Fresh when it gets here from
Julie Barrett
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Chris is taking a B&W photography course this semester. Tuesday I checked him out on the digital camera. I was pleased to see he knew a lot more than I expected about photography. Some of it is from his design background, but he did have some grasp of focal lengths and f-stops and ISO and the like. He just needed to learn a few basics about the settings of the DSLR, and he was good to go.
Until he got to his class. This is old school B&W. They're required to have a 35mm camera, film, paper, and a few other old school supplies.
Fortunately, I have a drawer full of old camera bodies and lenses from back in the day. We spent a couple of hours going through everything. I found a couple of Canon bodies and several lenses that might be useful. Next, I sat down and cleaned everything. I've had it all sealed in plastic bags, but some of the stuff was still pretty crudded up. Then we went to the storage area in the garage to see if I could unearth the old dark room supplies. I found a few.
Today we trekked across town to a camera store that caters to pros. (I had business just a mile down the street anyway.) Apparently they don't deal with that film stuff any more. Gah. To be fair, I am unsurprised. There are a couple of places in town that do, but I think we'll get better deals on film and paper online.
We dropped by CVS and picked up some film to run through the two camera bodies, just so we can be sure everything is working properly. Amazingly, CVS still carries Tri-X. But we can get it for about half of what they charge if we order online. I'm hoping we can save more with a bulk order. He needs at least ten rolls of film. We might as well order a bunch at once if it'll save us money.
And no, the irony is not lost on me that the day we go scouring the planet for film and paper is the same day Kodak files for bankruptcy. There's some serious irony there.
Tags: Life