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G.A.S. newsletter

G.A.S. newstetter – ABDonald Ltd photography chatter.

The first of our seasonal newsletters where we discuss new stock arrivals and seasonal shooting opportunites to keep you shutter finger exercised. If you have even a mild interest in photography you will know all about GAS. (gear aquistion syndrome). I won’t talk too much about it except to say it is incurable and fortunately it is your choice as to whether it is an expensive affliction – it doesn’t need to be. There are plenty of inspirational film  cameras out there from the 1950s to 2000s at moderate prices. And if careful with your purchases this gear does not tend to lose value – in many cases it increases. Trust is easily destroyed and hard to regain. We are very alert to this, so we take great care to test any camera bodies we offer, by shooting them ourselves and with a thorough predispatch check to confirm their continuing functionality. We treat lenses similarly – thorough inspection for fungus, mold and improper cleaning proceedures. Lenses in this condition do turn up but we never offer them for sale. We have some exciting vintage lenses in our cupboard and testing these with our Sony E-mount will make interesting winter reading with some surprises. Inevitably we all end up with a camera, hopefully not ‘cameras’ which does not work as it should. We are not technical experts, but there are some basic repairs which can be undertaken without killing the patient! Vintage cameras, especially if you take a chance and buy from an auction website, can have inherent problems which manifest soon after arrival, or, for no reason at all, the next time you take your camera out of the cupboard, you may get that sinking feeling when, suddenly the shutter won’t fire or the film won’t wind on. We will discuss these issues in some detail with various cameras we have experienced how they can be resolved – or not! We will look at some of these in the spring. Developing your own film is a rewarding add on to film photography, saving a few $ too. Some tips on developing your own film will be appearing soon.

We all have those times in our photographic lives whern inspiration simply departs. We don’t know why – it just does. It is not your fault but it can be difficult to reignite. Some tips follow which may help.

Back to the beginning – new stock. We are very excited to be shooting our new to us Nikon F100. A beautiful image maker when combined with our 35mm AF F2 lens. Perfect combo for architectural work. This is hard to better with the F100 alloy body light enough to not be a bother for a full day shooting. Really a smaller F5, a camera which many Nikon Pros would say was their favourite shooter. Certainly a very robust camera, built for work and more work. But, cumbersome and heavy. The F100 cut through this delivering pro features in a robust yet lighter, smaller body. Much more user friendly. Another of Nikon’s great cameras, the F4 requires several rest stops! Like the F4 the F100 gets its power from 4 AA batteries. These are available anywhere at very reasonable cost. Easy to pack an extra set. As we age maybe some eyesight challenges appear. The F100 viewfinder gives a clear view which is a definite help, also presenting an easily visible headsup LCD display of shooting details; focus, aperture and shutter. With the Nikon ubiquitous F mount there is nearly no restriction of lens choice. Do not mount pre Ai or invasive fish eye. My best advice for a camera as capable as the F100, is read and reread the manual. Only then set up the custom functions to your liking. Very much looking forward to developing my first roll.

Another, much older camera which we just taken into stock is the revered Pentax SV from the 1960s. Manual everything – no light meter and mechanical shutter so no hard to find battery. Exceptionally solid build. It doesn’t matter where you are in the world, if you have film loaded you can capture the moment with the SV and your choice of Takumar M42 mount lenses. Versatile with max shutter of 1/1000 and 1600 film speed.

The last conversation for this GAS edition is legacy lenses with Sony E-mount full frame.

Use your Minolta MD mount, Pentax K, Pentax Takumar M42, Canon FD and Nikon F, Konica AR and Leica/Voigtlander M mount lenses with Sony full frame mirrorless E mount such as A7II etc.

This is a great way to make use of some excellent quality lenses you may have in your gear cupboard or can purchase inexpensively for the quality gained. Using a standard lens – body mount adapter the lens focal length is not changed, but there is no auto focus or exposure. The Sony mirrorless system has the marvellous focus peaking feature which clearly lights up in the viewfinder or on the screen when  focus is achieved manually. Set the aperture (aperture priority) on the lens according to your scene conditions and the effects you are after then set the shutter speed manually on the camera – focus manually using the Sony’s focus-peaking function and - perfect shot.

A little slower to set up and shoot than using a Sony or Zeiss E-mount AF lens but the satisfaction gained from being able to use a much wider range of legacy lenses is definitely worth it, to say nothing of the price differential. A Zeiss Batis 25mm F2 is about $1700 whereas a 28mm F2.8 Minolta MD is around $150 plus the adapter at about $45. We use the K&F Concept adapters which are precisely manufactured from quality materials. We have very good success with these.

We hope you are inspired to keep shooting and that every frame is a gem.