Category Archives: Photography

First film results

Film, Photographs

A mixed bag.

For an index of all my Film related articles, click here.

I sold my first – and last – Leica 35mm film camera 12 years ago after 35 years of use, and that tragic tale is related here. Maybe the lesson from that experience is that no modern camera is going to last 35 years as technology marches on, for in all key regards film camera technology did not improve after the first Leica M3 was introduced in 1954. Heck, you might argue that the outstanding Zeiss Contax II really defined the genre, and that was in 1936! The only material improvement added in the M3 was the suspended, illuminated frame lines, admittedly a stroke of design genius.

When my first serious digital camera came along, the magnificent full frame Canon 5D it was clear that film was toast. The flexibility and resolution of that 12mp Canon sensor was an order of magnitude above anything film could do, even if it was Kodachrome in a Leica with a Summicron lens fitted. And the sensor in that 5D delivered excellent colors, to boot. And booting was never necessary as this complex machine was as reliable as a hammer.

So it was with some apprehension that I awaited the processing of my first two rolls of Kodak Gold 24 by TheDarkroom.com, exposed primarily to check for any malfunctions in my newly acquired $100 Nikon FE body. I say that but a related goal was to take good photographs and hope that nothing went wrong.

I opted for the highest resolution 6774 x 4492 byte scans, which figures to a 30.4mb file though Lightroom reports less, likely due to compression of continuous tone areas:


Theoretical and actual scan sizes.

Exposures seem to be bang on using the camera’s Auto function, and no light leaks were noted. Maybe 1/4-1/2 stop over-exposed, but nothing to worry about. The scans are clean, scratches notable for their absence.

Anomalies? One frustrating finding is that the perspective correction controls in LR (Lens Correction->Basic->Level/Vertical/etc. are useless. They simply do not work with the film scans making a hash of things, so you have to round trip the image to Photoshop which works fine. Mystifying. These LR controls work perfectly with original digital images from any number of cameras and I use them often in architectural images. Frustrating and mystifying.

How is the resolution? Meh. It compares to a decades old 5mp Olympus C5050 point-and-shoot digital with a stated stated 1920 x 2560 byte sized image coming out at just 2.3mb in the file below. In the images below I have selected enlarged sections which would, as a whole deliver prints sized 60″ x 40″. In other words, very large. There is more detail in the film image but also a lot more grain.



Olympus C5050 at 40x.


Kodak Gold 200 at 40x.

The digital image shows pixelation, the film one coarse grain.

The film image was from the Nikon FE using a superb 135mm f/3.5 Nikkor stopped down to f/8 and correctly exposed.

Practically speaking the film image would deliver a decent 16″ x 20″ print, but forget selective enlargement or pixel peeping.

Here are some images from that first outing, all snapped in downtown Phoenix:



Sheraton downtown. 135mm f/3.5 Nikkor Q.


Crooks’ HQ. Grain in the sky is visible
even at modest enlargement. 135mm Nikkor Q.


Hyatt with trumpeter. 135mm Nikkor Q.


ASU. 135mm Nikkor.


Ambulance chaser. 35-70mm f/2.8D Nikkor.


Vet. 35-70mm Nikkor.


Basketball. 20mm UD Nikkor.


Art Deco. 35-70mm Nikkor.


Red. 20mm UD Nikkor.


Central Avenue. 20mm UD Nikkor.


Signature cocktails. 135mm Nikkor Q.


Downtown Deli. 35-70mm Nikkor.


Adding EXIF data:

I like to have camera and lens data in the EXIF data for each image as that’s how I tend to remember images, rather than through clunky keywords.

As scanned the EXIF data shows the name and model of the Noritsu film scanner used by the lab.

To confer proper camera and lens data I purchased an app named ‘EXIF Editor’ from the OS X App Store. It’s a tad clunky but can be integrated into LR for the roundtrip in Lightroom->Preferences->External Editing:


EXIF Editor set as an external editing option.

Then, after restarting Lightroom, choose the photo or photos (this functionality permits batch processing in EXIF Editor) to be round tripped thus:


Here is an example of ‘before’ and ‘after’ EXIF data:

I generally find that you have to restart LR with each batch of images to be round tripped; while EXIF Editor is clunky, you can set up presets with favorite camera/lens combinations, electing the preset once the image batch is in EXIF Editor. Hit ‘Process’ and the images will be saved as additional photos in a stack for each image in LR. The originals in LR can then be deleted as they add no value.

Here is the LR metadata display after adding correct camera/lens data for the folder:

Once you establish a workflow it’s less effort than it seems and, after all, there are one 36 images on a roll!

TheDarkroom.com:

This film processing and scanning service is in Los Angeles and came recommended. Their 6774×4492 scans are the largest HQ ones I could find and unlike other services I looked at, TheDarkroom.com offers online image download from their servers which store your images for 60 days, unless you want to pay for extended storage. This is what you see once your scans are on their server:


Scanned images ready for download.

There were two snags. First this, which is simply inexcusable:

I selected just two images and got this idiotic message:

That means you have to download one image at a time.

Second, the selection box for checking images to download returns a green check mark when clicked but then clicking ‘Download’ does nothing. I managed to beat direct download links out of them – after two tries for they sent me the wrong ones. Next time I’ll take my business elsewhere. Meanwhile, they got what they deserved in my Yelp review:

Nikon 43-86mm f/3.5 in use

Film, Nikon bodies

An excellent mid-range zoom.

For an index of all my Film related articles, click here.

Technical considerations underlying the use of the Nikon Zoom Nikkor 43-86mm f/3.5 single ring zoom are addressed here.

In field use I found the lens has a relatively long focus throw, making critical manual focus using the focus confirmation light in the finder of the Nikon D3x a simple matter. Balance on the big D3x body is just fine, the lens presenting a very solid, yet compact, bundle in the user’s hand.

The Village at Pinnacle Peak in Scottsdale is over 25 years old and was the only construction at the time in what was undeveloped desert. It’s absolutely gorgeous, an unspoiled expanse of Spanish architecture, beautiful to behold. I racked out the 43-86mm there.



The contact sheet. All have my lens correction profile applied
and minor shadows/highlights tweaks. No sharpening used.


Click the image for the map. At f/11.


At f/8. Rare clouds in the Arizona sky.


19th century ox cart. At f/11.


Cloisters. At f/11.


Staircase. At f/16.


Fountain. At f/16. There is no diffraction fall off at small apertures.


Roof. At f/11. McDowell mountains in the background.


Bird bath. At f/3.5.


Geometry. At f/8.


Ox cart/test target. At f/8.


Display plaque on above, greatly enlarged.


Stucco. At f/8.


This is a wonderful walk-about lens and highly recommended. Heck, at $30-60 a pop, get several!

Nikon 43-86mm f/3.5 zoom lens – Part II

Nikon lenses

CPU installation, lens correction profile and tests.

In Part I I looked at the early history of zoom lenses on 35mm film cameras and at the Nikon Zoom 43-86mm f/3.5 optic, noting how the poor reputation for performance of the Mark I design had affected resale values of the improved Mark II version, which we are looking at here.

In this posting I address the installation of a CPU, examine the need for a lens correction profile to fix this optic’s barrel distortion and chromatic aberration, and provide some test images.

CPU installation permits the recording of EXIF data and automatic invocation of the appropriate lens correction profile when images are imported to Lightroom.

First the lens mount has to be removed, 5 screws. This will disclose shims both above and below the aperture ring. Be careful not to lose these and note how many are above and below the aperture ring.


Alloy will have to be removed in the area denoted.


Bayonet mount removed for grinding. Note the relatively fragile claw which mates with the aperture
follower deep in the lens’s barrel. Replace this mount incorrectly and you will lose aperture control.

For this lens, installing a CPU is difficult as a fair amount of alloy has to be removed from the rear of the lens mount to ensure the CPU does not protrude too far and damage the camera’s contacts in the lens throat. There is no easy way to access the area to be machined and while, once removed, the mount can be further dismantled I did not have the tools to do this. If you are not comfortable using hand machine tools you should delegate the work, as it’s not that difficult to mess things up here.


Shims disclosed when the bayonet mount is removed.

Dremel to the rescue. I found a Dremel tool, #7144 in 1/8″ shank at Home Depot for $8. This grinding tool has a very fine pointed diamond encrusted cutting surface and is just what the doctor ordered for grinding away the alloy on the rear of the lens mount to accommodate the CPU.


With the lens mount removed – 5 screws – and securely clamped in a vise, the Dremel 7144 tool goes to work.
Note the ear protectors to avoid loss of hearing. Blue masking tape denotes machining limits.

The correct positioning of the CPU is addressed here and is marked beforehand on the mount. The blue masking tape denotes the machining limits. A super smooth surface is not essential as the J&B Weld two part epoxy used to glue the CPU in place will fill in any irregularities. What you do want on a test fitting is a CPU whose electrical contacts are concentric with the lens mount and do not protrude above the extremity of the bayonet mount.

After the requisite 24 hour period to allow the epoxy to cure, excess glue was carefully removed with a sharp knife and miniature Nicholson file and abraded areas touched up with black matte modeler’s paint.


Be sure to align the fragile shims with the screw holes.
Unusually for a Nikkor, the five screws are equally spaced.
There are six holes in the shims, only five accept screws.


The CPU is installed. About 2 hours of work. If you get any glue on the sprung gold contact pins, the CPU is toast.

The CPU is programmed in the usual way as explained here, conferring maximum and minimum apertures, minimum focal length (I used 42mm as 43mm is not available in the CPU) and transferring aperture control from the camera body to the lens to avoid non-linearity issues as explained in that link.


EXIF data correctly reported in Lightroom
after CPU installation.

Lens profile:

Well, this is a surprise. I found that chromatic aberrations and barrel distortion in this lens to be so low that even without a lens profile results are fine.

However, I developed a lens correction profile in the usual way and this is automatically invoked in Lightroom if you install a CPU. The CPU’s program data tell LR which lens correction profile to use, something which will be done automatically if your image import dialog checked the lens correction profile when you created it. You can download the profile here. The profile file contains corrections at f/3.5, f/8 and f/16. The closest to the aperture used will be invoked automatically.

Here’s the Develop dialog from LR:


The profile invoked in LR.

While developed using a Nikon D3x, this profile will work fine with any Nikon digital camera, FF or APS-C.

Performance:

I was very pleasantly surprised by the performance of this optic, finding excellent center and extreme edge definition at 43mm and 86mm fully open and even better at f/8 where the lens peaks. Thereafter, it’s just fine all the way down to f/22. It mystifies me what all those years of opprobrium and trash talk directed at this inexpensive lens are all about.

The images below were reproduced without invoking my lens correction profile (see above) and mild chromatic aberration (color fringing) is visible. This completely disappears when the lens correction profile is used.


Test scene, Nikon D3x, 43mm full aperture.


Center definition at f/3.5. 40x enlargement.


Extreme edge definition at f/3.5. 40x enlargement.


Extreme edge definition at f/8. 40x enlargement.

Compare these test images with those from the 50mm f/2 HC Nikkor, one of the best lenses ever made. Impressive, huh? Also note the gentle rendering of out-of-focus areas.

Conclusion:. If you want a mid-range, constant aperture Nikkor push-pull zoom for very little money, snap up the Type II version of the 43-86mm f/3.5. The results are excellent and the ergonomics, fit and finish are unequalled in any zoom lens I have used.


Gear used for the above, including a $6 Amazon Basics UV
filter and a Nikon HR-1 folding rubber lens hood.

On an APS-C format Nikon, where the extreme edges are not used, this makes for a fine all purpose 65-130mm, high definition optic. In fact I did the CPU programming on my D2x, which is APS-C, sporting a 1.5x magnification compared to the full frame D3x.

The story here is similar to the one for the 500mm Reflex Mirror which, were all those purported ‘experts’ to be believed, is not worthy of serving as an ashtray.

Nikon 43-86mm f/3.5 zoom lens – Part I

Nikon lenses

Not totally awful.

The early history of zoom lenses on 35mm film cameras is long and not distinguished.

It starts in 1959 with the 36-82mm f/2.8 Zoomar which mounted on the contemporary Voigtländer Bessamatic SLR. The Bessamatic used a leaf shutter inside the lens mount, a fact which made it difficult to make really wide lenses for it, but kudos to the company for retaining American Zoomar to design a zoom lens, and one with a fixed, large aperture at that.


Bessamatic with 36-82mm f/2.8 Zoomar mounted. No strap lugs on the body ….

This monster lens was an ugly duckling with styling nothing like the nicely finished factory lens range (35mm all the way through 350mm) and performance was so-so, but you could claim to be the only one on the block with this ugly duckling. Plus, the optic came with this comical depth-of-field calculator so that you could be sure of getting it right despite the multiple aberrations:


Included with every Zoomar, this DOF calculator. Reminiscent of Dr. Strangelove’s circular slide rule.

Nikon was a far better lens designer than American Zoomar, so when they first marketed their 43-86mm f/3.5 Nikkor Zoom in February, 1963 it was elegantly executed and matched, as a whole, the rest of the burgeoning Nikkor lens range:


Mark I of the 43-86mm Nikkor.


Nikon’s elegant solution to the depth-of-field riddle.

And the elegant solution to depth-of-field determination with those lovely curving, colored lines, was a first. A tad different from the Zoomar’s calculator!

Arguably one of the most beautifully executed of all Nikkors its performance was, by general agreement, the worst of any lens Nikon ever sold! Despite that, over 150,000 made it out the door at Kogaku, Tokyo. The lens was compactly sized and beautifully made, not to mention revolutionary, building on Voigtländer’s pioneering lead with something far more useable. This design comprised 9 elements in 7 groups and as Nikon’s site attests, the manufacturer was rightly proud of its achievement. The irony of the lens’s poor optical performance is that 99+% of images are now displayed on small computer or cellphone screens, for which purpose it’s perfectly adequate.

Nikon had another go at the design, releasing Mark II in November 1975, now with 11 elements in 8 groups, the description of the lens was moved from inside the filter ring to around the outside barrel, making identification easy. This was a much better optical formula and the beauty of the marketplace is that the curse of the earlier design similarly affected the market price of used Mark II lenses, meaning all are dirt cheap. Mine ran me $69 shipped, in ‘as new’ condition. Many of these have been really beaten up and I simply cannot see saving $30 on a beater when your pride and joy in a mint example can be had for little more. It probably makes sense to use a lens hood for protection as well as flare control, given how prominent the front element is, and the standard Nikon 50mm collapsible rubber hood HR-2 can be found new for under $20. Amazon lists an ‘Amazon Basics’ 52mm UV filter for further protection for under $6. I bought both.

An even greater number of the Mark II variant was manufactured with the last versions – mine – coming Ai equipped from the factory. The cut-outs in the aperture ring’s coupling claw for old Nikon Photomic metered prisms and cameras like the Nikkormats are there to throw as much light as possible on the smaller duplicate rear aperture scale which is read through the finder via a reflecting mirror in later bodies like the FM and FE. Nikon called this ADR or Aperture Direct Readout, a clunky solution to seeing the aperture in the viewfinder. It works …. in good light. As usual I will be discarding the claw after installing a CPU, which will allow the recording of EXIF data on digital bodies.


My ‘as new’ condition 43-86mm Zoom Nikkor on the Nikon FE film body.

Mounted on the small FE body the fine ergonomics of the body are nicely complemented by this compact and beautifully made zoom lens. The construction quality of the lens is exceptional as regards fit and finish, no wobbles, no rattles and the optic feels like one solid piece of glass and metal. Those are real, paint filled engravings you see, not screen printed garbage. Gorgeous.

I discuss lens correction profiles and CPU installation in Part II, along with test images.

Fixing viewing in the Nikon FE

Nikon bodies

A few bucks and some sweat equity.

In my introduction to the Nikon FE I focused on the factory’s attention to ergonomics in this elegantly designed camera.

Mine came with a -2.00 diopter Nikon non-standard eyepiece which left much to be desired (meaning I couldn’t see a bloody thing) so I removed the correcting lens, a 19mm screw-in attachment, and had at it while awaiting a plain glass replacement. Nikon is asking $25 for the part which makes highway robbery seem a bargain in comparison, but I traced down a $5 clone on eBay and plonked down my cash. On installation it was immediately obvious that the external diameter is too large, preventing the camera’s back from opening:


Duh! eBay strikes again!

So it’s off to the bench grinder and after marking the right position a small flat is machined on the circumference. The thread is a single start one so, should you ever remove the eyepiece, replacement in the correct orientation is assured.


Showing the machined flat on the replacement eyepiece.
Stock size Nikon part on the right.

In practice the larger circumference of the aftermarket part is to be welcomed, providing a bigger contact patch for this snapper’s eyeglasses.

Here it is installed, a spot of black paint applied to the machined flat:


Installed, and correctly aligned.

Now for the other shortcoming of the stock FE body. In my earlier posting, I made mention of the fact that the Nikon FM and FE, and their derivatives (FM2, FE2, FM3, etc.) found great favor with professionals who did not need the bulk and weight of the big F series bodies nor all their flexibility. Nikon did not chintz on the feature set and every one of the cameras in the series – with the exception of the original FM which came a year before the FE – had interchangeable focusing screens. Nikon marketed three types – the stock Type K with a split image center and microprism collar defining the center-weighted metering area, the Type B matte which deleted the split-image aid but retained a microprism center and the Type E, like the Type B but with horizontal and vertical alignment lines added.

The stock Type K screen in the Nikon FE is underwhelming, being both grainy and not very bright. Also, the split-image focus aid partially blacks out with lenses of 200mm or longer focal length, rendering it useless.

However, Nikon did not rest on its laurels. The late 1970s was a fertile period for screen design with easily the best and brightest being the full area microprism one found in the 1968 Leicaflex SL, which remains a standard to aspire to to this day. (The earlier Leicaflex with the integrated, external CdS meter, only had a center focusing spot so it was brighter still, but the utility value was missing). When the 1983 FM2 and FE2 came along the bodies were fitted with an improved screen, the Type K2, E2, etc. Still a bit grainier than you might like but gaining 1/2 stop in brightness. There was more to come for in 2001, with the introduction of the FM3A, the brightness remained but the graininess was gone. This Type 3 (K3, E3, etc.) was the best and the brightest ever made for the FM2/FE series and, amazingly, can still be found new at Amazon for under $30. Continuous improvement, or kaizen, at its best. I bought one.

Do not be tempted to buy a beater on eBay. The new kit comes with the proper tweezers which make exchange simple with no fingerprints on your pristine screen. One end of the tweezers has a rectangular slot to grasp the protruding tab on the screen, as well as a small plastic extension to pop the locking catch in the camera’s body.


This is the right part.

The beater you buy on eBay will likely be filthy (just try and clean those fine fresnel etchings ….) and will probably be missing the tweezers. You really do not want to do the exchange without these. For those interested, the tab on the Type 1 screen has a plain leading edge, that on the Type 2 is notched whereas the Type 3 is engraved with the designation K3, E3 or B3. But however you try to rationalize it, paying $15 for a beater with no tweezers against $30 for the new part makes no sense.


The Type K3 screen kit.


Tweezers. Far more than meets the eye.


Screen frame released with the tweezer tool.


Once engaged, the tweezers grasp the tab using a small rectangular frame at their tip.

It’s a magnificent testimony to Nikon’s attention to detail that they lavished so much attention on something as seemingly simple as a pair of tweezers. Note the grip serrations on the tweezers which match those of the focusing collar design of later Nikkors!

So how well does it work? I opted for the K3 as I find the split image center works well for me with lenses all the way up to the 500mm Nikon Reflex and it is much, much better than the stock Type 1 screen, one half of whose split image focusing aid blacks out at 200mm or longer. The microprism collar in the Type K3 works well up to 200mm, starts to struggle at 300mm and is useless with the 500mm Reflex. Measuring the light in the finder eyepiece, the Type K3 screen is one-half stop brighter than the stock Type K screen, and one half stop brighter than the finder in the Nikon D3x, so the state of the art in optical finders appears to have peaked with the Type 3 screen.

‘Subjectively’ is a term used mostly by zonkers, strangers to the objectivity of the technological process, listening to antique stereo gear and paying $1000 for a 3 foot connecting cable, made by Japanese virgins in kimonos; not a one of these jerk offs could pass a blind A/B test. Must get into that business …. But, subjectively, the gain in screen brightness is far greater than the 1/2 stop measured gain suggests. So much so that you really will not want to revert to the stock screen once upgraded. And the gain in the utility of the split image center is reason enough to upgrade. As for themicro prism collar in the Type 3 screen, it seems little changed from that in the Type 1, and works better than the split image aid with very wide lenses.

The 1/2 stop gain in measured brightness means that the exposure compensation dial has to be set to +1/2 stop. More light is falling on the meter’s sensor so you will be under-exposing without this adjustment. Given that you really do not want to use the exposure compensation daily for anything else – because you will forget you have set it in the absence of any finder indication – this is hardly an imposition. After setting the dial thus, I obtained the exact same exposure readings with the FE as on the D3x and on a known external exposure meter.


Correct setting with the Type 3 screen installed.

The FE with the K3 focusing screen retrofitted is now in the 21st century for viewing and focusing.