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michael_goldfarb

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  1. Good to know. But I can't speak re AI gear, I've never personally handled any. My folks never made the leap to AI bodies and lenses. Our last NIkon purchase was an F2 Photomic around 1973; at that point we had three bodies and six lenses, and we didn't really need anything else. The majority of their work was always on 4x5 sheet film, and there was no compelling reason to buy the new Nikon equipment. Their only major camera purchase still to come was a Mamiya RB-67 around 1980, trading up from a C330. Picture: My dad and a commercial artist friend fooling around with a Nikkormat and Nikkorex F at the studio in 1968. Shot with my Minox B on Tri-X, scanned from a 4x5 print. (Yeah, 60s TX in the Minox yielded "grain like cannonballs" plus all the dust and scratches. Hey, I was just a kid - I did much better in my second era of Minox shooting starting in 1995.)
  2. Sorry, I didn't recall that I'd already responded to this thread more or less identically a while back! D'oh!
  3. I absolutely agree: Nikkormats and non-Ai lenses are a tremendous bargain these days, absurdly cheap compared to tons of popular gear nowhere near their build quality. I handled all the non-AI Nikon and Nikkormat bodies (and the Nikkorex F) in my 60s/70s youth, and still have a working F2 (and multiple non-AI lenses) from my parents' studio. I have always - ALWAYS - preferred shooting the Nikkormats to the Nikons. Sleeker, lighter, with that great Copal shutter, and built just as tough as the Nikons. This is me around 1969: For a dozen years starting around 2009, I used that old F2, mostly with a plain DE-1 prism (though I also have a working DP-1 meter prism) and mainly with the miniscule 45mm/f2.8 GN lens to make it the lightest F2 kit, just easier to carry. With seven lenses and only another long-seized-up F2 body, I figured I needed a working backup body. So, a couple of years ago I got a black Nikkormat FTN to be the backup (for just $60, rated Good at UsedPhotoPro). Well, the moment I had it in hand, I realized that I'd much rather use the Nikkormat... so the F2 became the backup body squirreled away in a gadget bag. Sure, the Nikkormat's light meter is flakey... but I've been estimating exposures since 1966 and today's Tri-X has even more latitude than it used to. I LOVE the feel of this camera and its shutter. Recent shots from that Nikkormat using my parents' old (never even CLA'd!) lenses - first the 35mm/f2 (vintage 1972), then the 105mm/f2.5 (vintage 1966):
  4. We had a sequence of Nikons and Nikkormats through the 60s and 70s at my parents' studio. (We'd started off with a Nikkorex F in 1963.) And I always preferred shooting the Nikkormats to the Nikons, full stop. (Picture: me finishing off a roll of TX in our studio's waiting room mirror circa 1969.) Sure, the Nikkormats were missing a couple of "pro" features, but they were sleeker and just as tough as the Nikons. And I preferred the feel/sound of the Nikkormat's Copal shutter to the horizontal shutters in the Nikons. I've still got a nice F2 from my parents, with both plain and working meter heads, which I shot with occasionally for years... I got a Nikkormat FTN body ($60 from UsedPhotoPro) a couple of years ago to be a backup body for my eight non-AI lenses... But I'm loving shooting the Nikkormat, and the F2 was quickly relegated to being the backup body! Nikkormats and non-AI lenses are seriously undervalued in the current, crazy inflated used camera market, and I always recommend them over a lot of the popular favorites if anybody asks.
  5. That's why I only shoot 24-exp rolls in my Pen F - with careful loading, I get 55 shots. That's plenty! As far as the image quality of half-frame negs, at least with the Pen's 38/1.8 lens, I get lovely results. These are all on Double-X (Eastman 5222 in 24-exp loads from Film Photography Project) shot at 200 (though I mostly just estimate exposures without a light meter), developed in D-76 1:1, 2400dpi scans: The half-frame negative and unusual focal length (38mm is equivalent to 55mm on a full-frame camera) yields a nicely different look. Personally, I like a touch of grain - I think this Double-X looks more classic 60s Tri-X than today's Tri-X does. Of course, you could shoot something finer-grained like T-Max 100, Delta 100, Pan F, etc. for even sharper images.
  6. For a quick guide, check this table of Pen F half-frame lenses, which includes the full-frame 35mm neg equivalents for their focal lengths. Olympus Pen F - Wikipedia
  7. The weekly Sunday flea market in Beacon, NY. I shot these last year on Tri-X, testing a gorgeous Contaflex S I got for $10... which performed perfectly.
  8. Just as a by-the-way tangent... Back in the mid-1970s when I was making Super 8 films, I purchased stuff from Superior Bulk. A 50-foot Super 8 developing reel/tank (which I still have, if anyone needs one) and packages of their chemistry to develop b/w reversal films like Plus-X and Tri-X. (Since my parents were pros and I'd been developing b/w films daily for years, it just seemed natural to develop my own movie film too and save some money on processing... and not have to wait for days for the film to come back from Kodak's lab.) The results of home-processing these b/w films were uneven... with big swirling grain, occasional scratches, or incomplete bleaching and/or re-exposing leading to muddy or solarized-looking bits. But these imperfections actually came in handy when we made a fake 1920s silent comedy short - we explained in the faux-Blackhawk Films title crawl at the beginning that this 50-year-old short had suffered "nitrate damage in places" like so many other silent films!
  9. glen_h.... Verichrome Pan was essentially Plus-X with added exposure latitude, intended to get good results in simple roll film snapshooters with fixed apertures and shutter speeds. It's telling that Kodak never offered Verichrome Pan in 35mm - a format for pros and serious amateurs using more sophisticated cameras - but it was their primo b/w film in 127, 120, 620, 828, etc., rolls for many years. f7-Verichrome-199611.pdf (125px.com)
  10. I don't trust that collectiblend site data. I was just looking at KEH, UsedPhotoPro, eBay, etc., and you won't find a WORKING OM-1 body for anywhere near that price these days. The under-$100 ones are nearly all as-is, inoperable, or parts-only. If you decide to go the repair route, John Hermanson at zuiko.com is still repairing OMs. He's not cheap, but he's good: he's worked on both my OM-2 and Pen F in recent years.
  11. I don't know if anybody is shooting stereo slides anymore, but my parents did back in the fifties and early sixties. I've got five or six essentially new-in-box, empty stereo slide trays for the Airequipt Stereo Theater, a very cool tabletop viewer. (Ours still works great!) I'm asking $15 each plus shipping. This is less than I've seen them going for at dealers or on eBay. Let me know if you're interested and we'll work something out.
  12. I was annoyed when Kodak stopped making the smaller pouches. I haven't done enough b/w in decades to use up a gallon of D-76 before it goes bad, especially because I always prefer using the 1:1 dilution. So, I recently began using Film Photography Project's version of D-76... because they make it in liter/quart packages. It seems to work identically to Big Yellow Father's.
  13. Just for the record, my parents were pros with their own little commercial studio for over fifty years. Our main enlarger was an Omega D3v purchased in the 1950s, but we also had a Durst M600. The M600 proved to be just fine for 35mm work with its supplied lens once it was stopped it down a bit. Sure, the 50mm EL-Nikkor on the industrial-grade Omega was better, but it really didn't matter for the mostly 5x7 prints for publication we were making (from film that was mainly shot and dropped off by local newspapers, public service organizations, and political figures). We used it for 15+ years with no problem, and I ended up giving to a friend's daughter who was studying photography in art school. Yes, it's a simple design. But effective.
  14. I stopped shooting my Minox cameras around five years ago, but I had standardized on T-Max 100 and D-76 1:1 years earlier. The only other 100/125-speed film I really liked in the Minox was Agfapan APX 100 - the nineties emulsion. It had a beautiful, unique, luminous look, with just as fine grain and wide latitude as Plus-X and FP4. (I was using a IIIs and estimating exposure, so exposure latitude was a consideration.) While TMX didn't have much latitude, required more careful developing, and was at times too contrasty, it DOES have finer grain. Sorry, I never shot 25- or 400-speed film in my "recent" Minoxing. I used to shoot Tri-X 400 back when I had my first Minox B 1967-69. I use to develope it in straight D-76... and the results were so coarse and grainy that I ultimately sold that Minox for a 35mm compact (a Petri Color 35, a great shooter). But I kept the developing tank and negative carrier, because I knew I'd get another Minox "someday". And I finally did, in 1995. I'm sure that Martin and Julian - both of whom I recall from the 90s Submini Mailing List - will have excellent suggestions.
  15. He's still working. John repaired both my OM-2 and Pen F within the last couple of years. The OM-2 was just back in January.
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