I buy, sell, test, and review a lot of them here: analog.cafe/analogue-camer… . I consider myself a knowledgeable, diligent buyer. But I’m also a bit of a cheap-ass, which had, unfortunately, cost me hundreds in $$$ and weeks of lost time.
Many of my cheap camera copies from eBay do not work as described. The sellers refunded me, but I won’t get the time and fees it took to receive the cameras back.
I think I’ll need to adjust my buying strategies. 🤔
I own the previous Praktica SLR- the MTL3, which is the first SLR I have used as an adult, after decades of using a Rolleicord and a Speed Graphic. I bought the accessory viewfinder, had the camera CLA’d, and bought three FSU lenses for it. I love how simple and reliable the camera is, and the “thunk” of the metal shutter is not so bad. There’s a service place in New Jersey that has fast turnaround. My camera came back to me looking new.
A few weeks ago met someone who knows you from Softgrain Press. Nice to know there are still analogue people in the greater Vancouver area.
In answer to your questions, (a) hard to pick a favourite camera as I love and use the ones I have. If pressed for one I would probably have to say, my Toyo 45 AII. As for summer plans, I’m hoping to visit family and continue blitzing the prairies in search of grain elevators and other prairie architecture before it all disappears!
Here’s another shot with ORWO Wolfen NC 500 in my Voigtländer Vitessa A ( analog.cafe/r/voigtlander-… ). It appears to preserve highlights very well and captures the mood of cloudy weather well. I want to try exposing this film at EI 200 and 100 to see if that could deliver better results than box speed.
I’ve been testing ORWO Wolfen NC 500 for months, trying to understand how to use this film best. It demonstrated promising results in promotional samples ( analog.cafe/r/film-photogr… ) and in some examples mentioned by other reviewers.
But the testers’ feedback is very inconsistent — this film seems to have impressed them at one point and disappointed at another.
This film seems to shine in specific light/scenes/applications.
I’ve got results that looked like expired Portra: excellent skin tone reproduction with chunky grain and low saturation. Hoping to find a strategy to make the most of this film consistenly.
I’ll test another roll and publish my results soon.
A friend noted to me that this film usually looks quite muddy to him and suggested I see for myself using a simulator for Green-Weak Deuteronomaly. And so, I did just that.
Seems like most of the turquoise is not there in the simulation, which takes away from this film’s calling card 😅.
But the image of the UPS truck I tried looked very close to how I see it, with the slight exception that the trees in the background are a little starker for me (maybe by about 20%).
I’ve also noticed that the blues of Turquoise I see are starker in the simulation, making it appear as a strange kind of sepia.
CineStill films can sometimes come out looking green from the scanner. In my workflow ( analog.cafe/r/how-to-scan-… ), they almost always need some slight adjustment to look right.
But sometimes, the film’s tendency to show a particular green cast can be nice. I think the colour in this photo looks just right: no edits are needed.
I use Super Lube synthetic grease for parts that aren’t inside the shutter. I usually leave shutters alone as they may have very specific lubricants, sometimes multiple types.
I was able to get into it and clean it and it‘s now back to working order! Yay! But I have a question on what type of lubricant or grease is acceptable to use for this camera. Do you have any suggestions?
This is what the green blotches looked like after I scanned the film in question (definite light leaks).
And this is the guide I wrote recently that I’d be using to fix my Olympus PEN FV’s light leaks: analog.cafe/r/how-to-repla…
Though I’ve had plenty of experience seeing and identifying light leaks in scanned negatives, I’m still relatively new to film development, and thus, I blamed my chemistry and the home-lab techniques first.
What do light leaks look like on colour film negatives?
A few days back, I pulled my film from my home-developing tank to find prominent green blotches across several frames. They were shot on my daily-use camera, which I knew had no light leaks until then, so the first suspect was my possibly-bad agitation technique or improper film loading onto the Patterson reels.
OH MY GOSH THANK YOU! I didn’t even see them, they were covered in dirt and grime and I thought they were painted dots for the settings. I was looking at the back and couldn’t figure out how to get in there. Thank you for all the helpful information, your article was wonderful. :) I’ll be back if I have more questions
The way I got in there was through the lens at the front of the camera. There are three tiny screws there. Once you open them up, you can get through the layers to the shutter and, if I remember correctly, the rest of the inner camera workings.
It’s totally stuck, I believe it’s just dirty. I am comfortable taking things apart and putting them back together but I can’t figure out how to start on this camera to get in there to clean it.
Welta’s shutter mechanism is relatively simple, so if you’re comfortable with taking your camera apart and have experience doing similar things, you can explore it. But I don’t have a definitive answer for you — sorry!
These shutters rely exclusively on the mechanical action of pressing down the button (as opposed to a loaded string on other cameras), so it could just be gunked up a bit.
Does it work on slower speeds for you, like 1/30th or bulb?
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