30 Years Away From My Passion for Photography

[MarzMan]

First Post. I chose to start here for no particular reason other than this is a beginning, though it is also not one.

As a late adolescent and a young man in the mid to late 70's I became obsessed with music and photography. I built a darkroom. or various reasons rather than going off to college with my friends I spent the next couple of years reading books (including as much as I could find of Vonnegut, Hunter Thompson and Edward Abbey as well as Ansel Adams and all the photography lit I could find) shooting and printing while working in a grocery store. My favorite photographers were Ralph Gibson, W. Eugene Smith, Brett Weston, Walker Evans and of course Adams.

Equipmentwise after a Pentax period I settled on Nikon F's and Mamiya medium format. I had a M645 and my step dad, who was a professional photographer (TV News with a side business in stills), had an RB67 he let me borrow on occasion. I shot some semi pro type gigs, bands, model heads, a few weddings but for reasons related to the same ones that led me not to pursue higher education I didn't use the opportunity to go into the business.

Got married at 20, a father at 21, worked and paid bills for almost 40 years and now I find myself looking at retirement before too long and I want to get back into photography. A few years ago I bought a Nikon D3200 but I really don't like it very much. Too much monkey business, pressing buttons while turning dials for stuff I did in my head. I took it on a trip to Bordeaux but sacked it for my iPhone which I find very intuitive and fast.

What I want is a digital correlate for my Nikons - one didn't even have a metered prism, I had a hand me down Pentax spot meter and a Luna Pro and my eyes.

I did spend lot of time printing trying to be Smith with my 000 brush and potassium ferricyanide solution. I can see the digital version being very, very interesting.

For me it was always more about the process, the zone one gets into, the way of seeing. I'm no Luddite but I prefer the least amount of barriers between seeing and image as possible. I also hate the idea of spending 2-4000 bucks on something that will be obsolete in a year or less....

Looking for thoughts, advice, observations and conversation, thanks in advance.

 

[Jeff15]

Hello and welcome, good luck with your choice of camera.......

 

[Designer]

Welcome!

 

[Grandpa Ron]

I did much the same thing. A long break from photography then back in with both feet. I have a Canon digital, a 4x5 view camera, and several old film cameras.

Unless I am experimenting, I just use the auto settings with my digital. The only post processing I use is for exposure and black and white conversation.

However, for tinkering, the digital features can be a lot of fun.

 

[marmle]

Hi MarzMan, I have also returned after a long break from photography. I started off with film too, but never had my own dark room, however not being able to resist gadgets, I bought be my first digital camera as soon as they became affordable.

 

[Derrel]

Well if you don't want to pay $2,000 to as much as $4,000, then you should definitely consider used camera gear.

The Nikon D800 is an amazing camera for its current used price of 700 to $800, or even less if you can locate a motivated seller.

There really is no equivalent to the old Nikon F or cameras of that era, but you can make shooting digital simple if you want to. Best of luck in your new pursuit of photo happiness!

 

[MarzMan]

Thanks for the replies. FWIW I'll spend what I have to to get what I need/want but the idea of making an investment in equipment that can be outdated in a year or two bugs me. Those F's were almost 15 years old when I used them and still capable of producing top quality images. Lenses too. My 105 mm Nikkor for example. And pressing a itty bitty button while turning a dial to compensate for lighting which was just part of exposure and then forgetting to set things back to normal after? I personally just don't care about shooting high def video; why pay for the ability to do it?

Ah, well. Maybe I'm suffering from Geezerism.

 

[Derrel]

The idea that equipment is outdated in a year or two is wrong. You could shoot great photos with 10 year old Nikon gear. If you like the old F I'm almost sure you would like the Nikon d3x which was introduced around 2007, and which is now available on the used market for around $1,150. When introduced it was the world's best digital SLR camera, and it was priced around $8,000. In 2012 I bought one and shot it until 2017, when I sold it. The Nikon D610 offers the same image quality as the D2x, but in a much cheaper consumer design body and is available for around $700 today. I think however that the real buy is the Nikon D800 or D810 for around $700- $800 . this is a really quality camera and it is now about 8 years old, however it is capable of producing extremely high-quality images, I think better than any 35 mm slide film,even Kodachrome 25 ,was capable of.

Your complaining about the exposure compensation method ...it's kind of like my grandfather who complained that cars with key start were not for real drivers, but he harkened back to the days of crank-start cars. His first car was a 1919 Maxwell ...

You will just be forced to deal with the new way of making exposure control inputs. We are now 20 years or so into the new century, and we no longer have the design ethos of the 1960s in our cameras. I know where you're coming from, but then I have had 20 years to adjust to the new way.

 

[weepete]

A lot of the time I just find shooting in manual mode easier, though I'm also comfortable with spot metering. Sure, the dials are in a different place but same theory as film. I find it a bit more ergonomic than shooting with the old 70's Pentax K that was the first "proper" camera I used as a kid (my dad's old camera). Autofocus is fantastic for speed, though sometimes I do miss the split prism, though I'm pretty sure that's just nostalgia.

I remember when my dad got his first autofocus lens in the 90's, it was super cool and I stole that as often as I could to play with!

 

[Derrel]

Here are two boudoir portraits from the same exposure. The top picture is pretty much full frame , and the bottom crop-in was made from the top image. The lens used was a cheap Nikon 28 to 80 mm AF-D... a plastic mount, wobbly, Bill Clinton-era film kit lens that I paid $35 for in 2001 at a Nikon event at Pro Photo Supply here in Portland. I bought the lens refurbished, and despite its crappy construction when shot at F 7.1 it cuts a pretty good image. The camera was the Nikon D800. I paid $798 for the D800 a couple of years ago and sold it this summer for $650. Pretty darn good if you ask me, I consider this to be 1980s era medium format detail but in a 36 megapixel digital camera that was introduced as I recall in 2012.

Both of these shots are pretty much unretouched, and were made with the cheapie lens at f /8 and 62 mm at ISO 200. These are just quick Lightroom proofs and I believe are fairly low -resolution. I have uploaded these from my phone.

 

[Destin]

Thanks for the replies. FWIW I'll spend what I have to to get what I need/want but the idea of making an investment in equipment that can be outdated in a year or two bugs me. Those F's were almost 15 years old when I used them and still capable of producing top quality images. Lenses too. My 105 mm Nikkor for example. And pressing a itty bitty button while turning a dial to compensate for lighting which was just part of exposure and then forgetting to set things back to normal after? I personally just don't care about shooting high def video; why pay for the ability to do it?

Ah, well. Maybe I'm suffering from Geezerism.

If you want a camera that operates and feels similar to an old film camera, check out Fujifilm. The X-T2 is an excellent buy used right now, and you can control aperture, shutter speed, iso, and exposure compensation all with dedicated dials. No “pushing a button and turning a dial.”