Author name: Hans Gustafsson

Photographing since 1977, breathing the fresh air of northern Sweden. Chasing birds with long digital glass, but gets nostalgic about manual film photography and the smells of a darkroom.

Voigtländer Vito CL camera

Repairing & Revisiting a Voigtländer Vito CL – Here there be Dragons – By Has Gustafsson

“Here there be Dragons” – a text said to be found at the very edge of maps a long time ago when the world was still not explored. Said text, I guess, was to discourage seafaring explorers, and land-based alike, not to venture into the unknown, or at least be wary. However I suspect that it actually pushed them to do just that…

A picture of a roll of Kentmere 400 black and white film

5 frames with Nikon F3P and Kentmere 400 – By Hans Gustafsson

Arrived in a hotel room shortly after 11pm on a monday  after a 5 hour drive. I’m fortunate to drive a very comfortable car so despite being a bit tired from a long drive after a working day, I wasn’t ready for bed just yet. Also there was a heatwave at the time so an hour or two of ventilating the room seemed like plan. I decided to load my F3P with a new aquaintance, Kentmere Pan 400, and start writing this post.

An image of a Voigtländer Vito CL camera

Voigtländer Vito CL – The Dad Cam – By Hans Gastafsson

I can’t recall any family vacation, outing, gettoghether when I was young that my dad didn’t have his Voigtländer with him. It almost seemed an integral part of him. Not that he ever showed any interest in photography as such, but he really liked to document his life. As a result he has a vast collection of photographs. Mostly slides, lots of Kodachromes obviously but also other brands and stocks. All slowly deteriorating. I am in a [really slow] process of scanning them and setting up some kind of digital archive, spanning from the early 60’s up until mid or late 80’s. I have a slight hope of presenting him with this archive before he turns 90yo next year.

A picture of the camera Nikon F3P

How I came to shoot Nikon cameras – By Hasse Gustafsson

Actually, it might as well have been Minoltas. My best friends older brother had a Minolta X-700 that instilled a great deal of envy in me. The year was 1982 and I was at the time 12 years old. My used Praktica with a Pentacon 50/1.8, wasn’t quite on par with my ideals. The Praktica was given to me by my parents sometime when I was 11 or 12 years old as a substitute for the Kodak Instamatic 77X I got for my 7th birthday.

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