After the fun I had shooting with my Pentax film camera last month, I kinda went on a bit of a used camera equipment shopping spree.  My favourite purchase was a Nikon F75 – one of the last consumer-level film cameras Nikon ever made, at a time when digital was eating up the film market.

This lovely camera has every feature Nikon had learned to put into cameras in 2003, in a nice compact and light package.  I picked this up off Kijiji for the incredible price of $65!  The fellow I bought it from took great care of this camera – not a ding or a scratch on it, and everything works perfectly.

The camera came with a 28-80mm kit lens, which is perfectly fine, but I had been wanting to get a basic 50mm prime lens, so I ordered one from a third-party seller on Amazon.  This lens makes the camera even more compact and ultra-portable, and takes wonderful portraits.

Having a fully automatic camera sure makes it easier to get shots of my favourite subject!

For my first roll of film in this camera, I shot Kodak Ultramax 400.  Comparing this new batch of photos to my last roll, I feel like the colours are not quite as rich.  I’m not sure I controlled for enough factors to really judge the film itself though – this is a new camera, different ISO, some of these photos use a flash, not to mention the seasonal change – in my first roll, there was still some colour in the landscape – for this one, every background is pretty drab.

I’m still really enjoying my new hobby.  On my recent shopping spree, I also picked up a 50mm lens for my Pentax I’ve yet to shoot with, and I bought some other varieties of film to try out.

I did try to mix up my subject matter a bit – Rio is really lovely and photogenic and all, but this is getting a bit ridiculous.

Unfortunately, it’s not the greatest time of year for getting out and shooting, but in February we’re heading to Hawaii for a vacation, and I definitely intend to bring a camera or two, and shoot lots of film.

One final note, I found another place to get film processed in Ottawa – Sooter’s has a location on Queen Street near Bank.  This location is much closer to my work, so very convenient.  The photos and scans turned out great, so I think I’ll probably go back there.

Last month, I picked up a Pentax P30N 35mm camera for $20 on Kijiji, got some Kodak Gold 200 from Walmart, and shot my first roll of film in over a decade.  Here are a few shots from that roll:

The day we went out for this shoot was a clear day in late fall, so the sun was very low in the sky, creating harsh shadows and difficult shooting conditions, but I managed to get a couple good shots.

The Pentax P30n is a manual-focus camera from the late 80’s.  Having not shot on anything other than an iPhone or point-and-shoot digitals for the better part of fifteen years, it took a bit of getting used to.

I shot most of this roll on aperture-priority mode, just trying to get the hang of remembering to advance the film after each shot, never mind trying to frame, focus, and get a shot before my adorable subject would take off running in another direction.

I love the colours and contrast of film.  I usually have to tweak digital photos to get the colour in Rio’s coat to really pop, not so here.

The camera seemed to have a film-advance issue about mid-roll (see last pic), so there were some shots ruined due to malfunction, a bunch of shots were out of focus (manual-focus newbie), some were just poorly framed by me, and then of course there were a handful where Rio would look away or move just as I snapped.

These are, of course, the joys and frustrations of shooting on film.  The outcomes can be incredible, but every shot can be a roll of the dice, and you won’t know for certain until the prints (and scans!) come back from the processor, likely days later.

Speaking of processing, there are not a lot of options left in Ottawa when it comes to film processing.  It’s not like you can just pop by the local Fotomat hut or drug store photo counter anymore, they’ve all gone the way of the dodo in these parts.  This roll was processed at GPC Labworks on Bank Street.

All in all, I’m happy with the shots that did turn out, and I’m excited to shoot more film soon!