I should know better than to use certain out of date films in automatic cameras. In this case it was Fuji Super HQ 200 and to top it off I shot most of it in a dark rainy forest. If you are going to shoot this film you need to give it a lot of light and overexpose it by 2 or more stops which is something you can not do easily with the Olympus Epic DLX. To do it at all you would need to use spot focus and point it at a darker area do a shutter half press and then recompose. It’s far easier to make sure you put film like this into a camera where you can de-rate its ISO to 50 or something similar. As for setting an Olympus Stylus Epic to spot here is what you do. Press the self timer and flash mode buttons at the same time you will get a little rectangle with a dot in the center on the LCD screen this represents being in spot mode. Now just do the half press and recompose. With some decent film these are great little camera’s.
There are a lot of cameras that do a lot of the same things but every so often there has been a camera that sets itself apart. The Minolta Freedom Vista is one of the latter. Its 24mm f4.5 five element lens is pretty unique in a point and shoot but its fixed panoramic format is the key thing that makes it different. With the permanent nature of the panoramic mode it made it possible for Minolta to also make the viewfinder permanently panoramic. This makes the camera great for this one specific use, composing wide aspect images. I also like that it easily slips into a pocket giving you no reason not to have one on you.
One thing about one camera: While the Freedom Vista can read DX codes it has a severe limitation. Any film below 400 ISO is set to 100 and any film 400 and above is set to 400.
When I was in Lethbridge briefly during the winter of 2018 I managed to shoot quite a few rolls of different film despite it being bitterly cold. Like the sort of cold where I know people were looking at my from their warm vehicles thinking or saying what is that idiot doing out there in -35degrees. I kept my cameras in pockets or close to my body and it was fine thanks for your concern. One thing I didn’t do though is mark what camera I used with each roll leaving it as a bit of a guessing game. For this one I know it was a point and shoot and it looks like it had a limited zoom range so that makes the most likely candidate my Canon Z90w. I do however know that the film was Agfa Vista 200 and once again it proves to be a great film with accurate colours. The camera and the film together performed well in the challenging conditions of bright snow.
Regrettably Agfa Vista 200 is no longer available from any of the major film sellers (I’ve checked) so sadly that’s one less colour negative film in the world.
If you shoot with older simple film cameras your bound to come across ones that require zone focusing. A simple explanation of zone focusing is that you preset the focus of a lens prior to taking a picture using a distance scale. The scale can be as complex as distance values cross referenced to aperturesor as simple as a few icons on the lens barrel.One of the key things about zone focus cameras though is that they don’t provide a focus aid like a rangefinder or SLR. You can however choose to zone focus with those types of cameras if it suits your needs (We can cover that in a bit).
Zone focus cameras are simpler than other cameras and tend to be cheaper because of it but there are certain instances where they can be the right tool. If you know that some action you want to capture is going to take place at a certain distance in front of you, presetting the focus is a great way to ensure your not fiddling around focusing and end up missing it. Many street photographers have used this method no matter which camera they use. The drawback of zone focusing is the lack of precision of what is in sharp focus. That’s where the ‘zone’ in zone focusing comes in. When you focus with a camera there is a certain amount of distance in front and behind that plane that can be considered to be in focus. We refer to that as the depth of field. The depth of field increases as you stop down the aperture of the lens making that zone of acceptable focus larger.
Focus at 6ft aperture at f16
In the above example the lens is focused at 6ft and the aperture is set to f16 giving a range of acceptable focus of around 3.5ft to 22ft
Focus at 6ft aperture at f5.6
Now if we set the aperture to f5.6 leaving the focus at 6 feet we only have a range of acceptable focus of around 5 to 8 feet which is a lot less and harder to ensure good results with.
This is the principle behind zone focusing. You set the focus to a distance and count on the depth of field to provide a sufficient range for the subject.
So what you are unlikely to be able to achieve, without effort and luck, using zone focusing is shallow depth of field where the subject stands out from a smooth out of focus background. What you gain is its not necessary to focus at the moment of exposure as you have already done that.
Another issue with zone focusing is that as the subject is closer and closer to the camera depth of field decreases making accuracy harder. I’ve created this little animation to show the change in depth of field of a 50mm lens as the aperture is decreased. I’ve done this for two focus distances 2m and 3m.
Effect of aperture and focus distance on depth of field
You can see that the depth of field goes from about 10cm to 3m when the focus is at 2m and from 30cm to 15m when its set to 3m. The implication of this is that its best to use zone focusing for subjects that are a little further from the camera. Focal length plays a role as well that’s why I’ve used a 50mm lens in this example for simplicity.
RICOH IMAGING COMPANY, LTD. is pleased to announce that, on November 27, 2019, it will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the foundation of Asahi Optical Joint Stock Co., the original manufacturer of PENTAX-brand products
Seeing as Pentax is celebrating its 100th year I thought I would take a look back at one of its 75th anniversary offerings. The Pentax UC1.
I’ve used UC1’s on a number of occasions because few 35mm film cameras are smaller and I really like the 32mm focal length. The choice to make this camera chrome over plastic pretty much ensured that it would look worn even when it isn’t. I’m sure they were not expecting it to wear like that or that someone would be writing about it 25 years later. At the same time they were plating the plastic on the Espio Mini they released a titanium version of the Pentax LX which I’m pretty sure has stood up better. The UC1 (Espio Mini) is a fully automatic camera but focuses and exposes reliably so is easy to like. Happy Birthday Pentax thanks for some great cameras over the years.
The Stereo Revere is an attractive camera which looks great on display. Unfortunately mine is having issues with advancing the film and the result is some massively multiple exposed images. There are times when this could be interesting but I had been hoping to be able to create stereoscopic images.
Looking at the front of the Stereo Revere 33 you can see it has three distinct viewfinder related rectangles. This is because it has a separate rangefinder for focusing and a viewfinder for composition. looking through one and then the other slows down the process but is better than zone focusing.
Perhaps I should just let the pictures speak for themselves and if your interested in more info you can explore some of my other posts about this camera.
Ever since the end of Kodachrome I’ve been using colour negative film almost exclusively. Because of this I’ve become accustomed to looking at developed film that has an orange mask, in addition to being a negative. That’s why looking at this roll of Kodak E100 slide film was such a joy. It created a similar feeling for me as getting back a box of mounted Kodachrome once did. Holding the images up to sunlight and seeing the colour was a pleasure. Once scanned and viewed on the computer some of that charm is tempered. Its not the fault of the film but reduced to a digital form there is a degree of equalization between it and a digital camera capture. During scanning I was also reminded of another of the differences from colour negatives. Anything opaque on the film during scanning shows up as black instead of white. That too felt familiar as years ago I scanned thousands of family slides (Mostly Kodachrome)
After the scanning and dust removal it was time to evaluate the images. The colours were accurate if not perhaps a little flat. I found I needed to add a touch of saturation and contrast but little else to bring them in line with direct viewing. The bulk of slides that I had ever shot being on Kodachrome 64 I was surprised by the details in the shadows. This emulsion has a much broader dynamic range. You can see into darker areas without blowing out the highlights. Back with Kodachrome it was almost a binary decision, you could have highlights or shadows but not both.
Yes I’ve been invoking Kodachrome a lot, largely because that is what I was familiar with. In reality though the similarities are primarily around being positive film. When compared to a digital capture Ektachrome 100 could be considered much like a JPEG, with most of its character baked in, with the ability to only make some small adjustments. So yes using this film is less forgiving than shooting a modern digital camera in RAW but that’s not a bad thing.
Seeing as you cant put film in a digital camera even if you wanted to its a great excuse to use a great film in a great old camera. What I’m suggesting by that is this film, while somewhat forgiving, is best used in a camera with an accurate exposure system. On the downside is the cost, retailing at around $20 a roll, if you add on developing it becomes very close to $1 per shot which is in the same territory as instant film. Personally I consider it worth it, maybe not for everyday snaps but when it matters I will pull a roll out of the fridge.
I shot this roll in a Pentax MZ6 SLR with a variety of lenses including one originally intended for smaller APSc digital sensors. Its the DA*60-250. I haven’t done anything to mine and you can see that there is mechanical vignetting in the corners. Some people do remove the baffling at the rear of the lens which eliminates the vignette and makes the lens effectively compatible with 35mm film. I don’t expect to be using it that much for film or a larger sensor so will leave it as is.
While I primarily concentrate on blogging and using film cameras, from time to time I will come across a digital camera of interest. Some years back Samsung made a couple of models of camera that had an interesting analogue touch. They had gauges with needles to indicate their battery and memory card capacity. I know I know its a gimmick and completely unnecessary but at the same time it was kind of cool and an even more retrograde touch than film. So when I came across the online listing for a Samsung TL320 I bought it.The camera itself is in great condition and it has those gauges but here is where things take a turn.
When I tried to charge the battery after a few moments of apparent operation it would quit and indicate an error. No amount of fiddling or retries had any impact. As a last resort I charged the battery outside the camera with a current limiting power supply like you would find in an electronics lab. This is not a long term solution but allowed me to test the camera and ensure it was otherwise okay. Ultimately I did find a charger for a Canon point and shoot that was the correct voltage and had its pins in the right place. With a little effort this can now be used to charge the Samsung battery. After this let down it made me think more about what cameras I wanted to have and what cameras were worth keeping. The primary problem with older digital cameras are their proprietary batteries and keeping them charged or working. It’s okay for a couple cameras but for any significant number the work and expense of dealing with batteries begins to out way the benefits. And what are the benefits? Unlike film cameras which have the film itself in common old digital cameras just get left further behind every year. So the odd one may have been a landmark in design or operation but the bulk of them are better suited for recycling. Time could prove me wrong but I am betting that the 3rd of 7 iterations of some plasticky 3Mpixel camera just is not going to be of any interest in the future. As a parting note here are some images shot with the TL320 to show that despite its gimmicky nature the camera does take pictures.
Using the Konica A4 became a little bit of a film rescue mission. Not too far into the roll the camera stopped advancing and shooting and refused to rewind. So it became necessary to open it up in my film changing bag and pull the film out and manually wind it back into the canister. The film itself is some seriously out of date Fuji 200.
The Konica A4 came out in 1989 but was quickly replaced with the much better known and specified Konica Big Mini a year later. The A4’s position in camera history is therefore more that it was the progenitor of the Big Mini
The A4 does have a nice 35mm f3.5 lens which I think I will harvest for future experimentation.
