Testing Orwo NP7 (Compania Imago)

In yet another instance of my long and ongoing series of photographic failures, when I loaded the first roll of film from Compania Imago (Orwo NP7, expired in 1988), for some reason, I set the LC-A to f/2.8, thereby fixing the shutter speed at 1/60th. I think this was to prevent the LC-A from using unreasonably long shutter speeds while loading the film, though insofar as I loaded it in a well-lit room, that was largely unnecessary.

Anyway, after I got the film loaded, I started shooting around the house a bit, and forgot I was shooting with the Orwo but instead thought I was shooting with the 50ISO Polypan-F that the good people at the Film Photography Project love for its tendency to turn highlights into big glowing blobs, so I shot the sun, bright sky, etc. for a bit. Shortly after, Hana and I went walking around downtown Dallas some, and I shot a bunch there, and then the day after we went to the Dallas Arboretum, where I finished the roll.

Only when I developed the roll (D76 1+1 at 20℃, 14.5 minutes, with agitations for the first 30 seconds (pouring in), then gentle swizzling for 10 seconds every minute, following suggested times here) did I realize there was a problem… Continue reading “Testing Orwo NP7 (Compania Imago)”

unboxing some film from Compania Imago

Compania Imago is a couple of people in Italy that made some new, reusable film canisters out of wood pulp. They had a failed kickstarter some time ago, but went ahead with their project. Back in January, I ordered 2 rolls of each film that they offered at the time, and they finally arrived just last week.

https://youtu.be/SBSYHI3wel0

Continue reading “unboxing some film from Compania Imago”

New Toys: caveat emptor!

As mentioned, the FG was on the fritz, so I did a good bit of research and then picked up a Nikon FE from the ‘bay for a decent price. Here’s the seller’s complete description:

This camera functions as designed and while used is in excellent cosmetic and functional condition. See pictures. Serial number is 3421078. Comes with a bottom half of a leather case as shown

What could possibly go wrong? Continue reading “New Toys: caveat emptor!”

New Toys: Nikon FE

After dealing with what I thought was something broken in the FG for two months, and after finally paying off some debts that had been hovering over us for awhile, and after doing a bunch of research, I bit the bullet and picked up another film SLR.

Initially, I wanted to get a Nikon FM3a, perhaps the best small SLR Nikon ever made. Used, they run between $600 and $700, and so I really thought long and hard about it, and after reading multiple reviews, decided on an $80 FE instead. Continue reading “New Toys: Nikon FE”

New Toys: Micro Nikkor 55mm f/2.8 and PK-13

After many years of hacking together macro things, reversing lenses, stacking lenses together, stacking reversed lenses on extension tubes, picking up old lenses with macro modes, etc., and after liking the results I got with them sometimes, I finally decided to pick up a proper macro lens, mostly to be the major part in a new Scan-O-Matic. I came up with the following criteria:

  • a filter ring that doesn’t rotate with focusing
  • corner-to-corner sharpness at f/5.6 or better
  • no light falloff at f/5.6 or better
  • 1:2 ratio (half life size), at least
  • a relatively short minimum focus distance

After weeks of research and hemming and hawing, while shopping for a new film camera, I did a quick search for the Micro Nikkor 55mm AI-s and spotted this one for a good price, with the PK-13 extension ring that will get it to 1:1. Continue reading “New Toys: Micro Nikkor 55mm f/2.8 and PK-13”

New Toys!

Back during the trip to Chicago (I think) I started having a problem with the meter on the FG: it would stop working at random points, and the M90 leds would start flashing (the 1/60th and 1/125th lights in the finder that flash when you first load a new roll of film, but before the camera decides you’ve wound on a couple of frames). It was all very random, sometimes it would be right at the beginning of a roll; other times it would happen in the middle.

I commented on this a couple of weeks ago, and did end up trying my hand at some diy camera repair (more on that later), but as a fallback option, decided to find another old, inexpensive film camera in case I couldn’t fix the FG. After several days of research, I decided on the slightly older, slightly more feature-rich Nikon FE. Continue reading “New Toys!”