marbing

I have a couple of galleries taken with my Contaflex Super. I like it very much and am pleased to say the meter is still working fine. Although I always have a handheld meter just for insurance. #136, a Rogers 4-4-0 steam locomotive built in Paterson NJ in 1883. | Photo.net

I'm glad I decided to keep my manual focus Contax lenses from my SLRs. I have 11 of them and, even though they are all manual focus, they fit my style which is, at my age, slower than it used to be.

I carried over my lenses I used on my 35mm film cameras...so I am only using vintage manual focus glass (which is not everybody's first choice). But, for my 2 lens set i have a 28-85 and an 80-200 which covers about the same range as you are considering.

It is always difficult to try and stay on the "cutting edge". You will always be behind the curve no matter what choice you make. Personally, I had a good selection of lenses from my 35mm film cameras and so I made the decision based on how I could continue to benefit from that investment rather than starting from scratch. If you have some really good vintage glass, it would be really expensive to replace all of that with modern versions...and in many cases you end up with lenses made of plastic in exchange for your all metal vintage ones. Modern mirrorless cameras have the advantage of being able to use some fantastic old glass... for still and video. You have some DX lenses. Whatever system you choose, I would keep them. They are probably going to be better than your kit lens and it gives you some choice right away. Just pick one and go for it or else you will be watching and waiting forever instead of taking pictures.

The film photography people have their dedicated "Lomo" crowd who actually seek out limited and "quirky" gear which has a certain....character...you could say. I get a lot of enjoyment out of shooting old manual film cameras...oh...like a Contaflex for example. I suppose a 0.3Mp camera like the Sony Mavica FD7 might have a similar "character" that might attract a certain type of photographer. Sometimes it is interesting to see what you can do with the hardware imposed limitations and how you, as the photographer, can still produce something of interest.

One of the few enjoyable things about cleaning up your old storage areas is the discovery of carefully preserved but long-abandoned treasures. In a case at the back of my storage unit I found my old digitals which had been supplanted by the march of technology. They reminded me of the classic manual cameras that I have recently decided to put back into service. In the box I found my Mavica MVC-FD7 (which I remember paying over Can$1000 for), the MVC-FD91, a DSC-D700, the DSC-F55, a DSC-F505V.and my favorite DSC-V3 All Sonys because I liked the Zeiss lenses. For the most part, I have got them all back in working order with some interesting challenges. Replacement batteries ae not a problem because there are still Chinese knock-offs available for all of them which work but, I have no illusions that they are as good as the Sony originals. The D700 appears to have a completely inaccessible backup battery for date/time etc that is, of course, completely dead now. While I could still scrounge up some floppy discs for the Mavicas, I no longer had any computers that had floppy drives. Well a thrift store external USB foppy drive seemed like a good idea before I discovered that Windows 10 has abandoned support for floppy drives. I am going to try a modern external floppy drive to see if that is supported. Also, the majority of the Sony Memorysticks aailale online also relect changing technology in that the memorysticks generally available online are the PRO variety which the F55 and F505V are not compatible with. Also, those old MS are incredibly low capacity...4 - 128 Megabyte...NOT Gigabyte. The 4MB card I found in one can only hold 2 shots from the 2Mp F505's highest setting. Larger cards are on the way from ebay. Still, these old cameras are a lot of fun to shoot with again and they really highlight how far the technology has come in the last 20 years. Anybody else revisiting their old digitals??

Depending on your current equipment, perhaps you are using SLRs with older MF lenses for example, several older mirrorless camera bodies....like the Sony NEX-5n... could allow you to leverage your current lenses. If you can keep from buying all new glass...you costs are going to go way down.

I currently have 24 cameras covering the late 40's to the recent past....not all of them are 100% functional which is sometimes to be expected. I have one camera that was manufactured in the same year as I was...1952...and, if all the parts don't work on it as well as when it was new....I can sympathize because I have the same problems. I appreciate what current digitals can do but I still like the feel and the process of the old manual cameras. It is like how cars have changed. I remember the 1978 MGB roadster I owned. There wasn't an automatic part on it but when you drove it...you WERE driving!! While I appreciate all of the automatic conveniences of my modern car....you don't get the feeling of "driving" the car...you are merely "steering" it. (Soon we may not even have that!) The all-auto, All-singing, all-dancing modern cameras are fast and convenient but...like the car....the feeling is we are just steering...pointing the camera and then "chimping" at the LCD to see if the camera "got it". I don't process and print anymore...no room...but looking at an LCD was never as exciting as seeing that image appear magically in the tray and knowing that "I" got it.

I went from 35mm SLR to mirrorless primarily because of the benefit of using my collection of MF SLR lenses. It would have been a shame to let that good glass go to waste and expensive to replace it. Shooting primarily Contax SLRs with their Zeiss lenses...there wasn't really an affordable DSLR in the Contax line (even before they disappeared) to go to. Mirrorless allowed me to keep my investment current.

Once you discovered the content they wanted you to photograph, of course, you can decline the job. These days your own reputation could be on the line if it turns out you were the photographer. People could accuse you of supporting those values. If they had wanted you to , for example, take nude photos of their underage children...you would refuse that too. You could pesonally get into trouble. I think you have to protect your professional reputation and your personal values and decline this contract. You original negotiations were based on incomplete information and you would not have negotiated as far as you did had you known what you later found out. If a baker can decline to bake a cake...you can decline to take a photo.

For just knocking, around I have a Yashica T4 Super or for light and quality work, a Contax T3. There was a time when ALL 35mm cameras were considered "miniature"

Yes, I also like the Auto 110 lenses on my (even older) NEX-5N. I have almost all the auto 110 lenses except the zoom and they are lots of fun to use. M

It can work the other way too. I have recently getting my film cameras back in regular operation and so I went into one of the few remaining camera shops in my area and asked for some 35mm. They ACTUALLY had to look around under the counter and finally located an old plastic bin with random films thrown into it. I picked up some Pro 400H and pulled out my Contax T3. The owner of the store (older than the kids he had working the counter) said "Whoa! Do you know how much that is worth?" I did. It is worth a LOT more than when I bought it. Ebay has crazy listings of $1500-$3000 for one. My Contax G2 with all the lenses is similar and even the Yashica T4 Super is hundreds more than I paid for it back in the day. Granted, not everything I have has increased in value. My Contax bodies have dropped to a couple of hundred from a couple of thousand. (The Zeiss lenses are holding their own, of course)

I have run into this too. I am sure the rule is really aimed at professional wedding photographers who use the parks and gardens as settings in their work. Since the photographer gets professional benefit from the maintained gardens and groomed grounds...the park tries to recoup a bit for their operating costs. I find I am rarely harassed if my gear doesn't look too "professional". Then I am accepted as "just a guy".

Well, this is quite true. I don't process my own film anymore and, if I am going to post my pictues online they will have to be scanned and therefore..digitized. It is cheaper these days to just pay for processing and skip the prints. I can make my own prints. But, I also have, left over from earlier days, a Microtek ScanMaker i900 which has a resolution of something like 6400dpi and a 6x6 negative produces the equivalent of a 225 Megapixel(?) image and so I don't feel deprived still shooting film in the digital age even with a camera as old as I am.