Twenty Years of Random Camera Blog

My Nikon Df and a 50 yr old Nikkor lens. Bridging two worlds.

In 2004, blogging was becoming popular, and it seems like a lot of people were starting blogs to share their interests. Mind you, this was before social media and smartphones took over. It was also the start of Flickr, the long-time photo sharing site that I still use, 20 years later. It’s as much of an archive of my work as anything, and I am still happy with it. When I started Random Camera Blog, I was four years into my deep dive into photography, and have not wavered from that at all. Initially, I saw RCB as a way to share a few images and share my use of different cameras and films. My first post was on October 14, 2004, and 883 posts later, here I am.

Twenty years on the Internet IS a long time. A lot of things have happened in the photography world since 2004, one being the domination of the digital camera, which also led to the disappearance of new film cameras, the loss of many film stocks, the takeover by DSLRs among photographers, the rise of new and unexpected technologies -- such as the Apple iPhone, which caused a huge paradigm shift in how we interact and use photography. The rise of the micro 4/3 and mirrorless system cameras, which were at one time considered just an offshoot, are now a mainstream part of photography. Despite all these technological advances, one thing has been a bit of a surprise -- the rebirth of film photography. Some might say it never went away, and of course, it didn’t, but now we are seeing a younger generation interested in using film cameras, and discovering the creative possibilities that film and other alternative processes can offer. I should also add that digital photography has allowed millions of people to explore photography without the burden of dealing with chemicals, labs, and gatekeepers.  Many of them have never used film cameras, and some are now discovering that they are a whole new world.

My 10 year association with Mike Raso and The FPP has been a hell of a lot of fun

 I am someone that has shot with film since I first had a camera in the early 1970s. I lived in a rural part of upstate New York and did not know anything about the history of photography, nor much about the photographic world. In 1973,  I took my only class in photography, which was an after-school activity sponsored by my high school science teacher. I vividly remember the magic of cracking open the b&w Verichrome Pan 126 cartridge that I had used in my Kodak Instamatic, transferring to a developing reel and tank, and seeing my very first self-developed roll of film. You know what?  I still feel the magic of doing that to this day.  I think that if I had a mentor at the time, it’s quite possible that I would have chosen photography as a vocation, but I didn’t even know that you could make money being a photographer. In 1974, I received an Exa Ia SLR for Christmas, with a Kodak pocket photography guide as my only resource.  As clunky and limited as that camera was, I did learn how to photograph on my own.  

My first SLR.

Fast forward to the year 1999, and with the influence of a promised new world of digital imaging, I realized that my Apple QuickTake 200 just wasn’t getting the job done taking photos of insects. At 640x480 pixels, it was only good for making images for the web, but not much more than that. I had attended a presentation later that year, and saw how wonderful the presenter’s slides were of insect macrophotography using slide film, of course. That sparked my interest in using my Pentax ME to do similar things, and in 2000, I really started to delve into macrophotography.  The books by John Shaw were really useful, and also steered me towards the Nikon system. I also had a mentor -- William Brudon, who was tickled to share his knowledge, books, cameras and film with me. Bill was a well-regarded medical illustrator, painter, and very much a photography expert. It was his influence that turned me into a well-rounded photographer, and the only way I can repay him is to try and do the same for others.  Bill passed away in 2009, and I still have a lot of the books that he provided to me, as well as some cameras such as my Nikon F3HP that I use regularly.

By 2001, my kit was all-Nikon (Apple QT 200 photo)

Random Camera Blog arose from wanting to not just share my enthusiasm for photography, but also to educate others about cameras, the photographic process, and of course, the various film stocks. When I think about how cheap expired film was into the early 2000s compared to now, it’s a bit sobering. I could go into a local camera store (at one time, there were at least 4 camera stores in Ann Arbor, MI) and buy rolls of recently expired film for a buck a roll! Throughout the years, RCB has endured the demise of camera stores, the loss of cheap developing at a local lab, the sell-off of used film cameras for pennies on the dollar, and then the emergence of Lomography, the demise of Polaroid, the demise of much of Kodak, the sort of resurrection of Polaroid, the appearance of the Film Photography Project, and the gradual and significant rise of film photography. In this year, we have had two new 35mm film cameras arrive on the market.  The Pentax 17 has become quite a popular camera, and the new  Rollei  35AF will probably also be quite a good seller.  I wonder what next year will bring?

Camera swaps were something, back in 2004.

I never thought about how long RCB would run. It’s now just something that I do, and I average 30+ posts/year. I don’t do a Vlog, or have a YouTube channel. The printed word is what I do, and an outgrowth of that would be the Monochrome Mania zine and whatever offshoots come from that. I am a sometime guest and contributor to the Film Photography Project, and knowing what Mike Raso has to do to put out a podcast, has certainly convinced me that I don’t have those skills, nor do I want to learn them. Writing for RCB is something that comes easily for me, and I enjoy doing the research that it often requires. It’s definitely a labor of love, and I hope that RCB has been helpful to many people.  I was watching one of my favorite YouTuber channels last night, and I thought,  I’ve been blogging about photography since you were in grade school 

A few statistics for Random Camera Blog:

• All-time views - 2,131,000+
• 884 posts (including this one)
• 414 followers

Most popular RCB Posts:

All-time most views -- The Argus 75- A toy or a tool? January 30, 2009 with 39,500 views. I still can’t believe how much attention that post has received. It also generated the most responses of any of my posts. 

Second most views -- a much more recent post - The Nikon Nikkormat -Today’s Bargain? It was posted on March 26, 2022, and currently has almost 10,000 views. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I like Nikons! I expect that it will overtake the Argus 75, that is, if in 5 years, it is still available.

Here are the top 10 posts:

I like researching my topics as much as possible, and thankfully, I have an excellent library on photo history and technology. Of course, there are various web sites, such as camera-wiki that are very helpful, but I consider them secondary to a publication.  For a while. I incorporated Google AdSense in my blog, and received about $100/year for the advertisements. However, I kept getting emails telling me that some of my posts violated community standards.  None did, and I am not going to let some faceless bot tell me otherwise.  So, I dropped AdSense. If you want to support Random Camera Blog the best way is to visit my Etsy store and purchase a zine or two. 

on sale in a week or two.

I have often thought about compiling a subset of posts from RCB into a book, but I haven’t forged ahead with it. Publishing Monochrome Mania is it, for now. If you have a favorite post or two on here, let me know which ones you liked the most.  

In closing, two decades of photography is a lot of photographs, lots of cameras, and lots of film and digital files.  You'll get a better idea of my photography on my Flickr site (mfophotos).  Thanks for reading and thanks for following me.

It's been a Helena time

Finally, I am able to post something while I have wifi access at a Verizon Hotspot in downtown Asheville. You have no doubt seen some awful images of the destruction in Western NC. While I live about 5 miles N of Asheville, and not in a flood zone, we did get hammered with the winds last week. It's been 11 days without power and running water. Other than one pine hitting our roof, we sustained little damage to our home. I can't say that the rest of the county and surrounding region has been that lucky. The River Arts District of AVL has been largely obliterated, with only some buildings standing - all of which are brick, and not cinder blocks. The 1916 flood was the lasert one to compare to, and it reached 21 ft. This one reached 25 feet. Before Helene struck us, we'd already had 11" of rainfall from another weather system. People that have lived here a long time cannot remember a hurricane hitting the mountains. I have taken a lot of images, and none of them do justice to the vast amount of devastation suffered by some areas. I'll post some when I have a good upload capability. There is a lot going on with relief and supplies, and I am hopeful that we will soon have our power restored. Take care, Mark 

 UPDATE OCTOBER 9 

 Our power came on Monday night around 8:30, and what a surprise. It's amazing how having lights on makes a big psychological difference. Shortly thereafter, our internet was also available. One good thing is that we are incrementally getting more services, etc. The weather has also been sunny and glorious, which is good for the first responders, cleaning up, etc.  I'll be posting images of some of the devastation in another post.  For now, enjoy the beauty from yesterday morning.

Looking to the NE from our neighborhood.  You can't see anything amiss at this perspective.

Infrared Fun with the FPP Infrared Film

I recently posted about using an expired roll of Kodak HIE IR film, and while it is certainly an amazing film - largely due to the fact that you can get excellent results just by using a common R25A red filter, it’s sadly no longer manufactured.  However, I also listed a bunch of b&w films that have IR sensitivity and work well with a R72 filter.  The downside of that R72 filter is that it is nearly opaque, and you really cant’t use an SLR for composing an image without taking the filter off, composing, and putting it back on for the shot.  I was able to find a 40.5mm screw-on R72 filter that fits a 53mm f/2.8 Industar LTM lens on my Canon 7 rangefinder camera.  That made a big difference in making IR photography easy!

The Canon 7 has an external Selenium meter, which I never use. From my experience and what I have seen, indicates that with a 200 ISO film with a R72 filter, I’ll need to set my aperture at f/16 at either 1 sec or 1/2 sec in full sun.  You really can’t use an internal meter for IR, as the R72 filter cuts out most of the visible light.  Generally, that’s about 5 to 8 stops of light, so that is going to be in the realm of 1/8 to 1 sec, depending on the quality of the reflected IR and the film used.  Bracketing exposures is your friend.

The Infra Red film from the Film Photography Project is rated at ISO 200, without a filter.  It’s also on a very thin Mylar base.  Load the film indoors.  Make sure it’s engaged on the take-up spool before closing the back of the camera.  I suggest using a rangefinder camera or even a zone-focus 35mm with a R72 filter on the lens.  Some photographers have used 35mm Holgas and the B setting. You won’t be looking through the filter like you would in an SLR. That’s a BIG help!  If your lens has an IR focus mark (not all lenses do), use it, but if you are shooting at an aperture of f/11 or f/16, it’s not going to be a big deal.  Set your shutter speed to 1/2 sec to get that full “Wood effect” of white foliage that makes IR photography so surreal.  Don’t over-think it.  Keep your aperture constant at f/16 and yes, use a damned tripod.  You can forgo the tripod if you open your aperture to f/5.6 at 1/30 sec, but you will lose the greater depth of field that f/16 provides.  

I’ve shot several rolls of the FPP Infra-Red, and overall, I am very pleased with the results.  You won’t get the exact same results as the Kodak HIE film, which did not have an anti-halation coating.  So, with that film, you also got some “blooming” from bright subjects that you won’t get with the other films currently available.  You MUST use an R72 filter with this film, as there is too much visible light coming through with a red 25A filter.  The R72 filter starts at 720nm of light wavelengths, which is in the infrared spectrum.  You CAN shoot this film as a normal 200 ISO b&w film, and get good results, as it is very fine-grained.  However, use it as an IR film for its spectral sensitivity and the unique images that you’ll get.

Examples from two rolls:

Roll 1 shot with a Nikon F... Developed with D-76

Roll 2, Shot with the Canon 7, developed in Rodinal.

As you can see, the FPP InfraRed is definitely able to give you that surreal monochrome IR look.  Make sure that you have plenty of sun.  In the first set of images, there were scattered clouds among the mountains, and that definitely wasn't ideal.  The one really good IR image was shot in full afternoon sun.  In the second roll, all were taken within 30 minutes, on a bright sunny afternoon.  I love what I got with the Canon 7, and that will obviously be my go-to for shooting 35mm IR films.

The Pentacon F SLR

 The Pentacon F

The M-42 screw mount was adopted quite early as the means for attaching lenses to a single lens reflex camera with a focal plane shutter, as seen with the Contax S in 1949. Early examples of that camera have Zeiss Ikon on the prism front. Thus was the saga of Zeiss-Ikon in Stuttgart in Western Germany, and Zeiss-Ikon in Dresden, East Germany.  By 1959, Zeiss-Ikon retained their name in Stuttgart, and the East German companies reorganized and became VEB Pentacon by 1964. We know them as just Pentacon, for the most part. Kamera Werkstatten (KW) was absorbed into VEB Pentacon, so the Praktica and Pentacon brands sort of intermingle, with each offering an M-42 mount SLR.  However, let me make this point.  While Zeiss-Ikon in Stuttgart was working on foisting the lens-shutter Contaflex SLR on photographers, the Contaflex was a dead-end, and very limited in lens choices.  The Praktica and the Pentacon M-42 mount SLRs with focal plane shutters became the de-facto standard for 35mm SLRs, with subsequent manufacturers adopting the same lens mount for at least 20 years.  Lens-shutter SLRs (and there were others besides the Contaflex, such as the Retina and Voigtlander Bessamatic) dropped by the wayside as SLRs with focal plane shutters became the standard into the digital era.

The Contax D and the Pentacon F are pretty much identical cameras.  They feature the same interesting shutter speed dial on the top deck, front-mounted shutter release, shutter speeds up to 1/1000 sec, and a PC flash socket on the top deck.  

They differ in the lenses that usually accompanied them.  In the case of the Contax D, it would have been a Zeiss Jena 50mm Biotar, and the Pentacon would likely have had a Meyer Primotar or Tessar 50mm. Today, finding one with the original "kit lens" is difficult, because those lenses by themselves are often worth more than the camera body. In addition, the fact that there are an incredible number of M-42 lenses means that these cameras have probably passed through many hands by now, and often with a different lens than the one it originally came with.

Using the Pentacon F

I have a lot of experience with M-42 mount SLRs, and the Pentacon F is easy to operate.  One thing that I had to do though, was find a proper take-up spool. The take-up spool in mine was missing - and I finally salvaged one from a broken Exa IIa.  The Pentcon F was lacking the original lens, and I ended up using a much newer 28mm M-42 lens, as well as a Vivitar 35mm f/3.5 Preset T-mount with an M-42 adapter.

Features:

Non-automatic mirror return.  That had to wait until Asahi Kokagu introduced it in 1954, and adopted later by other manufacturers.  You need to wind the film to lower the mirror for the next shot.  The camera uses a knurled film advance knob, not a wind lever.

Frame counter is on a ring below the advance knob.  

Auto-diaphragm - the camera will allow you to use an automatic aperture lens, that stops down at the moment of the shutter release.  You can also use pre-set lenses. For more information on those, see this post.

No light meter

No hot shoe, but PC flash port on top deck

Self-timer (even the Pentax K1000 does not have one)

Front mounted, angled shutter release with cable release threads

B, 1-1/1000 sec focal plane shutter.  You set the shutter speed by pushing down on the kurled knob just below the window and turn the knob clockwise to get the desired shutter speed to show up on the dial.  Pretty nifty.  There is a sliding switch on the back of the camera that determines which shutter speeds you select.  There are slow shutter speeds in red, and faster speeds in black on the dial. Pushing the switch to the left gives you a red arrow on the left of the speed dial to align the slow speeds with, and pushing the switch to the right gives you a black indicator arrow on the right side of the dial for faster shutter speed selection.  

Film rewind knob, no pop-out wind lever. 

Flash Sync speed - I don't know. There is no symbol to indicate the sync speed, nor is there a choice of X or FP sync, but some research indicates that it is a slow 1/10 sec.

There is a film release button for rewinding the film and a tripod socket on the bottom. 

There is a funny little flip-out bracket beneath the lens mount to keep the camera level on a table if you are doing selfies, I guess.

 

I loaded the Pentacon F with a roll of expired Polypan-F film, and used a hand-held meter as well as sunny-16 while I was shooting with it.  Overall, the camera performed perfectly, and my images were par for the course for a film like Polypan-F.  

Scanned on my Epson V700 Photo flat-bed scanner.

Overall, shooting with this camera was easy.  While it doesn't have the improvements of SLR bodies a decade later, it's not complicated, and has a very clean design.  It's certainly a throwback to the early days of 35mm SLRs, but once you figure out its quirks, you have access to a plethora of M-42 lenses that will work with it.

The OG Agfa Silette

Over the years, I have handled a few of Agfa’s 35mm cameras.  It’s a safe bet to say that many are not memorable, and like other German camera companies, their camera names  are often confusing, and seem to be variants of a few standard names, such as Isolette. Isoflash, Isola, Iso-Rapid, Isolar, Isoly, Isomat, and Isorette.  Or, it could be Silette. Super Silette, Solina, Super Solina, or Solinette.  In the case of the Silette, it was a series of metal-bodied 35mm cameras with scale focus, with a number of incremental changes in models dating from the original Silette (Type 1) which appeared in 1953, to the Silette LK Sensor, which was the last model, dating from 1973. According to McKeown’s 12th edition, there were 33 different Silette models.   I’ll be focusing on the model that I have, the Silette (Type 1) which was introduced in 1953 - 71 years ago!   That only seems like a long time when I think about it.

The Silette (Type 1) has a central viewfinder that sits above the 45mm Color-Apotar 45mm f/2.8 lens in a Pronto shutter.  The shutter speeds are B, 1/25, 1/50, 1/100 and 1/200 sec, and the lens apertures range from f/2.8 to f/16.  Close focus is just under 3 feet, and you set the focus by turning the front of the lens.  There is no rangefinder and no light meter.  The Silette models were designed to be low-cost but very usable 35mm cameras.  The Super Silette models have coupled rangefinders, and the design is otherwise similar to the Silette cameras produced at that time.  So, the Super Silette of 1955 looks very much like the Silette here.  The Super Silette LK  (1959) looks very much like the Silette LK of 1963.

My Silette came to me in pretty good condition, and still had a recent roll of Arista.edu Ultra 200 (Fomapan 200) loaded inside.  I finished the roll (about half) in the course of a few days, and then developed the film and scanned it on my Epson V700 scanner.  

Likes 

This is not a complicated camera.  It’s a very straightforward design that incorporates the controls around the rim of the lens, which is pretty standard for many cameras of that period.  There is no hot shoe for flash, but there is a cold shoe on top and a PC flash socket on the front of the camera.  I like the single-stroke film advance lever that sits flush with the rear of the camera.  The shutter will fire only if the film has been advanced.   The shutter button accepts a standard cable release.  The film counter advances upward as you wind.   There is a tripod socket on the bottom, and the rewind release is quite obvious.  The camera fits well in my hands.  It’s not terribly different from the Kodak Retinette models from the same era. 

Dislikes 

I’m not a fan of the small rear eyepiece of the viewfinder, as I wear glasses.  You have to manually reset the film counter after you are finished with the roll.  There are no strap lugs on the body.

Results from this camera

Overall, I was happy with my results.  Yes, this is a fairly simple 35mm camera, but it does a pretty decent job with what I was shooting.  If you can be as accurate as possible with your zone focusing, you’ll have good results.  I didn’t find the narrow range of shutter speeds to be a problem. For most films, this will be just fine.

The 2012 price list in McKeown’s catalog is $15-30, which probably has not changed much.  If I had the choice between the Silette  and a Kodak H35 plastic camera with a single shutter speed, the Silette would be the easy choice.  I see a range of Silettes sold on eBay, with final prices going from $10.50 to $50.00.  If you find one of these in working condition at a decent price, you’ll be pleased at how easy they are to use.