As anyone who has viewed my blog over the last few months would have guessed that I have been smitten with shooting film again after years of digital DSLr’s.
I have been very lucky that I have a few photographer friends who have vast vintage camera collections and are very trusting to loan me a few cameras to feed my addiction…..lol
The 1st camera I tried was the Agfa Isolette from Andrew Beveridge an excellent Wedding and portrait photographer http://www.silverbirchphotography.com/ I struggled with the 1st roll as I am not used to using a light-meter or the zone focus system employed by this camera but the 2nd roll was far better after using a tape measure to make sure of the subject distance.
The Yashica Mat and the Zorki 4 were from Mike Stokes http://www.flickr.com/photos/opobs/ also http://www.opobs.co.uk/ He has had both cameras for many years and informed me that he has never had much luck with the Yashica Mat as it was always over exposing so he resorted to using tape on his light meter to change the exposure reading to compensate for the problem.
The very same thing happened with my 1st roll but after scanning the negs I managed to save a couple of frames, next roll I will set my meter to at least 2 stops under to see what happens.
I found out that the Zorki 4 had a sticking shutter as it has not been used for years and 1/3rd of every frame was totally burned out but after loads of clicking of the shutter over the weekend it seemed to have done the trick as the 2nd roll exposed fine.
Using all 3 of these cameras has been a pleasure and I would like to thank Andrew and Mike for letting me try them out. I will post some photos from these cameras in my next post.
tim dobbs photography 