christian_kolinski

Sorry, missed the B&W part.

In this case I would take a strong guess that's some east-european film. Propably Orwo.

Porst was a german chain of photo-stores (since the 70s, before it was a mail-order company). It went bankrupt some years ago, thats why B&H sells Porst E6 film, they bought it cheaply when Porst went down.

During history, Post film was bought from different sources. During the 80s this could have been Agfa or Ferrania.

Not quite a classic, but may fit your needs:

Have you thought about a Olympus XA?

Apparture priority, real rangefinder, 1:2.8 f=35mm lens.

It's smaller and not as heavy as a Yashica or a Canonet. For a adult it's a bit hard to use, because the controls are a bit tiny, but I think they may fit a 7 years old hands quite nicely.

One disatvantage is that you can use Olympus A11 or A16 flash only.

Oh, and look for the XA, NOT the XA2. The XA2 is the low-cost model without RF and a slower lens (3.5 iirc).

There six labs developing kodachrome on the whole planet! And I never had much difficulties to find one.

For the cost analysis: Velvia and Provia in 120 are less than 4Eur, development is 2Eur (if not included, depends on where I buy them). If doing myself less than 1Eur.

The Kodak Kodak DCS Pro Back 645H with 16MP is $11,000 at B&H.

Thats about 2000x Velvia incl. processing. Not included the price for memory-cards and harddisks to save the 30000 pictures. And the DCS 645H is one of the cheaper ones...

It will be a different story in five years time.

It IS a different story for a pro who needs his pictures ASAP.

If you're not a serius pro, digtital is no alternative to MF, not yet. It's still too expensive. When you look at the price of a 22MP-back, how much rolls of film can you buy and develop for that amount? I bet more than most semi-professionals shoot during the next 2 to 5 years.

Second, digtial is not that much cheaper in running costs as film. When you calculate the "total cost of ownership" you have to look at thinks like the cost of the computer you need, the amount of CDs or DVDs to save the pictures (we're talking about 22MP raw, that means >120MB/picture. So you can save ca. 5 pics/cd or 40/dvd). And you have to copy the CDs every 2 - 5 years to prevent loss due to corrupted media or incompatible new equippment.

I remeber copy my first computer files

from tape to disk

from cp/m disk to ms-dos disk

from 5,25" ms-dos-disk to 3,5" disk

from 3,5" disk to 3,5 disk (because this 3,5" HD bastards die like flys)

from 3,5" to cd-rom

fron cd-r to cd-r (because I've got a bad batch the first time. Died after 2 years)

Now I think about DVDs. Or waiting till blue-ray disks are out? hmm.

Do you think "normal" people will do this with their digital images?

Or will they realise in maybe 10 years that their cd-r have died and they couldn't read it anyway, because nobody owns a cd-rom drive anymore.

How easy my slides are. Mount them, sort 'em, and don't have to care for the next 15 years (or 50 if using Kodachrome).

I've found a picture last week. It was in a box, hidden away in the attic for I assume more than 60 years. It shows my grand-grandfather in front of the post-office he worked at. Looking at the uniforms, inscriptions ("Kaiserliches Reichspostamt") and knowing a bit about my grand-grandfathers history I date it to 1900-1910. Do you think this would be possible with digital? What will my grandchilds find in 100 years?

Black and white film will never die. Never. Why? Because you can mix your own developer, fixer, even film.

Color will be a bit different, but I don't see it's death anytime soon. Maybe you woun't be able to send your E6 to a local lab anymore, but mail-order will be there for a long, long time. Or order your own E6-kit and DIY. It's not rocket-science 'ya know.

Hi,

I'm 21. I'm a student of computer science and I don't own a digital, never have, and don't will in the near future. Just got my Mamiya 645 serviced to keep it fit for the next 20 years. Just got out today to take some shoots with my pre-war Rolleiflex.

I expect to get my 645 velvia slides back any day soon. Was shooting a steam powered locomotive who did service here for a few days.

Let the fools go for digital. Never have been able to buy MF-gear so cheap. Just got a Mamiya 150mm 1:4 lens from ebay. First shoots look promising. Cost? 55Eur inc. shipping (ok, that was a real bargain).

Film will be availiable for a long, long time to come. Maybe the big players like Kodak will drop film someday. There will plenty of companys which will be only too happy to fit the gap.

Raised with ignorance to history? Pah. I just have to look out the window to see witnesses of about 1000 years of history.

Chris.

I started at the age of 4 with some Instamatic-clone. For a child of 7 1/2 I suggest a RF-camera too. If you want him to start slowly (and therefore not to scare him from photography by complicate technic) give him a Yashics 35. As it's apparture-priority he can start with, lets say, a ISO 400/27° Film and f/8 or f/11. Should allow him to shoot and only care about focus. If he's expirienced (most pictures of a roll are in focus) you can explain him DOF, whats the result of changed apparture, long/short shutter times and so on...

If he's very interested you may give him a FED/Zorki or Kiev. Great learning camera and almost indestroyable. And you can add lenses when he stays interrested.

Or a SLR. Some older manual focus models go rather cheap on ebay. But I think a SLR is a bit to heavy and too big for a 7 year old (I don't think it's to complicated). Hmm, maybe if you can find one of the newer models like the Minolta X-370. They started to use a lot of plastik in those so they are not as heavy as their predecessors like the SR-T or XE series.

Chris

The Zeiss-Ikon Nettar were a rather cheap Series of folders. Most (all?) are equipped with three element lenses. No rangefinder (if you want one you have to look for the Mess-Ikonta or the Super-Ikonta) and no real need for one: As explained by serveral people above the Novar lens should be stopped down to about f/11. With f/11 you have a DoF which covers most guessing mistakes. You can't do much wrong by buying one of those. Although I don't know the price in the US, the Nettars sell for 10-30Eur on ebay here in Germany.

The Nettar (like nearly all folders) was availiable with different lenses and shutters. Some offer only 2 or 3 speeds (like 1/25 and 1/75) some (like the Compur) offer all speeds from 1 to 1/250).

Oh, and some folders like the Isolette III have a rangefinder _but_ it's a uncoupled one. So you could just take any external rangefinder like a Watameter - would be cheaper than one with a uncoupled RF. Folders with coupled RF like the Bessa with RF or the Super-Ikontas tend to sell for rather high prices.

And while talkung about: Folders have been manufactured for a pretty long time (1920s to 1950s). So a Nettar can be a early 1930s camera with a uncoated f/6,3 lens or a 1950s with coated f/4,5 lens...

On risk beeing seen as a pedant:

ISO ist not (only) ASA.

Have a close look at the box of film in front of you. Don't look at the bolt print "400". Have a look at the back where it states:

"ISO 400/27°" (It's a HP5 in my case...).

DIN survived. It's part of ISO.

BTW: DIN meant different things during it's history:

Deutsche Industrie Norm (till 1926) --> German industry standard

Das ist Norm! (1926 -1945) --> That's standard! (Not really creative, isn't it?)

Deutsches Institut für Normung (1975-now) --> German institute for standardisation

To be exact:

ISO contains both, ASA and DIN:

Full ISO is (for example):

ISO 100/21°

which is ASA 100 - 21°DIN

ASA (American standard): linear (200 is twice as sensitive as 100)

DIN (German standard): log (+3 = double senitivity: 24° is twice as senitive as 21°)

Ilford has published a recipe for reversal processing ilford films:

http://www.ilford.com/html/us_english/pdf/reversal_web.pdf

Christian

I have to say: I'm not surprised!

The Retinette 1B is (IIRC) equiped with a Rodenstock (or Schneider?) Reomar 2.8/45 which - although only a 3 element design - can deliver astonishing results if you stop down about two or three f-stops.

Those cameras are serious picture takers.

Christian