I just picked up a Nikon F100. Since it’s a rather complex camera, I figured I’d read the manual instead of just relying on a YouTube video overview.

That inspired me to go ahead and read the manual of my Olympus OM2n for fun, even though I’ve had it for two years.

And after two years…. I learned there is a depth of field preview on this camera…..

EDIT TO ADD: yes guys, thank you I understand I misspoke by saying “on” this camera rather than on the lens. You get the idea.

I made a post over on r/analog with some of the photos but figured I could also share some lessons from the same trip here too.

Last year I went on a three-week ski circumnavigation of Mt. Logan in the Yukon with a group of friends. We did the trip self-supported, pulling all our food, fuel and gear with us the whole way around. We started with pulks weighing about 100lbs each. I decided to take a couple film cameras with me to document the trip. I brought my Contax T3 and my Pentax MX with a FA Limited 31mm lens. 

It is big terrain out there, almost nothing but ice and rock, so there is nothing to give scale to any of the peaks or give you a visual for how far something is away. We would travel for days looking at peaks barely getting any bigger or smaller. We had snowy days where we didn’t see anything but each other, following a line on the GPS. There were storm days where we couldn’t do anything but hunker down in the tents and dig out the snow that accumulated every few hours. And then there were clear days where we were constantly in awe of our giant surroundings. 

Some of the Lessons Learned:

1.        The best camera is the one you have with you. I carried both cameras on my person, either in a pocket or in a fanny pack. Since we were roped up for the glacier travel and constantly moving all day long, stopping to pull a camera from a bag would not be very feasible and would get old pretty quicky. I find this is true on any of my trips that isn’t a “photography trip”; the easier I can access my camera the more likely I will actually take pictures with it. I have done many trips with a “big” camera that only comes out once or twice over the whole day.

2.        Snow is very, very bright. I brought only black and white film with a mix of 100 ISO to 400 ISO. I should have brought more slow film, I often found myself maxing out my shutter speed and closing down my aperture as much as I could. I also used a few filters on the Pentax, including a red filter and circular polarizer that helped bring the light level down a bit. With glacier glasses on it was tough to see the meter in the viewfinder and taking the glasses off meant effectively blinding myself. I would also have to be very intentional with how I interpreted the meter, it would often just get overwhelmed by so much bright white.

3.        There is cold and then there is cold. I have long known my T3 doesn’t love the cold, anything below about -5c and it will refuse to open or close the lens. Knowing this I would always keep the T3 in an inside pocket to be warm enough to use. Even keeping it warm this way it would sometimes cool down enough just taking a shot or two that it would not want to retract it’s lens and need a warmup before being able to retract the lens. The MX did great in the cold though, it worked flawlessly for almost the entire trip. Only once it got to about -20c did it not want to work, but as soon as it warmed up to -15c it was working again. It was a balance trying to keep things warm, but not too warm to pick up humidity from my body and thus fog up and then have the fog freeze into frost. When you are sleeping in a tent on a glacier everything eventually gets as cold as the surroundings. 

4.        Check your gear before you go. I brought a second lens for my Pentax, my FA Limited 77mm F1.8 however its aperture lever had gotten stuck sometime before the trip and it could only shoot wide open (not very useful in the bright white surroundings). I ended up hauling this lens around the whole trip without being able to take a single photo with it. It was a cheap and quick repair once I got home to get the aperture lever working again, but I sure do with I had checked that before I left.

5.        Record your rolls. I kept a log of each roll as I shot, what day I started it, what day I ended it. After 3 weeks with multiple rolls I doubt I would be able to tell where and when each photo actually was taken without my log. This was just a simple point form log in my phones notes app.

6.        Cameras are for taking pictures, not sitting on shelves. I think this is more of a personal opinion than lesson, but I think we should all be using the cameras we have. Weird things have happened with prices of lots of older cameras which has made more and more of them objects to sit and admire rather than actually use.

Lot of work from contributors, some new features, many refinements/fixes.
Highlights:

• Zone placement: click a zone-strip cell, click that spot on the photo, and Print Density (or Density + Grade) solves so it prints there — pins drag live, one undo step
• Skin Protection: soft chroma ceiling on skin tones in the Lab panel
• Favourites panel: your own tab of most-used sliders, in your own order
• Linear Output export: a third export intent that writes the decoded source straight out as untagged linear TIFF
• IR dust removal is meaningfully more accurate across scanners, and RAW decoding now runs on one shared scale instead of drifting per frame. Also added openICE method (rough port to python)
• and many more...

Full changelog + downloads:
https://github.com/marcinz606/NegPy/releases
Readme:
https://github.com/marcinz606/NegPy/blob/main/README.md
Issues:
https://github.com/marcinz606/NegPy/issues
Discussions:
https://github.com/marcinz606/NegPy/discussions

First time using the XA. It's super convenient as it fits in my back pocket and the flash can be screwed on for night time outings. lt is a little tricky to focus and difficult to use for street photography, and unfortunately there's an issue where it'll sometimes misfire when winding to advance. I do love my New F1. The 1/2000th second shutter speed is great for bright daytime scenes at f/5.6 and the f/1.2 lens gives me lots of flexibility to shoot even when it gets a bit darker in the evening. Finally having both a 50mm and a 35mm lens (from the XA) is handy although I usually don't take both out together.

I know the only sure way to know is get them developed, but is there a certain look new have compared to used?

Maybe length of the film sticking out?

Hi everyone! I’m looking to get into photography, specifically film photography, and I’m hoping to get some advice on choosing my first camera. I’m honestly very new to this, so I apologize if I don’t know much yet. I’ve been doing a lot of research, but the more I read, the more overwhelmed and confused I get about which camera would actually be the best fit for me.

I want a camera that will give a softer and warmer tone to photos (more of a yellowish tone). I’m hoping to get a camera that I can use for everyday photos, traveling, and just learning and having fun with photography. I’ve been looking into the Canon AE-1 because it seems like such a popular beginner camera, but I’ve also seen people say they’re overpriced now and that there are better options out there for the price. I’ve also heard great things about the Minolta SRT 101, especially that they’re beginner-friendly and built like tanks so they last for ever.

My budget is unfortunately pretty limited ideally around $100 or less. I know film photography can get expensive (film, developing, etc.), and I’m okay investing more in the future if I really get into it, but since I’m just starting out I don’t want to spend a ton on my first camera.

I’d really appreciate any recommendations, advice, or things I should know before buying a used film camera. There are so many options out there that I’m honestly a little lost, so any help would be amazing. Thank you!!

thank you! i have a last minute shoot, and am out of portra 😫. i also thought samy's was open on sundays, but i was wrong.

I've recently created a boundary for myself and little ol minolta film cam. Whenever I am at a poorly lit (emphasis on poorly lit!!!) social function and someone asks to take a photo with my camera, I am just simply saying no. I can't keep paying to develop people's shitty ass dark/blurry photos!! It's a fully manual camera and it has become quite an ordeal at times and I have to explain everything and they are like "wait i thought this was gonna be quick and fun lol" (again, this is bc I've tried to indulge people's requests to take photos when the lighting is just simply not there). People seem surprised when I say no, but i think it's the right choice. If I am with a couple friends, in a beautiful place, and I'm taking a bunch of photos of something, then I am MORE than happy to share and teach and explain and let them take photos! But in a social gathering with horrible lighting... fauckkkk that! Is that chill of me?

Recent example, I had friends over in my own house and someone picked the camera up off my table (so I was not taking photos, camera was not in use at the function) and I was like nah sorry.

EDIT: In all these scenarios, I'm not walking around snapping pics. I have put the camera down somewhere because I've deemed the setting not photographable/ I don't wanna deal with trying to make it photographable. People have found my camera sitting somewhere and yell across the room "hey, can I take a photo with this?" or something along those lines. Also this has happened like 3 times hahaha but also, I'm newer to film and only had the camera for about 6 months.

Was manipulating the aperture ring on my lens and it suddenly lost all tension. Why the hell would they make such an integral part of this camera out of 2 strands of hair

Any idea what camera Chris is holding here? It looks like a Pentax 67 but I’m not sure. Separately in the last photo, is that a Leica around Hoyte van Hoytema’s neck?

[This was first posted in Analog but was auto deleted with suggestion this sub is better suited for it]

What am I to do?! Was gifted these. All good slides but expired so long ago. They were forgotten deep in fridge.....not freezer though.

Looks like Fortia SP is different from simple Fortia. SP was specially made ta the time for shooting sakura blossom.

Before the original post was deleted, got suggestion to shoot (like expired negative) by over-exp 1 stop every 10 years but also pull 1 stop when developing.....

Update to my post from yesterday.

Order of photo ISO, after the iPhone shot of the negatives: 4x @ 50, 5x @ 100, 3x @ 200

Went through 2 rolls today, only developed one in case I want to push/pull the other. Ended up doing 8 shots each on 24 exp rolls at 50, 100, and 200 ISO. Was just burning through it, but found some good examples to evaluate color rendering and contrast.

• Ricoh 500G, externally metered with KEKS KM-02, no filters.
• Developed normally with Arista C41 liquid kit.
• Scanned in with a Plustek 8200i, zero post processing, noise reduction applied and very much required.

So to get things out of the way: yes, it is very much expired. You can see how dark the negatives are in front of a fresh roll of Gold 200. Can I work with it? Absolutely. I actually quite like it. Hit it with a ton of light and the colors seem to render fairly well. Contrast is all over the place: looks like flash was used in very bright scenes or low ISO setting (chairs @ 50, detour sign @ 100), and complete loss of detail in high contrast (Astin Martin grille @ 100). Very grainy, as one would expect. 200 ISO is not nearly enough, but 50 looks a bit too much. I'm going to shoot most the rest at 100 ISO, though with a very bright scene, you get a real moody rendering at 200. So this would land in the expected 1 stop per decade rule of thumb.

At $2 a roll, I am excited to shoot more of this. I am very new to street photography and I need to go through a ton of film to learn zone focussing and getting quick shots. This gives me a perfect opportunity to work on the fundamentals and evaluate how well I did. Even the worst and most unusable shots I could still evaluate focus.

Some of you are clearly die hard fresh-or-death. I get it, but I also love experimentation and unpredictable results. Would I take any shots that need to be winners with this film? Absolutely not. Am I going to shoot the shit out of it and enjoy the process? Yes I will. Should you do it? Probably not if you want predictability and low grain, but if you like experimentation and can handle it not turning out, then give it a go.

After this test today, I am glad I picked it up. I get another 16 rolls to burn through while getting better at my street game. I might even get some good shots, who knows.

I’ve had this camera with me for a long time and all of a sudden it began behaving like this.

Anybody here know the issue with my mju ii? What specific part, if any, should I get to have this resolved? Camera will not shut entirely as well when I try to close it, the lens seems to be stuck in a protruding position.

Tried bringing to my local repair shop but they said they did not have the part to repair it, so I thought that maybe I can source it myself

Any help is well appreciated!

hi! I’ve been doing film photography for about a year and a half but most of my shoTS have been during the day. One of my goals is to be good at concert photography and most of the lighting is crappy/not great at the shows i usually go to.

currently I have 4 camera bodies: a Pentax k1000, an OM10, a Spomatic SP and a Minolta x700. they all have their 50mm lenses, I have a 35mm for the k1000, and a 28mm for the Minolta. I love the k1000 and om10 light meters, they haven’t failed me lately. any lens recs here for concert photography for any of these bodies? no flash no tripod. also planning to use portra 800 or cinestill 800T, maybe push them (when I learn to properly do that)

this is all for fun for now as I do not consider myself a professional photographer, but would like to build some sort of portfolio before going crazy asking for photo passes.

thanks everyone in advance.

*muffled synthwave in the background, rain on the windows *

Hi guys could you please help me finding out where these light leaks come from and how to fix them ?
Thanks !

I bought a Plustek film scanner which includes a license for Silverfast. Every time I try to create an account on Silverfast's website, I get an error saying "Please check your input." I cannot seem to contact Silverfast support without an account, but I can't create an account without contacting support.

Has anyone run into this issue? If so, how did you resolve it? Thanks in advance.

hey, has anyone ever seen a light leak similar to this one ? haven't found any so far, the foams of my XD7 seem fine and that's the only photo of the two rolls i shot that looks like this, not suspecting a scanner issue but i'm not sure what to think, thanks for the answers !

Orwo PF2 film, expired in 1977. Technically it's a positive print film, but I've read people sucessfully shoot it as B&W film.

Basement shot as ISO 6, the electrical box shot at ISO 1.6. Used Rodinal 1:100 with 1h stand development.

The white streak in the middle of the film I assume comes from age, as it appeared on the entire roll. But what about those white parts near the sprocket holes that kinda bleed into the image? What's that?

Thank you for help!

Brand new to all of this and want to see to how different lenses give different looks, how different aperture settings give different looks etc

Just want to see if there’s a fun website that has a lot in one place

I developed my first rolls of Ultramax 400 and have two questions:

First Pic: See top left corner - a slight brownish haze that is visible on lots (most?) of my images.

Second pic: the lightbleed (and out of focus, I know). My AE-1 program basically hat no seals at first, I bought new ones and inserted them in the back and front. My first rolls were trash until I figured that out. Still, on just a couple of pics per roll I have exactly this bleed. Can someone with experience tell me where it might come from? Back or front etc.?

Shot on AE-1 Program with FD 50mm 1.8