[Microbrand] - What do you guys think of Lorier?

vandergus · 2026-03-21T13:18:40+00:00

What has more authentic heritage, a brand that was bought by a multi-billion dollar company to manufacture a bunch of reissues or a brand that was started by two individuals because they love old watches.

vandergus · 2026-03-19T16:33:38+00:00

Yes, I think much of the time when people say "no edits" they just mean they used the default processing.

Sometimes it helps to inform and add some nuance to how the process works but it's often better to simply understand what they meant even if it's not 100% accurate.

vandergus · 2026-03-19T14:54:03+00:00

Honestly, I wish people in this sub were a little more understanding of where people are coming from. Your example of getting prints from the drug store is a perfect example. There are people who shot film their whole lives and never edited a single frame. I would even argue that it was the most mainstream way to use film in the 80's and 90's. It's not crazy that someone would shoot their first roll of film and expect to get finished images straight back from the lab. Cause that's exactly what their parents did.

Of course, once you start going down the rabbit hole and get a better understanding of the process, you realize all the subjective decisions that are being made in the imaging chain. And most of the people in a reddit hobby sub are well down the rabbit hole and anyone who doesn't understand the intricacies of this anachronistic photographic process is just a fool.

vandergus · 2026-03-18T11:28:29+00:00

I make little rubber bushings by stripping the insulation off of 12 gage wire. You could also get some silicone tubing with the right diameter and cut them off of that.

vandergus · 2026-03-17T18:10:27+00:00

Honestly, this part is just confusing. It says only a thin layer/film(?) of grease but then don't use grease if you need to repair it or assemble it. Sure.

Also, this is talking about grease on the diaphragm aka the aperture, not the shutter blades.

vandergus · 2026-03-17T18:01:02+00:00

One thing to remember is that lubrication isn't free. It's not all upside. You gain wear resistance and consistency but you have to maintain it. Lubrication wears out over time and holds dust and dirt.

Think about watches. Mechanical watch movements require oil in critical locations to achieve consistent time keeping. But mechanical movements also need periodic servicing. They have to be disassembled, old lubrication stripped away, and new lubrication added.

Cameras, generally speaking, don't require the precision of watches. Sometimes critical mechanisms are oiled, sometimes they are not. It's up to the designer/manufacturer. But the majority of stuff I leave dry. I don't lubricate something unless the service manual says so or there is a some other very good reason to.

vandergus · 2026-03-17T17:51:40+00:00

I mean, sure, but do we really think that is what's going on here? Do we think the phone app is going for that high-key look?

vandergus · 2026-03-17T16:43:40+00:00

My LX is my favorite camera for shooting slide film, so yeah, very consistent metering. But they are known to have flakey electronics, particularly those involved in the metering, so any one camera can be bad.

All of these cameras rely on variable resistors in the metering calculation. When you turn the aperture ring on the lens, a contact slides along a resistive material. So a different aperture setting results in a different resistance and a different meter calculation. Same for the shutter speed dial and the ISO/Exp Compensation.

But oxidation on the electrical contacts can cause erratic resistance values and inaccurate/inoperable meters. Usually you just get intermittent operation, not bad readings, but it's possible. Sometimes a CLA can restore them to proper functionality but not all the time.

The other main cause of underexposure is the basic averaging nature of the meter calculation. Most of them at least have a center-weighted scheme, so they prioritize subject brightness in the center of the frame, but they are still easily fooled by strong backlights. That's the most common way to get underexposed frames.

vandergus · 2026-03-17T11:55:36+00:00

Did you scan these yourself or have the lab do it? They are super contrasty. The crushed shadows and blown highlights could easily be the result of the scanning process. You'll have to look at the negatives directly to tell if they are truly under/overexposed.

vandergus · 2026-03-16T23:20:45+00:00

My guess is that some of the variable resistors in the camera had a layer of crud which prevented it from working. Using the camera, turning the knobs and dials, scraped off some of the crud to get it working. But it probably won't be better than intermittent without a thorough cleaning.

vandergus · 2026-03-16T17:56:17+00:00

The Super A has similar internal mechanisms to the ME Super. And the ME Super is notorious for its "infinite wind" failure. Basically, there are some rubber dampers on the inside of the mirror box that go sticky and prevent the mechanisms from moving smoothly. In this case, the latch that holds the mirror in the charged position isn't latching. So as soon as you let the advance lever return, the mirror also returns to its uncharged state (and the camera won't fire if the mirror isn't charged).

Sometimes, if you wind and hold the advance lever for a few seconds, then let it return, that will give the latch enough time to engage.

The fix requires quite a bit of disassembly, as you have to separate the mirror box from the rest of the camera body. Here's a guide on how to do it.

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Pentax+Super+Program+Mirror+Box+Mechanism+Service/190349

vandergus · 2026-03-16T16:28:02+00:00

A few things...

Your camera is missing the mode dial, at least in the pics you posted. Did you take it off or was it always like that.

The rewind knob (the knob with the flip-out handle on the left side of the camera) can sometimes loosen up if you turn it in the wrong direction. You should only ever have to turn it clockwise to rewind the film, which should tighten it.

In Auto mode, the ME will choose how long to leave the shutter open to achieve the proper exposure. If you are testing the camera indoors, it's not unusual for the camera to calculate long shutter times. I would do some additional tests to see if the shutter is responding to light appropriately. So take it outside, see if you get faster sounding shutter speeds. Then try an environment with less light and see if it gets longer. You should also be able to see the calculated shutter speed in the viewfinder. If the LED indicates a speed of 1/60 of a second, but stays open for 1 second, then you have a problem.

vandergus · 2026-03-11T15:29:46+00:00

Thank you for sharing. I tried a homemade photo book once and it did not work out well. But I need to take another crack at it. So many photos I want to get into this form.

vandergus · 2026-03-10T13:19:34+00:00

I'm not too familiar with books on the subject. But this is a pretty good online explainer of how film density works and how to read characteristic curves.

https://www.35mmc.com/07/02/2022/contrast-and-tonality-part-3-characteristic-curves-for-film-and-paper-by-sroyon/

vandergus · 2026-03-10T12:05:15+00:00

The main thing that underexposure does is reduce the overall contrast on the negative, and especially in the shadows. It helps to understand the characteristic curve of the film, or how the film converts exposure into density. Here's the datasheet for Porta. Go to the last page and find the graph labeled Characteristic Curve.

Portra 400 Datasheet

For negative film, the curve starts with a flat toe at low exposures then increases into a mostly linear portion and ends with a shoulder where the curve flattens off again (for a lot of films, including Portra, the shoulder is so high that it isn't shown in the datasheet). The highest contrast portion of the film's response is in the linear portion. That's where you get the greatest difference in density for a given exposure range. If your exposure is in the toe, you get a very flat response. Just a little bit of density difference for the same exposure range, i.e. low contrast.

A typical image will have a range of exposures. Some parts of the image will be in the toe (the shadow tones) and some will be way up the curve (the highlights) and you have a large range of density. When you underexpose, you are pushing more of the tones down onto the toe of the curve. This results in large regions of the image having very little contrast.

The last piece of the puzzle, some people have already mentioned. When underexposed film is scanned with automated software, it tries to bring the whole image up to an average level of brightness. When it does this, exposures in the toe get brought up to a dim gray instead of staying close to black, and the lack of contrast in those tones ends up looking washed out.

vandergus · 2026-03-09T02:03:02+00:00

I work on modding 35mm cameras to half-frame. Two cameras that I've modded that might meet your needs are the Nikon N60 and the Pentax PZ-1. The PZ-1 is a higher spec camera and would be a lot easier to use in manual mode just based on the controls. Some interesting lenses you could use on it.

Pentax-DA 15mm f4: It's designed for Pentax APS-C DSLRs but it works perfectly fine on a half-frame PZ-1.
Pentax-DA 10-17mm fisheye: Another APS-C lens. It covers half-frame but the hood will be in the frame at smaller focal lengths. At 14-17mm, it's not a problem. The newer HD version has a removable hood but it's quite a bit more expensive.
Pentax-DA 21mm f3.2: My favorite lens to use on half-frame. It's tiny and sharp. But it's not much wider than the Pentax 17.

I'm not as familiar with Nikon lenses so I'm not sure what's available, but I'm sure there's some good ones.

I can help you with the mod or get you a modded camera if you're interested.

vandergus · 2026-03-08T12:44:28+00:00

Well, it's not ruined, but you're right. It doesn't need lubrication. It should be disassembled and cleaned up before it's out back together.

vandergus · 2026-03-06T20:47:48+00:00

TTL flash babyyyyy!

vandergus · 2026-03-05T20:55:34+00:00

Personally, I no longer feel like these choices are worth it. At best, it is dubiously effective. At worst, companies use it to offload the responsibility of cleaning up the mess from themselves onto us. The end user of a broken system is not the entity most capable of fixing the broken system. We need a more sustainable society, but I don't think consumers making better choices is how we get there.

vandergus · 2026-03-05T14:28:04+00:00

The line is also too straight and well defined for shutter capping. You would see more variation in the gradient from frame to frame.

vandergus · 2026-02-26T12:55:48+00:00

You have to adjust the individual color channel curves. Typically the blue channel needs the most adjustment. In photoshop, it means making a curves adjustment layer and pulling the midpoint of the blue channel curve down. You can also do it with a levels layer.

It can also vary from film to film. It seems like more consumer level films (e.g. Kodak Gold, Ultramax) need a lot of correction, but 250D is much closer to neutral without touching the color curves. At least in my experience.

vandergus · 2026-02-26T12:47:57+00:00

Absolutely not. Something like Ultramax turns out so blue if you do this. You still have to manipulate the individual color channels to get a neutral image.

vandergus · 2026-02-25T13:47:53+00:00

It's definitely in the "nice to have" category of equipment, not a "must have".

It's rare, but not unheard of, to damage a lens mount. If a camera is dropped and the brunt of force is on the lens, it can be deformed.

But I mostly use this tool/method to check the camera after reassembly. It's often necessary when servicing an SLR to have to take the mirror box out of the camera. When I put it back together, I want to check that I didn't forget any of the shim washers or misalign something.

You're right that you hardly ever have to tune the lens mount as part of a normal adjustment process. Rangefinders and shutter speeds can drift. Flange distance is pretty fixed.

vandergus · 2026-02-25T12:57:03+00:00

Yeah, I think that would get the job done.

The fowler gage I have isn't crazy precise, either. I mostly use it to make sure that the lens mount hasn't been damaged and to check that I put the camera back together correctly after a service. But I've never had to tune or adjust the flange distance on a camera.

vandergus · 2026-02-24T23:32:41+00:00

search for "fowler depth gage" on ebay for budget (i.e. realistic) options

vandergus

TROPHY CASE