I’m a big fan of the folks at Cinestill. Thanks to their chemical wizardry, I learned to process black & white film and develop all my recent color work with their Cs41 kit. So I decided to try one of their films, Cinestill 800T. 800T is a tungsten-balanced, high speed (800 ASA) color film. It…
The time I found a roll in the dryer…
I usually check my pockets very carefully before doing the laundry — I hate it when a random post-it note or grocery receipt goes through the wash and leaves little bits all over the otherwise clean clothes. So it was with a bit of surprise during a recent wash day when I heard an unusual…
Two different directions for a dinosaur film
While looking through a box of memorabilia, I came across two rolls of unopened Kodak Elite Chrome II 400. Not exactly sure why I had it — it could have been leftover from when we retired our film cameras at work, or I could have purchased it hoping to do more slide work. Looking at…
Voigtländer Vito CLR – a reunion many years in the making
When I was about 15, my Dad came home with a Voigtländer Vitessa found in my grandmother’s basement. In the 1950s and 60s, my grandfather handled European imports with an office out by Kennedy Airport. While I have very few memories of Granpa Nick, I still remember the Grundig stereo console, the Olivetti Lettera typewriter,…
New Instax mini film meets 70-year old Rolfix
It’s a pretty common tale – while cleaning out my parents’ house several years ago, I came across a funky old camera from many years ago. It was a folding camera; once I figured out how to open it, I realized it was thing of beauty. But at that point, I wasn’t in much of…
Color processing becomes reality (for me, anyway…)
A few months ago, I took the plunge and tried processing film for the first time. Like most photographers giving processing a shot, I started with black & white. Thanks to the folks at Cinestill Film and their Df96 Monobath, I had success straight off the mark. Despite a few missteps with rolls 3 and…
Achieving a lifelong goal with Cinestill Df96
For as long as I’ve been taking photos, I’ve always been a astonished by what goes on behind the darkroom door. For me, once I finished a roll of film, it was off to the processor and then waiting to get it back. It was always a goal of mine to learn how to process…
Nikon N4004s: The Point-and-Shooter’s SLR
When Kate and I were married as the 80s came to a close, my brother gave us an amazing wedding gift — a brand new Nikon N4004s with a 50mm f1.8 lens and a classic Tamrac case. You see, I’d been using his Nikon EM for the past four or five years. I guess for…
The Nikon EM — my gateway camera…
When I was a kid, photography wasn’t something I was really into. I had a Kodak 110 camera that I took snapshots with, but that was pretty much it. That was, however, until I discovered my big brother’s Nikon EM camera. I began experimenting, not really knowing what I was doing, trying to create something…
A bag of holding — The Tamrac Velocity 3
I, like many of my photographer brethren and sisteren, am a bag horse. I have always been a sucker for a new camera bag, always on the lookout for the perfect way to carry my camera and gear. I’ve had holster bags, shoulder bags of all sizes, watertight cases, backpacks even inserts for briefcases. But…