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Canon 110 ED review, Perfection in Miniature!

Posted in Blog, Film Cameras Tagged with

The Canon 110 ED was one of the very best 110 cameras of the day.  It had the fastest lens for a while (F/2), until Michael Landon of little house on the prairie started hawking the Kodak Ektramax a couple of years later with a F/1.9 design.  The camera outfit you see above was expensive, and cost about as much as a good 35mm camera, but it did have some advanced features that were missing on most of the 110's, like a tripod socket, a shutter cable release, flash hotshoe, rangefinder focusing, manual aperture adjustments, and an excellent five element lens!

We're going to take a mid 1970s trip down memory lane for this review, so head to the closet or basement and dust off your old 110; it's probably under your bell bottoms and peace sign jewelry.  But before your sentimental photo outing...

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Fuji Provia 400X samples

Posted in Blog, Film review Tagged with , ,

Here are a few samples of Fujichrome Provia 400X; it's color reversal film rated at ISO 400.  I really like it for those late afternoon photoshoots with medium format cameras, it allows you to keep the shutter speeds up when the sun is low in the sky.  This is excellent film, and it's almost as fine grained as ISO 100 speed Provia due to Fuji's use of magical Epitaxial Sigma Crystal Technology!!  Check out the Fuji Spec sheet here.

Unfortunately, this film was discontinued around 2016, and the prices now are freakin' ridiculous for fresh dated or refrigerated stock; like $20-$30 per roll!!  I bought a couple dozen rolls before...

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A quick comparison between 135 and 6×9 film

Posted in Blog, Comparisons, Film Negative Tagged with ,

Here's a quick comparison of the resolution between two excellent fixed lens cameras, the Olympus 35 SP, and the Fuji GW690III.  Both cameras have the same aspect ration, and about the same coverage and depth of field, that's why this comp will have some value if you want to know the quality you'll need for large print sizes.  Of course there are other differences between the two films sizes other than just resolution potential, but this is just a quick write up until I dedicate a post to the subject.

The Olympus 35 SP has a 42mm lens, and uses 135 cartridge film, known by hobbists as "35mm" film, which isn't actually 35mm for the imaging area, but that's for another post.  Image area is about 24x36mm

The Fuji GW690III has a 90mm lens and uses 120 roll film, with a size known as 6x9, but it isn't actually 6x9cm, that's also for another post.  Image area is about 56x83mm

Both lenses are widely known to be extremely sharp, and have very similar coverage areas; the Fuji would be about 40-41mm converted to 135 format, so it's at a slight disadvantage for this comparison.

To sum up the two images quickly; I'm actually surprised...

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Updates to recent film camera reviews

Posted in Blog

I've decided on a standard aperture test scene for the camera reviews; it's the mountain scene above.  I like it in that is shows different levels of detail, and it lowers the probability of focusing errors as the distance is usually at infinity, and that particular focus setting is easy to test for accuracy.

The Olympus 35 SP has been updated with the new test scene; the old ones were from color reversal film, (Fuji Velvia 100), and I didn't like the way they looked when I took them just before sunset.  The new pictures really show the details much better, and the lens seems even more impressive now; I know that's probably hard to believe, but it's true, check it out yourself.

Both the Fuji GSW690III, and GW690III reviews have been updated as well with the mountain test scene, and I've included a few additional details as a result of further use; plus I tweaked the specifications section to match up better with the current review format.

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Surprise On The Rise

Posted in Blog, Magazine ads

Think you need a $4500 Sony A9 and expensive trick lens to take fast action shots?  The photographer that caught this moment was probably using an early 1950s rangefinder, or a press 4×5 with sport finder; try using one of those today in a similar situation and see if you can come up with anything remotely usable.

Swedish amateur motorcyclist …

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Canon Snappy 30 review

Posted in Blog, Film Cameras Tagged with

I bought this weeks review camera brand new in 1989; it was a K-Mart blue light special blister-pack model and I think I paid about $45 for it.  I wanted to take some pictures of a house I was renovating, and did not have any other camera available.  At the time I thought I'd take a few rolls of what I needed, toss it in the drawer, and eventually it'd head to a garage sale or dumpster.  When I bought it way back then I didn't think I'd be using it almost 30 years later.  I still get a kick out of running a roll through it every once in a while; the technical image quality is pretty good, about the same as a top line $900 cell phone camera, but much quicker and easier to operate, and a whole lot less expensive; pick up a nice copy on ebay for less than $10, or even less at a garage sale.

Oddly, I can't seem to find a single page of information...

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