michael_goldfarb

Good to know. But I can't speak re AI gear, I've never personally handled any. My folks never made the leap to AI bodies and lenses. Our last NIkon purchase was an F2 Photomic around 1973; at that point we had three bodies and six lenses, and we didn't really need anything else. The majority of their work was always on 4x5 sheet film, and there was no compelling reason to buy the new Nikon equipment. Their only major camera purchase still to come was a Mamiya RB-67 around 1980, trading up from a C330. Picture: My dad and a commercial artist friend fooling around with a Nikkormat and Nikkorex F at the studio in 1968. Shot with my Minox B on Tri-X, scanned from a 4x5 print. (Yeah, 60s TX in the Minox yielded "grain like cannonballs" plus all the dust and scratches. Hey, I was just a kid - I did much better in my second era of Minox shooting starting in 1995.)

Sorry, I didn't recall that I'd already responded to this thread more or less identically a while back! D'oh!

I absolutely agree: Nikkormats and non-Ai lenses are a tremendous bargain these days, absurdly cheap compared to tons of popular gear nowhere near their build quality. I handled all the non-AI Nikon and Nikkormat bodies (and the Nikkorex F) in my 60s/70s youth, and still have a working F2 (and multiple non-AI lenses) from my parents' studio. I have always - ALWAYS - preferred shooting the Nikkormats to the Nikons. Sleeker, lighter, with that great Copal shutter, and built just as tough as the Nikons. This is me around 1969: For a dozen years starting around 2009, I used that old F2, mostly with a plain DE-1 prism (though I also have a working DP-1 meter prism) and mainly with the miniscule 45mm/f2.8 GN lens to make it the lightest F2 kit, just easier to carry. With seven lenses and only another long-seized-up F2 body, I figured I needed a working backup body. So, a couple of years ago I got a black Nikkormat FTN to be the backup (for just $60, rated Good at UsedPhotoPro). Well, the moment I had it in hand, I realized that I'd much rather use the Nikkormat... so the F2 became the backup body squirreled away in a gadget bag. Sure, the Nikkormat's light meter is flakey... but I've been estimating exposures since 1966 and today's Tri-X has even more latitude than it used to. I LOVE the feel of this camera and its shutter. Recent shots from that Nikkormat using my parents' old (never even CLA'd!) lenses - first the 35mm/f2 (vintage 1972), then the 105mm/f2.5 (vintage 1966):

We had a sequence of Nikons and Nikkormats through the 60s and 70s at my parents' studio. (We'd started off with a Nikkorex F in 1963.) And I always preferred shooting the Nikkormats to the Nikons, full stop. (Picture: me finishing off a roll of TX in our studio's waiting room mirror circa 1969.) Sure, the Nikkormats were missing a couple of "pro" features, but they were sleeker and just as tough as the Nikons. And I preferred the feel/sound of the Nikkormat's Copal shutter to the horizontal shutters in the Nikons. I've still got a nice F2 from my parents, with both plain and working meter heads, which I shot with occasionally for years... I got a Nikkormat FTN body ($60 from UsedPhotoPro) a couple of years ago to be a backup body for my eight non-AI lenses... But I'm loving shooting the Nikkormat, and the F2 was quickly relegated to being the backup body! Nikkormats and non-AI lenses are seriously undervalued in the current, crazy inflated used camera market, and I always recommend them over a lot of the popular favorites if anybody asks.

That's why I only shoot 24-exp rolls in my Pen F - with careful loading, I get 55 shots. That's plenty! As far as the image quality of half-frame negs, at least with the Pen's 38/1.8 lens, I get lovely results. These are all on Double-X (Eastman 5222 in 24-exp loads from Film Photography Project) shot at 200 (though I mostly just estimate exposures without a light meter), developed in D-76 1:1, 2400dpi scans: The half-frame negative and unusual focal length (38mm is equivalent to 55mm on a full-frame camera) yields a nicely different look. Personally, I like a touch of grain - I think this Double-X looks more classic 60s Tri-X than today's Tri-X does. Of course, you could shoot something finer-grained like T-Max 100, Delta 100, Pan F, etc. for even sharper images.

For a quick guide, check this table of Pen F half-frame lenses, which includes the full-frame 35mm neg equivalents for their focal lengths. Olympus Pen F - Wikipedia

The weekly Sunday flea market in Beacon, NY. I shot these last year on Tri-X, testing a gorgeous Contaflex S I got for $10... which performed perfectly.

Just as a by-the-way tangent... Back in the mid-1970s when I was making Super 8 films, I purchased stuff from Superior Bulk. A 50-foot Super 8 developing reel/tank (which I still have, if anyone needs one) and packages of their chemistry to develop b/w reversal films like Plus-X and Tri-X. (Since my parents were pros and I'd been developing b/w films daily for years, it just seemed natural to develop my own movie film too and save some money on processing... and not have to wait for days for the film to come back from Kodak's lab.) The results of home-processing these b/w films were uneven... with big swirling grain, occasional scratches, or incomplete bleaching and/or re-exposing leading to muddy or solarized-looking bits. But these imperfections actually came in handy when we made a fake 1920s silent comedy short - we explained in the faux-Blackhawk Films title crawl at the beginning that this 50-year-old short had suffered "nitrate damage in places" like so many other silent films!

glen_h.... Verichrome Pan was essentially Plus-X with added exposure latitude, intended to get good results in simple roll film snapshooters with fixed apertures and shutter speeds. It's telling that Kodak never offered Verichrome Pan in 35mm - a format for pros and serious amateurs using more sophisticated cameras - but it was their primo b/w film in 127, 120, 620, 828, etc., rolls for many years. f7-Verichrome-199611.pdf (125px.com)

I don't trust that collectiblend site data. I was just looking at KEH, UsedPhotoPro, eBay, etc., and you won't find a WORKING OM-1 body for anywhere near that price these days. The under-$100 ones are nearly all as-is, inoperable, or parts-only. If you decide to go the repair route, John Hermanson at zuiko.com is still repairing OMs. He's not cheap, but he's good: he's worked on both my OM-2 and Pen F in recent years.

I don't know if anybody is shooting stereo slides anymore, but my parents did back in the fifties and early sixties. I've got five or six essentially new-in-box, empty stereo slide trays for the Airequipt Stereo Theater, a very cool tabletop viewer. (Ours still works great!) I'm asking $15 each plus shipping. This is less than I've seen them going for at dealers or on eBay. Let me know if you're interested and we'll work something out.

I was annoyed when Kodak stopped making the smaller pouches. I haven't done enough b/w in decades to use up a gallon of D-76 before it goes bad, especially because I always prefer using the 1:1 dilution. So, I recently began using Film Photography Project's version of D-76... because they make it in liter/quart packages. It seems to work identically to Big Yellow Father's.

Just for the record, my parents were pros with their own little commercial studio for over fifty years. Our main enlarger was an Omega D3v purchased in the 1950s, but we also had a Durst M600. The M600 proved to be just fine for 35mm work with its supplied lens once it was stopped it down a bit. Sure, the 50mm EL-Nikkor on the industrial-grade Omega was better, but it really didn't matter for the mostly 5x7 prints for publication we were making (from film that was mainly shot and dropped off by local newspapers, public service organizations, and political figures). We used it for 15+ years with no problem, and I ended up giving to a friend's daughter who was studying photography in art school. Yes, it's a simple design. But effective.

I stopped shooting my Minox cameras around five years ago, but I had standardized on T-Max 100 and D-76 1:1 years earlier. The only other 100/125-speed film I really liked in the Minox was Agfapan APX 100 - the nineties emulsion. It had a beautiful, unique, luminous look, with just as fine grain and wide latitude as Plus-X and FP4. (I was using a IIIs and estimating exposure, so exposure latitude was a consideration.) While TMX didn't have much latitude, required more careful developing, and was at times too contrasty, it DOES have finer grain. Sorry, I never shot 25- or 400-speed film in my "recent" Minoxing. I used to shoot Tri-X 400 back when I had my first Minox B 1967-69. I use to develope it in straight D-76... and the results were so coarse and grainy that I ultimately sold that Minox for a 35mm compact (a Petri Color 35, a great shooter). But I kept the developing tank and negative carrier, because I knew I'd get another Minox "someday". And I finally did, in 1995. I'm sure that Martin and Julian - both of whom I recall from the 90s Submini Mailing List - will have excellent suggestions.

He's still working. John repaired both my OM-2 and Pen F within the last couple of years. The OM-2 was just back in January.

I've had a Nikon F2 and an OM-2n for many years, with comparable prime lenses for both. I've made lots of wonderful pictures with both systems. The OM-2n, besides being smaller/lighter and easier to carry, has the best light meter I've ever used: its Auto mode is always dead-on. My only complaint with the OM-2n is that I've had to send it to Camtech twice in 15 years for a stuck advance/shutter (and that's with just light occasional use, I've never been a big film burner). Whereas the F2, which my pro parents bought in the 1970s, has never required service. Both are great cameras... but not surprisingly, the built-like-a-tank Nikon is tougher. I picked up an OM-1 at a flea market yesterday. They were asking $100, and with no guarantee about the meter working, I passed it by. But getting back to the original subject of this post... What a beautiful piece of machinery!

Last week I got my hands on a circa-1968 Zeiss Ikon Contaflex S SLR in gorgeous condition in a private sale... for only $10! Everything seemed to work perfectly, including the CdS meter (though it might well be reading off because I'm using a 1.5v alkaline battery vs. the original 1.3v Mercury). The only problem with it is there's no latch on the battery door, so I kept it mostly closed with a rubber band and made sure my fingers closed it completely when I was shooting. Once I got used to the camera's quirks (like the mirror not returning until you advance/cock), I was curious about that 50mm/2.8 Tessar lens, so I ran a roll of Tri-X through, mostly while walking around the local Sunday flea market. I shot entirely in auto mode as intended, letting the meter set the f-stop. I developed in D-76 and got somewhat heavy negatives, probably because setting the ASA at 400 with this battery was a stop or two off - not that TX can't handle a little overexposure! Quick 1200dpi scans: Results were good, but not great. Since I never put my 50mm lenses on my Nikon and Olympus SLRs (I'm just not a fan of the "normal" view, I'm more of a wide angle and slightly long lens guy), I don't really see myself using this camera very much. But it's a beautiful bit of camera-engineering history, and for ten bucks, a stellar addition to my camera display shelf!

You're probably right, their first Auto Strobonar may have hit the market before the Vivitar 283. I don't remember that, but I do clearly recall when the Vivitar 283 was introduced (as pros, we had free subscriptions to all the photo magazines, and I devoured them constantly as a teenager) - it was a great leap forward in affordable flash tech. Self-quenching (vs. manual), hot shoe mountable (vs. a cumbersome flash bracket), and using ordinary batteries (vs. rechargable NiCads), it was the game changer.

That could well be, but our late-60s Honeywell was strictly a manual flash. I thought they were already using "Strobonar" as a brand name before any self-quenching auto models, but maybe not. Okay, a little research indicates that they were indeed already using "Strobonar" way back in the 50s. Strobonar - Camera-wiki.org - The free camera encyclopedia A look at the PDF manuals linked to from there would indicate that ours was probably the model 600 or 700 - a purely manual flash with no automatic mode.

In my parents' studio, we'd been using a Honeywell Strobonar "potato masher" flash with the clever Nikkor 45/2.8 GN lens (which automatically adjusted the aperture as you changed focus distance, based on the film speed) for 35mm flash work in the early 70s. When the much-lauded Vivitar 283 "self-quenching Thyristor" flash came out, we got one, and it was a great leap forward in simplifying flash use. We also eventually got another large Sunpak to replace the Honeywell, for times when a stronger flash was required, but the 283 was always a solid performer. (We also had a couple of rarely used slave flashes for studio work.) And in the early 80s when I was assembling my personal OM kit, I got a Vivitar 2500 - a descendant of the 283 - that was also excellent... until its plastic locking ring for the hot shoe jammed open and it couldn't be dependably mounted. It still fires, though! And that old 45/2.8 GN has for a decade-plus been my most-often-used Nikkor lens. Not for flash anymore, but because it's half the size/weight of any other pre-AI Nikkor lens and thus a pleasure to carry, and it produces lovely images.

This seems to be the earliest great picture I took - in 1958, when I was only three and half years old. We were on vacation in the Catskills, and on a walk my dad handed me his Stereo Realist with the exposure set and the shutters cocked, kneeled down to my level, and said, "Now focus on me and shoot." I went through and scanned dozens of his circa 1955-1963 stereo slides a few years back. The f/3.5 Stereo Realist (which I still have) was his main family and vacation camera until we took the plunge into Nikon SLR gear with a Nikkorex F and 50/2.

Since it's also been mentioned in this thread more than once, here's my take on the now crazy-expensive Olympus Stylus Epic... I bought one of these for my son in around 2004 (for like $115), and he gave it back to me a couple of years later after getting his first digital camera. I've used it on and off occasionally since, more with color film than b/w. The only thing that really impresses me is just how small it is, and I say this as someone who loves small cameras (earlier Olympus OMs and Pens, Petri Color 35, Minox subminis). Yeah, the 35/2.8 lens is good, but the autoexposure logic tends to shoot wide open when I'd prefer a slower shutter speed/smaller aperture for better depth of field. I got a lot of soft results. It's a great design... and an okay shooter. You can't beat it for carrying convenience, and in the days before even modest cellphones had excellent cameras, it was cool. But honestly, I get better images out of nearly every other camera shoot. I can see how it would be valuable to someone who has a great eye but doesn't want to make the effort of learning/working more complex cameras. But I've been using manual cameras since the mid-1960s, that's not me. I mean, I'm keeping it, it's a design classic. But I haven't run film through in about four years, and I don't know if I'll ever use it again. It's a cool camera, but to my mind, somewhat overrated.

Seconding the Nikkormats! These workhorse cameras are a steal these days. If you keep watch, you can pick up a FTn body and a classic pre-AI Nikkor lens (50/2, 28/3.5,105/2.5, 43-86/3.5) in "Good" condition for a little over a hundred bucks from an outfit like UsedPhotoPro. I recently got a Nikkormat FTn - for $62 - and early Nikkor 135 (marked 13.5cm)/3.5 - for $36 - from these guys, and I'd say their "Good" rating is conservative, both are in solid working condition. (The Nikkormat's light meter worked well at first, then got jumpy - but that's not exactly surprising in a 50-year-old body!)

Absolutely. I also use my old pre-AI Nikkor 35/2 frequently on my F2 and Nikkormat. It's excellent.

The Zuiko 35/2 is a very good lens, I've been using mine happily since the eighties. I actually got it for my OM cameras after having had good experiences with the pre-AI Nikkor 35/2 on Nikkormats and Nikon F2s. Some shots from the last couple of years using the Zuiko 35/2 - OM-2n, Tri-X in D-76 1:1, 1200dpi scans: :