When you were at school did your friends have cameras too

davidde1000 said:
I dunno if "good" film was that much cheaper back in the 1990s.
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From around 2000 to around 2010, I bought 135-36 rolls of Fuji Neopan 400, HP5, and Tri-X for $3 a roll. Now sometimes it had the Freestyle house brand label but the edge markings showed what it was. My 35mm color film was Fuji Astia which was also $3 rebranded from Freestyle. I just bought 50-100 rolls at a time to keep the freight costs down. I forget the price of 120 Neopan 400 but it was not expensive. My color 120 film was Fujichrome, also $5 a roll and developing $5 a roll from Dwayne's.

Now I am back to shooting 120 b&w in a Holga. Film is a bit more, paying $6 a roll for Formapan. But only a minimal costs in what I pay for all the film I use. Actually, dirt cheap compared to what I see others pay to upgrade their DSLR from a model IV to a model V.
 
When I was in High School, the two yearbook photographers used Argus C-3 but no one else has a camera.

My first darkroom experience was in the mid 1970's at an adult education night class using the darkroom at Hoover Junior High School in Brevard county Florida. As I remember it had 8-10 enlargers for the students to use.
 
davidde1000 said:
I think that one thing that may get lost to history is how expensive pro and semi-pro film camera gear could be until the market fell out starting in earnest during the early 2000s. We are pretty spoiled in 2023 to have Nikon F4s for $200, medium format bodies / lenses for under $1,000, Canon F-1s for $150, etc. In the 1990s, quality film photo gear was often too expensive for the average American. Hence, disposable cameras and the ubiquitous 35mm & APS point and shoots of the 1990s, which of course gave way to point and shoot digital cameras around Y2K.

I remember that given how expensive good photo gear was, the conventional wisdom from photogs of the 1990s was to advise people get a "starter" SLR. Like a K1000, a Konica Autoreflex TC, an old Nikkormat, etc.. Even those "starter" cameras were not particularly cheap back then.
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Dad's cameras in the 70s were the Minolta SR-T and the Pentax ME. We treated them like they were made of gold, and today, they are in pristine condition. I believe he bought the Pentax secondhand from a friend, and the Minolta was a gift from his father. These threads gives an idea of how much Minolta and Pentax cost in the 60s and 70s:

Price of SRT-101??

Does anyone remember what the MSRP of the Minolta SRT-101, body only, was back in the late 60's- early 70's?? I would like to see if camera prices have really gone up in relation with inflation.
www.photo.net www.photo.net

Pentax SLR prices in the last 60 years? - PentaxForums.com

Just a post to satisfy the curiosity of my young self (I'm in my early 30s). Dad bought his first camera (SL) in 1969. He said as a new journo grad in
www.pentaxforums.com

Leica prices in 1986:

leicarumors.com

Leica prices from 25 years ago - Leica Rumors

I came across an old issue of Modern Photography from December of 1986. Here are some Leica prices from 25 years ago: 50mm f/1.4: $725 50mm f/1 Noctilux: $1149 Leica M6 body: $1695 (today on eBay, a Leica M6 in a good shape costs pretty much the same) More Leica listings from 1986: No related […]
leicarumors.com leicarumors.com

I learned how to hold, focus and compose with the Minolta and Pentax, but I never took them out of the house as they were so valuable to us. The only time we used the Pentax ME out of the house/family was on a trip to America in 1988! How times have changed, now paying thousands of dollars for cameras and lenses and using them almost every day in any situation.
 
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lxmike said:
The disc camera, I forgot about them, I knew a couple of people who had them, never tried them myself, I never tried the APS too.
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I wish I could find the Kodak disc camera! There's still a disc of Fuji film which hasn't been developed, but I don't know whether it has been used. The disc is currently in the freezer in a ziplock bag.
 
Archiver said:
I wish I could find the Kodak disc camera! There's still a disc of Fuji film which hasn't been developed, but I don't know whether it has been used. The disc is currently in the freezer in a ziplock bag.
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Is the box containing the disc opened? If it’s opened, my bet is that the film was exposed and then put back into the box.

I‘m also assuming there is foil packaging inside the box that would be opened as well.

What you have is Schrödinger‘s disc - it is in a quantum superposition of being simultaneously in an exposed and unexposed state. Only when the film is developed will the wave function collapse and then you will know whether images on the film exist or not.
 
Pál_K said:
Is the box containing the disc opened? If it’s opened, my bet is that the film was exposed and then put back into the box.

I‘m also assuming there is foil packaging inside the box that would be opened as well.

What you have is Schrödinger‘s disc - it is in a quantum superposition of being simultaneously in an exposed and unexposed state. Only when the film is developed will the wave function collapse and then you will know whether images on the film exist or not.
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Out of curiosity, I did some googling and looked at the disc in the freezer. This article says that discs had numbers in a window to indicate how many exposures had been taken:

photojottings.com

Kodak Disc Film, better than you think, or worse? - Photo Jottings

Today I have a few Kodak Disc negatives to share. This small format film (about 1/10 the size of 135 format) has been widely ridiculed since it came out in the early 1980s, and it continues to this day, but is Disc film really that bad, and will it even make a decent small print? Each Disc...
photojottings.com photojottings.com

Upon examining the disc, the white numbers read 15. So there are potentially 15 images from the mid 80s which have yet to be recovered from this film! They are most likely images from school or home back then, which makes this rather thrilling. But Schroedinger's Disc still exists - it remains to be seen if recoverable images are on it or not. I've never tried Film Rescue before, but they seem to have good reviews and they painstakingly explain their processes and methods, so fingers crossed for a positive (pun intended) result.
 
davidde1000 said:
I dunno if "good" film was that much cheaper back in the 1990s. The pro films like NPH, Portra VC/NC, Kodachrome, etc. were not, given inflation, that cheap; and I remember trying to be careful and deliberate shooting with more expensive film. What we used to have is a bunch of cheaper emulsions you could buy at a pharmacy, supermarket, or camera shops that have long been discontinued. I cannot even remember the names of those three packs. However, having scanned a bunch of cheap consumer film that I took in the late 90s and early 2000s, those emulsions weren't very good. Even modern relatively affordable film stocks like Fuji Superia 400 / Gold 200 are heads and shoulders above them. What I do miss was my local CVS developing "only" my C41 film for $1.50 a roll up until about 10 years ago when CVS ditched their machines.
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I mailny shot Ilford fp4 and hp5 back then, it was reasonably cheap in the UK back then.
 
Archiver said:
Out of curiosity, I did some googling and looked at the disc in the freezer. This article says that discs had numbers in a window to indicate how many exposures had been taken:

photojottings.com

Kodak Disc Film, better than you think, or worse? - Photo Jottings

Today I have a few Kodak Disc negatives to share. This small format film (about 1/10 the size of 135 format) has been widely ridiculed since it came out in the early 1980s, and it continues to this day, but is Disc film really that bad, and will it even make a decent small print? Each Disc...
photojottings.com photojottings.com

Upon examining the disc, the white numbers read 15. So there are potentially 15 images from the mid 80s which have yet to be recovered from this film! They are most likely images from school or home back then, which makes this rather thrilling. But Schroedinger's Disc still exists - it remains to be seen if recoverable images are on it or not. I've never tried Film Rescue before, but they seem to have good reviews and they painstakingly explain their processes and methods, so fingers crossed for a positive (pun intended) result.
Click to expand...
will be interesting to see what is on it
 
Bob Michaels said:
From around 2000 to around 2010, I bought 135-36 rolls of Fuji Neopan 400, HP5, and Tri-X for $3 a roll. Now sometimes it had the Freestyle house brand label but the edge markings showed what it was. My 35mm color film was Fuji Astia which was also $3 rebranded from Freestyle. I just bought 50-100 rolls at a time to keep the freight costs down. I forget the price of 120 Neopan 400 but it was not expensive. My color 120 film was Fujichrome, also $5 a roll and developing $5 a roll from Dwayne's.

Now I am back to shooting 120 b&w in a Holga. Film is a bit more, paying $6 a roll for Formapan. But only a minimal costs in what I pay for all the film I use. Actually, dirt cheap compared to what I see others pay to upgrade their DSLR from a model IV to a model V.
Click to expand...
wise words regarding film v the upgrade merry go round
 
Bob Michaels said:
When I was in High School, the two yearbook photographers used Argus C-3 but no one else has a camera.

My first darkroom experience was in the mid 1970's at an adult education night class using the darkroom at Hoover Junior High School in Brevard county Florida. As I remember it had 8-10 enlargers for the students to use.
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The good old Argus Brick, a workhorse of a camera used by thousands of budding photographers
 
Tim Murphy said:
Dear lxmike,

I have 2 Ebay Retina IIa's. They both work to varying degrees, but I will soon send them to Paul Barden to get one fully functional one back. A restored IIa and my Retina IIIC that Paul did for me a few months ago will serve me well until I expire.

Regards,

Tim Murphy

Harrisburg PA :)
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How much did Paul's work cost? I have a Retina IIa which is like yours is. Works like I do, sort of works!
 
I've had Paul do some work on my Retina IIa and I felt like I wanted to tell him to charge more. Especially after having any work done on Leicas by other repairers, it was very, very affordable. My IIa works 100% now with no issues at all.
 
The Spastic Image said:
How much did Paul's work cost? I have a Retina IIa which is like yours is. Works like I do, sort of works!
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I sent Paul my IIa for a CLA and check out why it would not produce images in focus...he found that the rear set of glass wasn't for the Xenon lens it has...
He replaced it with a correct set...all in all it was around $190...
Camera works fine and produces very sharp images...decent turnaround time...very happy with his work.
 
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nikon_sam said:
Found these four receipts:

7/12/1980 --- 1 Black Pentax MX Body $188.00

1/19/1979 --- 1 Black Pentax MX Body $194.00

11/19/1979 --- 1Pentax MX Winder $99.95

2/26/1981 --- 1 Pentax MX Winder $91.44

...still have both cameras with winders.
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My first serious camera was the year I graduated High School. Late 1930's Baby Rolleiflex, uncoated Tessar. Oak Ridge Art Center Flea Market, $3. 1985. Started my love of photography. Kodacolor 200, sunny 16, on film box. Jammed second roll. Took great pictures that one roll.
 
nikon_sam said:
Found these four receipts:

7/12/1980 --- 1 Black Pentax MX Body $188.00

1/19/1979 --- 1 Black Pentax MX Body $194.00

11/19/1979 --- 1Pentax MX Winder $99.95

2/26/1981 --- 1 Pentax MX Winder $91.44

...still have both cameras with winders.
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The winders were super expensive in comparison to the cameras 😏
 
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