A Few Frames with a Canon P and how I found myself on 35mmc

I have been a member of FLICKR for many years and only show my photos there. I joined when I retired and had more time for my hobby. At that time I expected to meet many like-minded people, nice people who knew the basics of photography, wanted to improve and exchange ideas. My expectations were not fulfilled. You meet more and more people who don’t have any basic knowledge and don’t want to learn it. The photo is not taken on location but later in Photoshop, for example, if it turns out to be anything at all. But that doesn’t seem to be important for a broad mass of people any more.

As they say in Germany, I am an “old white man” (77 years old) and my parents gave me my first camera at the age of 15 without having any idea about photography themselves. A DACORA Dignette 35mm viewfinder camera. I got on more badly than well with it. The exposure was based on the instructions on the film canister. I didn’t like the results and therefore usually left the camera at home.

That only changed years later, in the mid-1970s. Friends, acquaintances and colleagues bought an SLR camera. There were adverts in magazines and billboards everywhere. In Germany, there was a respected test magazine – TEST by Stiftung Warentest – which tested everything in the world and made recommendations. This was also the case here for a FUJICA ST 901.

I bought it against the advice of the sales staff in a specialised shop, they recommended that I buy a Pentax, Minolta or Nikon. But it had to be the “ST901”, it had “VERY GOOD”.

The editors were probably good at writing, but not at photography. I took a photography course and we were asked by the instructor to take our first photos together in manual mode. Switch off all automatic modes! The ST-901 was an automatic timer with LEDs in the viewfinder, the automatic mode and the light meter only worked with Fujinon EBC lenses. But it didn’t say that anywhere and I also had other M42 lenses from Fuji and Cosina because they were cheaper or Fuji didn’t have the focal length. So I went back to my first camera, the Dacora. The slowest shutter speed I could set was 1/60 sec. or B. I was frustrated, I sold the camera, which wasn’t easy, and bought a NIKON FE. A little later I bought an FM2 as a second body. I still have both bodies today, they fulfil my expectations and they still work.

I worked in information technology from 1973 to 2012, making the leap from IBM/370 to PC networks such as Novell Netware. This stopped me from buying a digital camera early on and switching from film. I saw it coming, I didn’t want to spend my free time on the computer. I bought a Nikon D80 relatively late, when the successor D90 was already on the market and the camera was significantly cheaper. Despite being an IT specialist, the changeover wasn’t easy, but that soon passed. But one thing has remained the same to this day: I usually go home with a “roll of film” of photos and not with a full memory card.

As a pensioner, I got the GAS disease. Annoyed by the discussions about sensor size in blogs, forums and everywhere else. Sometimes by people for whom aperture, speed and ASA mean nothing at all. That’s why I have all available sensor sizes except the digital medium format, so I could have my say. But you also don’t like to hear objective professional criticism. You only have the best.

But that’s not the main topic here. Of course, I still own analogue cameras and sometimes add some more. Most recently a CANON Populaire Rangefinder with the Canon 50mm f/1.4 LTM lens. Not for the display case, I also take photos with it. And there are several more cameras and lenses. Just GAS!

Getting to know this community has meant that I’ve hardly ever picked up a digital camera since then. I’m increasingly using film cameras again, even in medium format.  The articles and comments here give me hope that, in contrast to Flickr, expertise is also being exchanged. That’s why I’ve plucked up the courage to finish my first article with my first Canon P photos.

The sunny days at the beginning of September offered the opportunity to use the latest achievement for the first time in the small but very old town of Zons, near Düsseldorf and Cologne. The town is half an hour’s drive from my home on the Rhine

I had equipped the Canon P with the inexpensive Kodak Ultramax 400, as it is called in Germany, which I have already bought several times and with which I am satisfied because it is not too colourful. I normally overexpose it by one stop (ASA 200). This is also the case with these pictures. The Canon P doesn’t have a built-in light meter, it’s a fully mechanical camera. There is probably a selenium exposure attachment, but I didn’t have it with me on the tour. The light metering was done with the Sekonic L-398 A with calotte. During my walk I had exposed the whole 36 roll. In my opinion, it worked quite well.

A word about editing the photos. At my age, I can no longer bring myself to develop and scan my films myself. I don’t expose many films either, so it’s not worth it. Where I live, I’m lucky enough to have a minilab that has been doing good work for photographers since the 1980s. My 35mm colour films are developed in a few days using the C41 process and a Noritsu-Koki scanner produces a JPEG with a resolution of 6048 x 4011. I pay 13 euros for the service. Sometimes I have the feeling it’s too much resolution. I’ve heard people say “These aren’t analogue images, you’re lying to us”. You are “ANALOG”, why should I lie? The reason is quite simple, the Noritsu is a specialised scanner and is set up by a professional. And above all, the KB films can do it! There is no special treatment in the lab, I load the image files into Lightroom Classic and only make minor adjustments to contrast and gradation if necessary.

In general, my pictures are rather “trivial”, nothing special, they just show our constantly changing – not always positive – immediate living environment. In all its facets. That’s how I want to portray them, I want people to recognise themselves. My post-processing is therefore always minimal, whether analogue or digital.

I hope my first post here finds some favour. I would be delighted to receive comments, they would be an incentive for me to continue.

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