Tales on Film

A little while ago I read a very interesting article for making business cards with instant film. A business card made from instant film is an awesome idea for any photographer, using instant film. It will get you noticed and remembered as being different and it’s a great way to show off the value of instant film.

I’m not going to repeat the how to, but you can find the tutorial over at the lomography magazine, it’s written by wn7ant.

The tutorial shows you how to make the cards on fuji instax film, but my guess is this works on every type of instant film you use in a pack. From polaroid film to fuji packfilm.

BTW I did not yet try this myself, because I didn’t find any transparency papers yet for a decent prize, but I will definitely try it.

A couple of months ago I started a serie of articles about the different lightmeter apps you find on the iPhone, but I forgot to finish it. I’m going to pick that up again, but if you haven’t seen the previous posts yet, go check them out at part I and part II.

Today I’m talking about the iLightmeter app, the app costs 1,59 euro, which is very acceptable considering the features. It has spot metering, average metering, aperture priority, shutter speed priority and even ev difference with the set aperture and shutter speed. Especially the last is pretty convenient when shooting with cameras with a fixed aperture and shutter speed (read Lomography or toy cameras)

The interface resembles the look of a digital light meter, but I’m not sure if that’s such a wise choice. As the iPhone as so much more capabilities compared to the simple interface of a manual light meter. It takes a while to get used to and but after you learn to use it. It works pretty ok. The good thing about the interface is that you can see what you are measuring and read out the result directly by pushing the measure button.

While the measurements given by iLightmeter are quite ok, they are almost always off by a 2/3 of a stop, but you can correct for that very easily, by knowing how much it’s off. It’s nice that you see the scene you’re measuring, but because you don’t actually take photos, you can’t go back and see what your latest reading was. This could be handy if you want to take multiple measurements to get an average of the shadows and highlights.

Overall it’s a pretty nice app and if you need a light meter with spotmetering or ev difference, this one will definitely do the trick.

This camera is a legend in its own right, famed for its use by journalists covering Vietnam, Cambodia and the general disquiet of the 1960s and 70s. Probably the most famous user was Don McCullin whose Nikon F suffered a direct hit whilst he was covering Cambodia. It probably saved his life and is a testament to the build quality of the camera.

I’ve been after one for a while, specifically a black one, which adds a premium if you want one in usable condition. It was worth it for me, as the black version allows a certain degree of discretion that is needed for documentary work that the chrome variant just doesn’t have. However, if you want your own Nikon F, the chrome version is absolutely identical mechanically and you can get them far cheaper, with a standard prism.
So I realised the other day I had a respectable amount of money in my account and took the plunge. I decided to go for a kit which had a body, 50mm f2 (I needed a manual 50mm) and the Photomic FTn finder. The whole thing cost £206.99 including postage.

Ergonomically, for me it is a goddess of comfortable form. I’m not going to say that it’s for everyone, as we all have very different sized hands and digits, but for me everything is in the right place. The only problem I have is that the photomic head adds an extension to the shutter speed wheel, which means it’s 25mm above where it normally is. Nonetheless, it’s still a pleasure to use.

Mine is a late model, so it has a few little features which affect the ergonomics that the earlier models don’t have. Later models have (slightly) more space on the top plate to accommodate the Photomic FTn finder’s larger bulk. Also, the advance lever has a plastic tip over the steel which is designed to aid comfort, but stops the lever from clicking in as closely to the shutter release as in earlier models. If you are one of those that are left-eyed it’s a blessing as it stops the advance lever from stabbing you so badly in the eye and from scratching your glasses if you wear them.

Accessing the all controls is fine as a rule, the exceptions being the re-wind control and the mirror lock-up(MLU). The MLU is found on the lower left of the lens mount. If you’re not careful you can make quite a mess of your nails from this flat control, but it’s ok once you have the knack. The re-wind control is used when the film is finished and for shooting a double exposure, it is a little collar around the shutter release and you need to pull back the advance lever then twist the collar to indicate ‘advance’ or ‘rewind’. This is probably made harder with the tall photomic finder.

The FTn finder does add a lot of weight to the body, but black standard prisms are expensive, chrome versions are far cheaper. It’s huge inside, easily the widest viewfinder I’ve ever used. It has a 100% coverage, which is pretty good for a camera of its vintage. It also has a ‘data display’ which shows the exposure on a scale of dark to light and the shutter speed. You need a reasonable amount of light coming down from on top to see this clearly, especially the shutter speed indicator.

One of the useful features that made this camera popular was the interchangeable view-finder system. There was a standard un-metered prism, waist-level finder (remember, people were still getting away from the TLR mentality), large action finder and no less than four types of metered prisms (to my knowledge) of which the FTn was the latest. There were also external finders, of which more later. This allows for a great deal of flexibility when considering how to shoot, the waist-level finder could make it a brilliantly subtle street camera and so on…

The film counter does what it is supposed to, which is count the number of frames you’ve shot, but a useful feature is that you can set it to remind you how many frames your film has, 20 or 36. If you suffer from amnesia, or even just a bad memory this can be pretty helpful. It doesn’t have a feature for the 250 frame automated back though.

Another nice little feature is the shutter release button. It does several jobs, obviously it releases the shutter but you’ll also notice that it rotates when you wind on and re-wind. When it makes one full revolution it means that a frame has passed the shutter fully. What’s so good about this then? Well it allows you to accurately double-expose a frame for creative purposes and when re-winding a film it stops rotating when the tail of the film passes it, allowing you to keep the tail out of the canister. This is good because you can then stop using a film part way through and change over to a different type, then go back to the first film later. It also means that you can process your film without having to break open the canister if you want… One problem with the shutter release is that it doesn’t accept a standard mechanical shutter release without a converter, which sits inside the collar.

The self-timer and mirror lock up are located on the front panel, left hand side as you look from the front. These can be useful for landscape work as it reduces the shake causes by the mirror reflex action. The self timer has three options, 3, 6 and 10 seconds, and markings so you can gauge the time accurately.

There is no film door to open at the back, instead the whole back comes off. This allows it to be completely replaced with a variety of different backs such as the 250 frame hi-cap (see above) and the motor winders. There are two main types available, the F36 being the main one, which can achieve up to 4fps when the MLU is engaged. Obviously, you can’t see through the prism with this setup so you will need the appropriate external viewfinder to frame your shots. There are several other auto-winders with faster FPS but these need external power packs to supply them with enough energy.

In terms of metering you’ve a selection of options, either a hand-held meter or four types of metered prism. The F Photomic was the first and worked as a reflected or incident meter, depending on how you set it up. It didn’t meter through the lens.

The Photomic T came next. As it was slightly larger, at this point (1965) they slightly enlarged the top plate to accommodate it. This meter is TTL and is essentially an average metering system. The Photomic Tn was a centre-weighted 60/40 meter, this clever setup is aesthetically nearly identical to its predecessor but has a little ‘N’ behind the ‘on’ indicator. The Photomic FTn came last, but not least. It is the most popular of the metered prisms and differs in that it automatically detects the maximum aperture, allows you to see the shutter speed inside and has a lever on the front to release it when changing prisms. It is also reputably the most likely to be found not working, as is mine. This can be a fault with the electronics or mechanics.

To conclude, I love this thing. It’s not excessively big, is comfortable, subtle and provides lots of modular options for all purposes. A master of all* trades.

There will be some shots taken by the F coming soon!

I think I’ve covered everything now… here are some useful links:

An extremely useful site on the F
A rather fun page on the special versions of the F

Nikon repair manuals (I’m not responsible for you using these):
http://arcticwolfs.net/
http://arcticwolfs.net/data/servicemanuals/F.pdf
http://arcticwolfs.net/data/servicemanuals/F%20Photomic%20FTN.pdf

The Wikipedia page (which also has photos of the F250 hi-cap back)
My Nikon F

*most

Before you read this post, a word of advice, I don’t know if this is going to turn out to be an early April’s fool-day or not. But if it’s true, it’s going to be really awesome.

German photographer Chris Marquadt, host of the podcast Tips from the top floor has released a website and video wherein he announced The Invisible camera. The camera is completely transparent and also uses a new kind of film, that can be handled in ambient light without any problem. But first watch the movie to find out more

If the claims Chris makes in the video are true, that would mean a revolution for film photography. In that case I can’t wait to get my hands on a working shutter-controlled camera, that works with this system. It could be a huge revival for film photography, which I wouldn’t be sad about.

In older cameras, you can have several types of light meters. The oldest one are like my Leningrad 4 light meter selenium type. The selenium cells are great because they don’t need batteries, they last long and are still accurate. I, for example, tested this meter against several other meters and it was dead on every time.

But even the best selenium meters, wear out eventually. According to how well the meter is built, you can do a long time with them. There are 2 ways your meter can run out, the first and most common way is that the contacts in the meter corrode. If you have corroded contacts, you’ll notice that the readings are slowly more and more off. But it can be fixed, take the meter apart and clean the contacts, as simple as that. However when the selenium cells run out, you just are out of luck, although this can take up to 60 years of exposure to light. When they die, they’re dead

Another disadvantage is, that selenium meters have a limited range, if the light is dimmer than a lightbulb, you will most likely not get a decent reading, so the selenium meters are not very well suited for use indoors.

As long as the meter works, enjoy it, they are very accurate. If you shoot a lot indoor, get a battery powered light meter, as they have a wider range.