An SLR from the end of the 1950s. In great cosmetic and (mostly) working condition. $34. Who could resist? During a visit to UsedPhotoPro last fall, I came upon an Agfa Agfaflex, a West German-built SLR with a non-interchangeable 50 f2.8 lens in working condition. I’ve long respected old German cameras — I have several…
Category: Photo/Video
Trying Cinestill 800T with the lights of Christmas City
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…
Voigtlander 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…