I am a member of several vintage camera and general photography groups on Facebook and there are two “conversations” that always amuse me. The first is around the subject of mechanical cameras that require no batteries and those that do. I am fascinated by the numbers of photographers who go on and on about how mechanical cameras that do not require batteries are so much better than those that require batteries for their shutters or metering. The standard line is that if you are out in the field shooting with a purely mechanical camera, you’ll never have to be concerned about not being able t ..read more

I first read the phrase “looking for light” on the blog of my photography friend, Amanda Creamer. Amanda creates some stunning, dreamy images with her film and digital cameras. I loved “looking for light” so much, I wrote and asked her if I could borrow it and use it here from time to time. Photography is, at its very basic level, the art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light. As a photographer, I find myself looking at the world around me in terms of light and shadows. Right now, I am focusing my efforts and honing my skills in black and white photography, but not t ..read more

I consider the 1970s the golden age of 35mm SLRs. Canon, Minolta, Pentax, Olympus and Nikon were all in fierce competition to create the very best machines possible. Photographers benefited from this competition with a wide choice of great cameras and amazing lenses. This was still the era of mostly metal and glass and a testament to the quality of camera manufacturing from this time is the fact that many of these machines remain viable, functioning and serviceable today. I stumbled across this nice example of a Nikkormat EL in my local camera shop. I went to browse on my lunch hour and walke ..read more

I had big plans to take my Nikon FE everywhere with me for a couple of weeks as I tried my first roll of Ferrania P33 black and white negative film. I had been reading good things about this film and wanted to give it a proper test drive. Fate had other ideas. A friend was looking for a nice FE and asked if I would sell mine. Just about the time I was asking if I could finish off the roll of film I had in the camera, he sent the PayPal payment. So, I clicked off a half a roll at my desk and around the house, rewound the film and packed up his camera. Ferrania P33 is an ISO 160 film manufactur ..read more

I’ve always had a fear of electronic flash photography and I admit, it was a fear of the unknown. My experience with flash photography was limited to flashcubes on Kodak Instamatic cameras, flashbars on Polaroid instant cameras and the SB-24 Nikon Speedlight I bought for my Nikon N90s back in the 1990s. I never got good pictures from any of those set-ups, mostly because I really didn’t know what I was doing. Many years ago, a friend hired me to shoot his wedding. To this day, I still cannot figure why he did or moreso, why I agreed to do it considering I didn’t have a clue. It was an outdoor d ..read more

When I began dabbling in analog photography again in 2010, I started writing my thoughts about the old cameras I was trying in a paper journal. A few years after that, I launched a Flickr account and began sharing pictures of my old cameras and the photographs I made with them. Other Flickr members commented on my gear or complimented my photos and that felt good. I enjoyed the connection with other photographers. About the same time I launched my Flickr account, I came across Jim Grey’s Down The Road blog. As I browsed through his posts, I found we were on similar paths, navigating life afte ..read more

Image courtesy of Rollei Analog This is not a proper review of Rollei’s RPX 400 black and white film. This is a grumbly review because while shooting this roll during my recent weekend in Mendocino, my Pentax Spotmatic decided to jam up on me. The film advance just stopped dead winding from one shot to the next. Grrrrr! I got about a dozen frames into the roll. Rather than tear up the sprocket holes, I rewound the film back into the canister and called it a day. Oddly enough, when I got back home and fiddled with the Spottie, everything seemed fine. Rollei RPX 400 is a high speed black and wh ..read more

I had a pleasant weekend up the California coast in Mendocino a few weeks ago wandering about with my Nikkormat FT3 loaded with Eastman 5222 Double X film ..read more

I’ve been on a bit of a Nikkormat kick recently and picked up a very nice, nearly new in appearance FTn body for cheap. The FTn, like many of the vintage cameras I have used over the years, has a micro prism focusing screen that is not interchangeable by the photographer. My aging eyes prefer a split image screen so I’ve managed to have several of my old cameras modified from micro prism to split image. Eric Hendrickson modified my Pentax Spotmatic SP and K2 bodies during a CLA which greatly improved the user experience for me. I am currently running a test roll of Kodak Tri-X through the Nik ..read more

I heard a story on NPR driving to work the other day that AT&T has asked state regulators at the California Public Utilities Commission to phase out its obligation to provide landline telephone service. They estimate less than 7% of California households in its service area use traditional copper-based landline phones. 7% doesn’t sound like much but in a state as big as ours, that’s a lot of people. AT&T’s proposal has generated over 2,600 public comments online ahead of hearing before a judge on the matter. I personally have not had landline service since 2010 but there have been inst ..read more