John

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Back when I had my C5 Z06 Corvette, I took it to a track day at Gingerman Raceway with a bunch of friends and camped at the track. I had a hard time staying asleep when, at around 3:30 in the morning, I had noticed that the moon had set below the horizon, darkening the night sky and allowing all of the stars to come out of hiding. From the several pictures I snapped that evening, this was my favorite: the faint glow of the Milky Way nebula arching itself over the timing tower of Gingerman Raceway. Photo shot with a Nikon D7200 and a Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 zoom lens.

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I attended the Time Trials Nationals Primer event at Carolina Motorsports Park, and brought along two film cameras to shoot for the trip. There was a vendor onsite that was selling track essentials and supplies such as safety gear and vehicle fluids. I wasn’t interested in the wares but was interested in the little Porsche that they had sitting in front of their trailer. Photo shot with a Nikon FE and a 50mm f/1.2 lens on Kodak Portra 400.

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I attended the Time Trials Nationals Primer event at Carolina Motorsports Park, and brought along two film cameras to shoot for the trip. I shot this picture from spectator area just after Corner 1, and decided to play around with something that I’d never really did (intentionally, at least) before: double exposures. Here, we have an MR2 being chased by the ghost of a Camaro. Photo shot with a Nikon FA and a 75-150mm f/3.5 zoom lens on Ferrania P30 film.

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On my way back from Carolina Motorsports Park, I stopped by Charleston, West Virginia to see my friend Perry. We spent half a day going to some nice places in the West Virginia countryside. I had two cameras with me, a pair of old Nikons, one loaded with my favorite black and white film, and one with color film. I took this shot at one of the many waterfalls we checked out. I shot several shots, hoping to get one where my hand was steady enough for a 1/8 second handheld exposure. Photo shot with a Nikon FA camera and a 24mm f/2 lens on Ferrania P30 film.

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On my way back from Carolina Motorsports Park, I stopped by Charleston, West Virginia to see my friend Perry. We spent half a day going to some nice places in the West Virginia countryside. I had two cameras with me, a pair of old Nikons, one loaded with my favorite black and white film, and one with color film. I took this shot at the Hawk’s Nest overlook, looking over the river and the lush forest it carved through. Photo shot with a Nikon FA camera and a 50mm f/1.2 lens on Ferrania P30 film.

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I took my favorite medium format camera to Autorama and spent nearly four hours ogling the forms and colors of all of the hot rods and rat rods there on the show floor. This hot rod Beetle was on the main floor of the show, with a chopped roof, custom wheels, a custom interior, fantastic paint, and most impressively, a massive V8 with stacks in the back where the back seat would typically go. Photo shot with a Mamiya C220 TLR and an 80mm f/2.8 lens on Kodak Portra 400.

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I took my favorite medium format camera to Autorama and spent nearly four hours ogling the forms and colors of all of the hot rods and rat rods there on the show floor. The Waterford Hills Racing folks brought out a bunch of cars for their yearly Autorama booth, and this Big Healey was my favorite car of the bunch. Photo shot with a Mamiya C220 TLR and an 80mm f/2.8 lens on Kodak Portra 400.

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I took my Rolleiflex Old Standard, a twin lens reflex medium format film camera from 1930s Germany (and the oldest camera I have in my collection) out to a rallycross at Bundy Hill and shot my very first roll of film through it. There’s some sort of light leak that I need to chase down. Regardless, I like this picture of cones and cars trailing off into the distance. Matt and Dan discuss rallycross event chair stuff while Milo, the husky, surveys his wintry domain. Photo shot with a Rolleiflex Old Standard on Fujifilm Acros 100 film.

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I am a Patreon of this website called Casual Photophile. It’s a beautifully done website with reviews of interesting old film cameras, discussions about the old photography masters, and an occasional foray into the world of mirrorless cameras. It’s like the Petrolicious of film cameras.

As a diehard film shooter and mildly annoying film shooting evangelist, I’m a top tier supporter at $25 a month. There are two perks on top of supporting one of my favorite websites on the web. Every month, I get sent a roll of film sent to my mailbox — a roll of film that I usually don’t end up shooting, as I’ve got so much film that I’ve purchased and want to shoot instead. So the film perk ends up something I don’t particularly care about.

But every year, I get sent a cheap little camera to play with. And I got my first rewards camera, which is this Zeiss Ikon Contina viewfinder camera.

It’s a very basic camera. Focus is via scale focusing, as it being a viewfinder camera means that there are no provisions for a rangefinder. Top shutter speed is 1/300 of a second, so not a particularly fast shutter. But it has a red dot on the focus scale, and f/8 is marked in red on the aperture ring. Set the camera to f/8 and the focus ring to the red dot, and everything from infinity down to 3 meters is in focus!

Not only does the camera work, with nothing to suggest any show stoppers in use, the camera is also beautiful. There are very few scuffs, the glass is clean and clear, and the viewfinder isn’t fogged up. The leatherette is also in amazingly good condition, though it does have that “old camera smell” to it.

So between the Kodak Retina and this Zeiss Contina, I have two German cameras in the collection. I’m waiting for an opportunity to take both cameras out and shoot a test roll in each…

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I took my Rolleiflex Old Standard, a twin lens reflex medium format film camera from 1930s Germany (and the oldest camera I have in my collection) out to a rallycross at Bundy Hill and shot my very first roll of film through it. I don’t know why the film didn’t advance to the last frame — at least, I think I advanced it to frame 12 — but the resulting double exposure, the first exposure being that of a friend, and the second exposure being that of a trio of competitors enjoying post-rallycross beers, looks kinda cool. I’ve never really played around with double exposures before; maybe I should? Photo shot with a Rolleiflex Old Standard on Fujifilm Acros 100 film.