- Messages
- 12,294
- Name
- Brian
- Edit My Images
- Yes
Just dug my Praktica out and looks like one battery, and I get my batteries from here http://www.smallbattery.company.org.uk/sbc_lr9.htm £1.70 each or two for £1.50 each with free delivery.
35mm Camera Choice
- Thread starter paulkane1
- Start date
Just dug my Praktica out and looks like one battery, and I get my batteries from here http://www.smallbattery.company.org.uk/sbc_lr9.htm £1.70 each or two for £1.50 each with free delivery.
- Messages
- 11,730
- Name
- Chris
- Edit My Images
- Yes
Might be worth mentioning first of all that there are three different types of film available today. The commonest is colour negative film, also known by the shorthand C41 (which refers to the chemistry involved). Often benefits from a bit of exposure, most easily achieved by setting the ISO dial on your light meter to a lower number than the "box speed" (eg I expose 400 ISO colour film as if it was 320 or 250; some would go to 200 or lower). C41 is the easiest to get processed, pretty much anywhere that does processing will develop C41 (Boots, Snappy Snaps, Max Spielmann, some ASDAs, and all the better quality labs mentioned in the Film Developing in the UK thread). IMHO it's much better to get the professionals to scan this as there is some complicated magic involved in inverting from negative to positive, because of the orange cast of the underlying film. I can scan this myself, but the colour inversion never works out as well as when the pros do it. My preferred lab is Filmdev, who will process and give a decent "medium" scan (enough to print 6*9 or larger; works fine for A4 for me) for £5 and do a great job. It's also possible to process C41 film at home, but it's a bit more finicky than proper black and white; temperature is more critical and it needs to be kept at nearly 30 Celsius, which is a bit of a pain.
One slight wrinkle: there are 2 black and white films which, oddly, are based on C41 colour chemistry and can also be developed anywhere. These are Ilford XP2 and Fuji Neopan 400CN, both 400 ISO and quite nice films.
The other type of colour film is variously known as slide film, transparency film, or reversal film; the short hand for it is E6. As far as I know at present there is only one manufacturer, Fuji, who supply a couple of basic types, Provia and Velvia. Agfa and maybe others sell rebadged versions. This film tends to be slower (50-100 ISO), more expensive to buy, processing is often more expensive, and exposure is more critical. Fewer places will process it. Home processing is possible, but AFAIK even fewer people actually do it themselves.
Then there's "proper" black and white film of which there are many makers, types and speeds, from 50 ISO to 1600 ISO and higher. It's only50 years or so since this was by far the most common film type. Many people who use film cameras will process their own black and white films. OTOH it's more difficult and often more expensive to get it processed by a lab. All High St outlets and some pro labs don't offer proper black and white processing (so one more reason to do you own... it's also MUCH cheaper once you are all set up with the gear). Of course if you develop your own film, you will have to scan it to upload it to your computer, unless you want to build your own darkroom, get an enlarger and do your own "wet" printing!
So I would suggest starting out with colour negative C41 film. For testing cameras etc, use Agfa Vista 200 from Poundland. You can get several films from Boots on a permanent buy on get one half price deal which means they work out at around £6 per roll. You can get them cheaper online but you need to add delivery. For your quality shots, Portra 400 is highly recommended but is a pro film only available in 5 packs. For black and white I'd start with XP2 (a C41-based film), which you can buy from Boots and get processed anywhere.
For fast moving subjects like grandchildren, specially inside, go for higher ISO films. 400 ISO is the highest commonly available, but there are 800 and 1600 ISO films around. I have no experience of them, but some people love Portra 800 (but it's expensive!).
Finally, you might find the nifty price estimator for film developing useful...
Teflon-Mike
Suspended / Banned
- Messages
- 1,076
- Name
- Mike
- Edit My Images
- Yes
Technically possible you may be able to get a Nikon F to M42 screw adaptor to mount Nikon lenses to the Practika, but they wont work.
The Nikon AF lenses are electronic; the aperture in the lens is set through the electronic contacts from the camera body. The Praktica body you have doesn't have the electronics or buttons to 'tell' the lens what aperture to set. Meanwhile, the DX lens is designed for an APS-C sized sensor; it projects the image onto a focal plane 24x16mm square, 35mm film has a frame 36x24mm square; so the image you would get would possibly be 'ok' in the middle, 2/3, but the boarder around it, would either not get any image, or what it got would be distorted or fading to black.
Not really. batteries are differint sizes and shapes as well as voltages. Battery has to physically fit in the camera's housing for it, as well as supply the correct voltage.
625 battery, is a 'mushroom cell', it's a more curious shape with a large diameter top and smaller diameter bottom. They are not enormousely expensive; and they usually last decades; just buy the right one.
There's bludger all electronics in the MTL5; the battery only powers the view finder light meter, when you pull in the meter trigger. The rest of the camera's operation {AFAIR} is all mechanical, worked by springs and things when you twidle knobs or levers. And you can work the camera without a battery at all, if you meter by eye or hand held meter or another camera to decide what settings to use.
You have to open the film canister in total darkness...
Rather hard to make a you-tube video in the dark, isn't it?
I suspect that the commentary probably explained this and told you to do what they showed inside a light tight 'changing bag'.
Depends what you want to shoot!
'Standard' film used to be 100ASA, which is fine in good day light, but can beg larger apertures or flash indoors. 400ASA, was commonly used if you were shooting 'action' and wanted to keep shutter speeds higher; 800ASA or higher, was never very common, and tended to be rather expensive; but would be used for low light situations, say indoor action like a rock-gig where you cant really use flash.
Most people used 100ASA for 'everything', though as that's what you usually got in the beach side kiosks or in the local convenience shop, though that was often becoming 200ASA towards the end of the 9o's.
Basically this is where the 'difference' starts; you don't seven stops worth of have 'on the button' variable ISO up to 6400ASA plus 'boost' settings! You have to balance your exposure with what you got on shutter and aperture alone; which in some ways makes the job a bit 'easier', but at the same time, demands a bit more thought and more planning, starting long before the shoot, in choosing your film.
Legion!
As with the DX lens answer; your Practika is a full frame camera, the effective 'reach' of long lenses isn't magnified by a crop factor; so a 300mm lens on it wont have the same subject magnification as on a DX digital, it will give the same sort of framing as a 200mm lens on digital.
There were in the era some relatively popular Centon branded 'mirror' lenses, that offered 'big reach', ISTR 300mm, 500mm 1000mm, but construction of a mirror lens means you don't have a variable aperture, you have to balence your exposure purely on the shutter speed. ISTR that the 500mm was a fixed f4, and the more popular as it was the better compromise, offering that much 'extra' reach over the 300mm, and less restrictive aperture than the 1000mm, But the mirror construction has some curious side effects by way of haloing and 'donut' high lights. they are compact though, and were popular with birders, often with a 1.5 or 2x teleconverter.
Teleconverters were common too, on conventional lenses, but magnifying focal length, they change the 'effective aperture' settings of the lens. f-stop is a ratio, basically focal length divided by aperture diameter; so if you use a 2x converter, it doubles the focal length and drops the f-stop setting by a stop.
Zoom's were not particularly popular in M42 fitting. It is one of the older lens mounts for 35mm, and as such, was usually to allow different primes to be attached, when there were no zoom lenses. Later, when zooms started to offer variable focal lengths without swapping lenses, there was a lot of snobery that they were 'wobbly glass', with elements moving around inside the lens; And one of the reasons M42 retained favor was that its screw mounting was that much more 'rigid' than later quick-fit bayonet mounts; so why diminish that advantage with a wobbly glass zoom. M42 fit zooms didn't really appear until the end of the age, when the Practika and Zenits were being sold as 'cheap' entry level kits, and zoom lenses were more fashionable on higher end SLR's, hence most M42 zooms that exist were not great, and were usually very cheaply made to be sold with a Practika or Zenit in an 'all you ever need' kit.
So again, back to the questions, of what you hope to get out of your foray into film; and do you want the convenience of variable focal length lenses, as you are probably accustomed to in digital, or do you want to keep it 'traditional' and work with fixed primes?
Personally, I am in the latter camp, for 'convenience' I shoot digital and save ALL the faff of film, and my DSLR has shifted into the camera bag where my old Olympus OM's lives, with their winders, zoom lenses and other accessories.
My 'all-prime' M42 screw 'outfit' comprises of my Sigma MK1 camera; a 'standard' Ziess 50mm, a 29mm Pentacon wide angle, a Hanimex 135 'short' telephoto/portrait lens, a Prinz Galaxy 300mm, 'long telephoto' and a Panomar 12mm fish-eye (Re-mounted to M42 from OM fit), plus a 2x and 3x teleconverter. The Sigma & Ziess fell out of someones loft many many decades ago, and was given to me for helping them do the 'tip-run', because they didn't know what to do with it, and as I was 'in' to photography was presumed must! A lovely camera, and wonderful lens, I started picking up M42 lenses to fit it, rummaging through the bargain buckets in the camera shops when I went in for film, building up an 'all prime' outfit around it for 'pocket money fun. As such, those lenses represent the ones that have 'stuck' in the camera bag, as the ones I have kept, and cover pretty much the full range you could have in M42. The teleconverters are little used, as is the 300. At f5.6 its a fairly fast long tele-photo, and the teleconverters can stretch that out to the equivalent of 600mm, with the 2x, 900mmwith the 3x and a telescope like 1800mm with both! So as much or more as any of the common mirror lenses.
Telephoto 'primes' though are a tricky thing to get used to using; if you are used to longer reach 'zooms', you will probably start by composing at the wide end, then zooming 'in' onto your subject. You cant do that with a prime; you are looking at that VERY narrow angle of view from the off; and with such a narrow field of view, you can spend a lot of time tracking around the scene trying to 'find' your subject, and then more, trying to hold it in the frame... more of that 'involvement'.
As such, more common tele-photo lengths were 165mm, 180mm or perhaps 250mm, and I would suggest that starting out, you kerb some of the ambition, and stick to more moderate lens lengths in this sub 200mm region, until you realise you really DO need anything longer, and can use it. And a 135 'portrait' lens is as good a place to start as any, and there are plenty about, and for not much money.
As prior comments; I would offer suggestion that rather than hunting out a wide angle prime in M42 fit for the Practika, for land-scapes and 'people'; you might like to consider something like the Minox 35 or Olympus XA2, that wont cost much if any more, and wont take up any more space in the camera bag.
I would also be somewhat sanguine about investing too much, at all, in M42 right now. I acquired a Practika to get the lenses that were offered with it at one point. As little more than a holder for the film, it's as useful as any other body by and large; but it was not the nicest to use, and I never got on with what was widely considered to be 'quirky' handling with strangely placed shutter release and trigger meter button. But in your situation, it's likely if your foray into film leads you to expand your activities, you will, and more likely sooner rather than later, want a 'better' camera, and likelihood is that will beg swapping 'system'.
As to brands and models and all that? Don't sweat the small-stuff! Here and now the limiting factor will undoubtedly not be your equipment, but your skill using it. Of your kit, the next weak link, will most likely be your film stock. Scanning twenty years worth of film, it's the one thing that I regret not spending the 'extra' on.. as a student, in order to take ANY photo's and capture all the events I did, I tended to buy rather nasty cheap Jessops 'own' brand croatian Konica copy stock, in bulk lengths home loaded into canisters, and developed at home. Buying 400ASA as a 'do-it-all' emulsion, in B&W and Slide, I would then rate that at anything between 100ASA and 1600ASA in the camera, and then 'pull' or 'push' process it, which didn't do very much to help image quality!! But I got pictures I wouldn't have otherwise, at least.
For you, hoping to home develop your own photo's; likewise; 'many a slip twixt cup and lip', opportunities to foul up, after you have taken your pictures are many, and far more likely to be much more detrimental to the IQ you may get than small performance differences between lenses! Seriously, IF when you have got a film out the can, souped and scanned, and can find such things as 'edge abhoration' or 'vignetting' from the lens in them... count your blessings! I use a dedicated film scanner; I get around 10Mpix resolution at 48bit colour depth from 35mm out of it; it's a pretty high quality, but it's still a weak link in the chain to a picture you look at; and by the time that 10Mpix image has been resized and compressed to an uploadable jpg of around 1MPix? So much of the possible 'quality' on the film has been squashed it REALLY isn't worth worrying about.
Which takes me back to the start; it's about your objectives and what you hope to get from your foray into film. For me, its all about the pictures, not the gear. I was very early into digital in the mid 90's, studying IT and having access to what was then pretty cutting edge equipment and software to digitise photo's from prints, manipulate them in the digital dark-room, and distribute and display electronically. Fantastic innovations at the time! And with so much invested in conventional film photography, I was loath to switch to direct to digital SLR's until only 3 years ago, when prices had dropped to make it reasonable enough to do so. For a decade before that, it seemed like a very very expensive step backwards, when I was getting 'full-frame' quality at 10Mpix from film. When Sub £500 DSLR's with over 16Mpix came along, they started to make sense, and have rendered the 'convenience' cameras, the winder equipped 'automatic exposure' OM's with their zoom lenses, obsolete to a large degree. I still shoot the Sigma & Primes as I always have, more for the fun, and the involvement that's needed, and I can still get very high quality digital pictures from it. The 120 folder hasn't had an outing in a very long time; but if I wanted to indulge in chasing that precision and perfection, its what I would pick up, and probably NOT 'waste' even trying to display digitally... It would be all chemical all the way to display 'print'.
Which begs the suggestion, for where you are at, don't invest too quickly in M42 equipment you may not really exploit; invest in FILM, always an oft offered argument in the film era; DON'T spend your money on expensive cameras, save it to spend on 'cheap' film and take MORE photo's; you'll get more better ones, and you will up your technique and craft in the process to get even more better ones as you go, with whatever kit you have.
And that's the point of the foray in film, isn't it? To do things differently? Rather than to do them 'easily' or necessarily 'cheaply'.
Thanks Kindly for the information.
Thanks ,The smallbattery company,has 2 versions of 1.5 volt battery, S625PX 1.55v @£6.20p each,OR,PX625A 1.5v@£1.70 each,Which one doyou use?
Teflon-Mike
Suspended / Banned
- Messages
- 1,076
- Name
- Mike
- Edit My Images
- Yes
When My Sigma needed a new one {About 4 years ago; the 2nd I have ever needed in 1/4 century} I used CS Batteries, Claimed to be 'genuine alkaline 1.55v, £2.10 ea.
Last edited:
- Messages
- 12,294
- Name
- Brian
- Edit My Images
- Yes
Buy the £1.70 one, the silver oxide one @ £6.20 is superior as it hold the voltage stable at 1.5v for a longer time, but although the voltage will slowly drop on the cheaper one, the film latitude will cover it for a slight difference in exposure. And when you think about it, if the voltage drops to 1.35v after a year it's at the volts it's supposed to be originally.
Thank You.