Vintage camera reviews, repairs and photography blog
The Olympus 35 ECR is a fully automatic, 35mm film camera with a fixed 42mm f/2.8 lens and rangefinder focusing aid which was produced by Olympus in the early 1970s. Camera Images My Olympus 35 ECR I was given my copy of the Olympus 35 ECT by a fellow camera collector, with a note explaining that there were some problems with it. To be honest, that was a couple of years ago now and I can’t remember exactly what is […]
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In the late 1960s and early 1970s the Instamatic range of cameras from Kodak were very popular and were responsible for many people trying photography as a hobby and progressing onto more advanced models. As well as still cameras, Kodak also made a similar range in cine cameras, and this post takes a brief look at one of those models, the Instamatic M2 cine camera. Kodak Instamatic M2 cine camera images My Instamatic M2 Cine Camera This cine camera was […]
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This post describes my experience of using the Bosch EasyControl smart room thermostat with smart radiator controllers. Although it will probably be of no interest to anyone who visits my site for it’s photographic content, I hope it will prove useful to people thinking about specifically purchasing the Bosch EasyControl unit or another smart room stat. Bosch EasyControl System The Bosch EasyControl system is a modern replacement for the standard central heating timer and combines the job of room thermostat […]
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This is a quick pictorial review of the Mamiya/Sekor 500 DTL 35mm SLR camera which was introduced by Mamiya in the late 1960s.
Read moreA couple of weeks ago I posted how I was trying out Alien Skin Software Exposure X4 as a possible replacement for Lightroom after I’d cancelled my Adobe subscription. Well, in the end I didn’t plumb for Exposure X4, but instead went for the latest release of ON 1 Photo Raw 2019 instead. As I explained in my previous post, I ended up cancelling my subscription to Lightroom quite quickly and so was left without a photo editor. Just as […]
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Earlier in the year I wrote a post about a software photo package called ON1 Raw because I was planning to cancel my subscription to Lightroom. Well, a couple of days ago went ahead with the cancellation, but instead of ON1 Raw I actually started trialling Alien Skin Exposure X4 as my photo editor. Although I had planned to cancel Lightroom in November, in the end I cancelled it on October 30th and in quite a hurry. I was looking […]
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This post looks at the Elmo E-80 projector which is a standard 8 model made by Elmo, a very reputable manufacturer, in Japan in the early 1950s. Elmo E-80 Images My Elmo E-80 projector I bought this Elmo E-80 projector from eBay as an addition to my small (but worryingly growing) collection of movie projectors. It was sold as a working unit and it does power up and seems ok, but the two core mains lead supplied with it looks […]
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We recently spent a weekend at the Elvden Centreparcs and I took this picture of James holding our Cockapoo puppy Freddy in the garden of the Starbucks above the sailing lake with my mobile phone. I really like the expressions captured on their faces, although I wish had taken the photo with my XT-1 and a longer lens so I could have de-focused the background a bit. Unfortunately, that wasn’t possible as at the time I took this picture all […]
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I’ve written before on this blog about collecting 8mm home movies and I’ve purchased several films over the last couple of years which I’m hoping to be able to digitise soon. Each of the films which I’ve bought has been quite interesting, but I’ve generally acquired films which were shot in the mid to late 1960s; this week however, I had quite a find when I picked up 20 8mm home movies which were shot from the early 1950s up […]
Read moreIt’s a busy time for me at the moment because I’m on holiday for a couple of weeks and instead of going away somewhere I’m doing some garden landscaping at home. However, in between bouts of digging and bricklaying, I’m also trying to take the next steps in my project to build an 8mm telecine machine. Because I haven’t made much progress on that project, a couple of weeks ago I purchased a few old VHS-C camcorder tapes because they […]
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The subject of this short article is one of Canon’s early ventures into digital photography, the PowerShot A40 compact camera. This 2Mp, compact, zoom camera was made in about 2002 and offered a range of features for both the holiday snapshot photographer and the more advanced user. Canon PowerShot A40 Images My Canon PowerShot A40 I’ve had my copy of the PowerShot A40 for a number of months now having bought it when I became interested in vintage digital cameras […]
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This is a look at the Hitachi VM-C30E, an early VHS-C camcorder, which was made by Hitachi in Japan sometime in the early 1990s. Hitachi VM-C30E pictures My Hitachi VM-C30E camcorder This unit was an eBay purchase for a little over £10 which I bought simply as a nostalgic purchase. Being interested in the history of home photography, and with an eye to adding home movies to the Found-Film site, I’ve bought several 8mm cine films over the course of […]
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This is a picture which I took several years ago when my daughter Emma was only a small child and we took a family trip to the Park at Knebworth house. It was taken with a Pentax K200D DSLR, and a Pentax 55 to 200mm zoom lens. I particularly like the way the fence which she was holding on to leads the eye into the subject matter.
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This post looks at the Nikon F-601 autofocus, 35mm, slr camera which was one of the higher, midrange offerings in Nikon’s line up of cameras in the early 1990s. Nikon F-601 Images My Nikon F-601 Camera I got my Nikon F-601 camera as part of a large collection of cameras which had been sold by what turned out to be rather an unscrupulous seller on eBay. They had bundled a large collection of faulty cameras and sold them as untested […]
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Today I want out with my Ricoh GXR Leica A12 camera, fitted with a Tamron 90mm Macro lens, to take some macro photos on a piece of waste ground at the bottom of our street. This is a fairly common occurrence at this time of year, when the weather is nice, but I found it a bit of a frustrating experience. Normally, I can set whichever camera I’m using to manual focus and use the focus peaking mode of the […]
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