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Lagged2Death
8th of May 2005 (Sun), 18:06
After a chat with my Grandfather (an excellent and avid amateur photographer since the 1940s) about the sort of pictures he took and the cameras he used, I left with an unexpected gift:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v497/Lagged2Death/Miscellany/rollei01.jpg (http://photobucket.com/albums/v497/Lagged2Death/Miscellany/)

I'd love to give this sucker a try, but I'm quite at sea. It doesn't even have a light meter - pretty scary for someone accustomed to histograms. If anyone knows a good source of online info for these beasties, I'd love to hear about it.

BottomBracket
9th of May 2005 (Mon), 17:22
Ah, a classic Rolleiflex Twin Lens Reflex camera. It's been years since I've handled one of those beauties. Don't be afraid of going meterless, print a cheat sheet of exposures (for daylight, cloudy, etc condtions) and tape it to the back of the camera. That's how I learned a long time ago....

Titus213
10th of May 2005 (Tue), 01:06
Neat stuff. And just a little reminder, you do have a meter. At least if you are shooting digital you have one, in the camera. ISO is ISO. F-stop is F-stop, and well, shutter speed is shutter speed. I just hope you have a scanner so we can see the results...

And I'm sure if I'm mistaken I will be corrected quickly.

Lagged2Death
10th of May 2005 (Tue), 09:18
BottomBracket: Thank you for the tip, there actually is a somewhat limited table of suggested exposures printed on the back of the camera, which I suppose I should be able to expand on, given the right reference material. I guess your technique was a popular one.

Titus213: I had considered this, but it's my understanding that the ISO values Canon claims for their digital equipment actually doesn't correspond very well with film - that ISO 50 on my G3 is more like ISO 80 or ISO 100 on film. Still, with some practice, I should be able to figure out an adjustment. If I'm not the only one to have the notion, then it can't be that crazy.

Part of my concern is simply the cost. At about $2 a frame for film and processing, plus more for scanning or enlargements, I'd better choose my subjects pretty carefully. I won't be able to afford much of a learning curve. For my first expedition, I think I'll try to go with "sunny f/16", checking against the camera table and the digital's meter. Now I'll have to pick a subject...