The Film Retriever

I got this camera for spare parts or repair but for the £2 I paid for it, i though that i could give it a try and repair it. The problem was a massive battery leak which caused it to stop working. Luckily, the battery compartment is held in place by 5 small screws, once removed, the whole battery department comes out as one piece. I placed it together with the battery holder inside a lunch box full of white vinegar and left it overnight. Next day i rinsed it with water and let it dry. I put it back on the camera and everything seems to be working fine! The Nikon F-301 was produced as a replacement of the aging Nikon FG. It featured a number of improvements which were hot stuff in the mid-80's and it resulted in good sales as an entry level Nikon. The F-301 inherited most of the features of the previous Nikon-FG and added an integrated winder that could advance the film up to 2.5 frames per second. The fit and finish of this camera is excellent. Top plate is pla...

So, recently I ended up having loads of spare time on my hands and thought about setting up a small project to keep me busy. I purchased an OM-to-EOS adapter and decided to put 4 lenses to a test. The Silvernose Zuiko 50 f/1.4, the "Made in Japan" Zuiko 50 f/1.8, the Zuiko 28 f/2.8 and the Canon EOS EF 50 f/1.8 . And this is what I did: The set up The idea is this: No lens test is ever valid/complete without taking pictures of newspapers on walls. Living my photographic life by that motto , I went along and put some newspaper on the wall, mounted the camera on a tripod and positioned it in a distance of 3 meters away. The camera (Canon EOS 10D) is a 6 megapixel camera, set up to fine quality JPEG and ISO 100. For focusing The main setup I used the camera's electronic focus confirmation with the Zuikos and AF with the Canon. The camera was set on aperture priority. For the 28mm lens, I moved the camera forward so that the ne...

This is a review for the Pentax Z-1. This is a friend's camera that stayed with my for 3 months during which I shot one film with it. The Pentax Z-1 came out in the (now) distant 1991 and it was a very innovative camera back at that time. I remember reading about this camera on the photographic press; it was marketed as the Top-of-the-line Pentax although it clearly lacked the modularity and the build quality of its predecessor, the Pentax LX. The LX was a modular system while the Z-1 was a high-end tier camera. It stayed in production for a total of 9 years, receiving an update in 1995 which added a few more features and a more responsive AF module but nothing else. As it is usually the case, cameras of that era (early 90's) are jam packed with useless features which impact on their usability. I suppose it was kind of way to make a camera sound very "high-tec" back at that time. The Z-1 is no exception, the user manual is a whooping 120 pages to...

This is a review of the Nikon N90s which is the same as the Nikon F90X in Europe. I came across this camera while I was browsing on that big auction site for a Nikon lens for the F4s. An online retailer was selling it for £23 including postage so I thought it would be silly to ignore it. The camera is in mint condition except from a small depression on the prism that has created a scratch. Everything else is shining new! Without going into too much details about the history of this model, the early 90's where still quite difficult for the AF Nikons as they where not the fastest systems around although they were offering backward compatibility with older lenses. In 1992, Nikon released the plain F90 which was an improvement over the older F-801s but still it wasn't a match for the Canons or Minoltas of that era. The F90x came in 1995 and placed Nikon back on the AF SLR map. It was the first Nikon with an AF module which was just as good - and at times better ...

The Nikon F-601 This a review for the Nikon F-601 that stayed with me a bit more than a month before I decided to sell it on. During the stay with me, I shot one film (Tri-X) so i am basing my review on that. I got this camera for the grand total of two pounds. Everything seemed to be working fine although the previous owner had moved on to digital and did not need it any more. First impressions when you pick up the camera are good. The camera is of a very nice size and all controls and buttons fall comfortably under my fingers. I also like the form of the camera, relatively thin and substantially well made, especially if you keep in mind that this was a mid-tier camera for the enthusiastic amateur. Fit and finish are wonderful, modern cameras can be taught a lot nowadays. Viewfinder is also very nice - bright and big - there is nothing to complain about. An uncluttered interface The camera offers everything that you need and nothing that you don't. There ...

 Since the beginning of my photographic journey, I always considered myself to be a Canon-ian. My first " real " camera was the EOS 5 which I still own and works perfectly fine after 17 years of moderate use. Then, when I started writing this blog, more and more cameras landed on my hands. I loved the Minoltas, the 9xi and XD-7 have been some of my favourites; and as the journey continued, the Pentax-es came along. The MX is just a magnificent camera; I would definitely include it within the TOP-10 best cameras ever made. Then there was the Olympus OM-1n, a camera that became instantly my main camera to use and love. But there were no Nikons. The only SLR's I used was the (below) average EM and my brother's F-801s. A half a year ago, a friend from rangefinderforum.com started a thread on the forum, seeking a camera aficionado who would like to give to a Nikon F4s a new home. After a few seconds of hesitation, I sent an email stating that ...

  This is an in-depth review of the Yashica FX-D Quartz. I based this review on various resources on the Internet and my personal experience of using this camera for the last two months. As it is usually the case, this camera is a car-boot sale find. The lady who sold it to me told me that I can have it for a pound since it was not working. Actually all it needed were new batteries. With the acquisition of Contax by the Kyocera Group back in the early 70's, Yashica and Contax started the production of very similar products for two very different client groups. Yashica focused in the production of cameras for the amateurs / enthusiasts while Contax focused in the production of hi-end cameras for the Pros. In line with this policy, both companies produced cameras that bear a big amount of similarities to the point of being named sister cameras, if not twin sisters. Think of the Contax RTS and the Yashica FR (reviewed on this blog). Both Contaxes and Yashicas bear...

I have to admit that sometimes I can come across as a quite dogmatic person. When i hold an opinion, i feel that it is the right one and it is very difficult to make me change my mind. At the same time, i seem to be easily persuaded sometimes which sounds like a contradiction itself. Those who read my blog have noticed it already, camera "A" is the best camera in the world" until I lay my hands on camera "B". Also statements like " This camera is a definite keeper " are usually followed by " I ended up selling it eventually ". The views i hold about servicing a camera (or CLA - Clean/Lubricate/Adjust) are pretty similar too - i have gone from one extreme (" No point servicing a camera ") to the other.   Before someone accusing me for inconsistency, let me first explain that it is quite the opposite - it allows me to be able to see the advantages and disadvantages of both views. And when i first started writing up ...

I am going to echo here something that I have already mentioned elsewhere on my blog. It is always, with a great surprise that I realise that the cameras/lenses that I always avoided, end up becoming my favourite ones. The Zuiko lenses are one of them (the Minoltas being the other ones). These few months that I ended up using the Olympus OM-1n with a couple of Zuikos i fell completely in love with them. Different production stages Now this is something that causes a bit of confusion to me. What i am going to write here is my understanding of what i read on the net. Please email me if you think that something is incorrect and i will try to set it straight. It seems that there are three different production stages with Zuiko lenses: a) The early, silver-nosed ones: Identifiable by the silver colour at the edge of the lens, on the place where you mount the filters. These lenses are single coated and some people on the net tend to avoid them as they ...