Analog film photography and cameras

Good response, thanks for letting us know.

Decent. Very good of them. I am not in a position to ask for re-scans as I'm no longer in the country but that's very good of them.

That's quite a ham-handed engineer they have there then
: ]

FE2 is emonda, you are still searching, you havent arrived at your Talbot yet.

I am fairly close, a month long trip in India will solve it for me. I am certainly done with 35mm.

Well that’s fine. But nobody is going to make me a camera by hand are they ;-)

Yeah - I don’t think a rangefinder is the end goal though, and I don’t particularly like the thought of carrying around medium format stuff. Are you suggesting the fm3a is the Talbot using this unnecessary metaphore?

But nobody is going to make me a camera by hand are they

Sure they will, it will just be 4x5 or 8x10 (or bigger)

Are you suggesting the fm3a is the Talbot using this unnecessary metaphore?

no, it can be anything, doesent even have to be the most expensive thing. The more I take pictures the more I have realised that the constraints should be built into the camera for better pictures. One focal length, no WYSIWYG, limited to 10 frames. On any of my 35mm rolls maybe 5 images are good but on a medium format 7 out of 10 are generally good. I want to go to 1 of 1 next year with a 4x5.

I don’t particularly like the thought of carrying around medium format stuff.

This is great (Fuji GF670):

I have one.

If you want a Nikon SLR, it has to be the F2 really: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Nikon-F2-Black-35mm-SLR-w-NIKKOR-Ai-55mm-F-1-2-Lens/153243000591?hash=item23adfe9f0f:g:xX0AAOSw44db287c:rk:7:pf:1&frcectupt=true

Well, back to the question at hand: any standout Nikon lenses? :-)

To be fair, I scanned them myself so it's probably more to do with that. Exposures seemed ok. There's substantial colour shift across everything and I'm not that good at correction

Hate the look of it.

I’ve got an FE (as well as a F4 and F801), and the FE/FM based cameras are great. One of Nikon’s best designs really. Only grumble with the FE is the shutter speed needle is hard to see in the dark. Otherwise the 60/40 Centre weighted metering is great and the controls all fit to the hand nicely.
You’ll also want a black one with a bit of brassing as they’re sexy

Lens wise I use the 50mm f1.8 (AIS and AF-D versions) and 35mm f2.8 AI, all reasonably cheap and plentiful. No issues with sharpness of images from either lens. Can get by with f1.8 in low light with fast film, I’m mostly shooting Tri-X pushed to 1600 at the moment

Thank you. Yes, the FE2 was chosen based on the fact that everything just felt so smooth and also that I could get multiple nice lenses for less than the cost of an fm3a body. Oh and most importantly, aperture priority. Cool, I’ll check those out :-)

Also look at the MD12 motor drive. Adds a lot of weight with all the batteries, but the grip it gives you is really nice

Also look at the F5. A lot of weight, but the grip it gives you is really nice

fixed

Hate the look of it.

Haha, fair enough!

: ]

Any seriously good Nikon lenses I should be checking out?

I hope I don't sound like an ass, but I think you should just a) check out what focal length would be a good decision for your kind of work, and then just b) check out what Nikon lens is available for monies you are willing to spend, go buy it, and start shooting.

Not at all. It was more of there were any lenses that are like ‘must own’ nikon lenses.

Will just do some more research into lenses at my desired focal lengths :-)

wait till you try an olympus om3ti. like an fm2n or fm3a but better in almost every way.

focal plane high five

Ok, so I was thinking about going Leica last year and while I found the body I wanted rather quickly I wasn't sure what lens to get exactly. I knew I needed a 35mm, and there aren't that many different (Leica) ones, but I spent many nights reading up on all of them, and looking at thousands of images, read comparisons and opinions from god know who..
Long story short: at that level nobody can see the fucking difference - if you don't purposely do very specific things that lens A is very good at and compare it to how lens B performs in this regard, and put images right next to each other.
And while most Nikon lenses may not be on par with Leica lenses it's still the same issue - sure the 50/1.2 will give you something the cheap Series E 50/1.8 can't do so well, but in a "normal" setting, subject in the center, shot somewhere between 3.5 and 8 even that cheap lens will give you great results.

To be fair it took me a lot of years to finally come to this point but a former boss (chief photographer of a daily newspaper) told me a few years ago that I should stop bitching about my equipment and concentrate more on being a good photographer. And a few month later I was regularly getting great shots out of a shit Canon with the stock zoom lens. Of course I still lusted after the premium gear, but you get my point.

Now (for me, for analog photography) it's just about finding some camera / lens that I actually like shooting, it's about how the thing feels more than corner-to-corner sharpness or that super special kind of bokeh.
Fuck bokeh.

It obviously depends how much you shoot and how high your standard is for first edit but that seems pretty high.
I’d say my own experience is one from a contact sheet regardless of format.

If you want to try 5x4 my offer still stands...

olympus om3ti

hipster photography gear thread is that way >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

is it hipster? I must own it