New Slides – Old Camera

Old Camera

It’s been a long time since I’ve shot slides with the old Nikon F. The camera is a 1970 model. Turning 50 years old soon. Significantly more than half my life. I’ve have it since it was new. Got it when I was 20. Wonderful. Black. Brass. Solid. Even dropped it into Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. Caught it as it sunk about a foot deep in water. Dried it out right away. Lost the roll of film. But, it’s been fine ever since. These are famously durable cameras.

This Nikon was manufactured in the 707xxxx JAN 1970 to MAR 1970 production quarter. Equipped with the Photomic FTn metering prism. The through-the-lens, center-weighted exposure metering was, and is still, a joy to work with. Manual. Yet, with good viewfinder feedback. I replaced the standard spilt focusing screen with the Type E focusing spot and grid. Now it seems I need to invest in a magnifying eye piece. I use simple magnifiers for reading. So, I’m hoping the new eye piece does the trick. I’d like to shoot without fumbling with glasses all the time.

New Slides – Ektachrome

I’ve jumped back into shooting film with four rolls; two Kodak Ektachrome and two Fuji Provia. Both 100 ISO. Back in the 1970’s and 80’s I was mostly shooting Kodachrome 64. The old slides have stored extremely well over the years. I have a lot scanning to work through was well. That’s another story.

I started with Ektachrome. Shooting the first roll I was mostly under exposing. Some of it was remembering how I set the meter needle for Kodachrome. Also, getting used to evaluating the scene. Making sure I placed my exposure in the before final composition and framing. Still some shots are salvageable. Scanning for images for digital printing that have deep shadow areas without much detail can be dicey. Moire waiting to happen in grain + pixels + USM + sharpening + resizing.