Week 18 (April 30th - May 6th) | Picture 30

I've got a new toy! Well, new-to-me. The toy itself is actually pretty old, somewhere in the neighborhood of 45 years old. My dad (who passed away in 1996) had a pretty serious photography hobby in the late 60s. I happened to mention to my mom that I was interested in shooting some film and I couldn't believe it when she told me that she still had my dad's camera. I thought for sure it was long gone - given away, sold, or lost.

I tried not to get my hopes up about the camera - for all I knew it was broken or there was a corroded battery inside.

The camera appeared to be in excellent condition, but was without a battery. It didn't even occur to me that I would have a battery compatibility problem - but 50 years ago, mercury batteries were excellent technology. That excellent technology was banned in the early 1980s because of the harmful side effects from exposure.

A little poking around and I found everything from a $5 to a $50 DIY solution for the battery problem. $5 being a short term fix and $50 being a permanent fix. But, before I dropped $50 on a camera that may not even work, I went for the cheap solution. My $5 battery and my roll of film arrived a couple days ago and the camera's meter powered up with the battery!

I am so excited to shoot my first roll of film. It will probably take me a while to do it . . . With manual focus and wanting to make every shot really count - I am going to be pretty selective about what I shoot. Digital has spoiled me - a lot. I can take 200 pictures, I can see the results immediately, and it costs me nothing to take 200 more if I need to. Film almost makes me nervous, because I don't want to waste any shots. Once I get through my 36 exposures, I'll share some here. (Depending on how the first roll comes out, I may invest more $ in refurbishing the camera internally - but I want to see how it does without any tweaking first . . . )

For now, I'll share a picture of this seemingly pristine Minolta SRT 101. My dad was so proud of this camera and enjoyed his hobby so much. It makes me very happy to keep a small piece of that alive.



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 28 - 75mm f/2.8 (@75mm)
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 200
Flash: Flash: SB-800 off camera, manual, 1/8th power
Exposure: manual

Nothing fancy about the picture - flash was on a shoot through umbrella like last week's image - except this week it was straight on the subject instead of off to the side.