Lensbusters.com

I was photographing details of cameras I'm working on selling (and others I'm not selling) on my new website UsedFilmCameras.com. The resulting photos reminded me- I doubt many people wouldn't know what the numbers, marks, and colors mean. So I thought it would be fun to start a little series explaining all that stuff means. So here goes: Here's a shutter dial from a lovely Nikon F3 given to me from my old friends John & Phuong (not for sale.) So the numbers in white are fractions of a second. That's one of the things that makes photography confusing! The red number "60" is the same as the white numbers..... except: 1/60th of a second is the shortest speed this camera can sync with flash. The orange numbers aren't fractions. They are whole numbers. If you meant to expose for 1/8th of a second and moved the dial to the orange 8 you'd ruin your exposure. Bulb is an old term that now means that the shutter remains open as long as

There are two competing variables in making a properly exposed negative (actually three I guess if you count film speed.) But if you're just getting started with film photography you may have heard of reciprocity as it pertains to exposure. By the way reciprocity should not be mistaken for a shortening of reciprocity failure as I often hear people mis-speak. Reciprocity is the relationship between the length of time of an exposure and the light coming in through the lens controlled by the aperture. In theory, (and usually in practice) doubling the time of an exposure and halfing the light coming in will result the exact same density negative or transparency. For example, if you meter (or using the " Sunny 16" rule ) an exposure as say f16 at 1/125th , your negs would be exposed* exactly the same as if you used: f32 @ 1/30th f22 @ 1/60th f16 @ 1/125th f11 @ 1/250th f8 @ 1/500th f5.6 @ 1/1000th Note I said exposed exactly the same , not look exactly the