Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Step back in time... again.

It's mad - I've got a Canon 5D mk II and several fancy lenses, but for some reason, when my Dad gave me his Pentax K1000 which he bought in Boston in 1977, I got more excited than ever.

As a boy, I remember my Dad having this mechanical, complicated looking contraption, snapping away with a shutter which let out a satisfactory 'clunk' when it fired and wind-on crank which now brings back memories of a happy childhood.

He told me that it cost him $25 for the kit, which included a 55mm f/2 lens and a case.  It's still in perfect condition and after I got the light meter working again (it required a 357 battery, whatever that is), I loaded it with a film and started shooting away.  Cautiously.  (I say cautiously because with only 36 frames, you don't want to 'waste' any, right?).

I know that shooting film these days is slightly pointless - the Canon can reproduce shots which look much better than the Pentax results in a matter of seconds.  In fact, in just about the time it takes to shoot off a reel of 35mm film, I can take a shot on the Canon, process it on the computer and print it off on my parents' printer 400 miles away using Google CloudPrint.

But wanting to dip into a piece of nostalgia, I've bridged the gap - our old scanner (which I bought YEARS ago) isn't compatible with Mac OS 10.6 so I've bought a new one which can scan film.  Instead of getting prints, I'm going to get films processed only, then scan them in to be edited digitally.

Watch this space.

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