OT: In case your Minolta camera quit

[Joerg]

Dear Joerg,

I think your knowledge of digital cameras is about 5 years out of date

Well, at least 2 years

A 35-mm photo is considered sharp if it resolves 40 l/mm and the very best
lenses hit 80 l/mm. Allowing 2 pixels per line per mm, that's 40 x 2 x 24 x
40 x 2 x 36 = 6 megapixels for "sharp" and 24 megapixels for "very best."

Current DSLRs, comparable in inflation-adjusted price to good film SLRs of
20 years ago, have 8 to 20 megapixels.

Sure but 20 MPixels will be beaucoup $$$. As to inflation, I don't know
what digital SLRs cost these days. Last I have seen it was well into the
four digits. My last regular body cost under $300 about 12 years ago.
Inflation wasn't quite that steep ;-)

As for dynamic range, digital beats the socks off of film. Ask any
astrophotographer. (I am one.) Until digital came along, we couldn't get
pictures of globular clusters that showed stars from center to edge, the way
the eye sees them; the center was always overexposed. Film has *much* less
useful dynamic range than digital sensors. Also, film is nonlinear, so sky
fog can't be subtracted out.

A problem with CCDs is when there is an absolutely saturating brutal
light source. At least on the 5 MPixel cameras I have seen this produced
quite ugly blooming. With film I didn't really have that.

if $500 is "extremely expensive"...

Nah, but I haven't seen good ones this cheap. Again, you are right that
I am not 100% up to date, last time I seriously looked at photo stores
was a couple years ago.

Nikon AF lenses work on Nikon DSLRs. Canon EF lenses work on Canon DSLRs.
Canon DSLRs will also take Nikon lenses (in manual mode) with an adapter,
and Pentax screw mount lenses with another adapter. (I sometimes use a
vintage Zeiss lens on mine.) Maxxum/Sony take the same lenses on DSLRs as
on film SLRs. I don't know the status of Pentax or Olympus.

AFAIK that doesn't work for all our Minolta lenses :-(

At least that's what the stores told me.

Eh? It seems to me the DSLR is, if anything, a tad faster than the film
one; certainly not appreciably different. You can turn off autofocusing in
order to avoid the autofocus delay.

I don't like AF anyway, it doesn't work in any complicated setting with
multiple targets. I am sure you can get fast digital SLRs but it'll be
expensive and most likely not for use with the Minolta lense stock.

But the main thing right now is that film works just fine for anything
where we don't need the material right away. It's proven technology and
it works nicely. In the lab it's similar. I have modern stuff and old
gear in there. Until recently my favorite generator was an old
Rhode&Schwarz SMF from the 50's. That tube design produced the lowest
noise skirt of them all and I didn't have to worry about any synthesizer
"birdies". Then the old oscillator tube got tired and it's a steel tube
which has become nearly unobtanium. Sigh.

Regards, Joerg

 

[Michael]

Hello Martin,


25 ASA is the good stuff. CCD is still miles away from that (and this
comes from a guy who designed a CCD camera from scratch).

Regards, Joerg

"ASA"? What's that? ;-) I was flummoxed when I went looking for Plus-X
several years ago and didn't find it, just a lot of other proprietary names that
meant nothing to this old dude. On top of that, all of the films I looked at
were marked with some new speed standard, not ASA as I expected. Ah, the days
of Plus-X and Tri-X and .... what the heck was the slow, warm, "portrait" Kodak
35mm film?

Excuse me. Need to mix up some more Microdol.

 

[martin griffith]

snip


Congrats on breathing life into the old shutter-box (I assume "old"). I love to
make stuff start a new life. "It's my way of sticking it to the man."

Several years ago I brought my circa 1968 Mamiya SLR back to life (crud growing
on meter switch contacts). Didn't have any luck with a 2004 Nikon though (#&$%@
plastic lens body!).

I've still got 2 film cameras
Canon AE1, metal body,
Canon EOS something or the other, plastico crap

The EOS is almost unusable, it doesn't weigh enough for a lot of
handheld stuff. But it does have some cute features


martin

 

[Tim Shoppa]

Ansel Adams didn't use a 35mm film SLR either.

Actually, he did for a lot interesting photography with small formats
like 35mm (and in fact did a lot to popularize the early Leicas). And
he also did a lot of interesting stuff with early Polaroid (Land)
cameras and materials. But not his most famous (and most ENLARGED)
shots.

He used an enormous
view camera that exposed a single huge frame of film at a time and
allowed manipulations obviously impossible in a typical SLR.

If you read his books, he shows you the station wagon he outfitted with
a shooting platform on the roof for his larger view cameras . Other
times he really did hike for miles to get the shot.

While the zone system he used with his large format cameras had the
development for each frame tailored to the individual shot, it can be
used for rollfilms and 35mm too.

The MOST important manipulations he did are in the darkroom when making
the print.

Plus, and
probably more important, he had more talent for photography than most
of us. And patience.

Absolutely.

Tim.

 

[Joerg]

Hello Michael,

Congrats on breathing life into the old shutter-box (I assume "old"). I love to
make stuff start a new life. "It's my way of sticking it to the man."

It was quite easy to do. A tad disappointing was the fact that they put
in such a chintzy cap. Not even 15 years and it leaked (!). There is an
old Astor BPJ tube radio (from Australia) from the 50's here in the
office. The caps in it become quite hot yet they are still fine.

Repairing the old Minolta SRT-100 20 years ago was another ordeal. Fine
sand had blown into it on an adventurous trip. I had to remove all those
little gears, ropes and pulleys. While waiting for the cap for the X-300
we needed a camera for our foxes. So I pulled out that old SRT-100 and
sure enough the meter battery was pooped. 1.35V mercury cell. Now
illegal and thus unobtanium, great. Luckily I had squirreled away Ge
diodes when I was young and now it can take regular 1.55V cells, on
account of ye olde OA91 plus a custom (meaning garage-made) rubber
adapter to hold the smaller battery firmly in place.

Several years ago I brought my circa 1968 Mamiya SLR back to life (crud growing
on meter switch contacts). Didn't have any luck with a 2004 Nikon though (#&$%@
plastic lens body!).

IIRC a Mamiya was the Lexus of cameras in those days. Right behind
Hasselblad and Leica.

Regards, Joerg

 

[mc]

RF Rokkor 250mm 1:5.6

Ah, a mirror lens. Those are remarkably free of chromatic aberration. I
haven't used that one, but with a similar 300/5.6 lens, doing
astrophotography, I got very sharp images and too many internal reflections.

 

[mc]

Nothing against film -- but only in very unusual situations is it still

The dynamic range of CCD can be a limiting factor in hard contrast
situations, reflections etc.

I find the opposite to be the case, at least with normally developed film.
Of course, you have the ability to underdevelop, and that may be what you
have in mind.

 

[mc]

Sounds like the beginning of the digital/analog camera equivalent to the

digital/analog audiofool debates.

I don't plan to argue at length, either. I've posted the technical basics,
and that's as far as I want to go.

 

[mc]

Sure but 20 MPixels will be beaucoup $$$. As to inflation, I don't know
what digital SLRs cost these days. Last I have seen it was well into the
four digits. My last regular body cost under $300 about 12 years ago.
Inflation wasn't quite that steep ;-)

I just today bought my daughter a Nikon D50 with a good zoom lens for $750.

 

[mc]

"ASA"? What's that? ;-) I was flummoxed when I went looking for
Plus-X
several years ago and didn't find it, just a lot of other proprietary
names that
meant nothing to this old dude. On top of that, all of the films I looked
at
were marked with some new speed standard, not ASA as I expected. Ah, the
days
of Plus-X and Tri-X and .... what the heck was the slow, warm, "portrait"
Kodak
35mm film?

VPS, I think. Kodak keeps rearranging the color negative film line. But
Plus-X and Tri-X are still made. The ISO speed scale (dating from about 25
years ago) is the same as ASA and DIN. Thus Tri-X Pan is ISO 400/27.

Excuse me. Need to mix up some more Microdol.

That is also still available as far as I know. Of course, it's been
Microdol-X for about the past half century

 

[YD]

Hello Spehro,


IIRC there was no 35mm yet at his time. Mostly 60*60 and 60*90. I
started out with 60*60mm. We had a voluntary afternoon class at school
and there a professional showed us the tricks. Long exposure, waving and
all that.

The 60 mm (120) format is still alive and kicking, both in color and
BW. I use Plus-X in my Yashica MAT-124, much better pictures than I
get in the 35 mm camera.

- YD.

 

[Frank Bemelman]

In most cases they can make the lenses cheaper for the digital SLR
cameras since the sensor size at the focal plane is much smaller than
a frame of 35mm film. But the better ones are compatible with film
cameras so you can leverage your existing investment, assuming you own
a collection of good AF lenses (and if they're not AF you can use
them, but you might not want to).

The smaller sensor size does make a difference indeed, and make
impressive zoom lenses a lot cheaper. I have a konica minolta dimage
Z5. Lens can't be removed, but it has 12x *optical* zoom, a 35mm-film
equivalent of 35mm-420mm. Why would I want to change lenses?

And this is a relative cheap camera. Paid 350 euro for it.

 

[Michael]

Joerg wrote:
(snip)

Repairing the old Minolta SRT-100 20 years ago was another ordeal. Fine
sand had blown into it on an adventurous trip. I had to remove all those
little gears, ropes and pulleys. While waiting for the cap for the X-300
we needed a camera for our foxes. So I pulled out that old SRT-100 and
sure enough the meter battery was pooped. 1.35V mercury cell. Now
illegal and thus unobtanium, great.

My photog days don't go quite as far back as the SRT-100. I do remember seeing
many SRT-101's; many of my A.F. colleagues had them.

Luckily I had squirreled away Ge
diodes when I was young and now it can take regular 1.55V cells, on
account of ye olde OA91 plus a custom (meaning garage-made) rubber
adapter to hold the smaller battery firmly in place.

I still buy Ge diodes (1N84?) on occasion. From allelectronics.com

IIRC a Mamiya was the Lexus of cameras in those days. Right behind
Hasselblad and Leica.

Now *that* is a ringing indorsement, placing it those two greats! (30
years ago I drooled at the thought of owning a 500C or 500EL) I dunno about
Mamiya being a Lexus (I've never touched a Lexus) but my 1000DTL served with
perfectly until it coughed up blood. It hiked the Rockies countless times,
survived the heat and humidity of SEA (twice), sat unused for about 10 years,
and THEN went to Germany (Boeblingen) four times and Austria (Stubaital) twice
over a 4-year period. I love the (old) Mamiya auto lenses, am glad I didn't
settle for Vivitar. And having both spot *and* averaging meters - behind the
lens, where they should be - was heaven.

 

[mc]

The smaller sensor size does make a difference indeed, and make

impressive zoom lenses a lot cheaper. I have a konica minolta dimage
Z5. Lens can't be removed, but it has 12x *optical* zoom, a 35mm-film
equivalent of 35mm-420mm. Why would I want to change lenses?

Because you probably have appreciable barrel distortion at one end of the
range and appreciable pincushion distortion at the other end. Go photograph
a brick wall. You'll be surprised!

 

[mc]

IIRC a Mamiya was the Lexus of cameras in those days. Right behind
I don't know of anyone who had that impression. In 1970, the Mamiya/Sekor
500 TL, 500 DTL, and 1000 DTL were among the cheapest Japanese-made SLRs.
Minolta and Nikon cost a good bit more; Pentax cost somewhat more.

Now *that* is a ringing indorsement, placing it those two greats!
(30
years ago I drooled at the thought of owning a 500C or 500EL) I dunno
about
Mamiya being a Lexus (I've never touched a Lexus) but my 1000DTL served
with
perfectly until it coughed up blood.

Yours must have been after the engineering change that they made around 1971
or 1972. Before that, it had an unreliable shutter. I had one of the
unreliable ones; it kept jamming. It was my first SLR and I used it very
heavily from 1970 to 1976, then moved to Olympus OM series, with which I was
very happy.

I have a 1000 DTL service manual somewhere.

One thing I *did* like about this camera was the compulsory depth-of-field
preview (every time you took a meter reading) as well as the dual meters
(spot and averaging).

Also, as I've learned recently with astronomy gear, for mechanical stability
the M42 screw mount is a better lens mount than any bayonet mount. No
springs! The camera and lens are held tightly together and can't flex. If
you pull on a Nikon lens, you can move it a fraction of a mm away from the
camera because you are flexing the springs inside the lens mount.

 

[Keith]

Hello Jim,


We donated our really old ones and sold a few at a garage sale. But
digital cameras aren't quite up to snuff for serious photography. Low
sensitivity film still beats resolution and dynamic range, even versus
the highest megapixel digital cameras. Ever seen an Ansel Adams B/W
photography up close? Now go to Yosemite in winter and try to emulate
one of those with a digital camera. There will be about 70 years of R&D
between Adam's photo gear and yours.

Yep, I've been buying '70s Canon cameras and lenses on eBay, for a song.
I now have a pretty good collection of the FD series (6 FTb, 1 TLb, and an
AE1 camera and several *nice* lenses). I'm going through them finding
the best of the batch and then I'll resell the rest. THe cameras average
about $30 each (most with lenses) and lenses from $10 to $50 for stuff
that originally went for hundred$. These cameras are already almost forty
years old and will outlast all but perhaps the highest end digitals going
for thousand$.

The other downside is that on all but the extremely expensive digital
cameras you cannot swap lenses. On the ones where you can they seem to
have made sure that the lens mount is incompatible so you have to buy
new lenses, can't use legacy stock. Why not use what works? After all, I
am still operating the old Dolch 50MHz logic analyzer. Because it
suffices in over 95% of cases.

I intend to scan the negatives and then fo the "photoshop" (Gimp2) thing
from there. I may even buy a B&W enlarger to get back into that.

The most important upside for wildlife photography is the immediate
shutter action of film cameras. Digital doesn't have that. You can't
tell a fox kit to hold still. At least not while there are other kits
around.

....or a kid.

Oh, and 3x digital zoom just ain't cutting it.

It's a waste of time and pixels. Do the zoom on the computer if necessary.

 

[Joerg]

I just today bought my daughter a Nikon D50 with a good zoom lens for $750.

6 MPixels is nice. So is that 18-55mm lens that often comes with them.
Tell your daughter that she has a very generous father

One area where CCD wins hands down is low light photography. As my final
project for the MSEE I designed a CCD camera plus VME interface from
scratch. I wanted to achieve much higher than the usual 45dB of dynamic
range from those days, and did. When we held it out the window at dusk
it blew us away. With your eyes you could see that the car in the
distance was some kind of station wagon, probably, or maybe a Jeep. With
the camera you could see it was an early 80's model VW Passat with a
roof rack and two people in there.

Anyway, the camera is one thing. The collection of lenses a serious
photographer typically has boils down to something like this:

16mm fish eye, never had one :-(
28mm wide angle
50mm for portraits (a really good one)
28-70mm for hiking trips
70-210mm for wildlife
250mm for serious scenery and wildlife (lots of $$)
500mm for mountain hikes

This is an investment in the high four digits, usually. If they must be
basically benched forever upon switching to digital a lot of non-pro
photographer will hesitate. I know that the focal lengths may not be a
good fit for CCD sensor formats but at least some should be suited for
continued use. Adapter mounts or, better, exchange mounts would be ok
but typically there are none available for digital cameras.

Regards, Joerg

 

[Joerg]

Because you probably have appreciable barrel distortion at one end of the
range and appreciable pincushion distortion at the other end. Go photograph
a brick wall. You'll be surprised!

This is exactly why folks have a whole collection of lenses. Even the
3:1 zoom lenses I have are only for hiking trips where lugging all the
individual lenses isn't feasible. But our 70-210mm is not as good at
210mm as the (more expensive) 250mm fixed lens is. Not even close.

Regards, Joerg

 

[Joerg]

I don't know of anyone who had that impression. In 1970, the Mamiya/Sekor
500 TL, 500 DTL, and 1000 DTL were among the cheapest Japanese-made SLRs.
Minolta and Nikon cost a good bit more; Pentax cost somewhat more.

I am certainly know expert. But I remember our photo class where the
school had a few cameras to be loaned out. I used my father's old Agfa
but others wanted to try the new stuff. In case someone desired to have
the Mamiya the teacher requested to be really careful with that one.
When she mentioned what it had cost our jaws dropped. Maybe there were
different category models.

Regards, Joerg

 

[Joerg]

Hello Keith,

I intend to scan the negatives and then fo the "photoshop" (Gimp2) thing
from there. I may even buy a B&W enlarger to get back into that.

Sometimes you can have the film developed and a CD made. The best ones
will not just contain JPEG but also the full bitmaps. That's really
nice. It usually only adds a few Dollars and when they run a promotion
the CD can be as low as $1.

Regards, Joerg