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photography advice please

kasperhauser

kasperhauser

pfm Member
My trip to Egypt is looming, and I'm struggling a little over which of the ancient little thingies that I still use as cameras to take with me. The choices:

1. Yashica Electro G35 – This has the best piece of glass of all the cameras I own, but it's big and heavy and has lots of fiddly attachments (wide angle stuff and flash and so forth).

2. Minolta Hi-Matic 7SII – Features and flexibility somewhere between the Yashica (above) and the Konica (below). Has original flash and sturdy case. RE: picture quality, closer to the Yashica than the Konica.

3. Konica C35V – As basic as they get; ultra-light and effortless to use, but not much flexibility. No flash or case, but takes surprisingly nice pictures.

My basic dilemma is this: I've never taken pictures in the desert before. I also know there will be opportunities to take pictures in alleys, tombs, hidey holes, and various other dark and spooky locales. The question: Do I take two cameras and load them with different-speed film, or do I take one camera with a flash, load it with 400-speed film, and get whatever pictures I can with that? Third option, I suppose, is take the Konica, take a few snaps, and don't worry about it; fourth option, let Mrs. H document the trip with her 6-megawhizzle digicam (which she will do anyway - she's an obsessive picture taker).

Appreciate any thoughts regarding how best to accommodate the conditions I'm likely to encounter. I suspect most of you have dealt more with the practicalities of travel photography than I have.

Addendum: Bear in mind that whichever camera(s) I take, it's unlikely I'll come back with any astonishingly artful images. I'm just hoping to cover as many lighting conditions and screw up as few exposures as I can.
 
kasper,

Here are my 2 cents -- load your Yashica with 100 ISO slide film (Provia, Astia or Velvia, depending on subject) and use it for landscapes and scenics and load your Konica with Tri-X and use it for streeters.

Joe
 
I would suggest that you take an incident light meter or figure out how much to compensate your camera's built in meter by comparing its reading with a desert background to something which approximates a mid-grey tone. 400 ASA film could be too fast for wide-aperture shots, so 100 ASA film may be preferable. Personally, I would take a nice manual camera and a mini point-and-shoot with spot-meter (e.g., Olympus Stylus Epic/Mju II), your wife's digicam might play the latter role.

Nick
 
robs -

I can't see Kasper-Luxman-Hauser using a dSLR. When on travel, I often take my Pentax ME Super. I can pick another one up on ebay if it's stolen, so I don't worry about leaving it in my suitcase. I also abuse it by throwing it inside a wool hat inside my messenger bag, and it stands up well. Plus it's much smaller than most dSLRs.

KH - ditch the attachments. IIRC the Yashica has a fast lens, so it's unlikely you'll need a flash. Move your butt if you need to change the FOV :) Joe's two camera approach makes sense to me.

Dan
 
Having been to Egypt, my recommendation is to go as wide as you can. You'll find a lot of tourists can prevent you from backing up to fit in the various temple scenes and so on, so your only real option is to move in close with a really wide lens. I was there in 1996, and I reckon I took 80% of my shots with a decent 18mm lens on a Canon film SLR. The rest were with a 50/1.8.

Bearing that in mind, I'd go with the widest, followed by the fastest.
 
Good point - he needs one of these:
L%2520S%2520w%252015%2520a.jpg
 
One thought if you are on film is to have a set of suitable filters with you - i'm guessing it's going to be bright so i'd be thinking about a set of ND filters and some polarisers.

Cesare
 
Yeah, the contrast is a real concern. Suggest shooting Fuji NPH (a lower contrast colour film) rather than the punchier, higher contrast films. For B&W - the world is your lobster, just develop and print to suit.
 
All signs are pointing toward the Yashica being the one to rely on; fast, good lens, wide-angle and telephoto bits, and filters. I better dig it out and reacquaint myself with it; the other two cameras are so light and simple that I use them almost exclusively. I admit, though, that my favorite pictures (mostly beach shots) have been taken with the Yashica:

yashicaelectro35ex3.jpg


On the technical side, I don't know nothin' from nothin', but the lens on this is really a pretty thing. Will definitely take along the Konica for roaming the streets, though. It fits in a pocket, and it's so simple I don't have to think about using it (and that's saying something, because I am not a natural at this photo biz).

I'm very interested to hear more, but thanks one and all for the help so far.
 
I've just dug out the Yashica and reminded myself of why I've never actually used the wide-angle and telephoto attachments. Hassle!

Once you've screwed on the extra lens, you've got to slide the viewfinder accessory into the shoe on top to correct for parallax, then focus, read the focus conversion factor off the lens attachment, and re-set the focus as directed.

Even if I knew what all that was about, it would never happen. Point, focus, think a moment or two about exposure, then click - honestly, that's all I can muster. I think I'll take the Yashica and a polarizing filter, but leave the tele/wide stuff home. Egad.
 
My advice is leave your camera(s) at home. Egypt, anywhere for that matter, is far more enjoyable without having to point, focus, think a moment or two about exposure, then click all the damn time.
 
Flash is generally not allowed in any of the mre ancient or important museums or tombs, so fast film and large apertures are the order of the day
 
It really is perhaps time to think about going digital, for this thing. You never know you might like it.

Now it is Kylie's home coming tour, so I must go now.
 
kevinl said:
Flash is generally not allowed in any of the mre ancient or important museums or tombs, so fast film and large apertures are the order of the day
Click to expand...

Large aperture... the Yashica opens up to 1.7; I read somewhere that the human eye ranges from ~f2 to ~f8 or so, so this camera should be able to "see" better in dim light than me (?). Well, gather light better anyway - I suppose detection sensitivity is another thing.

Garyi, honestly, the first time I heard the recorded "shutter" noise on a digital point-n-shoot, it put me right off digicams. I'd sooner walk around holding an invisible camera and making "ka-shhhick" sounds.
 
I Photoshopped the neighbours pictures that he took on a trip to Egypt, (a trip on the Nile, visiting temples etc), the camera was a point and shoot digital object.

On first seeing the pictures they were very flat and no colour, I did a bit of Levels and Curves corrections and brought some rather nice colouring in the rocks. The pictures of carvings/images came out very nicely.

Why am I wittering on about this, unless you print and control the exposure of the prints you will not get the control of a film based image that PS can give to a digital image. Using a digital camera I think can get you a more pleasing result unless you will hand process your film based prints.
 
Derek,

I appreciate what you're saying. Trouble is, I'm just about as likely to do correction on digital image files as I am to do my own film developing (likelihood of either being essentially zero).

So why would I bother even taking any snaps at all? Dunno. I enjoy it. Using the camera forces me to see things a little differently, and occasionally I see things I would have otherwise missed. I admit I'm a pretty sad excuse for a photographer. (Mrs. H, OTOH, will tweak and polish a digital image until it does somersaults.)
 
Those are cool cameras KH and, I suspect, you enjoy using them and pootling around looking for a nice picture rather than lumping out the mahooosive SLR and setting up on the Sacred Tripod Holes of Giza. I agree with Alex -- obsessing about the cameras just means you forget to enjoy your holiday.

I would pick two (they are small enough you might as well take two) and just go with the one you feel like using on the day. Any camera + a bit of imagination + Egypt == some great snaps.

BTW Pity they don't make Kodahrome64 any more. Egyptian sun + desert colours + Cibachrome will give results better than hourse of Curve tweaking all by itself.
 
Matthew,

BTW Pity they don't make Kodahrome64 any more. Egyptian sun + desert colours + Cibachrome will give results better than hourse of Curve tweaking all by itself.
Click to expand...
Kodachrome 64 is still available. In fact, so is Kodachrome 200.

I believe it was K25 that Kodak canned.

Joe
 
Curiously enough I am selling my last remaining Kodachrome 25 that I have in my freezer - it's on Ebay right now, I've a few spare rolls other than those in the auction if you want them for a decent price. They're process paid...

Link to my Ebay auction

...just a thought - great film, and quite hand-holdable in the Egyptian brightness...
 
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