bjhurley wrote:
Those Autocord photos of yours are great!
Yeah, it's been sitting on my shelf for so long doing nothing. I have a bunch of 120 film and no other camera so I decided to get it off the shelf. I have been pleasantly surprised.
I decided to try shooting some 127 film since a few companies are offering it for sale again. That, of course, meant buying a 127 film camera and I wanted to stay on the cheap side; for $40 I got a Bencini Comet S, a super-cute little half-frame 127 camera with an Art Deco appearance.
My first roll was not promising: light leaks, scratches, and overlapping frames. I think most of that was due to user error; there's a trick to engaging the take-up spool in the winder that I didn't understand at first, and the film I bought (from Reflx Lab) wasn't showing the frame numbers through the camera's red windows so I had to guess where I was. I have another film in the camera now that I managed to load properly and I think I figured out where the light leaks were coming from so we'll see it the next roll comes out better. But this one from the first roll is an interesting mishmash:
OffTrail wrote:
Any early impressions on how the SP feels vs. an M?
Early impressions
I'll compare to the M3 as they were made around the same time and the SP was supposed to be Nikon's answer to the M3. The M3 viewfinder is clearly brighter. Whether that because my SP could use a good cleaning of the viewfinder/rangefinder or not I don't know. Handling is not very different.
I use a hot shoe mounted light meter on both. Measure, dial in settings, compose and shoot.
The lenses on the SP can mount 'internally' and externally. The 50/1.4 mounts internally to the SP mount whereas the 35/1.8 has a collar that fits over the SP mount. Mounting the 50 so far is a little clunky in my hands but maybe I'll get used to it. I have to fidget to get the lens to mount correctly.
Overall, the Leica is easier to work with.
Images (only one roll in) with the 50/1.4 are really nice. No better or worse than the M3 with several M mount 50s. The 50/1.4 did show some smearing in the corners. I think the 35/1.8 does not.
At this early stage, I'm encouraged by this camera and it's really too early to say. I threw a roll of Kodak Ultramax 400 and will focus on the 35/1.8 and see what I think then.
The camera is a keeper. Any time I can get nice sharp images from a 70 year old camera, it's something to hold onto.
bjhurley wrote:
I decided to try shooting some 127 film since a few companies are offering it for sale again. That, of course, meant buying a 127 film camera and I wanted to stay on the cheap side; for $40 I got a Bencini Comet S, a super-cute little half-frame 127 camera with an Art Deco appearance.
My first roll was not promising: light leaks, scratches, and overlapping frames. I think most of that was due to user error; there's a trick to engaging the take-up spool in the winder that I didn't understand at first, and the film I bought (from Reflx Lab) wasn't showing the frame numbers through the camera's red windows so I had to guess where I was. I have another film in the camera now that I managed to load properly and I think I figured out where the light leaks were coming from so we'll see it the next roll comes out better. But this one from the first roll is an interesting mishmash:
In another Linux forum one of the guys found a gem. It is called FerrumPix Linux/Windows/and Mac (unsigned so far), and it is wonderful. It is lightroom/Photoshop/NLP and more all rolled into one application. It is still a work in progress, but check it out.
btw - did some color conversions, and the color was great. Only need to tic a box to accomplish
I imaged this tonight from the Pentax 6x7 with my usual Lightroom > Negative Lab Pro > Photoshop + some bells and whistles. And just FerrumPix. I prefer the FerrumPix results. The logo and stroke border I did add in Photoshop. This is for my “Decay” image collection.
James Markus wrote:
In another Linux forum one of the guys found a gem. It is called FerrumPix Linux/Windows/and Mac...
Nice pic.
Thanks for the link. I tried FerrumPix. There is a lot there, more than I am likely to investigate let alone use.
I tried some simple manual tweaks on a few Z5ii pics I took in Acadia Nat Park last year (when the camera was new to me), tweaks such as I might have done in PSP or GIMP. Easy to use. I liked the result. Then I tried the Automatic Adjust button, didn't like it as much. Its color management was a bit aggressive but that could have been because the subject was a forest trail dominated by dark green and the software figured something wasn't right.
The whole program, UI, image processing, and opening/saving files was frustratingly slow but tolerable. It appears to be written in Visual Basic. I've never programmed in VB but I'd guess that explains the slow response. I have another program written in Python, also very slow to process images. (Don't get me started on trends on the software business.)
All in all it appears to be a valuable tool, worth keeping. I'll have to work with it a while before judging its long-term utility.
Thanks for the link. I tried FerrumPix. There is a lot there, more than I am likely to investigate let alone use.
I tried some simple manual tweaks on a few Z5ii pics I took in Acadia Nat Park last year (when the camera was new to me), tweaks such as I might have done in PSP or GIMP. Easy to use. I liked the result. Then I tried the Automatic Adjust button, didn't like it as much. Its color management was a bit aggressive but that could have been because the subject was a forest trail dominated by dark green and the software figured something wasn't right.
The whole program, UI, image processing, and opening/saving files was frustratingly slow but tolerable. It appears to be written in Visual Basic. I've never programmed in VB but I'd guess that explains the slow response. I have another program written in Python, also very slow to process images. (Don't get me started on trends on the software business.)
All in all it appears to be a valuable tool, worth keeping. I'll have to work with it a while before judging its long-term utility. ...Show more →
Jim, on my main computer it is extremely fast (i7 14,700K). Even in gthumb to import a folder of 6,000 images there are progress bars whizzing. I don't think FerrumPix actually imports anything, because it instantly had all the thumbnails from that same folder. All the operations seem to happen instantly as well. I think it works on a proxy image until you do save or save as. I'm afraid to point it at my entire full resolution image database yet, but will try a small months worth to see what happens.
I just don't have the time to shoot film anymore, but on a whim I decided to take the Holga to Brooklyn Bridge Park last weekend. I wasn't expecting great results, and I didn't get great results! haha
1. TMax 100 is just too slow for the Holga. I set the camera to "cloudy" so it would use the larger aperture, but it still underexposed by a lot. If I take the Holga out again, I'm using 200 or 400 ASA film.
2. I knew the DF96 I mixed about 18 months ago was not going to perform well, but I gave it a shot anyway. Usually I develop @12 minutes minimal agitation (TMax requires 2x normal time), but I developed for 18 minutes to try to counteract the expired developer. (DF96 is self-stopping, so you can't over develop.) Amazingly, it seems to have developed the film OK and even removed the purple dye, but the negatives are very grainy and the grain is very "cloudy". Not the normal fine, even grain of TMax. Oh well.
Vintage double decker MTA bus with Brooklyn Bridge. (There was an exhibition of NYC busses at the park) HOLGA_TMax100_DF96_BBPark_03sm
James Markus wrote:
Jim, on my main computer it is extremely fast (i7 14,700K). Even in gthumb to import a folder of 6,000 images there are progress bars whizzing. I don't think FerrumPix actually imports anything, because it instantly had all the thumbnails from that same folder.
Well, my Linux system has an AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 270 Processor × 2, 3.7G of memory. It shouldn't be a slouch but is admittedly 2 upgrades old. We upgraded my sweetie's office system a few years ago. Then because MS said it couldn't run Win11 and threatened computer-virus Armageddon we upgraded again to Wn11. The first was an incremental upgrade, the second an excremental upgrade. I would install Linux on the newer machine but I fear TurboTax wanting some older data. When next year's taxes are successfully submitted I may move to the newer system.
One disturbingly invasive thing FerrumPix did on first running was search my entire computer for image files. After that it seems to have settled down.
But enough about that. This is supposed to be about film pics. From my most recent roll: DSC_5291_fx by James Muller, on Flickr
These were "scanned" with my Z5ii/FTZ/Tamron 90mm Macro, converted to positives with Film.Scan.Converter, lightly processed wtih FerrumPix, uploaded to Flickr which then gave me 1024-pixel wide BBCode to post here.
