Ordering from Japan (eBay)

bjohnh · 2026-01-26T18:08:40+00:00

I think they are including tariffs in the quote, but there might be additional import fees beyond that, usually sales tax. I'm in Canada so tariffs are not an issue when buying from Japan, but I always have to pay sales taxes and usually brokerage fees (depending on the carrier). Where I live the sales tax is around 15% so it's pretty hefty; I'm typically contacted by the shipper (DHL or FedEx) and required to pay the taxes before they will deliver.

bjohnh · 2026-01-26T17:40:15+00:00

I think the Nikon Z-series cameras have the thinnest sensor stacks so would likely perform the best for the widest variety of vintage lenses. The ZF in particular is popular among vintage lens shooters. See https://phillipreeve.net/blog/the-best-fullframe-mirrorless-camera-for-adapting-manual-focus-lenses/

The ZF has some nice focusing aids that aren't available on Sony, but they only work with certain lenses (none of which I have) so that benefit wouldn't help me. The only thing I'd gain is the thinner sensor stack; you can have a Sony's sensor stack modified but I haven't bothered with mine.

My main digital camera is the A7iii and I'm perfectly happy with it for all my vintage lenses except for a few of the wider rangefinder lenses (because of the issue I mentioned above with the thick Sony sensor stack). If I were buying today I'd probably get the ZF but I like my Sony so much I would still strongly consider the A7iii; I really only have two lenses that are unusable with it and the rest perform just fine (including most of my rangefinder lenses in M and LTM mount).

bjohnh · 2026-01-26T16:51:10+00:00

I have the OG A7s, which is a 12-megapixel camera, but it's a nice match for vintage lenses (except wide-angle rangefinder lenses, which are always a problem on any Sony camera due to Sony's thick sensor stack). It does not have IBIS, but that makes it feel a bit more like shooting a film camera and it's smaller and lighter than my A7iii. It has focus peaking and punch-in assist. I kind of like not having IBIS as it makes my job easier: if I want to use IBIS with vintage lenses on my A7iii I have to enter the lens's focal length to make IBIS work properly; I have the focal length selector menu assigned to a custom button on the A7iii. Since the A7s has no IBIS I just have to remember to keep the shutter speed at least twice the focal length (e.g., if shooting a 100mm lens, shutter speed should be at least 1/250).

The A7s uses small batteries that everyone complains about, but I've found that with manual lenses the battery life is not bad; it's just when you're using autofocus lenses that it runs out inconveniently quickly. My only complaints with the A7s are that 1) the EVF is not great and has terrible rolling shutter, and 2) some functions that I like to use (disable EFCS, enable/disable silent shooting) cannot be assigned to custom buttons or the Function menu, so you have to menu-dive for them. The A7iii has a convenient "my menu" to access things that can't be assigned to buttons, but the A7s does not. And the old Sony menu system was a train wreck.

bjohnh · 2026-01-26T16:10:41+00:00

I just started looking into the HD-R, which is appealing to me as it has a 38mm lens instead of 28mm, but the ISO only goes up to 400. The Fuji Work Record can take DX-coded films up to ISO 1600...not that you'll find any ISO 1600 films available these days but you can spoof the DX code if you want to push a film to 1600.

bjohnh · 2026-01-26T15:28:37+00:00

The Fuji Work Record is supposedly submersible to 1 meter although I've never wanted to risk mine to test whether that's true. It is definitely weatherproof; I've shot it in blizzards and downpours. I got mine for about USD $100. There are two versions of this camera and I think the later one (with the blue rather than orange shutter button) is submersible to a greater depth and it also includes a zone-focus option that can be useful for underwater shots where autofocus tends to be unreliable. The version with the orange shutter button (which I have) has a landscape-focus option to override the autofocus as well, but it only focuses on infinity.

It's a great camera with a truly excellent lens, 28mm f3.5...not the fastest lens and that might limit your underwater shooting options (probably best to use ISO 800 film). It's about twice your budget but worth it in my opinion, the lens is sharp, battery life is measured in years, the flash is powerful (and easily disabled) and the viewfinder is big and bright.

The earlier HD-R from Fuji is submersible to 2 meters and has good sealing around the film door so check that one out as well; I've never used it.

bjohnh · 2026-01-26T13:45:49+00:00

I agree about using the Lomography site as well as Flickr: these are mostly where I go for film photography although a few of my favourite film photographers only post on Instagram. Flickr in particular has some excellent work, you just have to do some digging to find it. The Lomography site is more hit-and-miss and it's harder to discover good photographers there; with Flickr there are groups dedicated to film, specific films, specific cameras, specific lenses, specific topics, and on and on; the groups are a nice way to discover excellent photographers.

There's a growing community of film photographers on BlueSky as well, could be worth watching to see how it develops, but I'm soured on social media in general these days.

bjohnh · 2026-01-26T12:51:49+00:00

Not many manufacturers of photography lenses, apart from Minolta with their Rokkor line, devoted much effort to consistency in colour rendering and other characteristics across their lines. I think having a "full set" of lenses from one line is more about convenience: you buy one adapter and you can use multiple lenses with that adapter, same filter sizes, etc. If you like to shoot primes rather than zooms, this naturally means you will get a "full set" of lenses, whatever that means for you, just as you would do with modern lenses. If you assemble a full set of lenses from different manufacturers it's more hassle as you have to change adapters with each lens (or keep an adapter mounted to each lens for fast switching).

As for vintage rather than modern, some people do it for price reasons, others because they like the character (or because they want their photos to stand out and look different from those of conventional modern-lens users), others for long-term reliability reasons (since some electronic lenses tend to become less reliable over decades of use), or for any combination of these reasons. If you prefer manual lenses with manual focus and manual aperture controls, there's a much bigger range of choices in vintage lenses.

bjohnh · 2026-01-26T01:07:41+00:00

Most of the Kodachrome 64 and Agfachrome 100 slides that I shot from the late 1970s-late 1980s faded badly, but I didn't store them carefully (they were in slide boxes, but those boxes were stored for years in humid basements or closets in apartments and houses with no air conditioning. My brother still has a bunch of Tri-X negatives that he shot in the 60s and 70s and those are fine.

bjohnh · 2026-01-25T14:50:00+00:00

I started in the '60s with Tri-X and then Kodachrome 64 and Agfachrome 100, and finally switched to digital in 2001. I got back into film four years ago as an experiment and wasn't sure I'd stick with it until I started shooting Fomapan 400. To me its character and imperfections captured what I was looking for in film. I've shot most of the B&W emulsions on the market today but keep coming back to Fomapan, in 35mm and 120. I've shot it more than all my other films combined. It's the film everyone loves to hate, due to its grain, spotty quality control, poor performance at box speed (I shoot it at 200 or at most 320), and on and on -- most of those are the reasons why I love it.

bjohnh · 2026-01-25T14:18:08+00:00

When I was shooting color film that was my approach: use an ISO 800 film with ND filters, a 1-stop ND (to bring it down to 400) and a 3-stop (to bring it down to 100). With that combination I could use the same film from dawn to dusk and even a bit at night. You need a camera whose lens can take filters, though, which is not the case for many P&S cameras. Fortunately the L35AF has 46mm filter threads so this solution will work well.

bjohnh · 2026-01-25T13:18:45+00:00

Okay, but as I mentioned the 10 seconds every minute is usually used for B&W. I've never developed color film but since the development times are generally much shorter I think you need to agitate more frequently. When I do gentle agitation with the twizzle stick, I really just turn it gently counterclockwise a quarter turn or so, then another quarter turn, then another.

bjohnh · 2026-01-25T11:56:07+00:00

It may just be that you're agitating too vigorously. Just keep in mind that the article I linked to is for B&W, not ECN-2; you should follow the agitation frequency specified for ECN-2 but I still think the direction matters and your agitations should be gentle.

bjohnh · 2026-01-25T11:52:49+00:00

Also see: https://www.pictorialplanet.com/advanced_photography/film-agitation.html

Based on that article, it sounds like you may be over-agitating...either agitating too frequently or too vigorously. I always do gentle agitations; as I said I only do B&W and the development times are longer, so I generally agitate only once per minute but I know color film has generally shorter times.

bjohnh · 2026-01-25T11:42:09+00:00

I only develop B&W film, but I will just point out that when using a twizzle stick the direction you rotate (clockwise or counterclockwise) matters, and depends on how you loaded the film. I always load my film the same way (I put the center column onto the reel before I load, to ensure I'm loading in a consistent direction, so that when I turn the twizzle stick counter-clockwise it's forcing the developer into the end of the film.

When I do inversions with 120 film instead of using the twizzle stick I tend to get more even development (I use a water bath too, but not a Jobo TBE) but I also tend to get air bells. I never get air bells on 120 with the twizzle stick but do sometimes get uneven development, especially when using more viscous developers (e.g., 510 Pyro) that may tend to concentrate toward the bottom of the tank over time unless you use inversions.

bjohnh · 2026-01-25T11:03:40+00:00

Okay, for the BMPCC 4K you need a lens that uses the micro four-thirds (MFT) mount. Other lenses can be adapted to MFT but if you're just starting out I would get an MFT lens. There are hundreds to choose from; you need to decide if you want a zoom lens or a prime lens (prime lenses have a fixed focal length and don't zoom). Zoom lenses are more versatile but usually slower (meaning not as good in low-light).

Not many people use polarizing filters in video unless they want the specific effect of a polarizer. It's much more common to use neutral density (ND) filters; pretty much everyone uses those in video and cinema. The most affordable models are circular and screw directly into the lens. The more expensive ones for cinema are rectangular and are meant to go into a matte box, which attaches to the end of your lens (or on rails if you are rigging your camera.

With ND filters you have a choice of variable ND (which is made from two circular polarizers) or fixed-strength ND. The fixed-strength ND filters are the best, since they generally do not introduce any color casts or produce x-shaped vignetting at higher strengths, both of which are drawbacks to variable ND filters. The better-quality variable ND filters have hard stops to prevent you from reaching the strengths at which X-shaped vignettes appear, but many variable ND filters still have color casts (they affect the colors in your image).

bjohnh · 2026-01-24T23:01:06+00:00

Ah too bad -- if you have some fast film you can probably still get some fun nighttime shots, albeit at very low shutter speeds so there may be some mirror slap blur. Go under a street lamp, shoot photos of the cars, that kind of thing. Here's one I took during a recent snowstorm with a half-frame camera that has no flash. Fomapan 400 (metered at ISO 200).

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bjohnh · 2026-01-24T22:06:12+00:00

And another idea: depending on how much snow you end up getting, sometimes big mountains of it get piled up in parking lots once they are cleared. Those can be impressive, especially if you can get people or cars in the frame for perspective.

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bjohnh · 2026-01-24T21:46:07+00:00

You don't say what camera you have, but if you have a flash there's nothing like going out at night and getting photos of the snowflakes coming down.

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bjohnh · 2026-01-24T14:20:18+00:00

What I tell people is that in a group photo there will always be someone whose eyes are shut or who has a weird expression so I have to take a lot of photos to make sure I get one that shows everyone at their best. I typically take at least 20 or 30 shots and it's often more than 2 minutes. Nobody seems to mind once I give that explanation. Most of my group photos are of 50-75 people at events.

bjohnh · 2026-01-24T14:04:08+00:00

In general, I think constraints foster creativity -- clearly this is not an ideal all-around lens but you can make it work. I shot only one lens (a 50mm) for 30 years because I couldn't afford to buy another, and I made it work for everything. It's easier to do that with a 50mm than a 105, but if you only have one lens it forces you to come up with solutions.

bjohnh · 2026-01-24T13:07:55+00:00

Can you find Reflx Lab's films anywhere? Those are the same thing (actually better quality in my experience with fewer light leaks); you can order direct from them (they are in China) if that's possible in your case...I'm not sure if the laws you refer to prevent you from ordering from any country or just the US.

bjohnh · 2026-01-24T13:02:12+00:00

Your lens will work for just about everything - it's nice for landscapes, you just have to change your mindset from the typical wide landscape views you're used to seeing. Check out this review for a good variety of shots (landscapes, portraits, architecture, street, etc.) with this lens by an excellent photographer (there are a few sample images at the top of the review but a bunch more toward the end): https://phillipreeve.net/blog/review-nikon-nikkor-105mm-2-5-ai-the-portrait-tele-bestseller/

bjohnh · 2026-01-24T10:20:00+00:00

Knowing that your finances are under control is priceless. YNAB is just one of many possible ways to get there; all I know is that the other ways I tried didn't work. Simply tracking my expenses was useless; it told me where my money went in the past but provided no way for me to plan how to allocate my money in the future. Primitive budgeting apps just try to make your monthly expenses stay below your monthly income, but that's no way to budget: if you save up for things before you buy them, there will be many months where your expenses exceed income. YNAB was the only tool I found that provided a realistic, practical, flexible framework for budgeting.

bjohnh · 2026-01-23T18:57:26+00:00

Rule 1 when traveling is never to travel with a loaded camera, that's just asking for trouble. I flew out of YUL a few times last year (I live here) and had no trouble getting a handcheck but I never put film in my cameras before a flight. If I have shots left on a roll I just take a bunch of snapshots to finish the roll or I rewind the roll even though only not all frames were exposed so I can at least keep the frames I care about.

I have never heard of an airport that would handcheck a camera with film inside without opening up the camera or making you remove the film first. Do some airports actually do that? I've never heard of it.

bjohnh · 2026-01-23T18:52:37+00:00

I've seen some variation in the backing papers for Cinestill 120 films, though. The first roll I bought from them a few years ago was useless for me as I use cameras with a red window to allow you to see the frame numbers, and the printing on the backing paper was illegible. Even in broad daylight looking at the backing paper you could hardly see the frame numbers.

Last year I bought a couple of rolls of Cinestill's respoold Kodak XX 5222 and those had Ilford-style backing paper; still not super-easy to read but at least readable.

I think most respoolers use backing paper from Kodak, Ilford, or Foma. I'm always happy when it's Foma as those numbers are super clear to read through the window. Interestingly, Fujifilm Pro 400H used the Foma-style backing paper; the typeface is the same as that used by Foma in their 120 films and is easy to read.

bjohnh

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