Nikon F2... Holy Moly.

KB44 · Dec 31, 2011

So, I received this beautiful device as from my Dad a while back. As embarrassing as it is to admit, I originally just had it sitting on a shelf in the living room. Two years, to be exact. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to pick her up and start putting her to good use. I bought three roles of Kodak Professional BW400CN, and quickly put them to use. Now, I didn't just point and shoot to my hearts content, as much as I wanted to. Due to a recently discovered lack of batteries, the light meter doesn't work, and I made sure I had enough light to take the shots I wanted. Some were up-close and personal, and some were (hopefully) beautiful shots of family members at the beach.

I've developed one roll so far, and let me tell you; it wasn't nice. The few photos that did come out nice though, were beautiful, and captured EVERY detail. I was honestly shocked by the quality of photos taken by this beautiful old thing.

By the way: I have a 1:2.8 24mm lens. After doing some research, I now know that 24mm lens' are for wide-angled shots. Problem is, and I've finally accepted it, I have NO CLUE as to what I am doing.

So I come here, in the late hours of the night, to ask for a little bit of help. If you all would be so kind as to offer some advice - where to get started. Are there any sites I can visit? Any online tutorials? I've tried Youtube and have clicked various links on google, but none are really beginner friendly and use terminology that doesn't register. I have another roll of film that's going to be waiting for me tomm, and hopefully those shots will be better.

Any and all help will be appreciated!

Thank you.

Mot · Dec 31, 2011

Welcome to the forum! It's great to see someone new and enthusiastic.

I think the first thing that would be helpful to clear up is what isn't "nice" about your photos? That'll help us to help you get some well exposed images. Are they underexposed/black, are they overexposed/white or are they badly focused/blurry? It sounds to me that you saying that it "captured every detail" could be that you focused better on some shots than others.

You also said that the light meter doesn't work. Is that because it's broken or because you don't have any batteries? For a beginner without a hand-held light meter you might struggle to get consistent exposures.

To comment on your lens. 24mm to me would be a little bit too wide for general shooting. I've got a 50mm on my Nikon EM and that's a great all round focal length and an affordable lens, too. The widest I'd use for general shooting would be about 35mm. 24mm is getting close to a specialist lens but it depends what you're shooting.

KB44 · Dec 31, 2011

Thank you!

For the most part, and surprisingly enough; I didn't really have any shots that were overexposed/underexposed. I guess I got lucky there. The main problem was that in pictures where I had an intended focus, that focus usually came out blurry. The area around that focus came out perfectly fine though. Apparently, and I don't know if this has to do with it being a 24mm lens; I'm horrible at taking simple shots of a person from up close. There is one picture specifically, where I was trying to snap a photo of just my girlfriends eyes from behind a miniature house model. I had the houses roof filling up the bottom half of the viewfinder, and in the distance; the top half of her head. The photo came out as intended, although not perfect. The miniature houses slanted roof is blurry, and the top half of my girlfriends head and the rest of the background came out clear; making it seem as if she's watching me from afar. Of course, it being a wide angled lens, I caught other things as well. Now I know she was the focus, but is it just not possible for me to take up-close shots with this kind of lens?

As for the light meter, I'm definitely going to try and buy some batteries today so I can find out. Yes, some photos are a little underexposed/overexposed, but nothing crazy. I would eventually like to know how to adjust the settings though.

Now that you mention it, I'm def. going to look into some new lenses! Thanks once again for the help, Mot!

Mot · Dec 31, 2011

I'm slightly confused! I think you have either discovered depth of field, tried focusing closer than the lens will allow or you are simply not focusing on your main subject.

I'll say straight away that a 24mm lens is never going to be flattering to a human face close up; it enlarges the nose and makes things look out of proportion. For more 'normal' looking portraits you'd want an 85mm or even 135mm but there's still nothing wrong with a 50mm for portraits. I'll also say you don't need to run into buying loads of lenses; my Dad used his AE-1 for 20 years with just a 50mm 1.8. When I 'inherited' it I bought a 28mm, 35-70mm, 70-210mm and 300mm, flash and even power winder. I only use the 28mm, 50mm and very occasionally the 70-210mm! I'm glad I learnt this lesson before I went digital.

To me is sounds like the roof was quite a bit closer to the lens than the subject. Generally things closer to the lens will be out of focus if you have focused further away. The 24mm will have a huge depth of field for the most part, that means more will be in focus, but it could be that in your example the roof was in the 'circle of confusion', an area outside the DoF that's not perceived to be sharp, simply because it was too close. Here's a quick guide that might explain it better.

Sorry I couldn't find a better shot but in this image you'll see it's out of focus behind and slightly in front of the Pot Noodle, this is called bokeh or the 'circle of confusion'. I took this on a 50mm 1.4 so it doesn't really compare to a 24mm but it should illustrate my point.

A wide angle lens is not the best for close up work, they can focus quite closely but you'll still be including a lot in the frame. You also have to take into account when you focus on something close and combine that with a wide aperture, like f/2.8 on your lens, it reduces the depth of field effectively making more things appear blurry.

selmerdave · Dec 31, 2011

Congrats on the F2 and glad it's being put to some use. First thing I'd recommend is a basic book on photography so you can understand how it all works. Not a text book, there are plenty of user-friendly books available that will help you understand the basics. Next I'd recommend a 50mm lens (Nikkor ai, ais or series E), which should not be terribly expensive. It is a much more "usable" focal length for most shooting, though the 24mm you have is an excellent wide wide for when you need that.

The fact that the camera is old is irrelevant, you'll be able to capture images as good as any other 35mm camera out there with it (the camera body has nothing to do with image quality anyway). The trick is learning how to use the camera and how to take interesting photos. Have fun!

Dave

KB44 · Dec 31, 2011

So excited after getting a decent roll of film. Between the New Years festivities, I managed to upload one photo! Managed to briefly skim your comment, Mot. Will send a decent reply when I get the chance! Let me know what you think!

PS - I had Walgreens also make a CD of this latest batch. That's how I managed to upload it! Not exactly cheap, hahaha.

djacobox372 · Dec 31, 2011

Sounds like your just missing focus, you can widen your depth of field by using a smaller aperture (large number), but you will have to compensate by decreasing your shutter speed.

Which version of the F2 is it? There were many versions with different light meters--the later ones are more reliable, the older ones rarely work these days or are accurate.

If your finder has an "A" or "AS" on the front just above and to the right of the lens then you have a newer meter that should work. The "AS" is the most desirable version and worth a lot more $$.

Mot · Jan 1, 2012

I like the photo, it is a shame that she isn't sharp. It looks like you focused on the posts rather than her eyes/face as djacobox said. You just need to practice getting your focus better before you release the shutter. It's easy enough just to play around focusing on random things to get used to manual focusing. I assume it has a view finder like this, a split prism finder, all you have to do is make it look like this. If it has a simple matte focusing screen you'll just have to get used to it, I don't like the finders in most Prakticas so I don't use them!

Sw1tchFX · Jan 1, 2012

First things first:
The F2 is an awesome camera, and most don't have light meters. If there was ever nuclear war, the F2 would one of few Nikon's that could still take pictures at anything besides about 1/90th of a second

Also, That Kodak BW400CN is GORGEOUS film with skintones. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. It's my B&W film of choice when shooting 35mm. I just bought 6 rolls of it today in fact.

Over expose it too. It's 400 speed film, but acts better when shot at 100 or 200. You get more shadow detail and the film can easily compress the highlights so don't worry about losing them.

Don't get your film done at Wallgreens. The only "cheap" place i'd recommend getting film done is Costco. They have people who are trained to only work in photo, so they take care of their equipment and don't use lousy dye-sub printers.
Wallgreens is nothing but an oversized, glorified 7-Eleven that sells prescription drugs. Their employees are more concerned about how many Q-tips are stocked than the filters or chemistry are in their film machine. Ask them when the last time they swapped out their filters, ran a control strip, or rinsed out their crossover racks on their film processor. I doubt they'd even know what you're talking about. I can almost guarantee most locations don't know when something is wrong until a customer or two's rolls came out blank.

If you want to see what a real lab does, send it to Richard Photo Lab. When you get your film back from RPL you'll be amazed.