Film Photography Podcast – Episode 90 – November 1, 2013
The internet radio show for people who love to shoot film! Olympus OM 3, Nikon Lenses, Polaroid 80 film, Minolta XG-1 giveaway and lots more!
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Show Notes
Film Photography Podcast – Episode 90 – 1st of November, 2013
Show Notes by Alex Luyckx
Hey, We’re Back! Crack a Mr. Brown Iced Coffee and settle down with Michael Raso, Leslie Lazenby, and Mat Marrash as they discuss the Dangers of GAS, the Olympus OM-3, Type 80 Polaroid Film, Listener Letters, Camera Giveaway, Listener Letters and more!
Michael opens the show with the infamous Film vs. Digital sound byte from Midsomer Murders (A Picture of Innocence – Season 10, Episode 6). Midsomer Murders is a British television detective drama that has aired on ITV UK since 1997. The show is based on the books by Caroline Graham. Midsomer is an English fictional county. The county town is Causton, a middle-sized town where Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby lives with his wife and where the Criminal Investigation Department is located. Much of the popularity of the series arises from the incongruity of sudden violence in a picturesque and peaceful rural setting. In A Picture of Innocence, in the midst of a “shooting war” between rival camera clubs (one film, one digital), someone tries to frame Barnaby — and definitely not for a portrait.
above: Midsomer Murders FILM VS. DIGITAL Episode streamed by Acorn Media on YouTube!!
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FPP regular listener Don “Duff” McCracken writes in about GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) a subject discussed often on the show, and he points out that there can be a danger to it, at least that’s what he’s found. The danger is that you become focused on the hardware, and getting more, rather than the craft. Now in Leslie’s case, her craft is shooting cameras, and getting a thrill out of each new on she picks up and tries. He spends more time thinking about getting gear rather than what he’s going to do with said gear, or the gear that he has! And finally that most of the money is going towards hardware rather than film itself. And finally it’s hard to get to know your cameras if you’re constantly adding more to the collection.
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Nikon Lenses! Rick Paul taking a break from the Nikon Camera reviews to unravel the mystery of the Nikon Lens alphabet soup. To many the letters can be a bit daunting. The first line of Nikon SLR lenses are known as Non-AI, or Non-Automatic Indexing, these were released in 1959. The easiest way to tell that a lens is non-AI is that the bunny ears (or claw) is solid and the lenses are branded Nikkor-N Auto or similar wording.
The AI or Automatic Indexing was introduced in 1977, the bunny ears had holes in them, these lenses would allow the camera to automatically set the aperture of the camera and you no longer needed to fiddle with the aperture ring before mounting the lens on the camera like you did for the Non-AI lenses. The bunny ears maintained compatibility with older Nikon cameras.
AI-S lenses were an upgrade to the AI system and was released in 1981 with the F3. The easiest way to see if your lens is AI-S is to look at the smallest aperture (f/16, f/22 ect) – if it’s in orange – you have an AI-S lens. Nikon also released a set of consumer lenses or Nikon Series E, although built from mostly plastic and aluminum are pretty rugged. Although the Series E is an AI-S lens, it lacks the bunny ears for compatibility with older cameras. Non-AI, AI, and AI-S lenses are all manual focus lenses. If your lens has AF on it, that means that the lens is autofocus, Nikon first released their Autofocus lenses in the 1980s with the Nikon F4 camera. The most common type of AF lens from Nikon you’ll find is the D-Type (AF Nikkor 50mm 1:1.4D), this indicates that the lens will tell the camera the focus distance to better help the Matrix Metering system and flash metering. The D-Type lenses are also AI-S lenses and maintain an aperture ring and can still be used on the Nikon F3, but without a claw won’t work on older models, but will work perfect with all modern Nikon film and digital bodies. The other common Autofocus lens is the G-Type, the G-Type (AF-S Nikkor 14-24mm 1:2.8G) lenses lack an aperture ring, so it does limit the number of cameras that it can be used on, the oldest that these lenses can be used on is the Nikon F4 (but only in Program or Shutter Priority Mode).
G-Type lenses can also communicate the distance, but they are not AI-S lenses like the D-Type. Nikon’s autofocus system for the first bit relied on the camera to drive the autofocus of the lens (unlike Canon which had the AF motor in the lens from the beginning). Lenses marked with AF-I or AF-S have the autofocus motor’s built into the lens. Lenses marked with DX indicate that the lenses is specifically designed for the crop sensor (APS-C) digital bodies, these lenses will also work on the Nikon APS line of SLRs. A complete list of Nikon’s letter system is available on Ken Rockwell’s Website. Wikipedia also has an extensive list of Nikon Lenses and letterings.
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Minolta XG-1 Camera Outfit Giveaway!!
Mike Wilde from Canada sent in this month’s giveaway a mint condition Minolta XG-1 the camera comes with a 35-105mm and 80-200mm lenses. Interesting in winning? Sign up in the Giveaway section today!
Olympus OM-3! Leslie, the FPP’s Olympus Gal shows off her new-in-box Olympus OM-3. The OM-3 is one of rare model Olympus cameras. Released in 1984 as a replacement to the OM-1, and a mechanical version of the OM-4. The OM-3 shared the same metering system as the OM-4 – one of the most accurate meters out there Leslie proudly mentions. As the camera is mechanical, there was no auto exposure or flash sync TTL metering. But despite this, the camera could work perfectly at all shutter speeds without a battery. The OM-3 however was not widely accepted, mostly because Olympus kept manufacturing the OM-1 line, which cost half as much as the OM-3, it was discontinued in 1986 due to lack of sales, the OM-1 continued to be made until 1987.
Polaroid Type 80 (square) Film! Polaroid talk has been lacking on the podcast lately however Mike recently found an ebay seller with a large stash of batch-tested late produced Type-80 Polaroid Film. The Type-80 film is similar to the Type-100 pack film, but in a square format. Most Type 80 Polaroids were produced in the 1970s, and even the Polaroid back for the Holga was really meant to accept the square format film. If you get some, make sure to shoot it! The more expired it gets, the less chance of it actually working as the chemical pods dry out.
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Digital Shoots – Shoot film with your Dig Lenses! Now here’s a neat trick, thinking of Shooting film, but shoot a Canon Digital SLR? Did you know that all your EF mount lenses will work perfectly with any Canon EOS 35mm film camera? Yes, the EF mount has not changed since it was introduced allowing compatibility between older lenses and new digital SLRs and vice-versa. The only thing to watch out is not to mount EF-S lenses on 35mm bodies. Also, Minolta’s A mount lenses will work on Sony Alpha digital SLRs. Same with your Pentax K-Mount lenses. Have a Nikon, yes, most F-Mount lenses will work backwards and forwards (just check on the compatibility). Also there’s plenty of adapters that allow cross mounting, just be careful and read the manual.
Shooting at Home! Mat brings up the topic of shooting close to home verse shooting in a new location. While shooting in a new location can be exciting, he often finds that it’s hard to come up with quality images early on while you are there but as you spend time you can starting getting more keepers. When he’s close to home and areas that he’s familiar with, it’s easier for him to get the quality images that he likes. The fact is that the more time you spend in the place the better you are at knowing the area, how to shoot, where to shoot and the such. But what happens if you starting finding the area boring? Mike asks, how do you make it more interesting? It’s hard, Mat replies, but offers some tricks – try going around at different times of day, seek the right light. And to just get out there and shoot instead of sitting inside. Explore, you never know, you may find something old that suddenly looks new in the right light.
We premiere new tracks from Darren Riley’s NEW album “Monkey Business! Check out the new tracks here: http://ballardpop.bandcamp.com/album/monkey-business-ep
That’s it for now…but don’t worry we’ll be back in another two weeks! Until then get out, explore and shoot.
Join our Flickr Group (where you can post your images) or if you get the urge to write you can email us at podcast@filmphotographyproject.com (if you have the urge to put ink to page) you can post us at: Film Photography Podcast PO Box 152, Butler, NJ, 07405, USA.