Easing into Film Photography

 The gift of a '90s era Nikon N8008s got me to thinking about how someone might be introduced to film photography who comes from a generation that has known only digital.  I have suggested meeting that challenge by starting off with the simplest of film cameras.  An alternative might be to work backward from the point where film cameras like the N8008s were digital in all but the recording medium.

By the start of the 1990's film camera makers were offering a lot of choices in cameras with fully automated control of focusing, film advance, speed and aperture adjustment, all under the supervision of miniaturized electronic circuits. The camera from that period I am most familiar with is the tiny fixed-lens Olympus Infinity Stylus which slipped in a pocket as easily as the bar of soap it resembled.

For photographers with bigger ambitions and pocketbooks, Nikon and others put interchangeable lenses into the mix. That came with a cost in complexity and weight.  The N8008s, for instance, requires four double-A batteries to power interchangeable lens focus operation along with the continuous digital display of all control settings. In compensation, the user could choose a fully automated point-and-shoot mode, or opt for full control over each aspect of the process, including shutter and aperture-priority, single or multiple exposures with a single button press, and a variety of metering styles. 

I test drove the N8008s with a roll of Arista 200 over two days in familiar surroundings: Old Town Albuquerque and the Rio Grande where our dog, Roxie, likes to run and splash in the river water.

The AF Nikkor 35-70mm Zoom which came attached to the camera of course was unsurprisingly excellent in image production.  While I have never really warmed to zooms, the very smooth operation of this compact lens and its easy support of frame-filling compositions makes it a real pleasure to use.

I can't justify musing further about the N8008s based on a singe roll experience, so will just suggest exploring the subject further with real Nikon experts like John Smith, aka Fogdog, and James Tocchio at Casualphotophile.

At One (point five)

 

Winter

BioPark

 

Wood Duck on ice

Mediterranean Conservatory

Perspectives

 I have mostly shot color in my little Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim, but it handles black and white well too.  These are from a roll of Arista Edu Ultra 200 processed in HC-110e.

Opportunity

I went to the Albuquerque Rail Yards to see the 2926 locomotive which had made a short trip there from the restoration site across town.  While awaiting the tracks to be made accessible to spectators I decided to walk through the site to look at the big buildings that comprised the repair facility many years before.  To my surprise, the doors of several of the building were open and there were none of the usual guards to deny entry to visitors.

Exploring the Bosque

 I took a long walk with my 1A Pocket Special in the riverside forest at the east end of the Paseo del Norte bridge.  I saw some bike riders and skaters on the paved path that parallels the river, but no other people after that.  

I got six-and-one-half frames from this roll of Tri-X using some expired 120 Tri-X.  I think the century-plus camera has performed very well, but it is starting to show its age; there are some small light leaks appearing on the negatives and the ancient leather covering is disintegrating.  I think I will give the camera a well-deserved rest and move on to using a couple of my other, newer 116 Kodaks along with the very helpful 116 to 120 adapters.

Restorations

Here are a couple more shots from my Friday morning session in Old Town with the Kodak No.1A Folding Special.  The images were cropped to compensate for poor framing, but I like them because they show the nice qualities which the Bausch and Lomb Rapid Rectilinear lens can deliver.  I was also happy with the tonal range produced by the combination of the expired Tri-X and processing in HC110e.

The Rapid Rectiliner lens, also known as the Aplanat, dates back to 1866.  As can be seen in this illustration from Wikipedia the design features four elements in two groups arranged symmetrically on either side of the aperture.

Here are comments on the design by Rudolf Kingslake, a Director of Optical Design at Eastman Kodak Company from his book, Lenses in Photography, 1951 (p.122-123):

The Rapid Rectilinear Lens -- By 1866 lens theory had developed sufficiently to indicate how the two components of a duplet could be corrected for spherical aberration even though they were bent into the meniscus shape necessary for a flat field, the symmetry being relied upon to eliminate coma, distortion, and lateral color.  The result was the f/8 Rapid Rectilinear...

The aperture scale on my 1A Special shows a value of "4" as the widest aperture setting, however that is because the scale is using the Universal System values in use by Kodak at the time.  In that system the mid-scale value of 16 is the same as the f/16 value in the system now in use.  The next lowest value in the Universal System is expressed as 8 to indicate twice the exposure value of the previous setting.  And, the last Universal System value on my camera is 4, but that actually corresponds to f/8 in the current system of aperture values which are expressed as a ratio of focal length to aperture diameter.

Shooting the FED 1g

The FED 1g is the last in a long line of Barnack-style Leica copies produced in the Soviet Union.  Mine, according to the serial number, was produced in 1955.  I haven't used the camera in quite a while because of a maladjusted shutter which caused a dark line to appear along one edge of the negative.

The explanation of the problem is that the second of the two cloth curtains in the shutter is under too much tension and it catches up to the first curtain a little too soon after the shutter is tripped.  The solution to the problem is to slightly decrease the tension on the second curtain.  The picture below shows the two little knobs with a screw in the middle of each which allow the adjustment of the tension on the two curtains.  The one closest to the lens controls the second curtain.  There are several places on the net where you can get instructions for making the adjustment.  I used the one at rangefinderforum which can be found in the Russian FSU RF forum.

Truth be told, the instructions are pretty opaque.  I removed the little locking screw while holding onto the big round nut with some pliers and keeping the tip of my screwdriver planted in the central screw head.  The whole thing rotated a bit on its own, so when it got to about 180 deg. from the starting point, I returned the nut to its original position by twisting counterclockwise and put the locking screw back in place.  I'm still not sure if what I did corresponded to the intent of the instructions, but I don't see any dark line  as before in the negs, so I guess the problem is fixed.  Below are a couple full neg scans from the roll I put through the camera following the repair.

There are a couple other common problems with these cameras.  The film cassette tends to ride a little high in the chamber because of a slight difference between modern film canisters and the reusable metal one the Russians used.  There is a little extra black light seal material in the modern cassettes which protrudes at the ends.  That can be cut off to allow the cassette to seat better.  If that doesn't do it, you can lay a penny on top of the cassette before you replace the back.

The other common issue is pinholes in the rubberized cloth shutter curtains. Provided the deterioration is not too advanced, you can fix that problem with a light application of black fabric paint which you can get at any crafts store.

In addition to the FED 50mm collapsible lens I have a 35mm Jupiter 12 and the corresponding wide-angle accessory finder.  Both lenses are of excellent quality and I'm pleased to once again have an opportunity to put them to use.