gnashings

<p>BeBu, I disagree - with the conclusion, not your reasoning. All the factors you mention are very much true. But, the FG with all of its cost cutting is a very reliable camera, and has proven itself to be so over many long years and much less than gentle use. And it is smaller and lighter. And it is still even more inexpensive. I would say (and believe me this is not spoken from a place affluence lol) if anything the prices make it so there is no reason not to buy BOTH and see which one gets more use. I am almost embarrassed to say, but in my case and through no conscious design or intent, it has been... the lowly FG. As much as I love my FM and have nothing but stellar things to say about it.</p>

<p>Don't get me wrong - I love my FG - its the little engine that could! Its tiny and light and I have shot plenty of slide film through it so I can tell you that the meter is wonderfully accurate. Few cameras have surprised me as much as it did.<br> BUT...</p> <p>I am holding my FM in my right hand and the FG in my left (the FM chassis is virtually the same as the FE's).... I CAN LITERALLY BEAT THE FG INTO A PANCAKE with the FM and then use said FM to take a picture of it.<br> If you think the FG is "rugged"... not that its flimsy, but uhm... no. Not compared to any pro or prosumer body of the era.<br> The FM3a is a bit of a unicorn - and if you can get it at the price you mention - DO IT YESTERDAY. if you hate it, sell it, use the money to buy enough FG's to build a small dwelling out of them. <br> If you want a camera that only depends on the battery for the meter - get an FM or FM2.<br> The FG is will only fire at M90. you can get free ones from people who are convinced they broke theirs when in fact the batter died - this causes that mirror to go up and stay up - until you rotate the dial to M90 and viola, you "fixed" it. Guess how I know:)</p> <p>On an slightly off topic note - I have the famous 50mm E series NIKON. its cool. Its very much good enough. Its better at taking pictures than most people who use it.<br> BUT - I have shot countless 50's, from super expensive speed demons to the ones that used to be kit lenses of their time. They are mostly ALL as good, this lens is in no way remarkable - its just very good, at a time when most 50's were just that - very good.<br> And because of the hype and the crop sensor "50 as a portrait lens" hysteria, the 1.8 aperture (which was very much average when that lens came out), it has grown to mythical proportions. The only real lesson to learn from that is how mediocre the armada of kit zooms really was, and how generations of people have gone away from a perfectly good prime to down right shitty zooms without batting an eye lash.<br> End of rant:)</p>

<p>Leszku,<br /> I have not noticed that in the past - mainly using Canon FD lenses, a yashica mat, and canonet rf's. <br /> The glass I will be using will mostly be those FD's, various Mamiya lenses (RB mount, C lenses) and some Nikon zooms. The site you listed looks most intriguing! Thank you for providing it! Always good to get more info.<br> I will break out he loupe and the old negatives check for weird aberrations - will see if I spot it anywhere.<br /> Thank you again.<br> (edited because I am long wided and forgetful - bad combination)</p>

<p>Jochen,<br> <br />Thanks for the input - all the lenses I can think of that would be used in this have an IR focus correction mark, and when I have shot IR in the past I have either done so with a r25 or r29 filter (can yield very "IR-sh" results contrary to popular opinion, but only in very bright sunlight in my experience, you gotta nail the exposure and developing), or done the on again off again thing - or used a rangefinder(or a TLR now that I think about it, was a pain holding the filter since it was 55mm and the camera used tiny little bayonet filters). <br> I find in 35mm grain is a part of the aesthetic with HIE, surprisingly tame with some of the anti halation backed films and faux IR like SFX.<br> Alas, the miniature format is the least of my concerns - I mainly medium format and 4x5 - so grain will not be an issue.<br> I have shot portraits with HIE and was very pleased with the interesting results - focus as per usual, then take the camera away from eye move to the IR mark, recompose...), so needless to say, its a dance I am familiar with. But I digress.<br> <br />But, I have been wanting to use my RB67 and my largest filter is 55mm. I am slowly assembling a collection of 77mm filters (also nice that it fits my Nikon WA zoom - bonus for the Nikons). <br> No skimping on polarizers or HD filters for obvious reasons. Colour filters for b&w are not all that expensive and as long as they're coated and from any reputable maker I find them to be more less on par - even so I do go a little out of my way to avoid flair whenever I have a filter in there. But IR filters, they get pricey at that size and they are hardly a go to application for me - a few (as in single digits) rolls per year tops. Hence my question - is it true what they say? Are the cheapies really good enough? <br> Frankly, the multi coating on filters seems to be the biggest element setting high end ones apart from the riff raff - I am not sure those coatings do a heck of a lot for those wavelengths 700nm and up...<br> Great point about the constant on and off - I have thought about the Lee/Cokin route - a little clunky but I guess for this application its not like I will be chasing sports action (although it would look awesome now that I think about it...). Perhaps that is the way to go? Get a holder - good for nd grads, circumvents the whole on again off again? Or at least make sure its a brass mount.<br> Optically though - any experiences? Has anyone seen a visible difference? Are they spotty (the cheap filters that is) in terms of their promised cut offs?<br> Just brain storming here - thanks for the suggestions!</p> <p> </p>

<p>When I see that:<br> 1st (and usually right) I messed up, and told my perfectly good and capable camera to do something stupid, and those are the results of an obedient tool in the hands of.. well another tool (me!)<br> 2nd (very very rarely) the camera is not "perfectly good"- usually oneof a number of "sticky shutter" issues<br> Once I had a lens that intermittently would not open up after stopping down, which cause similar issue (with SLR you should get wind of that quickly).<br> I can not see how this is an issue at the developing stage.<br> Alan provided an almost fool-proof test to rule out developing issue a couple posts above - do that to eliminate this variable.</p>

<p>Hi,</p> <p>I don't know if this is the right place to ask, actually I suspect it is not - but as most of my web searching yielded results pertaining to digital imaging rather than photography, I figured a film specific forum would be best.<br> My question is about IR filters. Not so much their technical specifications in terms of wave lengths etc. - I am good with that. <br> Question is about quality. <br> To put it simply, I have heard(read) the theory that there is no benefit from paying a lot for the high end manufacturers, other than perhaps durability, which in many cases (mine being one of them) is not much of a concern with a relatively seldom used filter. <br> My natural reaction to that is - if its too good to be true... and also, you usually get what you pay for... But, I have seen this theory often enough to merit asking.<br> <br />Has anyone had any experience with inexpensive IR filters? Any specific brands or sources?<br> Or is this just a tall tale, suck it up, pay the money? A middle ground? Wrong forum, you moron?(if so, please kick my apologetic ass towards the correct one;))</p> <p>Thanks in advance.</p>

<p>I know that "they don't make them like they used to!" is an expression often bandied about (and because its so often justified!) but really, its the first thing that comes to mind. I know that collectors endlessly search for "mint" and "like new" items, but to me there is nothing prettier than all that brass showing the world that this is no shelf queen, that if it could talk we would be in for a treat! Lovely old war horse, and the images are nothing to sneeze at either! Thanks for sharing it with us!</p>

<p>I believe Paul's suggestion is an excellent one especially for small chips - auto touch up paint has a nice thick consistency meant to allow it to act as a form of self filler in the scratches its meant to repair, and is quite durable when cured. As with any paint job, however small - the prep is the most important part, thoroughly clean the area, I would suggest rubbing alcohol to get rid of any oily residues and ensure the repair sticks nicely to the surface. </p>

<p>Sorry - as to your initial question, I am not aware of any rechargeable watch-type or button cell batteries.<br> I think Alkaline batteries can be recharged with varying degrees of success, personally I think that would be more of a science project than a practical solution to anything.</p>

<p>The EF is one of my favourites! Beautiful camera, many unique features (at least in terms of the Canon line up - ie the vertical travel shutter), and just one of those cameras that to me "looks right". Congrats, you will find very few things that EF would not be able to do for you.<br> As far as the battery drain goes - I would suspect the wire spacers or something in your arrangement is causing a slight short - the slow drain is not really typical, I find the batteries in mine last a very long time. And I can defintiely confirm the camera DOES HAVE voltage compensating circuitry, so even though it was built around the now unavailable mercury cells, it works just fine with modern 1.5v batteries. I would obtain the right cells that fit correctly without any additional modifications and see how that goes. I believe the 625A batterires are the direct replacement. They are very inexpensive and last a long time once you figure out what's causing your battery drain.<br> <br />Also - and please forgive me if you already know this - it is imperative to make sure the camera is turned off properly - the little lever on the back of camerahas to be moved into the OFF position WITH the film advance pushed forward into its "stowed" position. You will notice (if you haven't already - again apologies ifyou have) that this locks the film advance forward. Then, when you turn the camera on, the lever springs back into its "ready" position.<br> I have never checked this, but it is my belief that the camera is not truly OFF, regardless of what that switch says, unless the lever is stowed in such fashion.</p> <p>One caveat - I have heard of battery drain issues on these cameras - I have owned two and have NOT experienced it myself. I wonder if the peculiar sequence needed to truly turn off the camera has contributed to these reports, or if some of these bodies actually did have some kind of battery draining gremlin.</p>

<p>I could have sworn I saw such a creature in the past (the double 123's), and actually looked for them a while back but I guess they are not very popular anymore. So much so that I started to question my sanity and thought I made the whole thing up:) Thanks for making me feel a little less crazy!</p> <p>Thank you again for all your input and suggestions, it has been most helpful and I am grateful to have access to so many brains to pick and so many folks taking the time to help out! Thank you!</p>

<p>I was told that the rechargeable equivalent is something called an RCR123, and if you look at the specs of most of them, they are either 3.7V or 4.2V. But it appears like the ones in the link provided by Colin <strong>state quite clearly they ARE 3v,</strong> just like the actual cr123's - so thank you for that, I honestly must have been looking further than I needed to and missed the obvious which should have been right under my nose. Either way - this is exactly what I need, so thank you again.</p>

<p>Thank you Jim, that sounds encouraging - but I am still concerned with the voltage issue vis a vis use in the camera. I have a feeling that there is some kind of voltage regulation, I just know that the old CR123 at full charge would peak at 3.2V and almost right away drop below 3V under load - hence my concern with sticking something that has a much higher peak voltage into the camera. I suppose it is a practically free for the asking camera... would still feel wasteful to fry it;)</p>

<p>Hi All,<br> <br />I have a Nikon F70 which gets used rather seldom, as a result, I seem to get a new set of batteries, the camera gets used and either due to sheer length of time or genius user (uhm... me...) leaving it on after said use - well, I don't get much mileage out of the batteries. They are quite pricy I find, especially in this occasional use mode, on a dollar per frame of film basis, and most of all its so annoying when you reach for that camera because hey, it needs some love (or I need a camera which can be used by a friend or relative of the "what do you mean I have to focus???" variety...)- and you have to abort due to dead batteries.<br> So... I thought, in this wonderful modern age we live in - I will just get some rechargeable batteries! They're all the rage and mother Earth will love me, hippies will hug me, and I will save money and aggravation . But, I see that most, if not all, of the apparent replacements do not match the 3V rating of the CR123 - most if not all, are higher, usually 3.7V.<br> <br />Has anyone used rechargeable substitutes for CR123's? If so, which ones? Does this camera specifically have any kind of voltage regulation circuitry? Your input would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance</p>

<p>Hi All,<br> My beloved New F1 has let me down for the first time..ever... It appears to be operating in bulb regardless of what speed is selected.<br> I installed a new battery (same brand, etc, as I have had flawless operation with for years), meter works, self timer etc., I suspect the issue would be in the speed selector itself - this occurred after a somewhat lengthy period of being left unused. <br> It cleared up momentarily after trying it with various speeds on self timer (making me question if this may be related to the actual shutter release, which i doubt), but the problem returned after the camera was left alone over night...<br> Has anyone encountered this issue? Obviously I am asking for a DIY solution before I decide to have it looked at by a repair specialist - thanks in advance,</p> <p>Peter.</p>