February 2023
As a keen Jaguar owner (Mk VIIM, Daimler 250 V8, 420G and XF) I am easily tempted by the chance to see fine old cars. This exhibition at Scoresby in Victoria was outstanding. Perfect weather for film photography and far too many examples of mechanical art to capture on a single roll of film.
For this outdoor show with no moving targets I took my Nikon F3 with an inexpensive 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 zoom. I shot at f/8 with all shutter speeds over 1/500.
Portra 800 is a truly outstanding film. Is it worth $40 a roll here in Australia? Hmmm... Yes. Beautiful colours, acceptably fine grain when resized for 4k monitors, and fast enough for most outdoor work. I set the camera meter to 400 and did nothing but frame, focus and click.
The F3 is the most enjoyable camera I own. I love my F6 for general outdoor work where some action is expected and it’s ability to mount modern VR lenses, my D500 for outstanding bird photography and my D6 for frantic high speed work where extremely fast focus, high frame rate and see-in-the-dark magic is needed, but…
The F3 just works every time. The light meter is as good as any of my other cameras, obviously helped by the huge exposure latitude of film. I don’t give a microsecond’s thought to bewildering focus modes, intersecting menu items, drained batteries or any other modern complexities.
The split-screen manual focus is truly outstanding. I know exactly what the camera is focused on before I press the shutter, something that cannot always be said of modern cameras. I have posted 33 of 36 shots taken — only three where someone walked in front of me have been deleted.
This isn’t Art, nor is it of any commercial value but it was a wonderful, relaxing day out with an exquisite piece of vintage camera gear. Exceptionally high quality scanning by Foto Supplies in Albury and gentle processing in DxO PhotoLab 6 gave me images far in advance of the high speed films of yesteryear.
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
 |
 |