Hi to all APUG members. I have been reading posts on this site for the 12 months since I started a serious interest in film photography and decided to dive in and join. My wife has always been a keen photographer and her old Leicaflex SL2 was gathering dust with a broken battery terminal for the light meter. Some investigation on this site led me to the correct replacement battery and some liquid solder and a bit of ingenuity got it working again. 12 months on I have a nice collection of bargain cameras & lenses off eBay and Gumtree.
Keen to keep the costs down, I have taken a real interest in B&W film in Caffenol development and have got this working as a reliable developer with acceptable results for my beginner status. After bitter disappointment at the quality of the colour negs from the photo labs now I am going to jump into Tetenal colour developer as well.
Another challenging side interest I have taken on, and this will freak some members out, has been to build a digital back for old SLR's that does not damage them and keeps their usability and collector status as a complete film camera. I have achieved this with my first prototype on a very well worn Nikon FE. It does take excellent colour digital but I can remove the IR filter and it takes even better B&W infrared with 2 stops more light available. I am not really into colour digital at all, however this camera is a challenge to use but has some great results in infrared and needs the fine manual adjustments of the Nikon FE to get the light accurate in the infrared. There is a youtube link in my signature below.
As I near retirement my plan is to get a lot more into film photography and build a darkroom for printing. This is where I will be looking through APUG archives for the right gear and printing advice. Lots to learn and looking forward to working with the APUG community.
Robin.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/142208709@N08/albums
Keen to keep the costs down, I have taken a real interest in B&W film in Caffenol development and have got this working as a reliable developer with acceptable results for my beginner status. After bitter disappointment at the quality of the colour negs from the photo labs now I am going to jump into Tetenal colour developer as well.
Another challenging side interest I have taken on, and this will freak some members out, has been to build a digital back for old SLR's that does not damage them and keeps their usability and collector status as a complete film camera. I have achieved this with my first prototype on a very well worn Nikon FE. It does take excellent colour digital but I can remove the IR filter and it takes even better B&W infrared with 2 stops more light available. I am not really into colour digital at all, however this camera is a challenge to use but has some great results in infrared and needs the fine manual adjustments of the Nikon FE to get the light accurate in the infrared. There is a youtube link in my signature below.
As I near retirement my plan is to get a lot more into film photography and build a darkroom for printing. This is where I will be looking through APUG archives for the right gear and printing advice. Lots to learn and looking forward to working with the APUG community.
Robin.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/142208709@N08/albums