DB_Gallery

<p>http://betaboston.com/news/2014/06/17/darkroom-over-digital-film-photography-still-popular-at-some-local-schools/<br> <br /> One thing I have noticed in the past 5 years or so is that more and more of the young people I encounter are *really* taking a liking if not love to film and the darkroom. I now mentor several and it is wonderful to see the energy and fresh eye behind the lens, without all the baggage & bitterness that seems to often plague Gen-X and beyond.<br /> <br /> I think a misconception associated with the entirety of the analog world becoming niche territory is that young people don't care and that they just want to text all day and don't even know what film is or are at best, hipsters who will move on to the next fad. I find this to be a very stereotypical view that is odd in how it speaks for these younger folks instead of asking them for one's self....or really listening to them.<br /> <br /> The article really speaks to this, that it is not just a fad, a clothing accessory or some form of rebellion but a way for these students to connect to the same world we all live in, but on their terms, in a different manner than what is now very much mainstream.</p> <blockquote> <p><em>“There’s a maximum of 15 students per class, and classes are always full,” he said, adding that the wait list for classes is usually in the hundreds of students.</em></p> </blockquote> <p>Wow...hundreds, that is fantastic....<br /> <br /> I have long said on here that film and the darkroom, not digital, is my future, not my past and I believe that more than ever before. I remember the heated discussions on this very forum around the prediction of film's extinction some ten years ago...it's a good thing for all of us that has not happened nor will it, losing options is never a good thing.<br /> <br /> Thank god it is all settling down now...and thank god for the young people who are not convinced that what is mainstream is the right method of expression for them...</p>

For what it is worth, one of the best things I ever did for my sanity and need to stay off the computer is to shoot nearly all jpegs for the corporate work I do. I just shoot it like chrome, far far more productive and intuitive to me and the results are stellar. The jpegs from the X100S are so good I don't think I have ever shot raw with that camera. I'll be setting up the DF to do the same, it's just a much better workflow for me and I always nail the shot.

This is all kind of what I figured so I will just do my usual routine when I get the camera, sync time date, copyright, picture settings and be good to go. I'm looking forward to checking it out, seems most people love it. I'm just a bit surprised at how there is nothing similar to Apple's migration assistant since Nikon essentially has an OS in the camera, they really need to up their game on this. For example, how great would it be to have the ability to just set this all up on a computer with the camera plugged in, using expanded graphics and save options that could be exported to a new camera?

I am renting a DF for two months as a third body for corporate work over the Summer, mainly for use along with my X100S and Leica M3 when in behind the scenes situations that can and do often involve White House cabinet members. So silence is a must in these situations and I am hoping the DF can be my silent Nikon as many report it to be very quiet if not the most quiet SLR they have recently used. In terms of setting it up, is there a way to export some of the settings of my D800's onto a SD card and then import them onto the DF and if not, are there any big differences in the menus? Even though my experience in using Nikon digital cameras now goes back 20 years to the N90 based NC2000, any other tips would be great. Thanks, Dan

I had the Summicron for a few months but then moved to the 35mm 1.4 asph for speed reasons and that lens quickly become my favorite Leica lens out of 5 modern ones. I owned the 5 Leica lenses with 4 bodies specifically for a project on Kodachrome film, once the project was done I sold almost all of it. One of the reasons why was when I compared my new Nikon 35mm 1.4G on my then D700 to images from a rented M9 and the Leica 35 1.4, I saw very little difference at all and at that point, the Nikon system was far more professionally sound and productive than even Leica's current digital system. I'm not knocking Leica's glass, it is truly great but in a day and age when a nudge of two sliders in Lightroom can make a lot of modern Nikon glass *look* like Leica glass, I can no longer see the point of dolling out that kind of cash for glass I no longer shoot chrome with. The 50mm 1.4 Aspheric is another story, it is the only Leica lens I own and it lives on my M3 permanently giving me the best black and white film images in 35mm I could possibly have.

As usual, I don't agree with Shun at all, the FM3A is by far my favorite Nikon body of all time from a daily shooter's perspective. And I really think the statement he made of "In these days film price and processing alone are very expensive." assumes a lot and is somewhat out of touch. Every Spring and Fall my wife and I hit the road for a month in our solar powered camper that she can work remotely from for her employer, a major medical firm. Well this Spring was generally no different except for the fact my keeper rate was simply outstanding on adding to a body of work I sell as silver gelatin fine art prints. After one month of hard work on my part, my total film cost for all my 120 black and white including processing at home was 6% of the total cost of the trip. But back on topic, for a more elaborate and personal description of the FM3A, please read this thread: http://www.photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/00cIik

Those are questions that no film maker is going to answer, it is proprietary to the overall operation. So you really only have two choices... 1. Continue to buy and use the films you like at a pace that reflects a belief that these films are sticking around. 2. Make a sizable investment in an initial bulk buy and then buy fresh stock a few times a year and rotate it to the back of your stash. In the first situation, you might find your self scrounging for cash to quickly buy what ever stock you find if the film of your choice is discontinued. In the second one, you spend a good bit of coin on a bunch of film that you cold store and if a discontinuation notice is given, you buy what you can afford, add it to your stash and count your blessings. I have done the latter...to the tune of several thousand rolls and 5,000+ sheets of 4x5 film. I buy fresh film on a quarterly basis but if all of the sudden I stopped, I have what I believe to be 15-20 years of film to use.

<p>I bought my first SLR at age 13 after mowing lawns and washing cars over a Summer and well into the warm California Fall, a new Nikon FM with a 50mm 1.8 lens. No longer was I stuck using my dad’s old folders or my plastic X15F 126 camera. Over my 23 career as a photographer I have probably put over a million frames in Nikons like the FM2N, F100, F2, F3, F4, F5, D1H, D100, D300, D3, D700 and now the D800.</p> <p>But in 2001 when I was traveling abroad shooting for news agencies for a year, Nikon announced the FM3A and I was mesmerized….how in the hell did they create a step-less AE shutter that would go for minutes with great exposure accuracy and yet have full manual speeds from 1 second to 1/4000th with NO battery?? Needless to say, I wanted one. Even though I always appreciated the greater build quality, higher frame rate and feature set of the F series cameras, I appreciated the smaller form factor of the FM2N, F100 far, far more. In pro use, I actually had more failures with F series cameras ( rewind motor went bad in an F4, shutter in an F5 ) than with the other ones, go figure…</p> <p>After I got back in the U.S. and got settled into my staff job at the paper, I ordered an FM3A in black brand new from B&H for $525. I fell in love with it right from the start, small, light, accurate, awesome TTL -1 stop flash compensation, exposure AE lock, KILLER JOB Nikon! I summited over 40 peaks with the FM3A, shot countless days in sub zero weather without a care in the world. I even bad the battery go at 13,000 feet right in the middle of a shoot. I had no hand held meter that day, no spare batteries, I just winged it and everything looked perfect.</p> <p>What was once my *new* FM3A is now dented, brassed, scuffed and well used. I now keep it loaded with TMAX-400 and it even goes on every digital shoot I bring a Nikon D800 on, I always see something I want to make a real photograph of when I am making the digital ones.</p> <p>Over the years I have read countless arm chair reviews of the FM3A that show just how misunderstood it is. People tend to defer to some other model as doing better or equal to the FM3A for less money, better build, blah, blah, blah. Before I say the following, read the above list of professional Nikon experience again….hundreds of thousands of photos in earning my living, not testing, not collecting and not babying. The FM3A is by *far* the best Nikon 35mm camera body ever made for my needs. Hybrid shutter folks, it has made a big difference in using the FM3A for darn near anything I can think of.</p> <p>The inspiration for this came today when the winds whipped the ridge I had descended to the tune of 70+ MPH in bitter cold. I held up my FM3A and looked at and thought to my self about the awesome shutter, “How in the hell did they do that”?</p> <p>I know who Nikon made the FM3A for….they made it for photographers like me…..</p><div></div>