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If you use an old film camera you may have noticed there's a dial with the abbreviations ASA and right next to it DIN. You likely have already figured out to use ASA where your film says ISO. ISO and ASA are interchangeable. From prehistoric times (ok, since the middle of the 20th century) to the late 1980's ASA was what much of the world used as measure of film sensitivity. The abbreviation stood for American Standards Association. At the same time, the German version of the organization that measured film sensitivity was abbreviated DIN or Deutsches Institut für Normung meaning German institute for Standards. Germany was and to some degree still is an influential player in photographic innovation and manufacture.  DIN wasn't a linear measure. Doubling of sensitivity was shown by adding 3 to the number. For example 21 DIN (=100 ASA/ISO) and 24 DIN (=200 ASA/ISO.) DIN and ASA ISO are equal at 12. So: ISO 12 = DIN 12  ISO 25 = DIN 15 ISO 50 = DIN 18 ISO 10

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

Here's an interactive crossword puzzle with the theme "Camera Beginner" Camera Basics from Lensbusters.com Camera Basics from Lensbusters.com Michael Halberstadt This interactive crossword puzzle requires JavaScript and any recent web browser, including Windows Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, or Apple Safari. If you have disabled web page scripting, please re-enable it and refresh the page. If this web page is saved on your computer, you may need to click the yellow Information Bar at the top or bottom of the page to allow the puzzle to load. EclipseCrossword © 2000-2013 Welcome! Click a word in the puzzle to get started.   Solve OK   Cancel Congratulations! You have completed this crossword puzzle . If you would like to be able to create interactive crosswords like this yourself, get EclipseCrossword from Green Eclipse—it's free! Check puzzle

While perusing an old photography magazine on Archive.org I found an early predecessor to the Sunny 16 rule we use today. The magazine was published in the Summer of 1937. We can learn a lot about photography from looking at this table. For one many of the shutter speeds will look somewhat different than we are used to. Modern shutters use fractions like this: 1/1000, 1/500, 1/250, 1/125, 1/60, 1/30, 1/15, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2. If you picked up a camera of this era, for one, the shortest speed: 1/1000'th would have been a fancy camera. Many cameras of the era maxed out at 1/300, or 1/400. Most cameras also used a slightly different scale too: instead of the more modern 1/4 they veered to 1/5 and went up from there to 1/10, 1/25, 1/50, 1/100, 1/200, 1/400. Another thing to note (go to the original magazine article, link supplied) and you will see a wide variety of films. None of the films listed exist today. Most of the companies are now only footnotes in photographic history. And

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

When I first started photographing, as a teenager in the early 1980's literally everybody used a film camera. All sorts of films, color and black and white could be purchased from convenience stores, drug stores, supermarkets, by mail order, or most likely at one of the ubiquitous One Hour Photo shops. You could get Disc film , 110 , 127 , 120 , 220 , and sheet film locally in San Jose where I grew up, as well as in most any city of a certain size. For those of you just getting in to photography, you might find the notion of metering light for exposure difficult. Your iPhone's camera not only do a great job of metering and exposing, but you also have the advantage of being able to instantly see the results and correct if needed. But in the century plus of history where film was king, there were a lot of tricks folks came up with to make exposure easy. Back in the 1980's there would typically be a small sheet of paper folded up in the film box with a bunch of information

Anybody shooting large format film today knows that film is extraordinarily expensive. A sheet of 8x10" black & white film will run anywhere from $3 to $10. Those interested in ultra large format photography have come up with various ways of shooting on a budget: paper negatives, lith film, and X-ray film. X-ray film costs anywhere from $.50 to $2/8x10" sheet. When you first think of X-ray film, you might imagine a film capable of seeing through surfaces. But get your mind out of the gutter! For the conventional photographer, X-ray film has some quirks. But if anything those quirks limit what the film sees, not expands. X-ray films typically are orthochromatic. Much like films in the really olden days, they are not sensitive to the red spectrum. For your photography, that means a really red rose will look blackish. For portraiture, that means that freckles and zits will look darker than they do, so keep that in mind. A big plus to orthochromatic films is that they c

The use of Rodinal is most common with Semistand Development. I've been playing with Semistand development on and off for a while with the more common Rodinol. Yesterday I gave HC110 a try. And I liked it. Dilution: (from syrup): 1:120 Temperature: unmeasured Prewash: time unrecorded (maybe 5 minutes) Time: 40 minutes Inversion: first 30 seconds or so, then one more time roughly 20 minutes (half way) into development Equipment used: My old trusty JOBO 4x5 drum, Kodak HC-110 (duh!), Lauder fix, lots of water Film(s): these show only Fomapan (Arista.edu) 4x5 samples, but the exact same shots were done with outdated Agfapan 100, Kodak Plus-X Pan, and Tri-X professional (320) Camera: Toyo (Omega) 45d with Fuji Fujinon 250mm f6.3 and Caltar IIn (Rodenstock Sironar N) 150mm f5.6 Scanner: Epson V700 All in all, I was quite happy with the results. Density of negatives was pretty good. I actually shot two of each motif on four different types of films and processed t

Just wanted to let you all know of a fun resource for creative stuff including photo related items..... In Oakland there's a place called the  East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse . There's usually a little bit of photo related sludge in a designated area, but also interspersed throughout the jumbles of  junk   treasures. On my last visit I picked up: a mostly full case (500x) of those  old airmail envelopes   a few dozen sheets of  letraset a bunch of 35mm and 4x5 negative sleeves (ca. 50-100) various laser labels a seemingly unused cable release (for conventional film cameras) a couple of old maps a roll of old Kodachrome (I know I can't develop it!)  multi-colored sheet feed paper for impact printer (dot matrix) and some other miscellany.  Box of Misc Crap in the "Camera Corner" (not really in a corner, and not all cameras) In the end it  all fit in a medium size moving box and cost about $28 out the door. There were a few 35mm SLRs

Here's a sheet I got from writing ORWO Technischer Kundendienst back in the 1980's. It lists development times for all the ORWO Black and White films sold for export at the time (NP15, NP22, NP 27) combined with western developers Microphen, Atomal, Rodinal, Refinal, D-76, & ID-11. A little bit of ORWO history- Germany's big photo film/paper manufacturer up until Germany's losing WWII was AGFA (short for  A ktien G esellschaft F ür A nilinfabrikation - or corporation for some sort of plastic manufacture.) Germany was occupied by the winning powers USSR/USA/GB/FR and the rift between the USSR led to some complications for industries. Depending on your view of history the US and western allies were much friendlier to the land they occupied (remember the USSR lost many millions of their citizens to the NAZIs which made them much less tolerant.) In any case, some factories in the east moved to the west with many key employees. Most photo enthusiasts know of the t

ORWO Neopan Film Data Sheet Long ago, in a galaxy far away- well actually it was 1987 in what was the German Democratic Republic, I began a love affair, albeit with a film. Traveling on a day visa for the first time to the GDR with my friend Christof and his sister, I paid the DM5 for a day visa and exchanged the mandatory DM20 for the local currency, Mark der DDR. Though M20 was roughly worth US$8 it was hard to spend. The stereotypes of the East Block were that of empty shops and long lines. But at least in the capital of the GDR, neither of those issues were apparent. What was apparent, was that the prices of things were drastically different. Many of the day-to-day things that consumers would want were much less expensive. I ate and drank far more than I should have. If I remember correctly, a beer at a sit down cafe on "the Alex" was M0,70 (ca. US$ 0.30) or so. I had perhaps the best ice-cream in my life from a street vendor for a few cents (and later again a

Tmax (TMY-2) defect example Tmax (TMY-2) defect example- close up of backing (see the 10) and mottled pattern I bought a bunch of different emulsions about a year ago to try out in my Mamiya C-330.  I got some Fomapan in 100, 200, and 400 speeds (under Freestyle's Arista.edu label,) a pro pack of my old favorite Fuji Acros, and a propack of both T-Max 100 and 400. Just having developed a roll of the T-Max 400 I had a bit of a surprise. The good part of the surprise was the new emulsion's tonality looked great when I pulled it from the hangar. But on closer inspection I was a bit concerned. I thought I could see some modeling or splotchy pattern. I convinced myself it was because I was looking holding the lupe to a window and I must be wrong. But a quick scan on a Epson Perfection v750 scanner confirmed my fears. I figured at first I must have done something wrong - perhaps my development technique was to blame? But further examination led to a different conclus