More Nikon FM Photos...

Just after I took a few snaps of the gentleman, this beautiful young woman stepped in to pose in front of the vintage bike. I think she looks like a young Joan Collins... maybe even more lovely.

The other photo is an abstract of shadows of the cast iron railing on the steps of a brownstone on W. 15th Street. The brownstone was indeed brown, and I gave it the sepia treatment.

These were taken with the Nikon FM that Warren generously gave me!

Vintage Model, Vintage Film Nikon

I kibbitzed my way into getting a few shots of this photo session last Saturday in Central Park, NYC.

Now this is pretty special, because it was taken on actual film with one of the actual classic Nikon SLRs that Warren generously sent to me a couple of years ago. This was a long time coming, because I promised Warren that I would use these beauties, but this is the first time I took one out for a spin... my apologies, Warren... and I'll try to make up for it in the next few weeks by shooting more with them!

For the record, I took the handsome black Nikon FM with me, mounting a 50mm f/1.8 Nikon Series E lens that belongs to a Nikon EM I bought in 1983. My film was Kodak Gold 200 (less than six bucks for 3 rolls at Target!) I took the roll to Costco tonight and had them develop the negatives and scan them. For about four bucks and change, I got the processing and a CD with 5444 x 3658 .jpg scans of the 24 negatives. Now, if my math is correct, 5444 x 3658 pixels comes out to about 19.9 megapixels - not bad!

I'll spend some more time with Photoshop CS5 to see if I can squeeze more performance out of these scans, but meanwhile, this image is "processed" in Picassa version 3, the free photo editor from Google. The scans all seemed a little overexposed, so I used the shadow slider in Picassa to darken a bit, corrected a little blue cast, and then converted this image to sepia, which seems to me to fit the subject.

I wanted to take the Nikon F2 Warren has also sent me, but at the last minute, I realized I never got split-rings for it so I could attach a proper camera strap (the snap-swivels on the straps won't fit through the strap lugs on the F2 body)... and I wasn't able to get the triangular split rings off of the FM or any of the other SLRs I now have. I'll take a trip to my local Ace Hardware this weekend and get several sets, one of which I'll attach the the F2's strap lugs.

Warren, thanks again for these wonderful cameras - I'll be finally putting them to good use over the next few weekends. In particular, I'll take them into Annapolis and shoot some scenes that I've already done digitally, so I can do some comparisons. I have a 43-86mm Zoom Nikkor that I snagged for a good price on eBay that's going on the F2 - I think it will looks especially cool with that classic lens (it's the newer, 11-element version.)

I have several more photos to post from my NYC trip, taken with the FM, that will follow this one.

Vintage Camera Day - With a Gift From Warren!

Here are some photos I took using Warren's generous gift to me of a Nikon FM. It's the first time I've shot film since August 2003!

I took my "new" Nikon to today's Vintage Camera Day outing of my photo group, Shutterbug Excursions.

The Nikon handled beautifully, and as you can see, the results are quite sharp. We all took our film to a Ritz 1-Hour photo place a block away from the Inner Harbor, and they did a decent enough job on 4x6 prints. I also had them scan the negatives onto a CD for an additional $4.00 per roll. Unfortunately, the scans were dissappointing - an average of only 1MB per photo. There's no reason they shouldn't be at least 3000 x 2000 pixels using modern minilabs, so I won't use Ritz any more.

But overall, my first film experience in almost 6 years worked out well. And best of all, our gang had a really good time.

Thanks again to Warren for the great camera!

Muni Pier at Aquatic Park, B&W Version

Nikon FM, 50mm f1.8, Max 400

Here's a B&W version of the same location, with a slightly different composition.

--Warren

Fracture

Nikon FM, 50mm f1.8, Max 400

--Warren

Muni Pier at Aquatic Park

Nikon FM, 50mm f1.8 AI, Kodak Max 400

Eric and I went out for a photo shoot on Thanksgiving Day. We started at Fort Mason and ended up at Aquatic Park where we had a coffee at Ghirardelli Square. It was a lot of fun. I was testing two newly acquired film cameras, a chrome Nikon FM with a Nikkor 50mm f1.8 lens, and a Pentax Program-A with a Pentax 50mm f1.4 SMC-M series lens and Tamron 28mm f2.5 Adaptall-2 in Pentax K-mount.

I know I warned against it before, but again, I used some expired film, this time it was Kodak Max 400 which is better than the horrible roll of MAX 800 that I used previously in the Canon T70. I set my FM's ISO dial to 320 and the Pentax was using 400. After seeing the results, I should have rated both at ISO 200 because the old film most likely lost some of its sensitivity. The roll in the FM turned out a little better because of the slightly increased exposure.

This picture was taken with the Nikon, and it turned out okay despite the badly outdated film and horrible digitizing by Walgreens. As we walked around the municipal fishing pier, everything was gray due to the overcast skies. I spotted a couple of splashes of color in the hulls of the two boats anchored in the harbor. I pointed this out to Eric, and we both took some shots of this scene. I shot it with both my cameras.

--Warren

Hang Ah Alley

Nikon FM, Nikkor 35mm f2.8, Ilford XP2 Super

This was late in the day, and it seemed a bit desolate and with the requisite inner city grime and garbage strewn about.

This SF Chinatown alley should be very familiar to anyone who grew up in the area like I did.

It's quite a contrast to Steve R.'s recent photos from Baltimore's waterfront which always seems so bright and clean (probably Steve's choice of subject matter, right Steve?).

I debated about posting this because there doesn't seem to be a real point to the image other than to document an empty alley in Chinatown. Maybe the point is the emptiness? What do you think? Is it just another one of those countless images that you would see, check it our for about 10 seconds, and move on, or is there something in it that does something for you?

--Warren

Row of Palms

Nikon FM, Nikkor 85mm f1.8D, Ilford XP2 Super

Trying to make the most of a mundane subject... just a row of large palm trees on Treasure Island.

--Warren

Union Square Wedding Party

Nikon FM, Nikkor 35mm f2.8, Ilford XP2 Super

How about a street shot for a change?

One of our city walks led us to have coffee at Union Square and I saw this wedding party walk up for some pictures.

--Warren