KillRamsey
Hall of Famer
- Location
- Hood River, OR
- Name
- Kyle
Quick background: In first grade I spent 5 of my first allowance dollars at a neighbor's yard sale on a Kodak 110 format camera. I shot rolls of my yard, field trips, the last day of second grade, that sort of thing. In high school (1990) my mom gave me her mid-80's Minolta X-370 slr so I could use it in graphic arts class. She had the stock rokkor 50mm 1.4 lens and a standardish 70-210mm zoom, plus a Sunpak flash. We had a dark room at school and I got all the b+w film I wanted for free, so I began shooting for class, a roll a week at least, then color stuff on my own dime. Never anything serious, and with very little instruction, but I pretty much always had a roll loaded and I still have some of those prints. In college I shot friends' bands at clubs for fun, shot rolls around town, visitng friends and family, etc. I lost that particular X-370 sadly in a bad move-out deal, but I quickly bought another one on Ebay, this in aabout 1999. I took that second one to New Zealand along with a 4mp digital something er other, but Delta lost the second Minolta and alllllll my rolls of film along with everything else in my hiking pack on the flight home... unhappiness ensued. All total I probably shot 150-200 rolls of 35mm I guess, over ten years, including probably 20 rolls of black and white and at least 20 of 1600/3200 ISO fuji stuff.
So it came to pass that I transitioned fully from 35mm to digital. I got slightly better compacts every few years as each one wore out, and I never waded back into the world of film. Then my wife picked out the Fuji X100, and I’ve slowly started having dreams of rangefinders… real ones. I spotted a Minolta AL-F on craigslist and was stunned at how beautiful it is. I’ve ready everything I can find about them, and the Canonets and Konicas, and I still want the AL-F even though the Canonet sounds slightly more capable. And so I now find myself patrolling listings for that model and the minolta SRT series – 101’s or ideally 201’s, with the goal being (and here I welcome comments and critiques):
- The rangefinder loaded with good quality 400 b+w most of the time
- The SLR being loaded with some sort of good color film most of the time, and lenses available would have to include something short & fast, something around 50mm, and at least an 85mm for portraits etc.
Then I want a nice bag to toss them both into, and I have no idea what sort of events will warrant the “old” stuff but I assume inspiration will strike.
So it came to pass that I transitioned fully from 35mm to digital. I got slightly better compacts every few years as each one wore out, and I never waded back into the world of film. Then my wife picked out the Fuji X100, and I’ve slowly started having dreams of rangefinders… real ones. I spotted a Minolta AL-F on craigslist and was stunned at how beautiful it is. I’ve ready everything I can find about them, and the Canonets and Konicas, and I still want the AL-F even though the Canonet sounds slightly more capable. And so I now find myself patrolling listings for that model and the minolta SRT series – 101’s or ideally 201’s, with the goal being (and here I welcome comments and critiques):
- The rangefinder loaded with good quality 400 b+w most of the time
- The SLR being loaded with some sort of good color film most of the time, and lenses available would have to include something short & fast, something around 50mm, and at least an 85mm for portraits etc.
Then I want a nice bag to toss them both into, and I have no idea what sort of events will warrant the “old” stuff but I assume inspiration will strike.
