Richard Williams

I thought I'd put them in the camera in case it is drawing a little power from the batteries even when it's switched off, on top of the normal self-discharge of the cells. This should tell me if I can use them the same way I use lithiums, where I generally just leave them loaded and ready to go.

I don't know how Energizer rechargeables perform compared to Eneloops. Are you saying there are 2 types, one rated for only 3-6 months, and this is the type you have? It's probably worth trying something else if yours aren't working after a week or two. Battery geeks claim that 'made in Japan' low self discharge rechargeables (whether branded Eneloop, Fujitsu or something else) are the ones to go for - these are apparently made in the factory that used to make all Eneloops before Panasonic acquired the brand (but not the factory). I'll stick some of my Fujitsu batteries in the F100 today and let you know if it's still working in a couple of weeks...

Leaks have put me off using alkalines in anything expensive. Lithium AAs are in any case my preferred disposables for the F100, which is fairly battery hungry (never used the grip or the CR123A holder). I've heard that Eneloops are fine in this camera, and have just bought some Fujitsu 'low self discharge' batteries that apparently use the same technology as Eneloop Pro, so we'll see how it goes. Raymond, were your Ni-MHs also Eneloops or similar low self discharge batteries, or just standard rechargeables?

Like PapaTango, I've been using them since they only sold books, with no significant problems. Buying directly from Amazon is no trouble, though they do tend to push Prime membership pretty hard - sometimes they insert a screen into the ordering process that makes signing up to a Prime 'free trial' look like the standard option, with 'no thanks' much less prominent. If they start spamming you about products, you can go to your account and switch promotional emails off. Buying from one of their traders is also fine, provided you take simple precautions and always use the Amazon payment system on the website itself. Check feedback and the location from which goods are being shipped and the estimated shipping date. Some traders use Amazon's warehouses for fulfillment. Some ship directly, but have an excellent record for shipping and customer service, sometimes offering free shipping without the minimum spend Amazon requires for this from customers who don't have Prime. Third party sellers with a good track record can be a good source of secondhand gear - I bought my X100T this way. Never deal with a trader that requires you to contact them before ordering , or which cancels the order and emails you about payment - this will be an attempt to run the sort of scam that JDM and Mostly Sports mention. Typically these scammers will send you an 'Amazon' email that looks official, but really links to their own payment system - you will never see the money (or the goods) again. Scammers sometimes use new accounts, but also commonly hijack legitimate accounts. If you see a small trader that usually sells bathroom fittings or garden furniture, and has now suddenly switched to offering a large range of consumer electronics at half the usual price, with a note to contact the seller before ordering, you are looking at a hacked account.

An impossible question, of course, and one where I might give a different answer next week. Certainly some of those mentioned, especially Nick Ut's, or perhaps Capa's photo of a face in the surf on D-Day, or Neil Armstrong's picture of Buzz Aldrin on the Moon. But if I had to pick one today, probably Nude (Charis, Santa Monica) by Edward Weston. For reasons given in the linked Wikipedia article and in an interview with Charis Weston, it's an image that needs very careful printing - it's worth seeing an original print if you can (there's one in the Radical Eye exhibition at Tate Modern in London at the moment), or failing that the excellent reproduction in the recent re-issue of The Flame of Recognition.

We may not be the market for this sort of thing, but Nikon collectors do exist (someone paid $400k for the earliest known Nikon 1). Grays of Westminster, which sells Nikons as if they were Leicas, probably already has a pedestal ready to display those 70-200 elements (I love that they come with special gloves so you can play with them!). Famous corporations are pretty much obliged to knock out a few special editions for major anniversaries, but it's much rarer to celebrate with something genuinely new and special. It's a shame the anniversary didn't coincide with the launch of the D5. I might be able to afford a lapel pin, but I think I'll pass on the crystal camera.

I found a couple of photos online that are apparently of the camera displayed in the Kon-Tiki museum. I had just posted (then deleted) that it was a IIIc (which would have been the latest model at the time of the Kon-Tiki voyage in 1947), but looking more closely I can see that it actually looks like a IIIf, not introduced until 1950. So unless he got an early prototype, he can't have used it in that form in 1947. He might have had it upgraded later, of course, or that might be a camera from one of his later expeditions (or, perish the thought, the wrong camera!). The serial number would tell us more. File:Kon-Tiki Thor Heyerdahl's Leica camera.jpg - Wikimedia Commons Thor Heyerdahl - Picture of The Kon-Tiki Museum, Oslo - TripAdvisor

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That's got nothing on my wet collodion plate hack for the Nikon D800!

I really like Fuji stuff (the X100T is probably the most fun I've had with a digital camera), but if you want a digital back for your existing Leica lenses the AF speed and the range of Sony's own lenses for the A7 series are neither here nor there, while the XT2's APS-C sensor is a disadvantage if (like many of us) you don't have anything wider than a 35mm to mount on it.

Gus, does this mean the IIIf should ideally be serviced more regularly than a IIIc? And how do both these cameras compare to the pre-war models in terms of reliability and maintaining shutter accuracy? I also wonder what effects the 3rd party flash sync on my IIIa might have on the shutter (externally, it's a rather neatly done socket in the 'self timer position' on the front). Were these done in a standard way or are all bets off once someone starts drilling into a Leica?

Did any 35mm cameras offer this out of the box, or in the standard range of accessories? Square cropping grid lines used to be an option with the (now discontinued) KatzEye SLR focusing screens: http://www.katzeyeoptics.com/page--Grid-Lines-Crop-Guides--gridlines.html

The IIIc doesn't normally have flash sync at all, though some were later upgraded to add it, making a camera with similar specs to the IIIf - do these have different shutter mechanisms to an original IIIf?

If the 2 LED meter in the M6 (Classic) is beyond fixing, don't they just shove in the more recent 3 LED meter? The M6 is the sweet spot in the M line for me because it has a meter and the modern loading and crank rewind systems, and only the M2 and M3 are substantially cheaper. The M4 (which I can see the attraction of!) usually goes for more than the M6, and the later M4-P and M4-2 for not much less than the M6. Everything later than the M6 is more expensive again. But I'd happily shoot with any of them.

...Incidentally, you won't be tied to a dead system if you buy Leica lenses for the CL - it has a conventional M mount. Only the 40mm lens is designed solely for the CL (it will work on other Leicas, but the mainstream M cameras lack exactly matching framelines). The CL also has 50mm and 90mm framelines, so if you bought a 50 you could upgrade the body later and keep the lens.

Rossb, if you're lucky the CL will have the excellent 40mm lens, for which it has matching framelines (there are no 35mm framelines on this camera), and the meter will be working (failure is apparently quite common and servicing it isn't cheap). Also check out this link for battery options: http://shardsofphotography.blogspot.co.uk/2006/03/batteries-for-your-leica-cl.html

Any Leica M or LTM (threadmount) camera can be serviced, going right back to the original models from the 1920s and 30s. There's a wider choice if you don't need a build-in meter, or can embrace the quirks of the LTM cameras. The LTMs (except the IIIg, which tends to be expensive) only have built-in 50mm viewfinders, with no framelines or parallax correction, but accessory finders are available. The M3 doesn't have 35mm framelines, but the M2 and later cameras do. You might look at an M2 (probably the cheapest M) if you can do without the meter, with a Leica (Leitz) lens from the same period, or a modern Voigtlander lens.

One strike against the M9 is the tendency of the original sensor to self-destruct. I would only buy one now if the sensor had been replaced after September 2015, when the issue was fixed. Leica will still replace the older sensor for free, but aren't known for doing this especially quickly.

In the UK, over 3 million vinyl records were sold last year; sales have been growing for the last 8 years, but this was the most in 25 years. Last December, the record companies made more from vinyl sales than they did from downloads - presumably a lot of records ended up under Christmas trees. In the US, 9 million records were sold in the first half of 2015, and brought in more cash than ad-supported streaming. In specialised record shops (like camera shops, these still exist) the vinyl racks have gone back up, and records are now appearing in fashion chains and supermarkets - mainstream UK store Tesco has even been running limited edition coloured vinyl promotions. It's now fairly common to see new releases sold only as downloads and as vinyl (no CD). There are new turntable models at the low, mid and high end, and Panasonic is re-launching classic Technics models. HiFi chain Richer Sounds has dozens of different models, from £50 to £3000.

Wearing glasses with the M6 0.72, you should easily be able to see outside the 50mm frame, but (as you've found) probably not the 35mm frame - if you consider a Leica in the future, then from what you've written a 0.58 finder might well suit you better, though it's much less common secondhand. The M6 has a rubber ring around the eyepiece, which should help you avoid scratches. I agree that the issues of frameline accuracy and RF patch flare shouldn't be overblown, they are just things to be aware of (like the momentary blackout at the moment of exposure when shooting an SLR!).

While I'm sure any new decent quality film camera would cost hundreds of dollars, Lomography prices don't have much to do with production costs. Getting someone to pay $100 for a Diana toy camera, or $350 (more than a user Rolleiflex) for a Lubitel is a triumph of marketing. Not much chance of a Zeiss compact film camera - Kyocera, who made the Contax compacts and the Yashica T4, are no longer Zeiss partners and haven't made any sort of camera for over a decade. I'm sure their current partner, Sony, wouldn't be interested. Cosina, of course, have made rangefinder bodies and lenses for Zeiss, but both the Zeiss Ikon bodies and the closely related Voigtlander bodies are now discontinued and unlikely to be revived. I'd be less surprised to see the Cosina chassis these bodies are based on turn up in some other form - I think versions of it were originally used in budget SLRs dating back to the 80s, and possibly in the current Nikon FM10. There might be room in the market for a new, relatively cheap SLR as a student/hipster camera, and basing it on the Cosina chassis (or the Minolta-licensed chassis that was used for various brand-X SLRs) would mean the development costs would be minimal - I doubt anyone wants to do this from scratch. Perhaps someone should talk to one of the factories in China that make these things and launch a 'new' camera on Kickstarter, or something. The Hipsterflex?

Some of the replies in this thread are misleading. BuBu and cj are right - the F100 can record exposure data. Nikon's original solution was the Photo Secretary II software, used with a 10-pin to serial adapter like the MC-33: http://cdn-10.nikon-cdn.com/pdf/manuals/archive/AC-2WE Photo Secretary II for F100 - Windows.pdf [large download!]. There were various third party alternatives to both the adapter and the hardware: http://www.schneordesign.com/Avi/F100/ http://www.holymoose.com/ccstart.html https://www.cocoon-creations.com/COCOON-NiCommHome.shtml . It looks like there's a free but unsupported version of Camera Companion available for download, and the SoftTALK 2000 developer has also provided a a free activation code for the download version (both unsupported, and you still need to source a data cable adapter). The Meta35 package is a similar idea updated for modern systems (i.e. USB rather than serial connection, definitely compatible with modern OSs, and with what looks like a slick interface designed for modern workflows): http://www.meta35.com/ . Nikon's CF card data reader (MV-1) that craigd mentions as working with the F6 is also compatible with the F100: http://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-products/product/data-reader/mv-1-data-reader.html but Meta35 looks like a much better and cheaper solution (though still nearly the price of an F100 on ebay). The MF-29 data back doesn't help with data transfer, by the way. As andrewg says, all it does is print date/time within the frame like some P&S cameras do (sadly they didn't include the 'between frames' option that the F5's data back has).

I have one too, but I can't seem to get it to accept a 35mm cassette, no matter how hard I hammer it into the battery compartment. I wonder how difficult it would be to resurrect one of the classic 'modern film' compacts? Does the tooling still exist? Are the electronic components still available? Some companies have re-started production of turntables for vinyl records, so it doesn't seem out of the question that we might one day see new high quality film cameras launched, or older models re-launched (whether purely mechanical or 'modern film'). It's not a huge leap from what is already happening at the low end with instant film cameras or the absurdly overpriced Lomography-branded gear.

If there's a merger, I think provided that 'Classic' remains in the forum name it will send the right message. The regular contributors here and (with much lower traffic) on MFC strike a nice balance between historical interest, technical knowledge and showing us what the cameras can do in their hands. To me it seems it's more about a particular attitude than a strict definition of what gear is 'allowed'. If someone wants to know whether VR lenses or CLS flash are compatible with the F100, their questions belong over on the Nikon forum. But if someone wants to talk about the almost forgotten AF version of the Nikon F3 they just picked up for the fun of it, and their heroically misguided attempts to shoot sports with early 80s autofocus just to see if it's possible, I'd be happy to read it here.

This way Bruce does get a (film) Leica too, just not a new one. I think I'd only be in the market for a new film M at current prices if I had a gift voucher from Leica. The Xpro 2 is also an interesting option for shooting M lenses, though the crop factor isn't ideal.