owned rival NBC and there was no way CBS was going to put money into RCA’s coffers, so CBS bought a lot of Norelco cameras.

Over at NBC, you would occasionally get a glimpse of the cameras used by that network around the same time; the RCA TK-44. Here’s a shot of a TK-44 on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson from the early 1980s:

My childhood fascination with television and radio broadcast production eventually led to jobs as a TV production assistant, TV cameraman, commercial producer and radio disc jockey. The first TV camera I ever used professionally was a TK-44.

Over the years, TV cameras got smaller and lighter. Today’s iPhone camera makes a much better picture than any of these early tube cameras, but I never lost my fasciation with them. So much so that around 2005, I got the crazy notion in my head of trying to see if I could find one of these old cameras to display in my office in my home in Arizona. I wondered, after all of these years, did any still exist?

After months of online archeology, I unearthed some old RCA TK-44 studio cameras that had been put away in storage and I negotiated to buy one. The shipping cost more than the camera. The one I bought came to me pretty beat up so I asked my Dad, who was retired and into restoring vintage cars as a hobby, if he would have a go at a cosmetic restoration of my TK-44. He agreed and did a fine job.

Restored RCA TK-44 studio camera in my home office

While doing all of the old TV camera archeology, as sometimes happens, one thing led to another. I ended up hearing about some more old TV cameras that were sitting in storage in Burbank, California. These cameras had seen duty at CBS and NBC and were close to being sent to the dump. The price was cheap enough, but these cameras and related equipment were far too heavy to ship. If I wanted them, I would need to move them myself.

The crazy continues as I find myself on a plane to Burbank, a cab ride to the Penske truck rental place and then to a storage unit near the Burbank airport. I ended up leaving that day with a Norelco PC-70, a RCA TK-47, two pneumatic pedestals, Vinten tri-pod heads, cables and some other odds and ends. As I drove all of this stuff across the desert in a rental truck to Phoenix, I thought…”what AM I doing?”

Norelco PC-70 from CBS (background) and RCA TK-47 from NBC (foreground)

Back home, I mounted the camera on their pedestals. The RCA TK-47 you see in this photograph was the successor to the TK-44 and was RCA’s last studio camera. These cameras are very heavy. It takes two people to lift them onto these pedestals. The camera bodies snap into heads that allow the camera operator to pan and tilt. Proper adjustment of the head makes the camera perfectly balanced so it can be panned and tilted with little effort. The camera body and pan and tilt heads sit on TVP P-50 pneumatic pedestal. With their tanks filled with air, the pedestals allow the camera to easily move up and down vertically. When everything is stet up right, operating one of these cameras is really quite fun.

For years I had these two cameras in the extra stall in my garage. My neighbors thought I was nuts. In retrospect, they were right, but it was fun. When I moved to California in 2010, my vintage cameras went to a broadcast museum.

The Nikon FM and The Joys of a CLA

For some time now, I have been on the hunt for a very nice, chrome, early edition Nikon FM 35mm SLR. There are lots of FMs for sale on eBay, but I wanted a copy with a serial number that started with a 2 and was a three-knurled-knob version. Why? Honestly, is there really any rational reason for those of us who enjoy analog photography and making pictures with cameras that are more than 40 years old other than…I just wanted one?

  • During the production run of the FM from 1977 to 1982, Nikon released three versions:

  • The three-knurled-knob version which has knurling around the collar of the shutter release button, the ASA/shutter speed dial and the rewind crank.

  • The two-knurled-knob version, which has knurling around the collar of the shutter release and the ASA/shutter speed dial.

  • And the single-knurled-knob button, which has knurling only around the ASA/shutter speed dial.

The knurling on the shutter release collar, ASA dial and rewind crank knob make it easier to turn these knobs and…well, I just think it looks cool. There were some other refinements to the FM over the production run, but in this hunt, I was simply pursuing the cool factor.

Knurling around the shutter release collar and ASA/shutter speed dial

Knurling around the film rewind crank

The Nikon FM is a fully mechanical camera. It replaced the Nikkormat FT3 and was designed as a smaller more affordable option to Nikon’s professional F-series cameras which at that time was the F2. The FM has a built-in TTL light meter which is represented in the viewfinder as a series of three LEDs, one for overexposure, one that indicates proper exposure and one that indicates under exposure. It’s Nikon’s classic 60/40 center-weighted metering. It’s nearly foolproof. Just center the LEDs and you’re all set. Two 1.5 volt SR44 or LR44 batteries power the meter. The camera operates just fine at shutter speeds up to 1/1000th of a second without batteries.

I searched eBay for a while trying to find the version of this camera I wanted and a copy that looked well-cared for. I’ve bought enough cameras online that I can get a feel from the buyers description, photos and feedback as to whether or not I should bid or buy it now. None of the cameras I saw resonated with me. One day, one of the friends of this blog wrote me and said he was selling a few cameras, including an FM. I asked for pictures and there it was…a nice chrome three-knurled-knobbed FM!

When the camera arrived, I was pleasantly surprised to find it was in cosmetically very good shape. The shutter speeds all sounded good and the meter responded to light and seemed fairly accurate when I compared it to one of my hand-held light meters. This was however a 46-year old mechanical device and since I intended to keep and use the FM, off it went to Jim Holman at International Camera Technicians for a complete service.

I have used quite a few different camera repair techs over the years and in all that time, two stand out as simply superb; Sover Wong, the master of Nikon F2 repairs and Jim Holman. Both Sover and Jim do more than repair cameras, they completely refurbish them and bring them back to factory specifications. And both of these gentleman take detailed photos of the work they are doing on your camera.

Sover only works on the Nikon F2. Jim has repaired several Nikons for me as well as a Canon A-1. He services many other brands of cameras as well as lenses. I have a Pentax K2 that’s next in line to go to Jim.

I really thought my FM was pretty clean. It is amazing how much gunk collects inside after four decades. Here are some shots taken once Jim opened up my FM.

And of course, in any camera of this vintage, light seals and foams have mostly disintegrated. A lot of this stuff is the debris you see when you look through the viewfinder of an old camera.

As you can see, the camera got a complete tear down. As part of the process, my FM got new front leatherette panels installed.

As Jim was working on my camera, he gave me a call to tell me that mechanically, my FM was in really great shape. He said the shutter was very strong, the meter was pretty accurate and after a thorough clean, lube and adjust, this camera would last me for many years. Jim knows how much I love minty cameras and he tossed out an option that was hard to resist. He said if I wanted an absolute mint ++ FM inside and out, he would replace the top and bottom covers with new old stock, essentially giving me back as next to brand new as a 46-year old Nikon can get! I bit.

My FM arrived the following week, securely wrapped, looking and even smelling like a brand new camera. Here she is.

Nikon FM with 50mm f/1.8 AI-s Pancake lens and a 1901 Eggleston leather strap

Top view of the FM. I added a Nikon soft release and Nikon BS-1 hot shot cover to trick it out

Shooting an old mechanical camera is such a joy. Shooting one that has been refurbished and brought back to factory specifications takes things to entirely different level. The shutter speed dial on my FM now moves smoothly with nice, reassuring clicks. The film advance feels sublime. The shutter sounds so good. The viewfinder is crystal clear without any dust or debris. And yeah, I know the new smell is caused somewhat by the Pliobond adhesive that is used on the light seals, but I find it pleasurable.

The Nikon FM is a minimalist, easy to use, easy to love film SLR. The FM often gets overlooked in favor of the FM2 which offers higher maximum shutter speeds and a higher price tag or the FE or FE2 which offer aperture-priority auto exposure.

I have some Kodak T-Max 400 loaded in the FM right now and I’ve been shooting with both the 50/1.8 pancake lens and my 55m f/2.8 Micro-Nikkor. I just adore this camera!

Making pictures with a CLA’d film camera is pure joy! Photos coming soon.

The Nikon FE

I have a soft spot in my heart for cameras from the mid to late 1970s. It was then, during my junior high and high school years, when the seeds of my lifelong passion for photography were planted. These were the days when schools had camera clubs and we had a lively group of kids mostly shooting borrowed cameras from their parents or loaner cameras from the schools. I used my father’s Kodak Retina IIc rangefinder, but I lusted after Nikons.

Many people consider the 70s the glory years for Nikon. Their legendary Nikon F and the brand new F2 were the cameras of choice for legions of professional photographers. And in 1977, they introduced the FM, the first of the compact-F series designed to compete with the Olympus OM-1 and OM-2 which were romancing photographers with their compact size. In addition to wanting smaller, lighter camera bodies, the market also was moving towards exposure automation, so in 1978, Nikon introduced the FE.

The Nikon FE with 50mm f/1.8 AI-s pancake lens

The Nikon FE was essentially an FM with aperture-priority auto exposure. It’s a simple, durable, dependable camera with a top shutter speed of 1/1000th of a second. A camera made mostly of metal, available in chrome or all black, the FE was manufactured from 1978 to 1983 when the FE2 replaced it. The FE2 offered shutter speeds up to 1/4000th of a second.

I usually start my quest for a new camera on eBay, but on a hunch, I reached out to my friend Jim Holman at International Camera Technicians to ask if he had an FE for sale. Jim knows I am picky about the condition of the used cameras I buy and said he did not have a minty one in stock. He did however have a user condition body in the shop and would be willing to give it a complete overhaul and then replace top and bottom covers and other parts to essentially create a mint FE. That sounded sweet so I gave Jim the ok. The camera arrived a few weeks later, looking, smelling and operating just like it was brand new.

The FE and FE2 Nikons have my all time favorite viewfinder displays, just a simple analog needle readout that shows the shutter speed the camera has decided on for the aperture the photographer has selected. In manual mode, it’s a simple match-needle affair. Top of the viewfinder offers an ADR—Aperture Direct Readout, which is basically a little window that show the aperture selected on the lens barrel. Honestly, I think that the Nikon F3 would have been the world’s most perfect camera if it had the display used in the FE/FE2 and later FM3a.

The FE is pure simple analog joy to shoot. There’s a quality feel to all of the controls. The viewfinder is big and bright and easy to focus. The shutter sounds sublime. And it’s honestly hard to mess up a shot with Nikon’s classic center-weighted metering.

Cockpit of the FE: Everything you need and nothing you don’t

To round out my FE kit, I went looking for what has been called one of Nikon’s sharpest manual focus lenses; the 50mm f/1.8 AI-s Pancake. There are various version of this lens, but all of my research led to selecting the version sold originally only in Japan. These lenses have serial numbers starting with a 2. The USA version from the 1980s has more plastic, serial numbers starting with a 4 and only focuses to 2’ compared to the earlier version’s 1.5’. There was a also a much cheaper Series E version of this lens. All of the Nikon 50s are amazing lenses, but this one kept coming up as the sharpest of all. I bought mine from a trusted seller in Japan. I do love how compact this lens is…makes for a nice, lightweight kit. And it is really hard to beat the quality of Nikon’s manual focus AI-s lenses.

The Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AI-s Pancake Lens

I shot some Kodak T-Max 100 as my first roll in the FE.

I really enjoyed shooting the FE and with the little 50/1.8 Nikkor out front, it feels like a camera I could carry more often and make more pictures. That would be a good thing. My goal is to make more pictures this year.

As a footnote, prices for film cameras have skyrocketed over the past 18 months. It makes me wish I had invested some money and bought more cameras ten years ago when they were almost free so I could sell them today, get rich and retire. Oh well. That being said, the Nikon FE, as of this writing, is still a bargain with prices hovering around $100. Find a decent one and then invest in a CLA and this is a camera you could happily shoot forever.

Expired Kodak TMAX 400 In The Nikon F4

I am obviously not taking enough pictures these days because I found a few rolls of Kodak TMAX 400 film hiding in the back of my refrigerator with an expiration date of last November. Finding the film was a good enough reason to get the Nikon F4 out and give it some exercise.

Even with its 1980s technology, the F4 is always a joy to shoot. Easy to hold, easy to shoot, easy to love. I have always admired the way Nikon did such a wonderful job of combining that latest tech of the time with knobs and levers to create a camera body that would gently ease photographers out of the mechanical camera era into what SLRs and later DSLRs would evolve into. I love my F4.

I used my AF-D Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 lens with the F4 set on program mode.

An 18-week old Golden Retriever puppy makes a great subject…

My desk…

Me…

Film Rewind

Working on my photo book and looking back through lots of images. This one is from September, nine years ago. I was using my Nikon F2AS, 50mm f/1.4 Nikkor on Kodak Tri-X. I was in Alamo Square Park in San Francisco, looking for a good vantage point to get a shot of the famed “Painted Ladies.” I lucked out that this couple was kind enough to provide some foreground interest.

I miss using the Nikon F2. For some reason, as my eyes have aged, I have been unable to find a suitable screw-in diopter for any of the F2 finders that give me clear enough vision to focus. It is the only camera that I have this trouble with. I am told that I could have an eyeglass shop make me a custom lens that I could fit into the Nikon diopter mount, but that seems like a lot of work. Oddly enough, my new-to-me Nikon F with a Photomic FTn finder with no diopter at all does not give me the same trouble.

Adventures with Eastman 5222 Double-X

I’ve had a few rolls of Kodak’s 5222 Double-X screaming at me from the refrigerator for a while now. Every time I go grab a roll of black and white film, I skip over the Double-X and go for Tri-X or HP4. I’m not sure why because every time I shoot this fine film, I love the results I get.

If you’re not familiar with Double-X, it was introduced by Kodak in 1959 as a motion picture film. It’s a 250 ISO film with reasonably fine grain that delivers what I consider a vintage black and white look. Over the years, it’s been used on some great films like Schindler’s List, Raging Bull, Casino Royale and Psycho. 250 ISO makes Double-X a pretty capable general purpose black and white film but there’s one caveat; Double-X does not have the same exposure latitude of other black and white films…maybe a stop over or under and that’s about it. Nail your exposure though and this film delivers.

I loaded up my Pentax K2 with some Double-X on a sunny Sunday late afternoon. My lens was the SMC Pentax-M 50mm f/1.7. I was grilling some chicken and playing with the dogs.

It’s alway nice to sip a nice glass of Cab while grilling.

I really like the tonal range of this film with nice inky blacks and bright whites. All of the in-betweens look very pleasing as well. It’s easy to blow out the whites if you’re not careful. The grain is definitely there, but it does have a cinematic look to it.

I had also forgotten how much I enjoy taking pictures with my Pentax K2. I need to use it more often and also need to stop reaching over the Double-X in favor of other films. There’s a reason Hollywood has been using this film for over 60 years.

Photographica

I became interested in photography in the early 1970s, shooting pictures with my Dad’s Kodak Retina IIc and dropping the film off at the corner drugstore for developing. Home darkrooms were a popular hobby among kids in those days and a few of my friends were developing and printing their own black and white film at home in makeshift darkrooms, so I set one up in my parent’s basement laundry room. All of the paraphernalia and chemicals bothered my mother to no end.

I put photography aside for many years to raise a family, getting bit by the bug again in the mid 1990s. I bought a Nikon N90s and built my dream darkroom in an extra stall in my garage. A divorce forced photography to the back burner again around 2000.

I moved to California in late 2010 and one night, while browsing eBay, just for fun, I started looking at old film cameras. I could not believe how inexpensive they had become. Just for kicks, I bought a Nikon FE2 for I think $60. That FE2 got me back into film photography. Over the past 12 years, I’ve been fortunate to have been able to afford, acquire, use and mostly sell for a profit, lots of legendary film cameras. These were the cameras I drooled over as a kid, while flipping through the pages of Modern Photography magazine. I never could have imagined that someday I would own the cameras I lusted after then.

Over the years, I have photographed many of the cameras and other photo gear I have owned. I’ve used the photos on this blog, on social media or some I’ve just shot for fun. A few are hanging in my den at home. Some of these I shot with whatever iPhone I had at the time. The others were taken with either the Nikon F2 or FM2n and the fabulous 55mm f/2.8 Micro-Nikkor on Kodak T-Max 400 or the original Fuji Acros. These are some of my favorites.

The FE2 that started it all

A walk in my garden

I had some Kodak Ektar 100 in the refrigerator that was nearing expiration. To put it to good use, I took a walk in my garden with my Nikon FE and 55mm f/2.8 Micro-Nikkor lens. I suppose if I really had to sell all of my Nikon lenses and hold on to just one, this 55 would be that lens. Its macro-photography capabilities are amazing and it’s also a great, fast walk around normal lens.

Kimmie, our Golden Retriever, hung out with me and mostly napped while I shot these. She woke up momentarily to let me snap this photo. I imagine it must have felt good to snooze in the cool grass on a warm, late spring day.

I always finish my rolls with a mirror selfie. Helps me remember which camera and lens I used to shoot a roll.

I love Ektar 100 and would shoot it more often if it wasn’t so crazy expensive.

Point Arena, the Nikon FM2n and Kodak Tri-X

I have decided to make Kodak Tri-X my primary black and white film stock this year. I haven’t shot Tri-X consistently enough to really get to know it well, so this is a good exercise for me.

A few weeks back, I took a road trip up the coast to the little town of Point Arena, California and brought along my Nikon FM2n, 50mm f/1.8 Nikkor AI-s lens and a few 24 exposure rolls of Tri-X. Here are some of the shots that pleased me the most.

I had forgotten how much I enjoy taking pictures with my FM2n. It’s a manual everything minimalist SLR that really gets out of your way. I almost sold it late last year because prices for these bodies have really gone up. I’m glad I didn’t.