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Equipment

The film photos on this page were generally taken with:

  • Pentax K1000 camera
  • Zenit EM camera
  • Pentax SMC f2.8 28mm
  • Pentax SMC f1.4 50mm
  • Vivitar f2.8 macro 1:1 55mm
  • Carl Zeiss Jena Flektogon f2.4 35mm lens
  • Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar f2.8 50mm lens
  • Vivitar Series 1 f3.5 70-210mm

These lenses are all manual-focus only and thus ~cheap~. The cameras are single-lens reflex (SLR) cameras from the 1970s and 80s. In an SLR camera, a mirror and a pentaprism are used to bounce the light from the lens into the viewfinder, so you see (almost) exactly what you’ll (hopefully) get on the negative. When the shutter is fired, an intricate mechanism pulls the mirror up and out of the way so the light can get through the momentarily open shutter and hit the film, then drops it again. This makes a characteristic snapping sound.

The K1000 is a fully manual camera – you change shutter speed (from bulb to 1/1000sec) on the camera, and aperture and focus using the manual rings on the lens. It has a basic through-the-lens exposure meter that runs from a coin battery.

The Zenit EM is also fully manual, but much quirkier. It has a top shutter speed of 1/500 seconds, so a stop slower than the K1000. The meter works through a photosensitive strip above the lens, not through the lens, so any compensation for filters or the like has to be worked out independently. A needle moves in a half-dial based on the light hitting the photosensitive strip. The meter is read by changing settings on a triple-ring arrangement (ISO and f-stop on the inner rings, shutter speed on the outer) to align a moving metal indicator with the needle in the half-dial. If this sounds arcane, it’s because it is.

This particular Zenit EM is a 1984 Moscow Olympics edition. I got it at a second-hand stall at a market in Leeds for £50, because I had an M42 lens and no M42 camera.

I develop black-and-white negatives at home using a Paterson tank, then scan them using a light box and a DSLR with the Vivitar macro lens attached. I use Darktable to process the digitised negatives, because it’s open source, and really good. See Digitising for details.

Any digital photos are taken with the same DSLR: a Pentax K1, which fits the manual lenses above along with the kit lens:

  • Pentax-D FA 1:3.5-5.6 28-105mm

See Darkroom for printing equipment and processes.