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Old 10-25-23, 12:25 AM
  #45  
canklecat
Me duelen las nalgas
 
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I still have many film cameras, from a 1950s Agfa 6x6cm folder I restored myself through the Nikon F3HP and FM2N I last used before digital. I'll probably sell most of it soon. Chronic neck pain from old injuries makes it impossible to carry any significant weight on my shoulders or neck, so my favorite Domke and other gear bags are useless to me now. I still have a ThinkTank waist bag I received as a gift years ago and never used, but I'll probably give it to a young family member who's a very good photographer.

I'll probably keep the Agfa folder as a shelf ornament, and a couple of compact 35mm rangefinders -- an Olympus 35 RC and some kind of Ricoh, I forget the model, very similar features to the Olympus. But I've never found another compact fixed lens 35mm rangefinder that was as small as the Olympus while also practical with good ergonomics. The tiny Rollei and a couple others were smaller but much less practical.

Most of my film era Nikkors are optically inferior in some respects to even the least expensive kit zoom that comes with any dSLR the past 15 years. The newer lenses are far better corrected for chromatic aberration, far more resistant to all kinds of flare -- ghosting, veiling, internal -- and have snappier contrast. The only lenses I've kept that are still optically competitive are the 105/2.5 AI Nikkor, maybe the 85/2 AIs, and I love the bokeh and moderate contrast of the old pre-AI 180/2.8, although I could use it only on my F3HP with the hinged indexing tab doodad flipped out of the way. I might keep one of those lenses for use with my Fuji X-series digital cameras with adapter.

I finally gave away my darkroom gear last year to a friend who's retired and has space for it. Couple of Durst 6x6 enlargers, timers, etc., Nikor tanks, the whole mess. I kept one small Nikor tank and reel in case I find some exposed film I'd forgotten to develop. But I'll just scan it.

TBH, what I missed most about the film era was the printing process. I wasn't particularly attached to film or developing negatives, although I did experiment a bit. But it was the zen-like process of printing in the darkroom that I found appealing. Without access to a proper darkroom for the past 15 years I just lost interest in using my film cameras. I've been using digital almost exclusively for at least a decade.

Reminds me, I also have many boxes of my grandparents' 1960s slides, mostly Kodachrome on 126. I need to scan those. My apartment flooded several times last year due to an upstairs apartment plumbing problem, and it was a nightmare trying to keep those old photo albums, carousels of slides, etc., high and dry. I doubt anyone in the family will be interested in them, I'm the last oldtimer in the family and most of the others never knew my grandparents. But I'll scan them to an archive they can use for genealogy archives if they're interested in the future.
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