Restoration

Old film cameras are a dime a dozen, almost literally. No one (at least around here) wants them anymore. While I have the professional series of Nikon film cameras, (F3, F4, F5) some of the lower level have peaked my interest.

This is a Nikon FE with MD-12 motor drive, and 50mm f/2 lens. Not fully functional, but I got it for a song and a dance. I'm trying my hand at restoration and so far, it's been going pretty well. For a camera made nearly 40 years ago, parts are easy to come by.

As with all my cameras, it will see use. Unsure just yet how, but I will post something I take with it, in the near future.

One Last Action Shot

Again, in film, manual focus 135mm. The scissor dancers were under a tent so the lighting came from the side, with a little fill light from some overhead cans. They were in full swing, leaping, dancing, swirling around. Getting one in focus was quite the challenge. From the local folk fest, shot with my Nikon F3HP

That Old Time Religion

As I mentioned earlier, here are some proper film shots with my Nikon F3HP. There is a smooth look that I just cannot get with a digital SLR. I think in large part because the grain on film is truly randomly placed in the creation process, whereas in digital, there is no true randomness. The top shot was done with a 135mm f/2.8 and the bottom one with my 50mm dedicated Macro at f/8. This was for a contest, of sorts, and I wasn't real pleased with the lighting, but that was part of the rules, so I worked with what I had. A true photographer would have used some GoBos (Go Betweens) so adjust the ambient light to his advantage, sadly I don't have any.

More Film Work

Shooting with a film camera is easy. Shooting with a manual focus lens is easy. Shooting a concert in a brightly lit area is easy.

Shooting a concert with a manual focus lens onto film is difficult. Very difficult. I cannot begin to imagine how concert photographers back then did it. Probably sat and waited for one good shot.

Here is a prime example, an energetic accordion player at a local folk fest, shot in B/W on BW400CN film with the Nikon F3HP using a manual focus 135mm f/2.8 lens. Not sure I nailed the focus however. Nonetheless I am pleased with the shot. I will be doing more folk fest work tomorrow, but I'll be going back to digital cameras and auto-focus lenses. 

Around Town

A little bit of filmwork from around town. 200mm lens doing an abstraction of the buildings downtown where I work. Nikon F3HP with my go to film of BW400CN.



A Little Bit of Film

So I go away for a bit (mainly due to terrible weather) and when I do come back with something to post, Blogger changes the back-end and wipes out all my preferences.

Bloody irritating that is.

Nonetheless, I'm gonna give this a try and see how well it works, or if I can turn it back to "classic" mode (I hate that term "classic", I wish I could call it "just works the way I want it to" mode, but that's too cumbersome)

In any case, a sunny day, some Kodak B/W film, a manual camera, and a willing subject. Not muchmore I could ask for.

Geometric

The secure parking lot where I park for work is full of interesting geometric shapes. Here is a set of stairs for example. I'm trying to branch out in my photography and capture not just the things that are innately beautiful, but everyday ordinary things too.

What do you think?

More film work

I was going to title this post "Soup and Quackers" (yuck yuck yuck) but there's no soup here, only my Mamiya TLR.

Shot with my Nikon f4s and dimestore B/W film under the natural light from a nearby window. This shot should have been with my Green Bank work, but frankly I'd forgotten about the roll and only recently found it.

Walking around the city

You have seen this angel before, Hollywood Cemetery, filmed with my Nikon f3hp during the snowy day. Probably can't tell there's snow on the ground, we got a whopping 2 inches overnight, and the sunny day had most of it melted by the time I got there.

Anyway, I like this staute so here she is again.

Over the Wall

At the other end of the parking deck, there is a pretty good view of the rest of the downtown city. Here is part of it overlooking the train station.

The lens I used it pretty sharp, but I don't think the film was scanned at a high enough resolution for me. That's ok, one day I'l start doing my own scans and fix that problem.

Downtown Skyline

The parking deck near my office has installed solar panels on the very top deck. It had been closed off for some time while they were working on it, but it just reopened and I had the chance before work to see how it looked.

I've been carrying my f3hp with me and loaded with kodak (grrrr it's a drug, I'm addicted to their film) BW400CN film I'm really enjoying using it.

Results from the one hour labs are always unpredictable but that adds to the fun for me.

A test of the camera

I *love* the Nikon system. Old camera, new lens, new camera, old lens, none of this poses a problem. Case in point the previous post was with an old camera and an old lens and no issues. This post is the same old camera (f3hp) and new lens (50mm f/1.8) and no problems at all.

The 50mm has a polarizer attached to the front giving the sky a slightly darker look, but not enough. Gonna have to go rooting around for a few ND filters.

Local park and semi-active railroad.

Yup, also handheld

Normally I could never pull off hanheld shots, but two in a row! Anyway, taken from a small waterfall area in West Virginia. Still film, still the 17-35mm lens.

Conversion

I'd forgotten to pack any Kodak BW400CN film, so I coverted this shot to Black and White in PhotoShop. Taken pretty much after all the fog was gone.

57 Channels and Nothing On

Bet you could get great reception on this puppy.

Fall is coming

Two great effects combined into one shot, fog and fall. The fall colours look great on the fallen leaves, and the fog isolates everything. On of my favourite shots from the trip.

Here comes Mr. Sun!

Behind me, and to the right were a row of trees which blocked the sun until it was high in the sky (wel, high for 10am) then at which point it blew away the fog. Here you can see the effect.

Closer

An exception to the 17-35mm lens, here I used a 70-210mm, and waited just a bit until the fog had lifted, so I could get the 2nd 'scope in the shot.

The Fog

Here is another angle of the main scope, just after dawn, as the heavy fog was still holding dominance over the land.

If you look realy carefully at the full-sized image, at the far left you can just make out one of the other 'scopes in the area.

The Big One

It's difficult to get a sense of scale for the primary 'scope at Green Bank, but here it is, towering over the trees and staring out at the skies.

This was taken at the late hour of 9am, the sun already having blown away the fog and bringing the early morning light to the ground.