Cameras

Introduction to Photography

I started in digital, with a Nikon D7100 I played around with for years before film ever entered the picture. Film came in sideways, through disposable cameras on holiday, then a cheap reloadable one from Amazon when disposables stopped feeling worth it. Somewhere in there my nan gave me two of my grandad's old cameras: a Nikon F50 film SLR, and later an Olympus XA2. I sat on the F50 for a year or two before I actually loaded film into it.

Venturing Into Film Photography

What kept me in film wasn't nostalgia, it was the limit. Twenty-four to thirty-six frames on a trip forces you to be selective in a way digital never does, and I've found I'm more present on holiday because I'm not constantly reaching for a camera. The limiting factor turned out to be the freeing part.

Oops!

It hasn't been trouble-free. A couple of rolls through the Olympus came back glowing white, almost like a scene lit from inside. Fungus had grown between the lens elements. I bought hydrochloric acid, found a teardown manual, and cleaned the lens assembly myself. The F50 had its own fault: a secondary mirror used for autofocus had come unglued after decades, and a repair shop wouldn't touch it since the labor would cost more than the camera was worth. That didn't matter to me, it was my grandad's camera. I took the mirror assembly apart and reglued it properly myself.

This set mixes a blurry, fungus-damaged frame from the Olympus before the repair, a couple of clean shots from the restored F50, and one digital frame from the original D7100, three cameras, two repairs, and one thread running through all of it.