- 5,120
- Panama City, FL
Some may recall a few months ago my post about getting a Nikon F4 on fleabay for cheap.
Not learning much by that experience, I've picked up another film camera, this time one that I craved and salivated over when it came out, but couldn't afford. See, I was a Canon shooter back in the manual-focus days, having picked up an AE-1 with a 50mm f:1.4 from a friend of my sister's for cheap. He got it for his birthday, didn't know what it was, really, and didn't want it. I had a hundred bucks in my pocket, and we arranged a mutually beneficial exchange. Well, it was beneficial to me, anyway.
As Canon came out with cameras, I'd look at them and sigh. The A-1 was quite desirable. The AE-1 Program not so much. A black-top AE-1 would have even been nice!
Then one day they introduced the T90. OMFG I was overcome with WANT!!!
But it was 1100 bucks!!!! In 1986 money! What just-out-of-school-first-real-job kid has that kind of disposable coin layin' around??!?!?
But look: Shutter-priority, aperture-priority, and seven program modes! Stopped down auto-exposure! 1/4000 shutter speed! 1/250 flash sync! Three metering modes! Auto-load, with 4.5 fps film drive! Metal-bladed vertical-travel shutter!
I put exclamations on all of these because while most basic-level digital SLRs these days can at least approach those figures, there was NOTHING in the day except the T90 that even came close.
So anyways, I started watching a few on eBay, and ended up with one for 62 bucks. It's mint, not a mark on it. The seller even left batteries in it! I have a Vivitar 28mm f:2.8 left from my Canon days, had no takers when I sold all my stuff when I went auto-focus. I also picked up a Canon 50mm f:1.4 for about 40 bucks. The lens is perfect, and looks like new.
All that's left is to shoot! I had a roll of 200 print film left from playing with the Nikon earlier, and ran it through the camera yesterday while walking around my neighborhood, and discovered 2 issues. The camera looks like it shoots about 2 stops under-exposed (yes, the exposure compensation is at 0,) and the Vivitar 28 is crap unless the sun is behind you. Other than that, I'm happy with it! I need to pick up some slide film and play some more, but for now, just a couple of picks from the roll. Also, I've learned how to output to RAW (as .DNG) from my film scanner, and that really helps me get film into Photoshop, including compensating for that underexposure!
What we get for Fall color - just dead leaves. 50mm.
Also with the 50, a tree with the sun a bit out of frame to the right:
I then mounted the 28mm and put the sun in the frame. Just to see.... I shot it at f:22, f:11, and f:8, all at 1/250.
The Vivitar lens seems to have a bit of a flare problem.... And a 5-bladed iris? Really???? But pointed away from the sun it seems to do all right:
When I got back home my cat was sitting on top of the fence, peering at her domain, and I grabbed this backlit shot. The Vivitar was the wrong lens for it, mostly because I didn't need a wide angle, but the flare became an issue, too. Which didn't show in the viewfinder. By the time I switched to the 50 she'd jumped down, so shooting while the shooting was good turned out to be the right thing.
I love the camera, and I plan to keep it exercised, even if that means just dry firing it. Word on these is that the shutter gets sticky if not used.
Ergonomically it's no Nikon F4. You have to keep dropping the camera from your eye to look at the LCD display on the top of the body, as the viewfinder shows shutter, aperture, and a metering scale only, no mode information or frame count. It's lighter than the F4, though, and has a reputation for ruggedness, although I don't know that it has as much care in the design for weatherproofing, like o-rings on the buttons, things that the F4 has.
The T90 was very short-lived in the market, though. It came out in 1986, and the Canon EOS auto-focus system came out the following year. Still, it was Canon's most sophisticated manual-focus SLR ever. The F-1 shared some of that sophistication, but not all at once. It had the metering systems, and the AE modes, but you had to change focusing screens and film drives to get different modes; the T90 let you select with a switch rather than a piece of equipment.
Not learning much by that experience, I've picked up another film camera, this time one that I craved and salivated over when it came out, but couldn't afford. See, I was a Canon shooter back in the manual-focus days, having picked up an AE-1 with a 50mm f:1.4 from a friend of my sister's for cheap. He got it for his birthday, didn't know what it was, really, and didn't want it. I had a hundred bucks in my pocket, and we arranged a mutually beneficial exchange. Well, it was beneficial to me, anyway.
As Canon came out with cameras, I'd look at them and sigh. The A-1 was quite desirable. The AE-1 Program not so much. A black-top AE-1 would have even been nice!
Then one day they introduced the T90. OMFG I was overcome with WANT!!!
But it was 1100 bucks!!!! In 1986 money! What just-out-of-school-first-real-job kid has that kind of disposable coin layin' around??!?!?But look: Shutter-priority, aperture-priority, and seven program modes! Stopped down auto-exposure! 1/4000 shutter speed! 1/250 flash sync! Three metering modes! Auto-load, with 4.5 fps film drive! Metal-bladed vertical-travel shutter!
I put exclamations on all of these because while most basic-level digital SLRs these days can at least approach those figures, there was NOTHING in the day except the T90 that even came close.
So anyways, I started watching a few on eBay, and ended up with one for 62 bucks. It's mint, not a mark on it. The seller even left batteries in it! I have a Vivitar 28mm f:2.8 left from my Canon days, had no takers when I sold all my stuff when I went auto-focus. I also picked up a Canon 50mm f:1.4 for about 40 bucks. The lens is perfect, and looks like new.
All that's left is to shoot! I had a roll of 200 print film left from playing with the Nikon earlier, and ran it through the camera yesterday while walking around my neighborhood, and discovered 2 issues. The camera looks like it shoots about 2 stops under-exposed (yes, the exposure compensation is at 0,) and the Vivitar 28 is crap unless the sun is behind you. Other than that, I'm happy with it! I need to pick up some slide film and play some more, but for now, just a couple of picks from the roll. Also, I've learned how to output to RAW (as .DNG) from my film scanner, and that really helps me get film into Photoshop, including compensating for that underexposure!
What we get for Fall color - just dead leaves. 50mm.
Also with the 50, a tree with the sun a bit out of frame to the right:
I then mounted the 28mm and put the sun in the frame. Just to see.... I shot it at f:22, f:11, and f:8, all at 1/250.
The Vivitar lens seems to have a bit of a flare problem.... And a 5-bladed iris? Really???? But pointed away from the sun it seems to do all right:
When I got back home my cat was sitting on top of the fence, peering at her domain, and I grabbed this backlit shot. The Vivitar was the wrong lens for it, mostly because I didn't need a wide angle, but the flare became an issue, too. Which didn't show in the viewfinder. By the time I switched to the 50 she'd jumped down, so shooting while the shooting was good turned out to be the right thing.
I love the camera, and I plan to keep it exercised, even if that means just dry firing it. Word on these is that the shutter gets sticky if not used.
Ergonomically it's no Nikon F4. You have to keep dropping the camera from your eye to look at the LCD display on the top of the body, as the viewfinder shows shutter, aperture, and a metering scale only, no mode information or frame count. It's lighter than the F4, though, and has a reputation for ruggedness, although I don't know that it has as much care in the design for weatherproofing, like o-rings on the buttons, things that the F4 has.
The T90 was very short-lived in the market, though. It came out in 1986, and the Canon EOS auto-focus system came out the following year. Still, it was Canon's most sophisticated manual-focus SLR ever. The F-1 shared some of that sophistication, but not all at once. It had the metering systems, and the AE modes, but you had to change focusing screens and film drives to get different modes; the T90 let you select with a switch rather than a piece of equipment.
Also, there are many such services in several countries. Using one to scan as you shoot, if you shoot film, might be cost-effective if your time is valuable, but when faced with boxes containing nearly 5000 slides, it becomes a do-it-yourself project.
