jamie_leonhard

I just rented the F5, and I have no idea how to open it to load film.

I feel like an idiot...please help.

Jamie

I highly recomend the response previous to mine. I took a class at the

community college in my area concernig B & W photography and got

utterly hooked! I loved it, and there were soooo many different things

to learn. Taking a class helped me to sort out the details, and not

only learn to process my own film and prints, but helped me to take

better pictures.

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I recomend the Kodak products, film, processing chemicals and paper,

as I have found them to be most consistent in quaility. I've tried

Ilford, and Forte papers, and they seem to be a bit trickier to work

with. I like them now, but as a beginner, it is easiest to pick one

brand, get used to it, and get good at it, before you wander into

other varieties.

I recently bought a Seagull to learn how to take medium format, and I have loved playing with it. Calumet has a great store here in Chicago, and they carry a couple of them. Black and White looks great, and color looks very sharp. My portraits that I've done look really fun, and you can blow the pictures up super large, and not have the grain come into play.

Medium format has been fun to play with, and the Seagull gave me the cheap option to start out. If you already own a Hasselblad, a Mamiya, or whatever, don't buy this camera. But if you just want to start out, it is not a bad investment. For 1/10 the cost, you can put at least 20 rolls through. If you know you like medium format after that, than go with it, and you still have this neat looking camera that is a great conversation starter. People love to see this little camera, and I've had perfect strangers come up to me and ask me "what the heck is that?: and they they want their picture taken, even if they never get a print.

Questions? Write me jambilee@juno.com