Questions arising from my first experience with RF

[DougK]

Hi all,

I have a couple of questions I could use some help with (and some random thoughts) generated from my first trip out with my most recent acquisitions, an Olympus Trip 35 procured from eBay and a Ricoh 500G from Adorama:

1. Anybody know where I might be able to locate a lens cap for an Olympus Trip 35? Mine came from in almost mint condition (surprise, it was exactly as described by the seller) but sans lens cap. I tried all the local shops and rooted around in their odd 'n' ends bins but no luck so far. What a fun camera to shoot with! The lens or focus seems a bit soft on the shots where I guessed the distance right or shot at the "from here to infinity" mark, but since I did develop-only, that softness could be a result of my scanner not doing a great job with the negatives or me not scanning with enough resolution. Exposure was pretty much dead-on, and I picked a tough enviroment to shoot in on purpose just to see how it would do (bright sunny day walking along a forest path under trees, lots of contrast, challenging light and shadow). Not bad at all for a camera this simple, beats the heck out of any of the point and shoot cameras I've ever used. I'm betting this one will be a blast loaded with B&W film; overall, I think it's going to be a great street camera and will probably wind up getting the nod to go on vacation with me next month just because I don't have to think much with it 🙂

2. Since my main experience is with digital, I'm having trouble telling if my newly-acquired Ricoh 500G has a some bizarre light leak or if the photo store did a horrible job developing - a couple of shots came out absolutely clean, but the rest of the negatives have green vertical streaks all over them, and the streaking pattern is not identical on the negatives exhibiting said defect. I'm suspecting the developing, since I'm assuming with a light leak I would have seen the same defect on every negative. I liked the feel of shooting with this camera... and I loved having a guy shooting with a mondo-expensive Canon DSLR wander over to see what I was using... 🙂

Oh, before I forget, belated thanks to everyone who stopped in and commented on my photo for the September project, I appreciate the feedback! Hopefully, I'll have some shots from the RF worth posting soon.

Thanks in advance.
Doug K.

 

[hoppinghippos]

the vertical lines sound like developing problems, def not light leaks since they aren't uniform across all your neg frames. why don't you try another roll and send to another store to develop? that way you can rule out your camera for sure.

 

[DougK]

Thanks Darrel, I rescanned the negatives from that roll and took a closer look, it's definitely a developing issue. That's the second time I've had issues with film coming back from this particular chain, so they've now lost my developing business - I'm just thankful they didn't ruin any of my MF stuff.

Speaking of rescanning, the blurry scans from the Trip 35 seem to have only been from the first roll. I finally got around to scanning the other two rolls from the camera (I was using cheap Konica 12-exposure color print rolls so I shot several rolls for a fair test) and they came out very well indeed, good focus and good exposure. I'm going to write off that first roll as operator error. I've also learned the lesson not to use the cheap film...

Doug K.

 

[hoppinghippos]

well personally I think certain consumer (cheap range) film brands differ and its good to discover which one is good and which is bad for yourself!

 

[oftheherd]

Thanks Darrel, I rescanned the negatives from that roll and took a closer look, it's definitely a developing issue. That's the second time I've had issues with film coming back from this particular chain, so they've now lost my developing business - I'm just thankful they didn't ruin any of my MF stuff.

Speaking of rescanning, the blurry scans from the Trip 35 seem to have only been from the first roll. I finally got around to scanning the other two rolls from the camera (I was using cheap Konica 12-exposure color print rolls so I shot several rolls for a fair test) and they came out very well indeed, good focus and good exposure. I'm going to write off that first roll as operator error. I've also learned the lesson not to use the cheap film...

Doug K.

One does have to the careful, but I have had good luck from diving into the outdated film bin at the local Ritz Camera.

Your experience reminds me of a recent trip to the local Wolley. Noticing a definate red cast to some of my photos, I checked the negatives. Seeing it on only about three frames, and that it was also between the frames and on the edges, I called the young tech over to show him.

I told him I wasn't complaining as this was just a test roll, but he needed to inform himself and any other techs to watch their machines and chemicals. He looked and immediately started asking me what kind of camera I had as sometimes some cameras could cause that.

My daughter was looking at me to see what my reaction was to that. I just held up my hand to him and told him to listen to what I said and accept it or not, his call. But that I had been a photographer a couple of times longer than he had been on this earth. I then walked away leaving him with his air of expertise shattered and an "I feel violated" look on his face.

What do they teach the kids that work at those places?

 

[RML]

What do they teach the kids that work at those places?

Not much besides how to operate the machine, I reckon. And mostly these kids have little or no experience in film based photography, and just thought it an easy summer job.

I'm fortunate in having a chain lab with quite experienced people of whom some are photogs themselves, and others even took a few dark room courses.
I am a bit annoyed by their handling of film, though. Some of them just simply hold the film on the film without gloves. I pointed it out a few times to them, in a general mood, but still I see it happen now and then, especially when they have lots of processing and printing to do. However, nowadays I hardly ever find finger prints on my films. That's probably one of the perks of having a good understanding with the operators. 🙂

 

[DougK]

Glad to know I'm not the only one who's run into that problem, I was staying up way too late last night trying to diagnose the problem :bang: . On the plus side, the shots from that roll showed that the Ricoh has a pretty darn nice lens on it, although I'm still not convinced my scanner is doing all that great of a job - I have a hard time believing the focus was that soft on both the new cameras, unless there's some haze/mild dirt on the lenses that I hadn't noticed before.

Anyway, has anybody come up with ideas on where to find a lens cap for the Trip 35? I'd hate to cart that one around too much longer without a cap, although it seems to have withstood the years so far. Knowing my innate grace of movement, it's only a matter of time before disaster strikes...

Doug K.

 

[Doug]

How about using a Skylight filter to protect the front element instead of a cap? On an RF camera it's not hard to snap away with the lens cap on. And with the filter to protect the lens, you can just use your shirt-tail to wipe off the spaghetti sauce. 🙂

 

[DougK]

I've thought about just throwing on a UV filter and calling it good with the small problem that I can't seem to find one of those that fits the Trip either. Should I worry about the selenium cell being exposed to light all the time or just focus (no pun intended) on protecting the lens?

Doug K.