This will be a short one. I went to Cinestill’s website recently and the results were predictable. I glazed over and evidently ordered a mess of film. Included in this haul were a few rolls of Cinestill 400D since I had not tried it yet. Spoiler alert. I like it.
The camera and lens used are favorite of mine. One of the few cameras that are as good as everything I have heard about them.
In this article I am going to talk about the Pentax 645N and Pentax 645D. The use of ‘and’ in the title rather than ‘vs’ is intentional. The use of ‘and’ in the title rather than ‘vs’ is intentional. This is not a competition. It is also not an attempt to convince anyone that this mount is a superior option to other systems. I am firmly Team “Whatever Floats Your Boat”. This is merely an overview of my experiences with two of my favorite cameras… with a few lens options thrown in
When not shooting film I really enjoy using SIGMA’s Quattro cameras. Have had and still have other more conventional digital solutions, but I really like these oddball offerings. Especially their Foveon sensors. Already possessing a dp2 Quattro one of the reasons I convinced myself to purchase a SIGMA sd Quattro was that it was able to do Infrared photography (More on this below.). But once I received it I got caught up in the color…
The post subject just about covers it, but I will ramble a bit before I post the pictures.
I really like the Pentax *ist. Way more than I expected to if I am honest. And I expected to like it a lot. There is a sentimental Pentax component since my Father first taught me to use an SLR with is Pentax ME Super many years ago as a child. Pentax also makes many of my favorite lenses. Listed some in this post for KEH years ago. I have a couple of other Pentax 35mm cameras (ME Super and SF10), but this is by far my favorite. Though smaller it has the most solid feature set and has very fast and accurate autofocus. Among the best performance of any 35mm film camera I have had or currently own. On top of that, it is also a camera I purchased for about what I recently spent for a three-pack of Lomography 800 film.
Full disclosure: The Kodak Ektar H35 is right up my alley. Why? I like inexpensive, minimalist, rudimentary cameras. This usually consists of older, low level gear like your odd Argus or Russian knockoffs. I had an Argus C3 and still have a C4. I currently have a few FEDs including a 2 and 5C and ZENITs E and KM, the latter being a hilariously awful camera and I heart it. But few new low cost film cameras interest me usually.
