Photography with Greg. A complete novice starts to learn photography

Konica Auto Reflex TC and 2 Lenses.

 I was recently staying in South Australia's Riverland for a few days and we called in at our favourite Collectables store in Paringa.

It's called "Cammies".

We love it as there is a fantastic collection of things to look through but we always buy some of the brilliant home made jams and chutneys that are on sale.

I always look at their used cameras but I don't recall ever buying one there.

Well this time I found a treasure.

The Konica Autorflex TC 35mm film camera. 

There was also a Konica Hexanon 40mm F1.8 "pancake" lens and a 200mm Tokina F3.5 telephoto lens.

I could not pass on the price and the fact it was all in good working order.

I am in the process of shooting some colour film through the camera and when I have the results I will do  a review on my youtube channel and also post it here.

This is the camera with 200mm lens attached. Camera on car roof at Paringa Paddock

My friend Greg and Camera. I took some shots today with the 40mm lens shown here.

A review of the Pentax mzs 35mm film camera.

I have just posted this on youtube. The Pentax Mzs 35mm SLR. Arguably the best 35mm camera Pentax ever made. I used it many times on weddings and lots of other assignments.
If you can find a good working one for sale I recommend it if you are into film.
The pentax *istD was the first digital SLR that followed on from this. For the first few weddings as I went digital I shot both cameras on the same wedding.

 First some film shots on the Mzs in Central Australia in 2009
The five bottom shots wee taken from a moving car.

Old Film Bonanza- What to do!

I have just today received from my friend Terry a couple of plastic bags full of film and film containers.
Some years ago he used to do portraits of kids, pictures of show jumping horses amongst other things.
He told me he got interested in photography while still at school.
He set up a home darkroom and used to sell prints he developed and printed himself.
He specialised in black and white and used to also buy film in bulk and load it himself into whatever length he wanted.
His cameras of choice were an Mamiya RB67 and Mamiya TLR.
Some of these films are more than 30 years old.
They have been refrigerated until 4 days ago.
So my challenge now is WHAT TO DO WITH THEM!
So looks like a project coming on.
I can see  me loading them up and trying a variety of stuff.
But all my projects have a slow time span so you might see some results here when I have done something with them.

Watch this space.

If anyone can think of a good project for me let me know.

Kodachrome Film may make a comeback!

Have a look at this link in F stoppers and if you remember it, share the love.

Do it please Kodak people!

When I started my  photography journey it was on a Koda Retina Camera with Kodachrome transparency film rated at ISO 25!

Challenging but you learnt what photography was about.

The same stock was used on 8mm Movie Cameras.

The good old days!

https://fstoppers.com/film/kodachrome-might-make-comeback-and-you-could-help-161128

You might want to check out this post of mine also.

https://geoffthompsonsblog.blogspot.com.au/2017/05/old-film-bonanza-what-to-do.html

Magazine Memory Walk No.1

Before the internet aspiring photographers like myself mostly learnt their craft by about 6 ways.

1. A mentor such as a relative or friend giving some guidance.

2. Reading how to books about photography.

3. Regular purchase or subscription of photographic magazines.

4. Joining a camera club.

5.When they became available watching instructional VHS videos.

6. Going to a seminar or training event being conducted by a professional.

Then came the internet and a plethora of opportunities to learn online via youtube and blogs.

I have used all these methods through the journey but I was a prolific buyer of photography magazines.

I have sold and disposed of many over the years as I simply did not have enough room to keep them but I still have a collection that covers many years.

I intend to start discussing some of these and highlight some of the articles and equipment.

They are a treasure trove of photographic history, both techniques and technology.

Many younger people are now keenly following vlogs where their peers are really enjoying film photography and the cameras they have purchased .

I find these very interesting as they are talking mostly about cameras I am quite familiar with.

So this is number 1 in a possible series of articles extracted from my collection.

Time permitting I will hopefully combine these posts with a complimentary youtube video.

The magazine pictured is from December 2000(15 years ago).

I was just venturing into digital as were so many.

Film was still the main event.

This would have been nice back then for weddings.

Going back to shooting film

I have been taking photographs now since 1970.
I started using a Kodak Retina 35mm film camera in Darwin in Australia's Northern Territory.
That was my Dad's camera and he gave me a quick lesson or 2 or f stops and shutter speeds before I was going on a trip for 2 weeks in my employment.
I was shooting Kodachrome Transparency film rated at ASA 25.

I went back to Darwin for a period of 12 months after that initial 2 weeks and still used the same camera and film stock.
The Northern Territory screamed out to me to photograph it so I did.
I still have all the mounted slides from that time.
It was the beginning of a wonderful journey in photography for me.
I was very much a beginner but starting to grasp the fundamentals.
On returning to Adelaide in 1971 I graduated to a Yashica Minister D rangefinder 35mm which was a great camera to learn photography on.
I sold it to a friend when I upgraded to a Pentax Spotmatic.
I later bought it back from him when he no longer wanted it.
Then came a series of Pentax SLr's.
My favourite for many years was the Pentax Super A.
I shot many weddings on this camera and used to operate 2 of them during weddings.
Then auto focus cameras came in which were great and then digital was upon us.
My favourite and last and best Pentax 35mm slr was the Pentax MZS.
The flagship of the Pentax 35mm range.
I read that Pentax was to introduce it's first digital slr based on this model.
I couldn't wait to get hold of one but pentax were really slow getting it on the production line.
This was the Pentax *istD.
With that camera I entered the digital world.
All this time I was having a similar journey with movie cameras.
That's another story or post.
I now have a couple of Canon digital slr's and Pentax models.

As much as I like the convenience of digital and everything that goes with it, I think I want to go back to shooting film and using the cameras I still have from the past.

I recently took part in the SALA exhibition(see post before this) and had some enlargements framed and on display.

In getting some of my shots printed at a larger size it made me realize that film photography might be slower but there are many reasons why I think it's better.

I wished I had shot a lot of my digital images on film.

Quality is one.

Sure I could get a new Pentax 645z  Medium Format digital camera that is an exceptional camera from what I have read, but is over $10000 for the body only.

I already have a Pentax 645 medium format film camera and an Pentax 6x7 medium format film camera.
The quality from those cameras is superb and I have an array of lenses to go with them.

 So also because of the qualities of film and different looks and wide exposure latitude(negative
 film anyway)

Film photography will make me much more selective in what I capture and also give me back a life that is not so all consuming in downloading,uploading,editing, light rooming ,photoshoppingand staring at a computer screen.
Also the problem of  backing up files will be eliminated.
Film lasts for a long time and you can actually hold it in your hand.

Will I give up digital? Probably not!

But I am looking forward to going back to my photography roots.

If I had been brought up on glass plate negatives I would probably be into that too.

scanned slide

scanned slide

scanned slide

scanned slide

scanned slide

Scanned slide

With a 35mm film camera at the Devil's Marbles, Northern Territory

My Ideal Digital Camera

In looking at some of the top end Digital Slr's and even the enthusiast models I have become less and less impressed with the technology overload.
The other day I met a camera enthusiast who has not been in photography all that long but has some top end Canon Digital equipment.

He was looking  for some basic instruction but was obviously caught up in the technology overload and was showing me all the settings he had his camera on and what he would do to take a basic portrait.

I must confess I was terrified of the world he had immersed himself in.

The menu on his camera was so much more elaborate than my  "lower end" Canon camera.

And he was an amateur enthusiast.

It put me off buying a higher end full frame slr.

There was a time with film cameras when you had a minimum of things to select and think about on your camera and when taking photographs.

1. Film type, Daylight or tungsten  and Iso of film? Colour or Black and white, negative or transparency?

120mm,220mm,35mm.5x4.

2. Camera type. 35mm ragefinder,35mm SLR, medium format SLR or TLR.(6x6,6x4.5,6x7,6x8,6x9)

3.Shutter speed.

4. Aperture

5. Lens type.

6. Flash or available light?

7. Tripod or hand held?

8. Was I producing prints or slides? Enlargements or standard prints.

9. Metering mode.

Any processing and printing and correction of faulty exposures was done by the film lab.

Now all of those things are in reality incorporated in one way or another in the digital realm.

But throw in.

Raw or Jpeg?

High Dynamic range.

Picture styles.

Various flash settings and adjustments.

In camera editing.

White balance.

GPS

WiFi

Full frame or APSc

Image stabilisation

Auto focus or manual focus

Focus selection points

Flash cards

Tethered or un-tethered shooting

Remote control

Slave shooting using on and off camera flash

Photoshop, Lightroom etc.

in camera special effects.

And the list goes on.

The closest I have come to my ideal digital camera was I think the first one I purchased.

The pentax *istD.

It had some basic digital adjusting to do but was effectively a digital version of the Pentax MZS which was the final flagship Pentax SLR film camera.

You could run with the default settings and produce some great pics.

The menu was no where near as confusing as the current crop of digital cameras.

6 mega pixels but still produced a very good picture.

Using it was more like the experience of using a film slr.

In addition it was compatible with my large collection of Pentax lenses.

I still have the camera.

It sufferred at my hands once from having coca cola spilt over it.

It did get it fixed.

There is a lot to be said for cameras that are sealed against such things.

Thankfully this camera is now fully functioning again.

I am being drawn back more and more to shooting film.

It may be more costly per shot but that will help curb the addiction of firing off digital salvos when ever I have a camera in hand and that is often.

It will also cut down on many hours spent "playing" on a computer.

The results will more than likely be purer and better.

So watch this space for some film shooting results in the future but not very often.

There are apparently a lot of photographers returning to film.

http://www.slrlounge.com/9-film-shooting-wedding-photographers-you-should-follow

The author with wedding couple Tidbinbilla ACT. Pentax *istD.Cropped from landscape original.2006.

Sydney Harbour Ferry Pentax*istD

Pentax*istD

Pentax*istD

Pentax*istD

Waiting for the Punt (Ferry) Pentax*istD