paul_noble

I used to have a Pentax K-10d, which is pretty much identical to the GX-10. In addition to the things mentioned here, the camera has a dust removal feature that can be enabled. When it is enabled, it activates the SR (shake reduction is Pentax term for it) when the camera is powered on. The idea is to shake any dust off of the sensor. If you activate it and then turn the camera on, while holding it close to your ear, you should be able to hear the buzz of the sensor moving. IBIS, as implemented in Pentax cameras and their Samsung counterparts, has the advantage that it works with any lens you can mount on the camera. Pentax is very good about backward compatibility. The company claims that any Pentax lens, designed for their 35mm cameras, can be used on any Pentax dslr, and will benefit from SR. Canon and Nikon, with in-lens stabilization, can not make this claim. One drawback to IBIS is that, as pointed out, if does not show up in the optical viewfinder. I now have a Pentax K-5, which has live-view (the K10d, GX-10 do not), so I think I will experiment to see if I can see the difference in live-view.

If the original poster is reading this, I suggest that she get a copy of "Understanding Exposure" by Bryan Peterson. In it, he explains the exposure triangle; shutter speed, aperture and film speed (sensitivity). He shows how, in theory, there are an infinite number of exposure combinations that will result in a "correct" exposure. But he also discusses the idea of artistic expression; what you intend to accomplish with your exposure. He then talks about how to choose which of the many "correct" exposures will create that effect. This includes using slow shutter speeds to show subject motion, as well as using different aperture settings to create various depth-of-field choices. In the digital age, we are lucky. Back in the film era, if I wanted to use a high shutter speed, such as 1/1000 second to freeze motion, along with a tiny aperture, such as f/16 to give me great depth of field, I might not be able to do because I was stuck with the film that was in the camera. I would have to make a choice between freezing motion or depth of field. Today, with my dslr, I can simply crank up the ISO setting to enable me to use that combination. BTW, extremely long exposures, several minutes in length, can effectively make people disappear. I have a welders mask lens epoxied to a Cokin filter holder. This lets me use exposures as long as five minutes at f/16 on a sunny day, with the camera mounted on a tripod. Any people in the picture, who are moving, will usually not sit still long enough to appear in the image, while the buildings and landscape will.

It seems to me that scanner lines could be ruled in or out by re-scanning the negative in different orientations; rotate the negative 90 degrees between each scan. Perhaps scan on a different area of the scanner if that is possible. If the scanner is producing the lines, they should change with the different scans. If the lines remain the same orientation to the film, then the lines are actually in the negative.

I, too, learned that trick, back in the day, when everything was on film. There was no digital. I don't think that it will work with that camera. Here is a link to an article I found about the Samsung Vega 140s. https://www.35mmc.com/08/06/2016/samsung-vega-140s-review/ It appears that there is no manual rewind crank, as you had on your Nikkormat and I had on my Pentax Spotmatic. It looks to be a high-end point and shoot camera from the late nineties. It looks like it has an automatic power rewind. It would be very difficult to avoid rewinding the film all the way back into the cartridge.

That was not a bad, if necessarily brief, description of what an ISO rating is. Since he has already covered the creative use of shutter speed and aperture in previous articles, it would have been nice if he had at least made a comment about how different ISO settings affect shutter speed and aperture. If you're trying to take a portrait and you want very narrow depth of field, you want a lower ISO setting so that you can use a wider aperture. In answer to his question as to why one wouldn't simply always use the highest available ISO setting, all he mentioned was the increased noise at higher levels.

Thanks for all your responses. It helps. I still haven't resolved my problem, but this discussion will help.

I have an old Argus EF twin lens reflex from about 1947, that belonged to my dad. It uses 620 film which isn't available anymore. I bought a roll of Ilford Delta 400 black and white film in 120. I'm respooling it onto 620 spools. My problem is that, when I advance the film, I don't see any frame numbers. The camera has a little opening in the back, with a red filter and a spring-loaded shutter that you move out of the way while advancing the film. On 620 film (and 120 rolls I've used before) there were frame numbers printed on the backing paper. I rolled and rolled the film, but never saw any frame numbers. Does Ilford 120 not have frame numbers printed on the backing paper? I took the camera into a dark bathroom and opened the camera. The film had advanced over half the roll. I rerolled it back onto the feed spool and taped it so it wouldn't unravel. The camera store here, which is a pretty good one (they handle all the pro equipment here in Cleveland) only had Ilford b & w in single rolls. The had Kodak film but it was all in five-roll "bricks".

Do the math (its easy). Pick a focal length. It really doesn't matter. Let's say 50mm. Calculate the area of the circle formed by the iris at f/1.4. A = ((50/1.412)/2)**2 * pi (the answer is 984 mm**2) Now calculate the area of the iris at f/2 A = ((50/2)/2)**2 * pi (the answer is 490 mm**2), or half the area of the circle at f/1.4. So, an aperture of f/2 admits exactly half the light per unit of time that an aperture of f/1.4 does. Conversely, f/1.4 admits twice the light that f/2 does. It is left as an exercise for the interested student to perform similar calculations for f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8 and so on. You will find that, at each step, the area is half (allowing for rounding) the area of the previous step.

One nice feature that is present on (AFAIK) all Pentax dslrs is "catch in focus". I don't know if other manufacturers have this or not. With CIF, you can use a manual lens and, while the camera will not focus the lens, it will give a signal when you achieve proper focus. Years ago, Pentax made an autofocus lens extender. I believe it was 1.7x. The extender itself would move the entire lens forward and backward in response to the AF mechanism of the camera. This, effectively turned a manual focus lens into an autofocus one. It was, admittedly, a compromise, but it did work but with limitations. They still pop up on eBay occasionally, but they're a bit pricey. Pentax probably has the best backward compatibility of any brand. Any lens ever designed for a Pentax 35mm SLR can be used on any Pentax dslr. The screw mount lenses require an inexpensive adapter and require stop-down metering, but they will work. Any k-mount lens will fit and will work as the lens was designed.

Technically, f/22 is really f/22.623 (sqrt(2)**9). Two stops is sqrt(2)**11, which is 45.2548.

I agree. Analog refers to electronic technology. Audio tape is analog. The signal recorded on the tape varies as an analog of the pitch and amplitude of the original sound. a CD is digital audio. The original sound is sampled at a very high rate and reduced to a number. That number is etched as a binary number onto the substrate of the blank CD. Photographic film is a CHEMICAL process. So, the opposite of digital photography is not analog photography, but chemical photgraphy.

If your lens (camera end) looks like the third photo posted, that is definitely the inner part of a T2 mount adapter. This part is the same for all cameras. The outer part of a T2 adapter mates to the particular camera you wish to use and had three small set screws that allow you to rotated the adapter, so that the markings for focus and aperture are always on top. The easiest thing to do is buy a complete T2 adapter, loosen the three set screws and discard the inner part of the new adapter. Place the outer part of the adapter over the part on the lens, adjust so the markings are where you want them to be, and tighten the set screws. Then forget about it and simply use the lens. A more complete fix would be to use a pipe wrench or an adjustable jaw pliers (commonly called "Channel Locks" here in the US). SInce the inner adapter on your lens is worthless, simply grip it with the pliers and hold the lens barrel with you other hand. That should get it off to expose the 42mm x 0.75 tpi thread. Then, but a complete adapter for the camera or cameras of you choice, screw it on the lens and fire away.

It doesn't appear that anyone has asked what kind of slide film the OP found. It should be noted that, if it is Kodachrome, there is no place to have it processed as color images. It can be developed as B & W, but not color.

That sounds like Seattle Film Works. They respooled 35mm movie film into cannisters for still cameras. They went belly-up in 2010. Seattle FilmWorks - Wikipedia

I find it a bit ironic that we're talking about using 35mm movie film in our still cameras. That's how Ernst Lietz got started and built the first 35mm Leica camera. Full circle. I too lament the passing of Kodachrome. I don't think its coming back. The processing is too expensive, the market is too limited and there are probably environmental regulations that any new processing facility would have to overcome. For a long time, I firmly believed that, as the flagship product, Kodachrome would be the last film that Kodak made. I was wrong. I still have several film cameras and I like to use them occasionally, but, if Kodachrome DID come back, I might buy one roll, out of curiosity, but I would not be a regular user.

<p>Could the film have been improperly loaded onto the developing reel? Sometimes, if the film is not within the slots in the reel, it can kink and make contact with the film in the next slot.</p> <p>This prevents the developer from reaching the film, causing that portion to be undeveloped. This will be clear, or almost clear.</p> <p>Check your negatives. There will be clear stripes corresponding to the black stripes in the positive images. Is the edge lettering properly developed, or is it clear? If the edge lettering is affected, it is almost certainly a developing problem. If not, then it is a camera issue.</p>

<p>A quick Google search shows that this camera used Type 500 film, as used in the Polaroid Joycam and Captiva cameras.</p> <p>This film is, of course, no longer available new, and the Impossible Project does not make it. However, expired film is available on eBay.</p> <p>http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=polaroid+type+%28500%2Ccaptiva%29&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xpolaroid+type+500+captiva.TRS0&_nkw=polaroid+type+500+captiva&_sacat=0</p> <p>It might be worth springing for a box or two, just for fun. The colors probably won't be very good with film that's more than ten years expired.</p> <p>Its my understanding that most of the work in a Polaroid was done by the film pack, rather than the camera. You've already proven that the lens, shutter, etc. work properly. All the camera needs to do after that is turn on the motor to push the film between the rollers that spread the chemicals across the image.</p> <p>When you take a picture, can you hear the motor running, trying to push the non-existent film out of the camera?</p>

<p>Another trick I've heard of but never used myself, to control reflection off of glass, is to spray it with hairspray. This gives the glass a very slight matte finish that reduces reflections.</p> <p>The downside is that it might also reduce highlights that you WANT in your picture, to give the product a little zing.</p>

<p>A polarizing filter will help with reflections, although it will cost you two f-stops or so.</p> <p>Try to position the lights to minimize reflections as much as possible. Remember light reflects at the same angle it strikes the object, so if the light is 30 degrees above the product, the reflection will be 30 degrees below the subject. Same for left and right. Curves in the product can make this difficult to control. If you minimize the reflection from one surface by rotating the product, another surface may cause unwanted reflections.</p> <p>As for shadows, you need to modify your light placement (or product placement) so that nothing comes between the light and the product.</p> <p>Although they're not specifically for product photography, <a href="http://strobist.blogspot.com/">http://strobist.blogspot.com/</a> has a lot of good information about using off-camera flash.</p>

<p>Does that camera have a red-eye reduction option? This is usually a pre-flash that causes the subjects irises to close down, reducing the amount of light reflecting off of their retinas, which is what causes red-eye.</p> <p>The other possibility is that it uses a pre-flash for exposure control, the way modern dslrs do.</p> <p>There are optical slaves or flashes with built in slave sensors, that can be set to ignore the pre-flash and only fire when they see the second or third flash.</p> <p>The other problem is that, unless you have a camera and a flash "system" made by the same manufacturer, chances are, you are going to have to set the exposure manually, which is sometimes difficult on point-and-shoot cameras. The camera knows about its own flash, but can not compensate for the additional light provided by the external flash.</p>

<p>Kodachrome, the first color slide film, was introduced in 1935. Ektachrome wasn't too far behind. Many other brands and emulsions were produced over the years.</p> <p>Electronic shutters didn't appear until around 1980, perhaps a little earlier. These were not true electronic shutters. The shutter was still mechanical, but the control was electronic. There were still plenty of parts to wear out.</p> <p>So, for those 45 years, what do you think photographers were using?</p> <p>A Nikon F is/was the workhorse of the professional photographer, especially photo journalists. It is very well built and can withstand years of use and abuse. That said, the oldest of them is 57 years old. The good news is that there are still places that can service them. If you have any doubt about your camera, send it in for a good CLA.</p>

<p>If the film does not have the edge markings, it is almost certainly a processing error.</p> <p>If it does have the markings, there is another possibility that I haven't seen mentioned. The K1000, like the Spotmatic before it, has a cloth shutter that consists of two curtains. The first curtain opens and, after a short period, the second, or trailing curtain begins its travel to close the shutter.</p> <p>At shutter speeds of 1/60 or slower, there is a moment when the shutter is completely open. At faster speeds, the trailing curtain begins its travel before the leading curtain completes its movement. This results in a moving slit across film. The higher the speed, the narrower the slit. At very high speeds, such as 1/500 or 1/1000, the slit is only about 1/8 inch, if that.</p> <p>In older cameras, the grease can harder and springs can weaken, such that the leading curtain slows down. This allows the trailing curtain to catch up. At very high speeds, there may be no opening at all. If you shot this roll in bright light, at high shutter speeds, this is a possibility.</p> <p>The good news is that this fault can be fixed relatively easily by a technician, such as Erik Hendrickson. The bad news is that the fix will probably cost more than a K1000 is worth. A decent example can be had on eBay for $50.</p>

<p>I know this is a little late, but there is a very active group of Argus collectors. They are primarily focused (pun intended) on the older 35mm, 120 and 620 cameras, but they are a very welcoming group and someone there may have an answer for you.<br> http://www.arguscg.org/</p>

<p>The P30T and the ZX-M both have the ability to control the lens aperture and shoot in shutter priority mode.</p> <p>For that reason, I suggest that you look for Pentax A-series (or equivalent) lenses. These lenses can easily be identified by the fact that they have an "A" setting on the aperture ring. With the lens set on A, the camera can control the aperture. Take it off A and it works as any manual lens.</p> <p>For that matter, all of these cameras can use autofocus lenses, as long as they have an aperture ring. The newest AF lenses do not have an aperture ring. They could still be used on the P30T and the ZX-M, but not on the KS. Of course, you will have to focus manually.</p>

<p>I'm not terribly familiar with the Konica line of cameras, but from the pictures you posted, it appears that the FC-1 has a manual rewind crank. This is good.</p> <p>The classic trick to insure that the film is advancing is to watch the rewind crank as you cock the shutter. After you load the film, rewind a little bit, just to take up the slack in the film. Then, as you cock the shutter, the rewind crank should turn, as the film is drawn out of the cartridge. If the crank does not turn, then the film is not advancing.</p> <p>On most 35mm SLR cameras, there is a rewind button on the bottom of the camera. In normal operation, when you reach the end of the roll, you press that button and turn the rewind crank to return the film to the cartridge. It is possible to inadvertantly hit that button before you're reached the end of the film. If you do so, it disengages the film advance mechanism. The shutter will cock but the film will not advance.</p> <p>Was the last exposed frame normal, or did it look like it had several exposures on the same frame? If it did, then it is a pretty good sign that the film is not advancing, for some reason.</p> <p>Were the "unexposed" frames taken with higher shutter speeds? Some cameras, like my Pentax Spotmatic, have two separate gear trains, one for low shutter speeds (below 1/60 on the Spottie) and another for higher speeds (1/125 and up). It is possible that the high speed train is not working properly.</p> <p>In cameras with focal plane shutters, there is also the problem of shutter drag. In such cameras, there is a maximum shutter speed (1/60 on my Spottie), at which the entire frame is exposed at one time. In higher speeds, the leading curtain opens and, before it completes its travel, the trailing shutter begins to close the opening. This results in a moving slit across the frame. Sometimes, the leading curtain drags a little and the trailing curtain catches up. This usually results in a partially exposed frame, not a complete unexposed frame.</p> <p>To see if the shutter is dragging, open the camera back, with no film in the camera. Trip the shutter at increasing shutter speeds, starting at a relatively slow speed, such as 1/8. At speeds up to 1/60 (or maybe 1/125 on you Konica) you should be able to see that the shutter opens completely. As the speed is increased, you will still see light coming through, but it should be a noticeably smaller and smaller slit. Even at 1/1000 second, you should see some light coming through the shutter, especially if you point the camera at a light source, such as a lamp or brightly lit outdoor scene.</p>