Hi everybody,
I just joined the list today. Glad I found it, especially as although I'm
English, I'm unfortunately living in Italy at the moment so I can't just go
out and buy Amateur Photographer or Pic Magazine whenever I feel like it
anymore, neither can I just drop into Grays of Westminster anytime for a
drool.
I like to describe myself as semi-pro, but really I'm a pretty haphazard
shooter with not much time or brainpower for heavy technical detail and not
much money for good kit, let alone new kit. Ever since I read that Julia
Margaret Cameron was a pretty sloppy operator as well, I quit bothering with
calculating flash-guide numbers and stuff. Cameron used her first camera for
a couple of years before someone told her it had a bad lens defect - She'd
never noticed and by this time she'd already taken some pretty mean
portraits. I love machines though and most of all I love my faithful old
Nikons, two battered old FGs still going (fairly) strong. Who needs a Canon
when you can have the real thing?!
You don't know how glad I was when Nikon finally brought out the F5 and
grabbed back the title of World's Best Pro SLR. Mind you, that new Canon
(forget the name but you'll all know the one I mean) (Oh yeah, the EOS3)
that's so cheap but so good is gonna be a hard bargain to beat? Or maybe the
New Nikon F100. Comments anyone?
Six years ago I owned a Pentax Spotmatic (which was great but had some kind
of lens abberation giving a tendency to let in flare) but I'd always really
wanted a Nikon, so in my photo-newbie ignorance I bought an EM which was
such a useless little pig that I traded up to a chrome FG with an MD-E
winder only two weeks later. I do a few portraits a year and after having my
FG for a year or so I started to worry that I needed a backup machine and
looked around for an FM2, FE or FA, but they were all too much money for me.
Then I suddenly thought, "what the heck Tube, on your budget, and for what
you want to use it for, can you honestly say that another FG couldn't cut
the mustard just as well, and for half the price?" So I bought another FG, a
black one this time, which is handy for remembering which one has the colour
and which one the mono stock loaded etc...
Anyway, both cameras are doing fine. They've both been repaired (for only a
few english quid by a local repair guy) at different times for the same
fault (frame counter goes off the scale and sticks after 36, thus also
rendering the meter inoperative), but apart from that I have almost no
complaints (though Depth Of Field Preview would be nice)
I have a couple of questions for the brains on the list:
Is the flash sync speed on the FG 1/60 or 1/90? I use 1/60 all the time. (I
use a Vivitar 283 flash - Can this use the TTL facility on the FG?)
Actually, the black FG has developed a little fault - In manual, the
viewfinder meter display sometimes indicates +/- one stop from what I
actually have the shutter speed set at. (ie, if I'm set at 1/60, the led
display will indicate 1/30)
The important question is of course, WHICH setting is the correct one? The
led display or the speed selector knob? Is it gonna shoot at 1/30 or 1/60?
It's a little unnerving. In theory, what I set on the knob should be the
correct setting, but what does the team think?
And could this fault be washing over into the AP mode? (which I tend to use
75% of the time for most subjects except my portraits).
Sorry I strayed off topic a bit. It won't happen again. With most lists I
just lurk, read and learn. As it's my first posting to the list I'm hoping
youll all let me off this time.
By the way, on my wish list is a new F60, or a nice clean used F801, or a
well-rubbed F90. Any of these would make my day and finally bring me into
the world of Auto Focus. I was against the idea for years, (mainly because I
couldn't afford an AF camera (not one by Nikon anyway) and was jealous of
anyone who could! But as these days my eyesight seems not so good as it used
to be, I feel I miss a lot of good shots through continually hesitating and
re-focusing manually. I'm ready to give up and just let the machine take
over, know what I mean? I used to be against computers for similar reasons
(I'm a graphic artist), but one day I bought a PC for DTP stuff at home and
now I avoid pencils and cowgum like the plague. If it ain't electronic, It
ain't real...
Bye,
Tube
