Author name: Sean Benham

Living in Chicago as a software developer who enjoys photography and writing music.

Canon Powershots

Digital Negatives – The Power of CHDK on Canon Powershots – By Sean Benham

Film has always been the standard I measure against on the quality and color of digital imagery. The texture of grain with higher ISO, the colors rendered from the film — these are the characteristics I want my photos to take on. If you shoot RAW with digital cameras you get what most call the “digital negative”. This RAW file has all the data stuffed into it with no compression. The result is a larger image that you can fine tune more precisely.

Yashica Elite 70

Yashica Elite 70 Review – No Zeiss No Problem – By Sean Benham

When I hear about Yashica and point and shoot cameras I think of the T series. Just doing a search on eBay, T3 and T4 start in the $300 range. As we know with many of these plastic devices, once they break, they’re not able to be fixed. I’m not here to knock those cameras, because in fact, from what I’ve seen, they produce nice photos. What I wanted to share with you is a different Yashica that honestly surprised me with it’s quality of shots, both with metering and sharpness. The Yashica Elite 70, also named Yashica Elite 70 Zoom, Yashica EZS Zoom 70, Yashica Zoomate 70, and finally Kyocera Campus 70.

Argus C4

5 Frames with the Argus C4 in Michigan – by Sean Benham

The American Leica, no. A tough and durable rangefinder camera that has survived the decades with an awesome lens, yes. The 1950s made Argus C4 (aka C-Four as is written on the lens barrel) has a faster Cintar lens at f/2.8 than its predecessor C3 and goes to f/22; shutter speeds B, 1/10-1/300 with a leaf type shutter. They did make a more rare version of the C4 with a changeable lens, but most people know about the C44 that was standard with that option.

Fujifilm X-E2 digital camera

5 Frames with the Fujifilm X-E2 – The Hybrid Photographer – by Sean Benham

You might say the perfect way to start film photography as a young boy is with a Canon AE-1. I took it everywhere, including multiple travels to Europe. The AE-1 was given to me by my dad for high school photography classes. This love of that SLR continued on for years until 2001 when I purchased my first digital camera, the Toshiba PDR-M61. While the photos didn’t have the quality of film, I also didn’t have to pay for processing or wait time. Add to that, people were starting to look at photos on websites or via email attachments, so even printing was less of an issue. As the years went on I would upgrade point and shoot digitals here and there until a friend of mine offered to sell me her Nikon D70 in 2010. 

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