lukpac

I recently came across a bunch of 120 negatives that my dad took in the early '60s, mostly black and white. At this point I don't have plans to get into shooting 120, although...famous last words. I have a Coolscan III for 35mm, but currently nothing that can handle 120. I don't want to spend thousands of dollars, but I also don't want to get something that will just give mediocre results. Does anyone have experience with various methods? In terms of the Epson flatbeds, how much does the added $550/$820 of the V800/V850 give you over the V600? Below is a shot I captured with my Nikon D7200, 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED, LED lightbox, and tripod. ISO 100, and I stopped the lens down to f/8. It's...pretty good? I still have to tweak my setup a bit, including doing a better job of cleaning everything, but presumably this is about the quality I can expect. How would a scan on a flatbed compare? A dedicated film scanner? Any general thoughts/suggestions?

I'll keep that in mind. I'm curious, what B&W film do you use? The first 3 I shot were HP5, and I'm wondering if for some reason that's worse in terms of attracting gunk. Or...I've just been unlucky. I will say I like the fact that the shutter speed is visible in the finder with the FTn.

I used a local store for my first roll, who (I later learned) sent it to Dwayne's. It came back with scratches and dirt and was loose in the envelope. Not sure if that was an anomaly, but I definitely wasn't pleased.

That would be the direction I would go. At this point I'm most concerned about dust, especially considering my experiences thus far. Scanning is tedious enough without constantly dealing with gunk on the film.

Yes, it's quite a different experience, in a lot of ways. And still debating the DIY thing too. My experiences thus far getting B&W film developed have been frustrating, to say the least. Blowing/wiping away dust is one thing, but having to clean bits stuck on the film is another.

I'm not really planning on getting rid of anything, other than possibly one of the N70s I have. At this point it's more deciding how much I want to dive back into the world of film, and how much I care about the uniqueness of the FTn vs. how much I just want things to work without worrying about them.

Alas, my first SLR was an EM, so using an external meter or even sunny 16 was never a consideration. I also still have my dad's old F, which has a non-meter prism, but that probably hasn't seen a roll of film since at least the early 1980s. At this point kind of debating if I want to continue down the FTn route or just call it a day and look for an F3.

So...camera makers have been building useless components for the past 50+ years? And we're all just lucky that our photos turn out at all?

Thankfully (fingers crossed) to this point it seems like once it's "on", it's on, and that the startup issue is just that. Hopefully that continues to be the case. Thanks for the battery advice. Maybe I'll start with a pack of Weins and see how it goes. At this point I'm still debating how much film I'm going to be shooting, period, especially since I've been having huge headaches with dirty negatives, which is another story.

Yes, it is currently using alkaline cells as noted. However, alkaline cells start at 1.5V, not 1.65V. I'm aware of all of the noted differences in battery chemistry. I'm more curious about the specific questions I had regarding the FTn and its behavior with alkaline batteries. I.e., whether what I'm seeing is typical, or if perhaps mine was modified at some point. Or perhaps drifted from spec somehow. That is to say, I'm reluctant to spend $80 on adapters if it turns out the meter would actually be less accurate when fed the proper voltage.

I've done a few fairly casual comparisons between the FTn and my D7200, and they seem pretty close. Are there particular conditions where 1.5V cells would cause a larger error?

I got an F (69XXXXX serial number) with an FTn finder recently and have a few questions. I've put a few rolls through it already, and it seems to work reasonably well, but I'm curious about a few things: 1) Should the needle be perfectly centered when doing a battery check? How far off should it be when using alkaline batteries? Mine came with PX625A cells, and when I do a battery check, the needle is currently either right on the left side of the O, or just a hair inside; I'm not sure how drained they may be. Actually, at the moment, it is almost perfectly centered in the O. Is that typical? I'm trying to figure out if perhaps the meter has been adjusted to use 1.5V batteries. 2) Assuming it hasn't been adjusted to use 1.5V batteries, recommendations on solutions? The options I've seen have been the Wein MRB625 zinc air cells and adapters for silver oxide cells, including the CRISCAM MR-9 adapter. Thoughts? How long do the Wein cells last once opened? Presumably silver oxide cells with adapters last...a long time? 3) I've noticed some odd behavior if I haven't used the meter for a while: the batter check barely registers and the meter clearly isn't responding properly. I'm not 100% sure on the "fix", but it seems that if I turn the meter on and point the camera at a relatively bright source things start working fine after maybe 10 seconds. Has anyone run into this? At this point it's just a minor annoyance, thankfully. I'm leaning towards getting the battery adapters, but I don't want to pop them in only to find out somebody recalibrated it for alkaline cells. The exposures I've been getting seem pretty good, or at least in the working range of Ilford HP5. As an aside, this has been my first foray into film since I got my D200 in 2006, and the first time I've had an all manual camera (started on an EM, moved to an N70, and also used an FG a bit). Here's one photo from the first roll I shot: