Morning at the beach testing the FT3

[Xia_Ke]

An uncle of mine had a Nikkormat FT3 that he wasn't using any longer and passed it, along with a few lenses, on to me. I left for work a little early this morning and took it down to the beach to shoot a test roll. My main concern was the meter. Seemed a touch off playing with it the other day but, the negatives came out well for the most part. It reads a little different than my other Nikkormat but, I guess thats to be expected for 30 year old cameras. When I went out this morning I shot with a Nikon E-series 50mm f/1.8 which was one of the lenses I got with it. This is a sweet little lens. Super low profile which is good and bad as part of me wishes there was a little more to the focusing ring. All in all made for a fun little breather before heading to work. Here's a few shots from the morning.

Aaron

Oh yeah, and since this is the film forum, these were shot with TMAX 100 that was pushed to 400

[photophorous]

Hey Aaron,

Good looking shots. I saw these on flickr. You've got quite a camera collection now, huh? I like the contrast you got from pushing TMX. Did you just extend your development times, or did you try a stand or semi-stand process? Just curious. I've been reading a lot about pushing films lately, because I'm researching high speed options.

Paul

[Xia_Ke]

Thanks Paul The collection is growing nicely. Now if I could just find some relatives with some MF or LF cameras in the closet...LOL I do all of my pushing by extending development times. For the TMAX I recommend just going with the Kodak recommended push times. I found the Neopan and Acros like a touch longer than recommended or at least by my tastes anyway. This roll of TMAX got a little bit extra on the agitation... there was nothing gentle about it...LOL What kind of options are you considering for high speed, and how fast do you need/want to go?

Aaron

[photophorous]

No kidding about relatives with cameras. My girlfriend's mom mentioned having an old Nikon I could have, but then she forgot about it and I don't want to bring it up again. I definitely don't need it. I just put in a couple of bids on more minolta glass.

You've pushed Acros? How far? I never thought to try that.

I'm looking for a good 1600 ISO to use for candids at a friend's wedding in a few months. I think I'm about to get a bottle of Ilfotec-DDX for push processing, after researching speed enhancing developers. I already have Diafine, which I tried with TriX. It worked great for shadow detail and highlight compression, but it was very gritty and not so kind on skin tones, especially in flat lighting.

There are a lot of choices, but most involve golfball sized grain. I'm considering trying to push TMY and/or Delta 400. I've seen a few very nice examples of both at 1600. But I also have two rolls each of Neopan 1600, Delta 3200 and Tmax 3200 on order. I have a lot of testing to do. Good thing it's dark when I get off work.

[Xia_Ke]

Hey Paul, I hope you don't mind but, I thought the whole push processing thing might make for a good thread...

Push Processing Film