In the sweltering Berlin summer of 2010 I sat over what should become my second Adobe Lightroom book. Because of the heat I got up early in the morning to go out and shoot stuff for the chapter of the day, with a Panasonic Lumix GF1. I wrote in my friend Cyrill’s place, taking care of his cat while he travelled. On his fridge was a bowl with a lovely Nikon FE in it, which no one used.
It’s like the deodorant Secret: “Strong enough for a man, but made for a woman.”…
The Nikon EM perfect! I love it. There’s nothing it can’t do. Well… that’s an exaggeration. There’s nothing I can’t make it do that it shouldn’t be able to do. There’s plenty of “features” missing; I simply use my vast and overpowering will to crush those obstacles. I’m the boss, not the machine. I say what goes, and for the 5 bucks I paid for this camera I’m willing to boss it around a ton.
Last year I wrote a short piece for 35mmc as part of the “5 frames with” series. The camera I used was my Nikon Fm3a with the Nikkor 50mm f1.2 AIS lens- a combination that I just adore.
During the writing of it, I realized that if I could only have one camera and one lens forever, then this would be it. I also shoot with a Leica M7, a Contax Rts ii , an Olympus Om2 and a whole load of other medium formats and compacts. And I love them all to bits, but for me, Nikon Fm3a just nails everything beautifully for me and I’ve found myself using it more and more as my main go-to street portrait camera
There I was in Seattle, the Shot On Film Store trying my hardest to get my Nikon FE2 fixed. It wasn’t happening. The drop it took killed the electrics and after some conversations I left with a personal fave, a Nikon FM.
On the way out, I remembered a conversation with a friend about cameras under $20. I could not help myself. I went right back to the counter and asked the guy ‘hey, got anything that works that isn’t too beat-up, has relatively clean functioning parts and under $20?’ His eyes lit up. When it comes to gear, I know that look. He headed straight over to the budget bin of cameras (which is more like a massive table) and starts to dig. The sounds of clicks, whirrs, hums and aahs takes over. He was clearly having a good time looking for some well-used gear that muggins over here will happily part money for.
A few mins later, he emerges with a Toyoca-S and assures me, it works. So $18 USD poorer (but with 2 free rolls of film – cheers lads!) I walked out with another camera.
With color films often in short supply and prices continuing to increase, it was sad news when Fuji “paused” Superia X-TRA 400 in April of this year. It’s reasonable to see this as yet another Fuji film being discontinued. Just a short time later, however, news of a new Fujifilm 400 surfaced. A similar sequence …
Fujifilm 400 (made in the USA) vs. Kodak Ultramax 400 – The Same, or Different…? Read More
