Showing posts with label Nikkormat FTn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nikkormat FTn. Show all posts
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Monday, January 28, 2013
Introduction to the Nikkormat FTn: Video 1 of 2
Here is part one of the Nikkormat FTn video series. Nikon built the FTn as a complement to the professional-level F models. These durable camera introduced many Nikon users to the Nikon professional camera lineup and accompanied many professionals as backup bodies.
Made mostly of metal components, these mechanical cameras, through each of our senses, convey solidness. The weight and substance, feel, response, sound, and even smell tell the users that these are serious cameras for serious users.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
FTN... and Then?
The Nikkormat FTN is a great camera. I'm lucky enough to have two, I may have mentioned before. Both need a bit of work, but this one has good light seals. And the 50mm 1:2 Nikkor lens is a very sharp lens that I don't use often enough. So here are some photos taken with the Nikkor lens and the FTN.
Boo.
Red's Java House
Ron Paul is still hanging on, or at least his sticker is.
Hopefully it isn't supposed to have a cap.
Boo.
Red's Java House
Ron Paul is still hanging on, or at least his sticker is.
Hopefully it isn't supposed to have a cap.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Did Nikon Intend FTN to be an Acronym?
Instead of taking the F3 out last Friday, I decided to finish off the partial roll in the Nikkormat FTN from two weeks ago. This is with my 43-86mm Nikkor lens and Ilford Delta 100. In exchange, I took the F3 out on Saturday and will have a special installment resulting from that trip every Saturday until May. I didn't track this roll's exposure data, so today we'll dispatch with the commentary and have only photos.
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Monday, February 20, 2012
Better Weather Makes Better Photographs
Back in December I visited a Griffin Statue in SOMA at 8th and Townsend. The statue is in a traffic circle island on a pedestal. I thought it was pretty neat. That is until this past Wednesday when I saw an identical one in Walnut Creek. Oh yes. It's a mass-produced concrete griffin. The one in Walnut Creek, as you will see tomorrow, even has a fountain.
Anyway, here is a link to my trip there in December: SOMA Near Mission and Hayes Valley. Now, here are photos from this trip. Same film, I believe, as before, but a different camera and lens combination. These were taken with a Nikkormat FTN, one of my two copies of this camera. This one works better than the other -- the light seals are fine and it's less fidgety. Specifically, the other one I have to hit with fair gusto before the film advance lever operates following a shot. This one need a smack, but only when it has film inside and at that it does not require much force. However, I'll be keeping both copies as these are great cameras.
To open, here's a shot from last December, taken with my Nikon F3.
Here's a similar shot from this trip, other side of the statue, with the Nikkormat and 105mm Nikkor-P.
1/500th, f22. This shoot had some advantages over the other:
1- The weather was sunny, which provided nice lighting and contrast. In December, the sky was overcast with drizzle, which muted shadows and forced longer exposures. This caused some camera blur.
2- The developer used for the previous batch had exceeded it's 16-roll limit without replenisher being added. This caused the developer to work with less quality than this recent shoot. The December shoot's developer caused excessive grainyness and detail loss. This was much better. Compare the shots -- this is the same film.
1/1,000th, f16. This shot brings out a number of the statues details. Again, good lighting and fresh chemicals prevent the statue from looking it it just received an acid bath.
1/500th, f22. One final shot of this statue. It's a nice piece and I imagine you could probably order one for each side of your driveway, front door, or swimming pool if you wanted.
1/1000th, f11. Scallop detail. Mmmmmmm. Scallops.
1/1,000th, f11. Uh oh! Lunch time's over!
You can see the difference between this photo, taken in December, and the one above. Again, better lighting and chemical quality produce better results.
So, today's lessons:
1- Always keep chemicals fresh
2- Keep developer properly replenished or replace it if there's no replenisher available.
3- Lighting is vital
Anyway, here is a link to my trip there in December: SOMA Near Mission and Hayes Valley. Now, here are photos from this trip. Same film, I believe, as before, but a different camera and lens combination. These were taken with a Nikkormat FTN, one of my two copies of this camera. This one works better than the other -- the light seals are fine and it's less fidgety. Specifically, the other one I have to hit with fair gusto before the film advance lever operates following a shot. This one need a smack, but only when it has film inside and at that it does not require much force. However, I'll be keeping both copies as these are great cameras.
To open, here's a shot from last December, taken with my Nikon F3.
Here's a similar shot from this trip, other side of the statue, with the Nikkormat and 105mm Nikkor-P.
1/500th, f22. This shoot had some advantages over the other:
1- The weather was sunny, which provided nice lighting and contrast. In December, the sky was overcast with drizzle, which muted shadows and forced longer exposures. This caused some camera blur.
2- The developer used for the previous batch had exceeded it's 16-roll limit without replenisher being added. This caused the developer to work with less quality than this recent shoot. The December shoot's developer caused excessive grainyness and detail loss. This was much better. Compare the shots -- this is the same film.
1/1,000th, f16. This shot brings out a number of the statues details. Again, good lighting and fresh chemicals prevent the statue from looking it it just received an acid bath.
1/500th, f22. One final shot of this statue. It's a nice piece and I imagine you could probably order one for each side of your driveway, front door, or swimming pool if you wanted.
1/1000th, f11. Scallop detail. Mmmmmmm. Scallops.
1/1,000th, f11. Uh oh! Lunch time's over!
You can see the difference between this photo, taken in December, and the one above. Again, better lighting and chemical quality produce better results.
So, today's lessons:
1- Always keep chemicals fresh
2- Keep developer properly replenished or replace it if there's no replenisher available.
3- Lighting is vital
Monday, January 30, 2012
Shipspotting
I took the FTN out last Tuesday to see if it had bad light seals or the roll of film I'd previously used in it had a flaw. This camera needs new light seals, and I have to order the material for that this week. It may be a fun how-to blog to share the repair process for that.
For added contrast, I used a red filter. That darkened the sky and lightened all the reds. The results weren't too shabby.
1/1000th at f22. Darkened the sky a bit with the gamma function. The best shot from this roll, I think.
1/1000th at f22. It would have been great had the bird been facing me, but regardless there's not tons to be mad about here. I cloned the left side and dropped it on the right. This preserved the original image and repaired damage caused by the light leak.
1/1000th at f22. Darkened the sky a bit to correct some over-exposure. There's a horizontal line going across the image, a bit wavy. I left it in. That's a stratline and results from dirt in the film cassette felt or a burr on the camera body where the film crosses, among other causes. Those causes both result in perfectly straight stratlines, though. I'm not sure what caused this as I didn't touch the negative until after it dried. And at that, didn't touch the emulsion. If it happens again, it will warrant further investigation.
1/500th f11. A different kind of bird.
1/1000th, f22. Very grainy. The developer was, I think, past its usable lifespan.
1/500th, f16. Here you can see mild damage caused by the light leak. On many images, this was substantially worse.
1/250th, f22. Another image damaged by light leak, so I had to again clone the left side and put it on the right.
For added contrast, I used a red filter. That darkened the sky and lightened all the reds. The results weren't too shabby.
1/1000th at f22. Darkened the sky a bit with the gamma function. The best shot from this roll, I think.
1/1000th at f22. It would have been great had the bird been facing me, but regardless there's not tons to be mad about here. I cloned the left side and dropped it on the right. This preserved the original image and repaired damage caused by the light leak.
1/1000th at f22. Darkened the sky a bit to correct some over-exposure. There's a horizontal line going across the image, a bit wavy. I left it in. That's a stratline and results from dirt in the film cassette felt or a burr on the camera body where the film crosses, among other causes. Those causes both result in perfectly straight stratlines, though. I'm not sure what caused this as I didn't touch the negative until after it dried. And at that, didn't touch the emulsion. If it happens again, it will warrant further investigation.
1/500th f11. A different kind of bird.
1/1000th, f22. Very grainy. The developer was, I think, past its usable lifespan.
1/500th, f16. Here you can see mild damage caused by the light leak. On many images, this was substantially worse.
1/250th, f22. Another image damaged by light leak, so I had to again clone the left side and put it on the right.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Nikkormat FTN and a Vintage 135
My Nikkormat FTn is my heaviest film SLR coming in at a weighty 745 grams (1.642 pounds) and it feels every gram of it around my neck -- especially with a heavy 135mm pre-AI lens. I love the FTn for its old-school feel, all-metal construction and reliability, aesthetic appeal, and ability to use all my Nikon lenses (except the one missing the rabbit ears.) The lens I used on 12-27 for this outing was a Nikkor-Q 135mm f3.5 to f22 medium telephoto. The Nikkormat has two problems -- the light meter is dead and the film advance lever doesn't exactly work.
What I mean by the latter is that after tripping the shutter, I have to hit the camera's underside below the film take-up spool to advance the lever. That's not haw it's supposed to work, but for some reason the lever locks. I suspect that the gears have gummed with age because when I bought the camera I had to hit it with decent force five to ten times to unlock the lever. Now I have to give it a solid, single smack. I accomplished this progress by running the equivalent of five rolls of 36 exposure film through it. No film, just shutter actuations, smacks, and advances. Over the span of a few hours, the problem lessened. Before I use the camera again I plan to inject some lighter fluid into the mechanism to loosen any old grease.
I knew about those issues going into the day but discovered, on processing the negatives, that the camera also has a light leak. It's minor, a pinhole, and it only affected some negatives. I correlated the negatives with the issue to the ones that sat the longest between exposures, indicating that the light leak is near the hinge, probably resulting from missing and degraded light-proof batting along the hinge.
So the camera needs some repairs. The lens, too, needs some repairs. Under the first element group there's a dust haze around the element's perimeter. It's visible, but I was unsure if it would affect image quality. I'll let you decide.
For film, I used Kodak TMax 400 ISO and a yellow filter. Also, with the exception of the crane photograph, all of these shots are almost straight out of the camera. The crane needed some additional gamma correction to correct for 'flatness' my scanner sometimes causes. The rest received nothing more than automatic contrast balancing.
This is one of numerous mythology-based sculptures above a building in SOMA. If you're ever at AT&T Park, look across the street between the Willie Mays entrance and the Second Street Muni stop. They're great sculptures and I hope to come back with a better lens to photograph them all for a later blog post.
Speaking of AT&T Park, here is it. There's a wharf and construction area south of the stadium and I had the opportunity to walk around there when I had the FTn out. The park framed up nicely in the 135mm. For those of you math nerds out there, this image takes up about 92% of the frame. The 135mm lens has an 18-degree cone. The 12 visible seating areas along the top have a rofline linear distance of 413.66 feet. How far was I from the stadium?
Cranes amaze me. Delicately balanced, incredibly strong. The engineering behind crane design seems impenetrably complicated and difficult. But, get two cranes in the same picture and there's an opportunity for something interesting. With luck I'll have more, better crane photographs at some point.
Monochrome photography lends itself to photos that in color would be less visually interesting. In color, this would be a rock with some light shining through tree branches. In monochrome, it presents an interplay of contrasts, tones and shades layering on rocky textures. Monochrome photography lends itself well to impressionistic photos and interpretations. That was my aim with this photo.
It's a garbage can's shadow on rocks, for the same reason as the above photo. It's not as good, I don't think, but there's something there which may warrant a reinvestigation in the future.
My last photo for this post, I liked how this building's windows mostly all became different tones in monochrome. I remember some variation in color, but not this much.
I'm not sure if I've linked you to my Picasa album before. It has all the photos I take and upload -- those I feature in my blog and others which I don't. It also has photos from last year. Check it out and leave me comments and be sure to like the photos you appreciate. I'm happy to try and take more photos like the ones people like.
https://picasaweb.google.com/102333270936007447976
What I mean by the latter is that after tripping the shutter, I have to hit the camera's underside below the film take-up spool to advance the lever. That's not haw it's supposed to work, but for some reason the lever locks. I suspect that the gears have gummed with age because when I bought the camera I had to hit it with decent force five to ten times to unlock the lever. Now I have to give it a solid, single smack. I accomplished this progress by running the equivalent of five rolls of 36 exposure film through it. No film, just shutter actuations, smacks, and advances. Over the span of a few hours, the problem lessened. Before I use the camera again I plan to inject some lighter fluid into the mechanism to loosen any old grease.
I knew about those issues going into the day but discovered, on processing the negatives, that the camera also has a light leak. It's minor, a pinhole, and it only affected some negatives. I correlated the negatives with the issue to the ones that sat the longest between exposures, indicating that the light leak is near the hinge, probably resulting from missing and degraded light-proof batting along the hinge.
So the camera needs some repairs. The lens, too, needs some repairs. Under the first element group there's a dust haze around the element's perimeter. It's visible, but I was unsure if it would affect image quality. I'll let you decide.
For film, I used Kodak TMax 400 ISO and a yellow filter. Also, with the exception of the crane photograph, all of these shots are almost straight out of the camera. The crane needed some additional gamma correction to correct for 'flatness' my scanner sometimes causes. The rest received nothing more than automatic contrast balancing.
This is one of numerous mythology-based sculptures above a building in SOMA. If you're ever at AT&T Park, look across the street between the Willie Mays entrance and the Second Street Muni stop. They're great sculptures and I hope to come back with a better lens to photograph them all for a later blog post.
Speaking of AT&T Park, here is it. There's a wharf and construction area south of the stadium and I had the opportunity to walk around there when I had the FTn out. The park framed up nicely in the 135mm. For those of you math nerds out there, this image takes up about 92% of the frame. The 135mm lens has an 18-degree cone. The 12 visible seating areas along the top have a rofline linear distance of 413.66 feet. How far was I from the stadium?
Cranes amaze me. Delicately balanced, incredibly strong. The engineering behind crane design seems impenetrably complicated and difficult. But, get two cranes in the same picture and there's an opportunity for something interesting. With luck I'll have more, better crane photographs at some point.
Monochrome photography lends itself to photos that in color would be less visually interesting. In color, this would be a rock with some light shining through tree branches. In monochrome, it presents an interplay of contrasts, tones and shades layering on rocky textures. Monochrome photography lends itself well to impressionistic photos and interpretations. That was my aim with this photo.
It's a garbage can's shadow on rocks, for the same reason as the above photo. It's not as good, I don't think, but there's something there which may warrant a reinvestigation in the future.
My last photo for this post, I liked how this building's windows mostly all became different tones in monochrome. I remember some variation in color, but not this much.
I'm not sure if I've linked you to my Picasa album before. It has all the photos I take and upload -- those I feature in my blog and others which I don't. It also has photos from last year. Check it out and leave me comments and be sure to like the photos you appreciate. I'm happy to try and take more photos like the ones people like.
https://picasaweb.google.com/102333270936007447976
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