[matthew]

As some of you might remember, a couple of months ago I was thinking out loud about getting a film camera. I didn't stop thinking about it, or doing research, and eventually one thing led to another. I didn't wind up with any of the options that I thought I might choose, but found one that got the best of every feature I wanted: simple, quiet, old, and cheap.



This is a Yashica Electro 35 GSN, a rangefinder from the early-to-mid seventies with a fixed 45mm f/1.7mm lens. Having a fixed lens not only saves me hundreds of dollars - no chance to buy extras - but it gives the camera an electronic leaf shutter, which is quieter than a Leica. (Or so I'm told.) Winding the film is the loudest part of taking a photo. It's strictly aperture-priority, was built as a consumer camera and millions of them were made. As a result they're plentiful on ebay and there's lots of resources on how to fix them. I found one in reasonable condition and bought it. It was somewhere in Northeastern Pennsylvania at the time.



I was describing the camera to one of my co-workers, and she knew exactly what I was talking about. It turns out that she'd bought one at a sale somewhere, but the battery it takes is no longer made, so she didn't know if it even works. To make a long story short, once I saw it I offered her double the amount she though she might have paid, and it was mine. It's in amazing condition, with only a few scratches near the battery compartment. I'd say it's in showroom condition, but I've seen the cameras in the showrooms, and this one beats it. It does need new light seals, but that's just a few thin strips of foam rubber, and about $3 at the local craft store. And I have my eBay one to practice on after I pick it up from the post office tomorrow morning. My total expense, including a couple of rolls of film and processing, still doesn't break three digits.

It's been fun - I hadn't loaded a roll of 35mm film in half my life. And there were even a couple of photos on my 'test' roll that I like, too.

[EnglishBob]

Congrats on your purchase Film, that's those one time use memory cards right?

[shuttertalk]

Haha, great title Matthew.

Funnily enough, I was thinking of getting back into film this morning... while walking to work.

I gotta break out my collection of rangefinders and do some show and tell too..

[Keith Alan]

In another coincidence, earlier this week I pulled out my old Kodak/Schneider 35mm and tested it with my flash gear--worked fine!
(Never occurred to me that I have PC cables for both my flash and my triggers until now).

So I'm going to give film another shot, too.

[Kombisaurus]

very cool Matthew.... now let's see some shots!

[shuttertalk]

very cool Matthew.... now let's see some shots!

Haha, well you have to wait till he finishes the roll first, then give it a couple of days for processing as well.

[Wedding Shooter]

This feels very retro - look forward to the photos.

Cheers,

Chris

[shuttertalk]

Hey Matthew, here's my collection:

1. Canon Canonet QL19 - 45mm f/1.9



2. Canon Canonet QL17 G-III - 40mm f/1.7

This one is supposed to be prized, but unfortunately I can't seem to get it to work



3. Konica C35 "Automatic" - 38mm f/2.8

This one works beautifully, metering and all...



4. Ziess Ikon - "Super Ikonta 533/16" - 80mm f/2.8

Not sure what this one is or whether it is in working condition - was my grandfather's...

[adam]

Exciting!
After going full-frame is hard to look back!!!!!!

Patch17 here has a nice collection of old cameras too!

[matthew]

Here's the first frame I shot:



It took me a while to dig out the negative holder for my film scanner, since it was buried in a box in the farthest corner of my storage room. Once that was done, I was able to get my little laptop to run the scanning software again, and from there I used a flash drive to transfer the files -118MB 14-bit TIFFs - to my desktop and import them into Lightroom. One of the things lightroom lets me do is colour-correct the daylight-balanced film for the nasty fluorescents used to light my first photo. It was shot on the cheapest Kodak film I could buy, iso200, at f/1.7 and the minimum focusing distance of about 3 feet.



I can certainly tell the difference in the look of the files. It's going to take me a while to figure out how to get the best files, what with the options between the scanning software and Lightroom. There is some colour noise in the digital files that I don't see in the originals, and there's grain from the film. So far I'm taking it easy on the editing, trying to get the levels right in the scan and adjusting the tone curve, H/S/L values, and saturation in Lightroom. Scanning is quite a slow process, and the files are ten times the size of a 10MP raw file from my E-3, so only the best are going to be digitized. I'm happy to have a shoebox for the lab 4x6 prints again.



I'm not really able to do the film-versus-digital thing, but the dimensional results from the 4000dpi scan are equivalent to 20-22MP. I've printed this photo at 12x18, and there's enough detail that I can make a pretty reasonable guess as to which of those painted-over screws are Philips and which are Robertson. (Robertson is better.) There's a definite texture to the print - there's no question that iso200 is much, much cleaner on my E-1 or E-3. The white streaky things in these photos is falling snow.



These are just 'test' photos, shot to see if the camera works - I had to go through 24 frames in about 20 minutes so that I could get them to the lab before it closed. Since then I've been taking it more slowly, and not taking more than a few frames at a time. Today I was walking homeward through some heavily-photographed graffiti-covered alleyways, camera in hand, looking for anything interesting. I actually do this fairly often, but this was the first time I found somebody famous back there. I think I was lucky to have my quiet 'little' MF rangefinder, even though my first shot is probably overexposed, the second's probably out of focus, and the third was from too far away. Hammering away at 5fps with a six-pound camera could have gotten an unfavourable reaction, and I may not have even tried to take any pictures.

Maybe there's something to this 'rangefinder mystique' stuff after all.

The gallery of a few of my photos is here. A few of them are full-sized, including the FedEx truck and a photo of 'rs' that hasn't been adjusted for anything after the scan.

[adam]

Cool! GREAT to see that the camera is working well and that you're enjoying

[matthew]

Craig, they're single use, low capacity, and miserable to upload.

Jules, time to start using those cameras - Canonets seem very popular with the film revival crowd. (Did I mention that I now have twelve cameras in the house?)

Keith, if you camera doesn't have an interchangeable lens and shoots at a maximum 1/500s, chances are you can do a flash sync at any shutter speed. I'd like to see what you do with it.

Adrian, Chris, Adam, thanks for the encouragement. I'm not sure how much use this camera will get once the initial shine wears off, since my plan has always been to use film for more personal family stuff, and not so much for capital-A Art. But I'll certainly be mixing it in for the next few months.


I got my second camera today - and I didn't pay as much attention to the eBay ad as I thought. I was mistaken in thinking it was a Yashica GSN, it was actually a much older Yashica G. It's not in nearly as good shape, but it will be working just fine once I clear a little corrosion off of the battery door. It was made in the mid-to-late sixties, making it forty years old, and it's even quieter than my GSN. There's damage to the front filter ring, so it's going to be less useful for B&W, but it's actually really nice to have the choice of two different films at the same time. (Almost like shooting digital. )

I also noticed that the back of the GSN is stamped "Japan", and the later models were made in Hong Kong. So while I still don't have conclusive evidence, there's a very good chance that both of these film cameras are older than I am. That was actually something that I really wanted, so I'm very happy with them both.

I feel just a little bit more like a photographer now....

[Don Schaeffer]

It's a nice feeling. I bought one too, a Minolta SLR. But mine is heavy and clunky so I never use it.

[matthew]

Don, I remember your comment that many old film cameras are "bulky, heavy, clumsy and clunky", and you're absolutely right about this one too. I really miss the hand grip, thumb ridge, and angled shutter button of my dSLRs. It's a heavy camera, weighing 1 pound 10 oz (about three-quarters of a kilo), but I was amazed to see that it's actually lighter than my light SLR setup, the Olympus E-510 with its petite 14-42 lens. The modern camera is so much easier to hold - the flat-fronted Yasicas are off-balance and have nothing to grab. I finally understand why they were used with neck-straps; I've been happy with wrist straps for even my heaviest cameras before now.

[Keith Alan]

Keith, if you camera doesn't have an interchangeable lens and shoots at a maximum 1/500s, chances are you can do a flash sync at any shutter speed. I'd like to see what you do with it.

F2.8 45mm fixed lens, 1/500s max shutter----smarty pants.
Getting film today, and also a spare battery for my Alpha since BestBuy apparently has them marked down from $70 to $20 and I still have $10 on a gift card.

The light meter still works after 50 years, and so does the shutter and everything else.
Don't have a scanner so I'll have to rely on CDs from the developer for files I can use.
Your results look great.

[matthew]

That's a great price on the battery - I've ordered a couple of the batteries that my E-3 uses and I'm paying double that, plus the conversion to Canadian dollars, and I thought I was getting a good deal.

One of my co-workers has promised me some film. He says it's not even expired.

I did find a deal on a battery for my little Yashicas. Camera stores sell them for at least $15 each, but Mountain Co-op sells a compatible one for $4. So I bought four of them - one for my "New" G model and three spares. That's enough to forget one in each camera bag.

It is amazing how well these cameras hold up after decades. I doubt that any of the digitals I own will still work in a mere fifteen years, assuming I'd still want to use them.

I'm going to be submitting the red sign picture in a print clinic for my club - blown up to 12x18". I think the result stands up pretty well, and really like the way the lens draws. (With a suitable twist of irony, I'll have the results in about three weeks.) I don't think there's been a film image submitted for judging in a couple of years.

[Keith Alan]

The battery deal was apparently some kind of Sunday-Morning-Only-Double-Secret 2 hour thing, and being a night person I was way too late.
Tried Circuit City's going out of business sale next door but they only had 10-20% off on most things, all Sony Alpha batteries were gone, and the place was packed with smelly morons so I shoplifted the hotshoe cover that isn't for sale anywhere yet many display cameras sport one, just to make myself feel better.

Cleaned the heck out of my 50 year old 35mm just now and loaded it with some ASA400 film.
Looking through the back of it while pushing the shutter button, the difference between F8 and F2.8 is ridiculous!
Metal leaf shutter and aperture blades are delicate and precise--got to love the sweet German engineering.

[EnglishBob]

I get all my batteries from www.sterlingtek.com Never been disappointed with them yet.

[Keith Alan]

So what's a guy to do about white balance using film?
I suddenly realized just how cool it is that we don't have to do more than press a few buttons on our digital wonders to get our whites to equal white under most lighting conditions, and can also use WB in artistic ways.
Would you say film is somewhere in between sunny and flash?
That's all that matters to me--tungsten, flourescent and cloudy/shade are not in my film plans yet.

Should I put a CTO gel on my flash when outside trying to overpower the sun?
What about for studio photos that are all flash?
Since I only have PhotoShop 7.0 any WB correction on digitized files will be done "manually" and probably not very well.


Just a little tip--I've been unable to find gels for my flash locally and haven't bothered ordering them online yet.
Since I'm a mad scientist at heart and love to DIY, I noticed that the yellow CD jewel cases in the multi-color assortments I buy at Big Lots looked an awful lot like the color-cast you get shooting under tungsten lights.
One of them fell and cracked so I used an ExActo knife and metal ruler to cut out a section that fits my main flash.
Testing it with the camera set to default tungsten WB was very close, so I shot some quick portrait tests at -3, -2, -1, 0, +1, +2, & +3 WB fine-tune settings.
I seem to remember that -1 was the winner, although it might have been +1. It was close either way.
I like that it's a hard plastic material that won't melt easily.

The CD jewel case assortments also have a very pale green version that just might work for flourescent WB, but I don't recall ever needing to balance flash with flouro's so haven't bothered cutting one up and testing it.
The only flourescent tubes in my house are on our fish and snake tanks and they have special (expensive) daylight-balanced bulbs that enhance animal colors and provide extra UV-B wavelengths to help reptiles metabolize vitamin D, which maximizes calcium absorption for strong bones.

[matthew]

Film - from the little that I've learned - comes in only two varieties, daylight and tungsten. What I've been shooting is daylight film, but nothing of particularly high quality, so I don't know how precisely the colour balance will match anything. And for that matter, the colour temperature of daylight isn't all that consistent anyway. I'd call it a good match for flash, with no need for filters for either the lens or flash.

But my life is made simpler by the fact that I never plan on using my photolab's output for anything serious. I still get to have the one-click correction, and while it's not as good as a raw file - I'd say the colour reproduction on the whole isn't as good, but see the note above about the cost/quality of the film I'm using - I was pleased by the results when I had to correct my first shot. So for my casual and family use, and occasional retro mood, these 40-year-old automatic snapshot cameras will serve me well. I can still scan it and correct anything I need to, and my output size is limited by my printer (13"x19") not the file quality. But when I want real control I have a whole arsenal of SLR equipment that can do just about anything I ask it to.

That's a good tip on the CD case - worthy of David Hobby. It goes to show that a good eye is useful when shopping, too.