A few weeks ago, while cleaning out a relatives home we found a old film camera, a Minolta X 370.
This camera had some film in, that I estimated based on the film in the bag, to be about 30 years old.
I had them developed and some of the photos were closed to 20 years old. I won’t share that just because I didn’t take the pictures and they are more family oriented.
So that camera is manual focus and manual aperture. That was a pretty different experience for me as I had also used DSLR. The view finder had features that would allow you to focus that a AF camera wouldn’t have. But I will spare the details of that just so people won’t complain about me being too old.
So naturally I start by taking pictures of the dogs.
The noise/graininess in the image was pretty surprising given that for my t6i 800 won’t have noticeable noise and the 6d can push that even more.
Also it forced me to notice my exposure way more.
The light meter in the view finder just give what stop of shutter to pick and I only have 1 stop of adjustment on shutter or aperture.
The two above pictures show that it can be difficult to get the focus right, especially when shooting at max aperture (f/2 in case) because the light is so low.
The metering in the camera isn’t well defined like you can get on modern dslr (point metering vs evaluative, vs partial) so in situations like this with the very dark and very bright parts of the image, i didn’t know how it would turn out.
Without meta data I don’t remember what I did for these. But I am happy how they came out.
The first one was the 3rd attempt at getting focus right on that jumping dog.
Also shows the limits of the lens I had. I hadn’t yet tried the 35-135 but that isn’t easier to focus.
Since I discovered what IS (image stabilization) was I have been getting lazy. I was very happy when I was able to capture a usable image while hand held (and leaning on a railing) at up to 1/8th a second exposure (and not on a wide angle), but that laziness is biting me. The 1/focal length rule is hard to follow when you have had as much play room as 3 stops.
The first image isn’t out of focus, I just wasn’t able to hold the camera.
The second was taken right after. I believe with a stop less shutter because it is a darker image. Also probably a steadier position.
These ones were better. I think me laying on the ground to take them and the subject being white and there for bright helps.
These photos were a bit more opportunistic photo and made me miss auto focus even more.
I seemed to be getting for these last few.
A photo I managed to get of Emily without her wrecking, included for her parents. HI!
Emily’s new Snake, Luu.
I wanted to get some pics of him and uses up the last of the film before taking it to get developed.
The dark ones were just two dark, once we moved outside it got better. We put him in the grass and my ability to focus went away.
A few pictures of Duke with that artistic film grain. I am surprised how they came out given its the same light as the snake pictures above.
Also bonus Emily.
Last ones I wasn’t sure where the counter pointed at. Ended up with an even more pretentious meta artistic photo.