Lucky Film & The Nikon F3
- At February 25, 2011
- By Jack Chauvel
- In Film, Interesting Stuff
2
An important roll for me.. through an iconic camera I have been very lucky to borrow from my good friend Daniel K Cheung. Paired with the Nikon 50mm 1.4D this special camera for me symbolizes great technological feats. Its pretty.. well constructed.. full of dials but most importantly it has character. It is built like a tank and goes like a tank. This one has had an easy life, but I can imagine some of the journo F3’s floating around would tell a different story (as would the rolls produced from it). So how does it stack up? I would have to say that I am very impressed indeed.. impressed so much that I now say I MUST have one.. it WILL be mine… oh yes…
So after having a play but also receiving this not long after I picked up my OM-1.. I decided to put in a roll of the Lucky SHD100 film I picked up. It might not be the greatest of films but its great to practice with and to get a feel for a camera. Straight away after using the F3 in anger for only a short amount of time I could tell that the ergonomics just work. With a massive Viewfinder that you can get lost in your surrounds with, it makes shooting just easy. It really does have all the bells and whistles.. it even has exposure compensation which took my breath away. The camera has a presence and all my photography buddies were in awe of how it feels in the hand (even the Canon fanbois).
Seeing my dad pick the camera up and watching him gawk at how it looks, feels and handles was enough proof to me that this was considered one of the penultimate ‘ must ‘ have cameras. It might not be a Leica, it may not be a Rolleiflex or Zeiss Ikon… but it is the workhorse everybody wants to have. Have I praised it enough yet? Well I could go on.. but lets see what you think of the photos.
This was processed by me at home with a 85% mix of new dev and 15% used once before. I extended the development time by 30 seconds to 6mins and 30 seconds @ 20 degrees. This roll turned out a lot better with less scratches but I also found the grain to be still very fine. I have decided to pick up a range of films and push/pull them a bit to get some different grain and exposure effects.
Film: Lucky SHD100
Developer: Ilford ID-11
Fixer: Ilford
Stop; Ilford ILFOSTOP
You will have to pardon the colours as the scanner I use still scans B&W as colour and the B&W conversion isnt much to what im liking. So where too from here? Well I shot a concert with some Neopan 1600 and the Nikon F3 a few weeks ago.. but that is another blog post coming to you soon. I am about to develop that and I have one more roll of the Lucky in the Nikon F3 which I will finish up before giving it back.
So as you can see I am back in a semi state of normalcy. I am now a resident of Coogee which is a beach suburb in Eastern Sydney. What does that mean? Well.. I am only a 5minute walk from the beach.. hello sunrise! I have a lot to blog, I have been doing a lot of shooting and a lot has gone on. Thank you for your patience and I hope you are ready for some frequent updates this month!
Till next time..
Linda G
Nice work – gotta love film!
I am surprised though, is it still working after the shot of you-know-who???!!!!
Jack Chauvel
Thanks Linda… its really special eh? I really like that photo of Rob.. I think it is one of my fav photos I have taken yet.. says a lot about his character and him in general.