One last hurrah.

After having recently found out that Kodak has ended Kodachrome production I feel somewhat compelled to revisit a part of my past one last time. I have a roll of K64, and I'm going to try and pick up a couple more. Part of this summer I'll be shooting K64 again, this time in a classic Pentax K1000

The end of an Era, 74 years of Kodacrome comes to an end.

I guess it had to happen,

"KODACHROME Discontinuation:

Eastman Kodak Company announced on June 22, 2009 that it will discontinue sales of KODACHROME Color Film this year, concluding its 74-year run as a photography icon. Sales of KODACHROME, which became the world's first commercially successful color film in 1935, have declined dramatically in recent years as photographers turned to other films or digital capture. Today, KODACHROME represents just a fraction of one percent of Kodak's total sales of still-picture films. Despite all its outstanding features, KODACHROME involves a highly complex development process that led photographers to experiment with and adopt newer KODAK films that deliver outstanding color images through a simpler workflow. Although KODACHROME has very distinct characteristics and no film will give the exact same results, current users are encouraged to try other Kodak films. Kodak continues to bring innovative new film products to market, having released seven new professional films -- over the last three years alone. "

Kodachrome was part of my youth, as soon as I had a second SLR body I kept it loaded with K64. Thanks to my finances I never shot more than 150 rolls over a decade or so, but I always had some around.

I remember being at a slideshow at a friends house, and staring in awe at the quality and brilliance of slides shot on the old K10 between 1940 and 1960 or so, they looked like they came straight out of the old Findlay processing lab. They were rich, completely lifelike and, well perfect. Kodachrome was archival, it rendered color perfectly, it was the photographers film, in nearly every genre of photography there is an active, vocal sect of K-chrome fans.

But in many ways it was a difficult product to deal with, it's expensive to make, expensive to process and Kodak didn't keep it up with the times, Findlay closed, and one by one so did all the other Kodak labs. Now only one little independent lab still deals with it, and this week, the great yellow father finally pulled the plug on Kodachrome.

Rest well my friend.

My new toy, my Pentax K110D, got to say I'm loving the instant results you get with a digital SLR, but I do wish that they had simplified it some more, I'd like a proper meter, a split focus screen, and a dial on the back I can set to emulate K25,K64,K200,gold 100,200,400,T-max, and T-pan...ect.. Leave the complex menu crap out and emulate a K1000. It would be perfect!

That said, the kit lens is useable but noting to be impressed with. I've stocked my Kit with an M28/2.8, M50/2.0, M135/3.5 and M200/4 Old glass kicks ass, you just have to learn to meter for yourself, there is no help from the body. Toss in a couple old Focal primes of surprising quality and a 2X teleconverter and we are in business.

Next up I plan to hunt down a used K100D for a spare, and hopefully next year upgrade to a K10D.

Into a new world.

A few short months ago, chance, and a unfortunate mistake who was then a part of my life led me to take the dive into digital. My former fiance is a photographer, I can credit her with giving me the motivation to pick up a camera again. She shoots with Cannon equipment, but lacking the needed budget I started investigating what Pentax was doing with digital.

Happily, I discovered that the latest generation of Pentax Digital SLR's use the exact same lens mount as a 1975 built K1000! Obviously this is a boon to the addiction called LBA, all the crusty old K-mount primes I can find will work on a new digital wiz-bang body.

I made the jump with a new in the box, $330 leftover K110D, it's only 6.1 megapixel, the world is headed towards 20mp as a standard, but it's a great learning tool. And all the old, odd, glass I find is useable, what a blast to make images with a Focal (K-mart) tele from 1978, locked onto a digital slr, and have them come out pretty damn good! A lot of the cheap old glass will rival the latest and greatest.

One, and it's not much of an issue for me, is that, there is no Auto Focus, no auto shutter speed, and no auto F stop this way. Pentax lets us down with the disgraceful lack of a proper match needle meter! Well...at least those of us so Luddite as to never used an auto everything SLR.

My K110D is being used as I would a K1000, set in manual, a Pentax M-series prime hung on the front, and my best judgement as a meter, photography as photography should be, I just get my pictures a lot faster!

Childhood dreaming pt 2, Photography then and now,

After a few years in the Minolta camp, and desperately in need of another body, (This was in the film era still) My Mom, and my Grandma, drove to lima to the Montgomery Wards store and bought me a brand new in the box Pentax P30T. I had been vainly attempting to buy a Nikon FM10 or something similar from one of the big eastern houses, but met with nary a shred of honesty in advertising, or the slightest quantum of customer service skill.  

Mom and Grandma took the chance to give me a terrific gift back in '96 and changed my viewpoint. For the rest of my time using film cameras as my primary equipment, I ran the Minolta with a 50mm Prime, or a 70-200 zoom tele, and the P30T with it's 35-70. Not the most handy kit to work out of but it go done what I needed done.  Another, 3rd? 4th? X370 spent time as my 3rd body before I parked my original X370 and switched completely to Pentax K mount. 

The end of my film era. 

A chance encounter with a Vivitar V2000 SLR in a antique store for $10 brought me back to Photography, for an all plastic shell, fully manual camera it's amazingly well done.  It took it's place in my bag beside the P30T and I went back to shooting off and one, even though the rest of the universe went digital already.  A $35 ebay buy brought me a second V2000 Body and a Vivitar 70-200mm Tele zoom.  

I also gathered up a pair of Zenit EM's and started chasing M42 mount lenses.

2009 Brought the new and the old,  A digital K110D, a classic K1000 and my infatuation with classic primes begins.