Anyone into vintage cameras?

[Dick Strauss]

Well, it looks like I accidentally deleted my post trrying to correct a typo on my phone...

'I have an old RolleiFlex 2.8E and some 1970's East German Zeiss lenses that fit a Kiev-60 (a Russian camera that takes Pentacon (not Pentagon ) mount lenses). I also used to shoot using the 35mm Canon EOS system. I have a ton of slides and negatives for both 35mm and 2 1/4 that I'd like to digitize one of these days. I was less than impressed trying to scan 2 1/4 stuff using an Epson flatbed scanner with light lid 20 or more years ago (1200 dpi resolution IIRC).'

[Dick Strauss]

Some page scanners do a passable job with larger film but for 35mm a dedicated film scanner will do a far better job. If you decide to pursue shooting with the Leica I might be talked into sending you a high-end Nikon film scanner I'll never use again. JKJ

John,

The Nikon scanners used to be the one of the best. Which model Nikon film scanner do you have and what do you think of it?

[Erik Loza]

Not to hijack Dick's comment but I'm in a similar situation: I had a huge library of slides. Maybe 2,000, many of which were just multiples of the same image. Then, whittled that down to maybe 300 slides. The real keepers. I have 2000-ish vintage Minolta Dimage Scan Elite, which is an excellent scanner for 35mm film, but time consuming to operate. I've been hanging onto it with the idea to spend a month just scanning everything, but the time never seems to be there. I'm thinking about just paying a photo lab to scan all these slides for me. They will probably use a drum scanner (which I don't have) and can do it faster and better. How did we get by in the analog era?

Erik

[John K Jordan]

John,

The Nikon scanners used to be the one of the best. Which model Nikon film scanner do you have and what do you think of it?

I'd have to check, haven't used it for a long time. (I have it packed away in the original box.) I think I remember the words Coolscan, and ED.

Resolution and color were excellent quality. I scanned some Kodak color targets and the the results were good on a calibrated color monitor. (I still have color calibration hardware around here somewhere too!)

I too have thousands of color slides and negatives and more thousands of B&W film from 35mm up to 4.5, also albums of family photos from past generations. I didn't think of having a photo service scan all of these as Erik mentioned. There are some I would love to access (and add to the 74,000 digital photos in 1200 folders on my computers. ) What I REALLY need is to sit down for 100 hours and better catalog everything...

Just for fun, this is the house in PA I grew up in. The Monongahela River was down over the bank behind the house. Every year the snowmelt would cause the river to rise, sometimes flooding. As a kid it was fun to watch the things floating down the river. This year we had to use a boat to get out of the house! Photo of a printed photo.

FLhouse.JPG

JKJ

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

I had saved my change when I was in high school for a camera and got a Kalimar SLR. (a very poor man's Hasselblad) Had the standard and telephoto lenses as well as the bellows extension, even had the rifle stock camera holder that used a trigger to activate the shutter. But got to the point that I could not find the 120 film for it. I got paid for a few photos while in college, like $15.00 ea. by a local publishing outfit for calendars. Lost it all in a house fire a few years back. Frankly, for the pictures I take, my smart phone does a good job. Everything is photoshopped now anyway. I do have a box of old cameras in the shop that were in a truck load of stuff a friend was moving into a house and I helped him clear out the shed of stuff the former owner left behind. I never really looked through it except to see it was chinese knock offs and instamatics.