I just received my Nikkormat FTn back from a CLA and modification by my friend Jim Holman at International Camera Technicians in San Diego. I found this camera in my local camera shop and it was in lovely condition. Hardly a scratch anywhere with a very nice optics. I really like these Nikkormats. I own four now—this FTn, an EL, FT2 and FT3. Nikkormats were built during a time when a camera was designed to last. And you can really feel that, especially after a thorough service. In addition to the CLA, I had Jim do some modifications on my FTn. My FTn is an early model which came with a matte f ..read more

For those of us who enjoy photography, we’re living in fortunate times. In the digital world, there is a wide variety of choices; DSLRs, mirrorless cameras and even super high quality cameras in our smartphones. For analog photography, we’re lucky to have a good selection of interesting film stocks to choose from and amazing old film cameras for sale, albeit at higher prices than a few years ago. On a recent quest to find an autofocus camera or two to add to my arsenal, I picked up a bargain—a very lightly used Nikon N8008S 35mm SLR with a Nikkor AF-D 28-85mm f3.5-4.5 lens for $95. The Nikon N ..read more

My wife and I took our dog Jazz on a mini-vacation earlier this month. We headed about an hour and half west to the small town of Dillon Beach, CA and spent a few nights at a little resort made up of tiny houses near the beach. Jazz loves the water and I will use any excuse to get back to the Pacific which I miss so much since moving inland five years ago. I brought two cameras with me, my Fujifim X-T1 digital and my Minolta X-700 film SLR. Since I could shoot color in the digital camera, I brought some Ferrania P33 black and white film along for the Minolta. I reviewed the X-700 in depth bac ..read more

Over the past 15 years of serious film photography, there have been several cameras that I initially dismissed because the ones I tried were not functioning as they were designed. My first Pentax Spotmatic was a corroded mess. My first Olympus OM-1 had a gummed up film advance due to years of neglect. And my first Minolta SR-T, a 101 model if I recall, had a dead meter, lots of debris in the viewfinder and a gritty feeling film advance. When you’re buying decades old film cameras online and learning as you go, you’re going to buy a few duds. It’s part of the game. And sometimes, those bad exp ..read more

I recall having a conversation with a professional event photographer friend of mine in the mid-1990s. He was probably in his mid-60s at the time and had just traded in his Nikon F3 bodies for a pair of Nikon N8008s auto-focus cameras. I remember him saying that he would have probably shot those F3s forever if his eyesight wasn’t beginning to fail him. Retirement wasn’t an option, he told me, so auto-focus allowed him to continue earning a living. Luckily, I don’t earn my living with my photography and my +1.50 readers are fine for computer work, reading and other close-up tasks. But I have b ..read more

Friday ramblings…. I have some cameras in the review queue right now. I have Kodak Tri-X in a newly acquired Minolta SRT-202 sporting a nifty early generation Minolta MC Rokkor-PF 58mm f/1.4. I had one of these Minolta SLRs some years ago that didn’t work right, so it never got a proper test drive. This one is freshly CLAd and the attached Rokkor prime lens is quite special. Minolta SRT202 with early Rokkor 58/1.4 I also have some Tri-X in the Nikon F2A that I picked up a few months ago at my local camera shop. I sold my last F2 body several years and ever since, I’ve had the itch to own anot ..read more

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