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Most often the photos I thought would be really something wound up to be duds once the film came back, and the photos I just snapped for the heck of it wound up to be some of my favorites. Most of my favorites just happen to be the ones with clouds. 19 of the 21 days of that trip in Sept'78 it rained or snowed, and there were 20" of snow in the passes I intended to hike.
In '78 I used Ektachrome 200. Nikon FM, 35mm Nikkor lens.

Same Nikon FM and 35mm Nikkor lens, Kodachrome 25 film. Yellowstone Lake, September'79

Nikon FM, and again my favorite general use lens, the 35mm Nikkor .. I think the film was Kodachrome 25. Loch Vale, Colorado in '81.

My favorite of the bunch .. Nikon FM, 35mm Nikkor, Ektachrome 200 film that I used in 1978. This was at St Mary Lake in Glacier National Park. Instead of bracketing, I lucked out when I metered on the clouds with that simple 3-dot light meter on the FM camera.

Great stuff!

I had much trouble with the last rolls of Kodachrome- getting them back from kodak.
Ours went to Rochester for processing. Kodak hemmed and hawed a bit over slides taken with the pre-paid processing, and the wait was quite long at almost 6 months. This would have been in the summer of '80, a bit after manufacture of the film ceased. Processing paid for at the time of film purchase was the only way to get Kodachrome here.
I preferred Kodachrome over E-6, and usually went with 64.

The red L.E.D. lamps in the FM really turned me off back then. I was shooting mostly pan film for printing in those days, and the idea of red lamps inside the camera got to my head.
I think if Nikon would have put a match needle system into the FM, I would have never bothered with the FE.
At that time I was still carrying various Nikkormat FT's for back-up cameras. The idea of a battery dependent shutter was not the best marketing ploy back then.

I never did get into a 35mm lens. Between the 28 and 50mm normally carried, I considered myself well equipped.

I was impressed with college roomie's minolta 35mm lens. Very easy to nail focus with, and it took great images. I just never got around to it for myself...

Regards,

Doc Sharptail

_________________
"Ain't no Half-Way" -S.R.V.

"Oh Yeah!.....All Right!" -Paul Simon

Thanks for the compliment .. those are some of my favorite photos from my trips out west :) Sentimental favorites more than anything else. Great memories. In no way an experienced photographer here, just a hobbyist.

I used the Kodak mailers back then and had no problems. Bought one with each roll of film back then, then used them up and mailed them from wherever I was. Easy to do for back then, but such a different world now with the digital stuff.

The Ektachrome 200 I used in '78 had a cool tint, so each trip afterwards, I went with the slower Kodachrome, maybe the 64, but best I remember only the 25 because of its touted sharpness. Now that I recall, the 'fly' photo in the previous post was probably the 25 .. the light was low in the late afternoon and I was having a hard time with the aperture setting/depth of field with the 3.5 55 Macro on the blossom when the fly landed on it lol.

Wound up having a tendency to use the 3-led metering on the FM to get the middle light lit, then back off one tick to the lower two because of the bright light up at high elevations in the Rockies that caused what I perceived as overexposed pics. Can't remember if the filter on the 35mm was a UV, or daylight filter to warm the blue tint, but probably the daylight one.

Despite that 35mm lens not being the best and sharpest, I liked it because it gave a mild wide angle without much distortion around the edges while still getting the landscape views I liked in the frame. It was just a short convenient lens to keep on the camera during the longer hikes. Had 50mm and 105mm Nikkors along, never used them, and should have left them at home to save weight lol.
FWIW, dad gave me his 1972 Nikkormat EL with the killer sharp Nikkor 28mm lens on it, but have never used it.

Went digital since, bought a Nikon D50/w18-70 or something like that zoom lens then sold it to an old frat brother a few years ago. That was a really nice sharp lens imo.
Here are two of my favorite pics with that camera/lens when I still had it. Crocus in full bloom at Eastertime in dad's back yard, perfect time of the afternoon with low sun but still high enough to backlight the blooms. Was lucky to catch the moment. Camera was on auto, can't complain about the exposure and lens sharpness :) Kinda takes the fun outta twisting the aperture and focus rings to get things just right, don't it lol ...

Apparently one photo at a time .. here's the other one..

The D-50 did an admirable job with the highlights there.
Their multi-matrix metering system has been around for quite a while now.

I still don't have an auto focus lens in the stable.
I'm currently using a D-810 with mostly old film era manual focus nikkors.
The current matrix metering has a tendency to blow highlights in favor of shadow areas, which is not all that bad in most situations. There is a highlight setting on the camera that I've never had to use yet. I find myself doing a lot of the things I did with film- averaging for highlights in my head etc. This is where the spot meter and manual function on the current camera comes in so handy.

I consider myself a somewhat serious hobbyist now, even though I worked with a camera for a few years in the late 70's.
The photography landscape sure has changed a lot since then.

Regards,

Doc Sharptail

_________________
"Ain't no Half-Way" -S.R.V.

"Oh Yeah!.....All Right!" -Paul Simon

Currently I have a D80 and I think D3100 or something like that, both with digital era lenses with manual options. Never used the manual option just because operating the rings etc feels so loose. Maybe I'm too picky or haven't bothered to learn to use them, but I liked the tighter feel of the old manual Nikkor rings more. Also prefer the old 75/25 center-weighted and spot meters as well, because getting a good exposure at least took some knowhow (in my case along with luck).
The D80 seems to have a pretty accurate exposure meter, but I don't know what to think about that cheaper other Nikon .. it's lightweight and bought it with a lightweight Nikkor 18-124 zoom or something like that (35mm 28-150mm zoom equivalent). That camera and lens were a stupid purchase.
Bought a Nikkor digital 18-200 zoom (approx equivalent to the old 35mm 28-300 zoom) with the D80, but have barely touched it. Intent was to take the camera with one all-purpose lens on another Rockies trip, but that has never happened either.
I can't imagine print film is very easy to get developed these days, much less have the prints turn out good. There was a photo place in my birth hometown in Austria that did an absolutely great job in making accurate prints from negatives, so when I was there every other year in the '90's I at least wound up with good photos to fill the vacation album. Likewise, a girl that worked at the local Cord Camera where I live did a great job making really nice prints from negatives.
I have an iPhone SE 2020 with a camera that I'm pretty sure is the equivalent of the old 28mm wide angle. Hard to believe what nice sharp images that thing can take. No wonder so many folks have ditched the bulky camera outifits...

There are a couple of labs in the city here that still work from film- albeit in a convoluted way.

Film: C-41, E-6, and black and white is still developed in the normal fashion.
Where it gets hairy is in the making of prints.
All the negatives and slides get digital scanning now to arrive at a print.
Unless one is dealing with a custom shop, it's best to have the expectations lowered a little.
There was a nice lady at the west-end lab here who was a very good judge of portraiture.
Her work with the few good ones I got with c-41 film was outstanding.
She has moved on to other things now, and I suppose I should try the lab across town for the rest of it.

There is one lab that I know of in southern Ontario that still does chemical printing.

I had thought I was going to get back into film anyways, and put up with the strange scans.
Went even as far as getting everything for developing film, and then dropped the idea.
For one thing, paper pricing has sky-rocketed. In my early retirement state, there's absolutely no way for me to afford paper- not even for contact prints. I couldn't even afford those prices if I was still working.

The first DSLR for me started to change the idea, and with the acquisition of the current D-810 full frame, it doesn't make any sense at all to deal with film anymore.
I'll likely shoot up what I have left here, and just do the lab thing with it, and leave it at that.
I still get pangs for shooting the F-2's. I sometimes find myself reaching up for the non-existent shutter dial on the D-810 and pinching air.

I've handled a few a/f lenses, and ended up less than impressed. I'm gonna stick with my old style glass a while yet, I think...

On the other hand, there's a nice nikkormat FT-3 on the local buy and sell


Regards,

Doc Sharptail

_________________
"Ain't no Half-Way" -S.R.V.

"Oh Yeah!.....All Right!" -Paul Simon

Ok, back at my own house and have a correction regarding the 3100/lens combo I'd mentioned .. the not-so-impressive D-Nikon I called the 3100 is actually a D5100, and the lens is an 18-105 Nikkor zoom. Wouldn't recommend the combo to anyone fussy about quality exposure/sharpness. To be honest, more impressed with my iPhone camera.
Did not know you're in Ontario. When we first immigrated from Austria, we landed in Guelph for two years before coming to the US. Dad's toolmaker trade was in high demand everywhere in the world at that time, and he certainly did well with it, both in Canada, but particularly in the US.
Plenty Austrians were in the Guelph area back in the '50's, and mom wound up fixing Sunday meals for a bunch of the guys from our local area in Austria who'd also emigrated to there. Lol, dad got so fed up with their showing up for free weekly handout home-cooked Austrian meals (which he funded with his pay) that he told mom we'd need to leave home and disappear Sundays to get rid of those freeloaders. Won't mention any names, but one of those freeloaders wound up being a very successful still prominent businessman in North America and in Europe. And the guy started out as a cheapskate taking advantage of mom's good nature and dad's expense. Different times back then.

I'm actually in Manitoba- Winnipeg to be exact.
I worked one memorable summer at a farm outside Coe Hill, not far from Peterborough in southern Ontario.
Awfully hot summers there, and it's actually warm enough to grow apples commercially.
I worked long hard hours for awfully little money, but it sure kept me out of trouble.
Place was actually very neighborly, and it wasn't hard at all getting around without a car.
It never dawned on me to get pictures of the orchards, and regular do-all farms...

The D-200 apsc/dx that I had was mostly alright the way I used it.
It had a tendency for over-saturated reds that was entirely correctable with the white balance wheel.
I wouldn't recommend it to someone who wants the camera to do the thinking, and it's not an easy camera to focus with.
It is entirely usable for someone with a bit of patience, and a good macro lens.

Regards,

Doc Sharptail

_________________
"Ain't no Half-Way" -S.R.V.

"Oh Yeah!.....All Right!" -Paul Simon

sad none of us thought our lives back then were worth a photo , my family pushed for pictures with individuals or couples or groups of individuals in them , great for family tree if anyone thought to record who was in it , they did not really capture the times and locations well ,

i tried to apply my skills to the architecture of my career , even those missed a lot of what was actual in the era - concentrating on a subject but missing the era ,

im not sure if im getting old or maybe wise enough to look at things in a bigger picture - not just a single or plural subject matter , something that captures the essence of the times without just looking at a given subject , i guess i missed a lot of great photos over the years because i do have the pictures in my mind , but they would not have been the ones i would have focused my camera lens on back then ,

maybe im just seeing things in retrospect and realizing how important those moments were back then when i thought the next was going to be the important one ,

on the subject of clouds-

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nice one - the second coming captured on film ,

Thanks.
I have a thing for taking cloud shots.

call it a weakness

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Thunderheads forming over Clearwater Lake about two weeks ago.
There's some big Lake Trout in this impact crater formed lake.
This sort of thing is better done in B&W with a pale yellow filter to bump up the contrast a bit.
D-810 in color with Nikon series "E" 100mm f 2.8 at f5.6, ISO 200.

Regards,

Doc Sharptail

_________________
"Ain't no Half-Way" -S.R.V.

"Oh Yeah!.....All Right!" -Paul Simon

Nicely done.

Taken from my driveway. That tree plays into several of my pics.
I've lived here for more than a few years.
probably grabbed the digital Pentax for this one.

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B&W is a whole other topic.

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DD, glad you found this section

looking forward to your pics again

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