More options for cheap film rigs

After the last photo post I got excited to do more film photography, and what better way to motivate myself to do that than to BUY MORE GEAR. Usually that's a bad idea; GAS, the American disease, is an ugly thing. But I haven't bought a camera in six or seven years, and part of the reason I legitimately don't shoot as much film as I used to, is that my digital camera (a late-oughts Nikon D40) is so much easier to carry around than my serious 35mm rig, an early-90s Nikon N90S— a great camera, but rather bloody heavy. The D40 is light enough that I actually take it places with me, and get pictures when the opportunities arise. So, upon consulting the oracle— photo gear geek Ken Rockwell— I discovered a couple of good late “prosumer” 35mm options that are basically dirt cheap, and lighter than the N90S.

I needed something that would be compatible with the Nikon gear I already own, so I went ahead and got an N80 body for $45, plus a 28-70mm/f3.5-4.5 zoom lens for another $45ish, for a total cost of about $100, with shipping. I could've spent another $50-100 for the heavier, slightly-more-pro F100, which I've coveted for a long time, but since weight is an issue, and I haven't been taking enough pictures to justify the small added expense, I got the N80. About this camera Rockwell summarizes:

The N80 offers features I want that the F100 lacks, and except for the slow [flash] sync speed seems to lack nothing significant. [...] 

Overall, this is an easy camera to love. It is very light, quiet, and feels like it has a shutter at least as smooth and quiet as the F100. In fact, I suspect that the N80 may have a smoother mirror and shutter mechanism than the F100, and therefore may give sharper results with long lenses on tripods. 

Unless you need the durability, fast sync speed or can write down some very serious specific reason you need a fancier camera, this is probably a better camera for most people then an F6 or F100. Why? Simple: it's lighter and cheaper. If you are on a budget then save your money for what matters: the lenses. Heck, who cares if it's plastic: you can throw one away and buy a second one and some film for the same price as just one F100. [...]

I may have gotten one of these instead of an F100 if it was out in 1999 when I got my F100.

Continued after the break:

What all the damn numbers on your camera mean

I encourage all of my friends to take up film photography, so to help them out of the trouble I have gotten them into, I'll be posting a little series of pieces about my methods. I like to do things about as easy, quick and dirty as is possible, so hopefully this will all be easier to understand and use than when it's explained by photo geeks with delusions of being the second coming of Ansel Adams on steroids and crack.

Before I can tell you what all the damn numbers mean, you need to understand what is actually happening when you press the little button to take a picture.

Exposure: what it is. 
It's how much light you let hit the film when you take a picture. There are three factors that go into your exposure: shutter speed, film speed, and aperture.

Shutter speed = how long the camera shutter stays open to let in light.
Film speed = how sensitive your film is to light.
Aperture = the size of the opening the light comes through.

A fourth factor is the brightness of the light coming through the lens. For now we'll assume that's part of the terrain and you can't do anything about it. Film speed is also sort of a given, because unless you're some kind of freak, you are not going to change film to get a single shot. So the main settings you have to work with creatively are shutter speed and aperture.

The Real Diana

Following up on my posts on Android's Diana emulator app, Retro Camera, I wanted to put up some examples of the real thing, taken in Rome in 2006 and Paris in 2009. These are all shot on color slide film and cross-processed. 

For the uninitiated, the Diana is an extremely chintzy plastic toy camera manufactured in China from roughly the 1960's and '70's. It shoots 120 roll film, but gives a smaller 4.5cm x 4.5cm image than is usual for that format. It's famous/infamous for its sometimes-expressive light leaks and especially for its incredibly primitive single-element plastic lens. As you can see, it leads to vignetting and overall soft focus, especially around the edges. My camera is remarkably free of light leaks, so you don't see any of that here- I would probably tape them up it did have them. Mine does not like Fuji film, however, so sometimes I get things like the bottom image of the Tritone fountain in Rome, where the film didn't wind properly, and allowed light to leak in at the edges when I changed rolls. The numbers you see are reflected from the paper backing of the 120 film. 

Mine was given to me by my brother Scott- he has found many of them at the Goodwill over the years, usually picking them up for about a dollar. They sell used on Ebay for around $40-60, and you can now buy them new from Freestyle for about $40. 

 

More after the break: