Making Memories with a Cheap, Old, Rangefinder Camera

Louise and Donny at Bahia Honda State Park, Florida, May, 1969.

 

Photography has many functions. I made a living with my cameras for many years, and that was a truly important function. But for me, and probably for most of us, the camera's most important function is to serve as a memory-making machine.

In May, 1969, near the end of our first year teaching at Miami's Florida Christian School, Louise and I took the graduating seniors on an overnight outing to Bahia Honda State Park in the Keys. (We were class sponsors.)

Louise, Rob, 11-month-old Donny, and I had our little Ted Williams pop-up camper (I wrote about it here), while the students had tents and sleeping bags. As the saying goes, "A great time was had by all."

 The camera I took with me on that trip  was a Petri rangefinder with an f2.8 lens, very similar to this one. It was not new when I bought it, and I didn't pay much for it. But I made a lot of pictures with that camera, almost all of them on color negative (print) film. The prints are not the sharpest, but the memories they bring back are sharp indeed. I still have most of those prints, and I've also scanned them with an Epson Perfection 4990 flatbed scanner and stored them in my computer. Best of both worlds!

I simply can't overemphasize the importance of making prints and backing up your photos in your computer. Many of my readers, if not most, are making family snapshots with their cell phones. And that's great! Cell phone photography is quick, convenient, and entirely suitable for family snaps. But they also can vanish into the ether very easily if we don't take care to back them up. So choose the ones that mean most to you and email them off to Shutterfly or some other printing service. It's quick, easy, and cheap. You will never regret it.

Visit my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Photography and text copyright 2025 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography    film photography     color negative film    camping   Ted Williams camper     Florida keys     Petri f2.8 rangefinder camera     cell phone photography     Bahia Honda State State Park     Shutterfly

Would I Go Back to Shooting Film?

 Some of my film cameras.

 

 Probably not. But if I were to go back to shooting film, some of the reasons are in the picture above. Clockwise from the top they are the Minolta Autocord twin-lens reflex, the Canon EOS A2, the Petri f1.9 RF, the Minolta Flashmeter III, the Olympus OM2n, and the Canon Pellix FT. In the center is the Canon AF35ML. The key piece of equipment here is the Minolta Flashmeter. It reads the light falling on the subject rather than the light reflected from it, and gives super-accurate exposure readings with any camera and under all conditions.

Digital cameras have reached a state of near-perfection.They are superbly accurate in focusing and exposing, and advance quietly to the next frame with no effort on the users part. They cost little or nothing to operate after the initial investment in camera and lens(es). So what's not to like?

Film cameras, on the other hand, require much more attention from their users. Later models, like the Canon A2, often have auto exposure, focus, and film advance, but even these conveniences need some monitoring. They have not reached the state of perfection achieved by modern digital cameras, because development of film cameras was mostly sidelined 25 years ago as digital imaging took the world of photography by storm and blew film cameras into the weeds. (To mix a few metaphors.)

So why would anyone use a film camera today? Especially with the current prices of film and developing?

For me, anyway, the difficulty is the attraction. With film, one has to really learn one's camera, film, and accompanying processes. No shortcuts here.

A few days ago I pulled a Petri f1.9 rangefinder camera from the 1960s  out of a box in my study and fondled it for a few minutes as I remembered the fun I had and the pictures I made with a similar camera 55 years ago. I just don't get the satisfaction from my lovely Fuji digital cameras that I got from those antiquated film devices. Shooting film was simply more fun.

So, am I going back to film? Probably not. I have too many things I want to do and not enough life left to do them all as it is. But I will always miss my film-shooting days. They were the best part of my life in photography.

Just call it an old man's rant. 

Visit my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Photography and text copyright 2025 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography    film photography     film cameras    Minolta Flashmeter III    Minolta Autocord twin-lens reflex     Canon EOS A2     Petri f1.9     Olympus OM2n     Canon Pelix FT     Canon AF35ML

Footloose in Seoul with a Pentax 6x7

 Young couple on a bridge, Seoul, South Korea.

It was Sunday, February 16, 1992 in Seoul, South Korea. My editor, Doug LeBlanc, had gone back to the U.S. because of a family emergency. I was alone and had most of the day off. What to do, what to do, what to do? I know! I'll take my Pentax 6x7 and a pocket full of film and ramble around the city!

I must have been in some kind of park. There was a tightrope walker. . .

 

He was really good, even doing acrobatics on the wire.

Two women shared a seesaw.

Several young women were decorating pottery. . .

 

While a craftsman worked on something. I couldn't tell what he was doing.

 

A Korean beauty in traditional dress.

A convivial group of young adults were having tea in an outdoor restaurant.

I mentioned in my previous post that I was not sure why I brought Kodak Ektachrome EPP film instead of Fujichrome 100 on this trip. Apparently the EPP was in 220 size rolls, which gave me 20 exposures per roll instead of 10. A roll of either takes the same amount of space, but the 220 has twice as many frames.

This is a photo from yesterday's post. Marcus Peddle, a reader who lives in South Korea, commented: "The newlyweds are praying at what looks to be a village sacred tree. Many villages have them. Judging by the rope and strips of white cloth wrapped around the the two phallic stones on the left, I would say they are praying to have a son."

Visit my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Photography and text copyright 1992-2025 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography    film photography     Ektachrome EPP film    Fujichrome 100D film     travel photography     Seoul    Pentax 6x7 camera     South Korea     South Korean culture     Kodak

The Pentax 6x7 in South Korea

The Farmer's Dance is a traditional ceremony performed at planting and harvest seasons. These days it is performed mostly at festivals.

 A Camera with Soul in Seoul. 

 In 1992, I received an assignment from Compassion International, a Christian relief agency, to document some of its work in India and South Korea.

Like the somewhat better known World Vision, Compassion has a sponsorship ministry that enables people in the U.S. and other first world countries to sponsor disadvantaged children and young people in other countries. 

With me on the trip was Douglas LeBlanc, the editor of Compassion Magazine. My job was to make photographs to accompany the articles he would write. Doug turned out to be a very good travel companion and we have remained friends, even though we haven't seen each other for years. We keep in touch by email from time to time and he  comments occasionally on this blog. 

I carried a kit of two Olympus OM cameras and four lenses, all Olympus Zuikos: the 24mm f2.8, 35mm f2, 85mm f2, and the 180mm f2.8. No zooms on this trip. Plus about 110 rolls of Fujichrome 100D film.

A newly-wed couple at a Buddhist shrine seeking a blessing on their marriage.

Being young (just a 55-year-old kid), strong, and stupid, I also packed a separate case with a big Pentax 6x7 and a bunch of 120 Kodak Ektachrome EPP film. I don't remember why I didn't use Fujichrome -- maybe I got a better price on the Kodak. Also, there wasn't any good reason for carrying two separate systems -- it was just something I wanted to do, was able to do (young, strong, and stupid, remember), so I did it.

The bulk of my work on this trip was done with the Olympus equipment. I used the Pentax some in India, not a lot, but it was in South Korea where the big gun came into its own.

I described the Pentax as a camera with soul, and I have to say that if I ever owned a camera with soul, it was the Pentax 6x7. Big, heavy, loud, and totally reliable, it had plenty of personality. And it also gave me the highest percentage of keepers of any camera I've ever used. Of course, with only ten shots per roll of (expensive) 120 film, I was very careful with my focus and exposure. 

Shortly after arriving in Seoul, Doug received a call from his wife. His father was seriously ill, and it was necessary for him to return home immediately.

After several days of being taken in and around Seoul by the Compassion staff to make photographs and gather information for Doug's articles, I had an afternoon off which I used to make some pictures on my own. There was some kind of festival going on, so it was a target-rich environment.

Another Farmer's Dance scene.

More to come in my next post. All photos, of course, were made with a Pentax 6x7 camera, a 105mm f2.4 Takumar lens, and Kodak Ektachrome EPP film.

Visit my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Photography and text copyright 1992-2025 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography    film photography     Ektachrome EPP film    Fujichrome 100D film     travel photography     Seoul    Pentax 6x7 camera     Takumar 105mm f2.4 lens     South Korea     Farmer's Dance     Kodak

The Jenkins Family Goes Camping

 

 Loading our first camper for one of our first camping trips.

(Click on any picture to see an enlarged version.)

This slide was made on an inferior film (probably Ferannia, sold by 3M). It is not very sharp. The colors were faded and washed out, but some work in Photoshop fixed that. Whatever its photographic faults may be, the picture is absolutely precious to us. 

The year was 1969. The scene was our home in Miami. We were loading our first camper for one of our first camping trips. 

Eight-year-old Rob, or Robbie, as we called him then (he's a very distinguished college professor and author these days) is holding one-year-old Donny (now a successful businessman). Louise is packing things in the trunk of our 1963 Plymouth (a really good car).

Our camper was a Ted Williams model, sold by Sears. We bought ours used for about $400, as best I remember. It was small and light and easy to tow, but the top opened out to a big tent that was plenty roomy for us.

The body of the camper was accessed by two large doors, one on each side. In the compartment on one side I built a set of shelves to hold non-perishable foods and cooking utensils. On the other side, I placed a crib mattress and it became Donny's bed, as you can see below. We also had a chest-of-drawers, with drawers for clothes for each of us. When traveling, we simply slid the chest into the compartment and closed the door.

Donny's bed/storage compartment in our Ted Williams camper.

 

Louise's "kitchen."  Camping on Lookout Mountain near Rock City.

 

We definitely got our money's worth out of our little Ted Williams camper, with trips to the Keys, the Everglades, Florida state parks, and more. In the summer of 1969 we spent a month camping on Lookout Mountain and two more weeks at Fall Creek Falls (Tennessee) State Park. When we moved to Tennessee in 1970 we lived in the camper until we found and bought a house.

 

I had only dimly remembered many of these scenes/events from the early years of our family. The pictures brought everything back. Carry your camera and use it. It's a memory-making machine.

 

I believe these photos from the spring/summer of 1969 were made with a Petri rangefinder camera with an f2.8 lens, my best 35mm camera at the time. That fall, I was able to upgrade to a Nikon F.  However, I did use the Petri to make the first picture I ever sold. But that's another story.

Visit my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Photography and text copyright 2025 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography    film photography     3M Ferrania film    camping   Ted Williams camper     Nikon F camera     Petri f2.8 rangefinder camera     Lookout Mountain     Rock City     Fall Creek Falls State Park

More about Film: Black & White

 The Dreamer: First Presbyterian Sunday School, Chattanooga.

Some ramblings about black and white films.

Over the course of 35 years as a film shooter, I used a great many black and white emulsions. Kodak's Plus-X and Tri-X, of course, and some Pan-F.  I shot a lot of Tri-X. Didn't everybody? But it was never my favorite film. Too much grain, unless I shot it at 200 and reduced the developing time. Might as well shoot Plus-X to begin with. 

Between Tri-X and Ilford's HP-5+, I preferred the Ilford. I also used Ilford's FP-4 and liked it, as I did Ilford's chromogenic films XP-1 and XP-2 for their ease of use and smooth rendition. However, I preferred films I could process myself.

In my early days in photography I was hooked on the style of unobtrusive observer/available light photography popularized by such workers as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Elliott Erwitt in the photo magazines of the day. Consequently, I was always trying for all the film speed possible. I pushed my films by rating them above the factory recommended speed and extending the development time. I also tried HP-5 and Tri-X in a number of developers, such as Diafine, Acufine, and Acu-1, which promised enhanced film speeds. Nothing worked to my satisfaction, because with speed, you get grain. And I don't much like grain. 

Also, I never used Agfa's Rodinal developer, which seems to still be popular more than 100 years after its invention, because again, I don't like grain. YMMV.

After some years, I gave up on the speed race and mostly shot fast films in medium format cameras, where the grain didn't show as much. I also learned to light, which helped a great deal.

Later in my film-shooting days, I settled on Kodak's T-Max 400 film for 35mm use because of its good speed, excellent sharpness, and unobtrusive grain structure. 

I used the very popular Kodak D-76 film developer for many years, mixing a gallon at a time and storing it in a brown glass bottle in my darkroom. Eventually, I noticed that my developed negatives were becoming denser when shot at the same film speeds. What I found is that D-76 gains strength over time when mixed in large quantities and stored. The solution: mix smaller quantities as needed (inconvenient, as D-76 is a powder, not a liquid); or change developers. 

I changed to T-Max developer, which is a liquid and can be mixed in small quantities I found the quality of T-Max-processed negatives to be as good as those processed in D-76, so I stayed with it until the end of my days in film.

We had so many things to choose from and so many different ways to do things. Photography is simpler these days and not nearly as much fun.

 

Three church leaders in my studio: First Presbyterian Church, Chattanooga.

The black and white photos in this post are from scanned prints. The negatives are in storage and would take some excavation to find, so I can't say for certain what films were used. I do kinda think, however, that the photo at the top may have been made on Ilford's XP1 chromogenic film. The camera for both photos was probably the Canon EOS A2.

Visit my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Photography and text copyright 2025 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography    film photography     film processing    Kodak Plus-X film    black and white film     Kodak Tri-X film     Kodak Pam-F film     Kodak D-76 developer     Ilford HP-5+ film     Ilford FP-4 film     Ilford XP-1 film     Ilford XP-2 film     Kodak T-Max 400 film     Canon EOS A2 camera     Kodak T-Max developer     Agfa Rodinal developer

More about Film: Color

Louise and Donny at Pioneer Day Fair. Miami, 1969.

 This post is mostly about films I've used and places I've been, so if that doesn't interest you, it's okay to tune out now.

Color Transparency Film

I settled on Fujichrome 100D as my transparency (slide) film of choice in 1986-87 and used it until moving to digital in 2003. When I was traveling internationally on photojournalism assignments in the late 1980s and early '90s, I would often board a plane with a carry-on bag containing five or six 100-foot rolls of Fujichrome 100 film in canisters, a daylight loader, a changing bag, and a bunch of empty, reloadable cassettes. I occupied myself on those long trips by loading the bulk film into 36-exposure cassettes, so that I would arrive fully ready to shoot. (Each 100-foot bulk roll gave me nineteen 36-exposure rolls.)

I used Fujichrome for Rock City Barns: A Passing Era, traveling 35,000 miles in fifteen states in the mid-90s. The book was published in 1996 and won numerous awards. It was the most significant accomplishment of my career.

Color Negative (print) Film

My main use for color negative film was weddings. Until the mid-90s, I photographed two or three weddings most years, whenever someone would ask me, but I didn't market for weddings. I mostly used whatever film Kodak was selling at the time. 

That all changed around 1996-97, as I noticed that my commercial business was declining somewhat and began to explore other possibilities. 

Until then, I had been using medium format cameras for weddings because the quality of the available 35mm films wasn't all that great. However, Fuji introduced two game-changing new 35mm films: Reala (100-speed) and NPH (400-speed). The quality was comparable to medium format films of just a few years ago.  16x20 prints from 35mm Reala easily matched my best Hasselblad prints from 1990.  

In a comparison test of 22X enlargements from Reala, NPH 400, Fuji NPS 160 and another 160 speed portrait film, viewers consistently picked NPH as second only to Reala in sharpness.  In a 20 x 30 print it has slightly more grain than the 160-speed films, but it's noticeably sharper. I standardized on Fuji NPH for wedding photography and used it until digital changed the world.

Next time: Black and white films

The above photo was made on 35mm Kodachrome-X, the predecessor of Kodachrome 64. The camera was a Nikon F (original), my first really good camera, and a Tamron 135mm f2.8 lens.

Visit my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Photography and text copyright 2025 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography    film photography     Kodachrome X film    Fujichrome 100D film     Fuji Reala film     Fuji NPH film    Nikon F camera     Tamron 135mm f2.8 lens