" All the Time in the World" - General Photography.

A long, log time ago, back in my high school and college days, I had access to a darkroom. Doing my own developing was fun (at the time) . I kinda miss it. Kodacolor, Ektachrome - they produced results that are are hard to duplicate today. Wish I could show you. It was absolutely amazing.

I know, I know - "when dinosaurs ruled the land" 😀 

Yes - but Men were Men !!

Posted by: @mrsponz

A long, log time ago, back in my high school and college days, I had access to a darkroom. Doing my own developing was fun (at the time) . I kinda miss it. Kodacolor, Ektachrome - they produced results that are are hard to duplicate today. Wish I could show you. It was absolutely amazing.

I know, I know - "when dinosaurs ruled the land" 😀 

I did darkroom developing in HS for 2 years.  The teacher I had was an ass who basically taught on a college level and it was certainly wasn't  an easy elective. Those fundamentals  were ingrained in me but only started to click many years later after I had time to improve. The photographers back then had to be better because they were pushed to work harder. You cant waste film and you cant avoid fundamentals which forces you to deconstruct the image which is a good thing. 

 Today there is just too much technology that does it for you and that is the problem. It makes everything gray sludge.  Soon as I turned my digital camera back into manual mode with the assistance of a light meter after reading  Ansel Adams book on the zone system everything clicked. I was back to where I needed to be.  

 These newer sensors with their high dynamic range is also a blessing.  

Ah, yes.  The good old days of darkrooms for processing film and prints.  I remember those days.  I always wanted to take a female friend into the darkroom with me to see if anything would develop.  <grin>

@uncle-mush

Ha. You just wanted "to show her your equipment" 😀 

I had an interesting situation with the darkroom I used in HS where it had two sharp corner passage ways so it wouldn't leak in light and students could go in and out without any light leaks.  When you walk through one  of the corners there is no light and you are going in blind for a few feet where you have to find your way in the dark before you see the red light of the dark room or the light of the other room coming out.  I was coming out of the dark room with my palms extended in front of me and just like that I walked right into my busty classmate.   For being the nerd that I was I apologized and she chuckled knowing it wasn't intentional. 

Ouch. Nikon is in a major downward spiral but this was a long time coming.  They are cutting 2k jobs and moving production out of Japan to Thailand.  This is not good and an end of an era but what did anyone expect when they made some stupid moves with their mirrorless transition.  Canon also made some not so good choices with their first mirrorless camera but they have caught up tremendously and a large investment with mirrorless lenses and technology for their transition for professionals.   I wonder who is going to be next now that Olympus is out of the picture.  Possibly Pentax.  Panasonic seems to be doing well with videographers for now so I think they will survive.  This shouldn't matter much for existing Nikon owners that hold on to their gear as there is more then enough lenses and bodies to go around at least until the next decade.  

I was going to sell my two Nikon F2's with the lenses and accessories (motor drive, etc). But now maybe I'll hold onto them just a little bit longer, just to see if their value goes up - who knows.

Posted by: @mrsponz

I was going to sell my two Nikon F2's with the lenses and accessories (motor drive, etc). But now maybe I'll hold onto them just a little bit longer, just to see if their value goes up - who knows.

I think Nikon was king during the 70s and 80s film era until they made the wrong moves with trying to make backwards compatible AF lenses. It was probably good initially for legacy glass but I think that hurt them in the long run. There is just way too many different series of lenses. 
Canon on the other hand abandoned their customer base with the switch from FD to EF which was not backwards compatible but over a short period of time recovered because the new designed lenses had better AF. 

For sports they say that Nikon telephoto lenses were initially better but people switched to Canon just because of fluorite glass which made those large tele lenses so much lighter. A lot of times it’s not about ultimate quality, practicality is equally if not  more important. 

I tell you what though, when I bought my Nikon D610 in 2014, I was very happy that most of my old lenses, both Autofocus and non-Autofocus still worked on it. I did not buy any "G" (gelded) lenses as they did not work on my F2. Maybe I just got lucky. I tried both Sigma and Tokina lenses along with the Nikkor lenses and was never disappointed. I should loan you my Elicar V-HQ 90mm f2.5 (1-1) Macro. I would love to know what you think about it.

Posted by: @mrsponz

I tell you what though, when I bought my Nikon D610 in 2014, I was very happy that most of my old lenses, both Autofocus and non-Autofocus still worked on it. I did not buy any "G" (gelded) lenses as they did not work on my F2. Maybe I just got lucky. I tried both Sigma and Tokina lenses along with the Nikkor lenses and was never disappointed. I should loan you my Elicar V-HQ 90mm f2.5 (1-1) Macro. I would love to know what you think about it.

That is a real treat for legacy Nikon owners, that and the ability to have a manual aperture control. 

Actually I am in the market for a Macro lens since I sold my Tonika 100mm.  This time I plan to buy the Canon 100L Macro 2.8.  It has IS which I think will be useful and the ability to get closer to the subject making it versatile for portraiture. The problem with macros for portraiture is being too sharp and therefore not faltering but hopefully this will be better than the last lens.  I mainly need a replacement for slide and negative conversion which  I stoped because it was taking forever. I decided to just pick the best ones and finish eventually over the winter.  I also plan not to use the MF camera because I want to keep the shutter count low because I fear that the shutter mech is more fragile and will require expensive service.  I think 16mp from my other camera is more then enough to get the job done.