Very few labs in the US process any of these films. I still shoot a lot of Fuji Velvia for my nature impression photography along with some Agfa Scala. I get these processed at Duggals (New York City). They are one of the best & processes reversal films are a very reasonable price.

But for the most part chromes are coming to an end. The Kodak 400BWCN, though rated consumer grade, is quite good, but will never be able to replace the situations where the Tri-X have stood its ground.

The Kodak400BWCN has its own appeal – especially if you are shooting portraits, with a soft, misty texture & a sublime lighting, but I have never been able to reproduce any impressionistic image on this film.

The Agfa Scala is the hardest to process. At its prime in 2005 we had only 4 Agfa Scala processing labs in the US & now it is reduced to 2! Agfa has not announced its plans to either continue or discontinue the Agfa Scala, though there are rumors that it would disappear any day.

I still have over 5000 slide images, mostly impressions & nature pictures, yet to be scanned & digitized. And I still have a few dozen of Velvia’s in stock. It would not be for another few months that I will start worrying about where to look for film again!

• Nikkormat EL with Vivitar 55 – 135mm
• Nikkormat EL with Nikkor 135mm

The Nikkor 43 – 86mm was in production from 1963 to 1976. It has been discontinued since. The range you may have noticed is quite unconventional & hence the interest in owning & using it.

People have reported mixed feedback on this Nikkor 43 – 86mm f/3.5 over the years. In the simple spot tests I did, I was watching more for the issues that made this lens so questionable for use.

I shot 5 rolls of Kodak 400BWCN consumer grade film & developed them for 5 bucks at the local CVS stores (they scanned them for me too). These images are not touched up or digitally manipulated in any way.

For the complete set – Click Here for the PhotoDuniya Flickr page.

• the focus was soft – quite soft for street photography but will work great for impressionistic pictures
• the camera metered perfectly under all conditions of natural light
• the camera & the Nikkor 43 – 86mm lens combination was quite heavy – close to 1.5 kg
• did not observe any distortion (as many photographers have commented earlier)
• did not observe any flares under normal shooting conditions (though I did not take any picture right into the sun!)

Overall, I do not think I will be using this lens as frequently for street photography as the 18 – 35mm f/2.8. But it will work nice for me especially in creating natural impressions. I would rather use the fantastic 135mm on the Nikkormat EL for grand portraits & street photography.

I shot over 3 rolls of Kodak 400 BW CN film with this camera & lens combination. All shots were indoor in ambient, almost even lighting, except for a few situations where the light was sharp & abrupt.

You can see all the test shots on the Flickr Set Here.

• Vivitar 55 – 135mm f/3.5 is half stop slower than the Nikkor 135 f/2.8 I tested last week
• The lens is fairly sharp – all the test shots are hand held at very low shutter speed of 60 or below which is not recommended for this lens & camera
• The lens has a tack sharp focus. I would attribute any haziness to hand shakes
• The lens + camera weighs over 600 lbs making it hard to hand hold over extended periods of time

The Vivitar 55 – 135 mm f/3.5 will work as a good portrait lens & will be very suitable for street candid pictures. The Nikkormat EL has a center weighted metering & does not have exposure compensation. As such, I would use this with films for street candids & portrait shots rather than using it with slide films.

A brief on the Nikkormat EL Manual Camera:

Since the debut of the original electronic Nikkormat EL more than 25 years ago, there were many events, happenings and changes of course in the direction and philosophy of camera design.

Come to think of it, back in those days one would imagine how a leading trend-setting manufacturer like Nikon has to play it safe to explain and lead the consumers to embrace the advantages of automation in photography while not losing identity.

The first Program AE was the FG in 1982 and the first Shutter Priority AE was the FA in 1983 and this EL was the first Nikon which provided Aperture Priority AE – in 1972.

You can view them on the Flickr Gallery here.

I have posted many of them here, some on Journal Image. The entire bank of the river next to the burning ghats, was lined with devotee stumps. People offer their prayers & their offerings to Kali here. The priest lives next door. So when its not the time for “puja”, he runs a small school for the street children.

This picture was taken on Nikon D200 with camera mounted fill flash on full power. Since it was noon time, & the subject was primarily white, I had to fill the subject at full power to overcome any under exposure.

I also used a graduated 3.0 ND filter to shadow the sky. The picture is only cropped for easy viewing over the internet.

Pipes & Cigars put on a very sombre make up & coupled with un-brushed shoulder length hair, could provide a very promising model.

In this image, Ed, who happens to be an extremely good photographer himself, posed for the club’s “hands on” night. It was the evening where we all had to try different images with all available models & props.

Ed, to put on a more realistic look of a medieval scholar used a pipe, but on hindsight, a cigar would have gone well along too.

Cigars have a been the prime prop of many of the interesting shot of Hollywood & French movies, but setting up a model with a smoking cigar isn’t easy.

The smoke has to be right, the light has to be positioned right so as not to reflect too much & the wind should be mild enough to provide a smooth wave instead of a blur.

Use of reflectors & dark background slides for these types of shots are essential. The white smoke show better on a dark background. In similar lines, a black & white image turns out better instead of color.

This one is taken with a medium lens on Nikon F-100 film camera. The original shot was on Fujichrome & later desaturated in Photoshop.

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Uploaded pictures are stored free on the server & Photo Prints can be made any time. And since the uploaded image file is a high resolution one, small prints of 4×6 dimension as well as large prints can be made any time.

Photofun.com also provides online digital photo printing services for a very low service. They are the first company to offer customers in the USA 5-Cent Photo Prints. And having one of the most advanced printing technology makes it possible to offer high quality prints & Photo Gifts at very affordable prices.

One of the best part of an advanced online photo processing service like that of PhotoFun is, as the name implies, it helps you create as much fun products from pictures. Print photos, holiday photo cards, personal business cards, photo albums, photo books, photo calendars, photo canvas, photo cards, photo gifts, and photo posters.

You don’t have to leave the website, or upload pictures on multiple websites to make different things out of your pictures. So if its your kid’s birthday, you can create & order a photo gift from Photo Fun, if its a wedding of one of your relatives, you can create a memorable photo book & send it over as an intimate gift.

Apart from the normal services, PhotoFun also has certain products & services like business cards & high quality calendars that could be used effectively in your small business & as personal or corporate gifts.

With print quality assured by the modern technology printing equipments & low prices of prints assured by the companies success, PhotoFun is a one stop shop for most of the household & business photo needs.

PsPrint is a leading printing company that prints business cards, stickers, postcards, and more. A specialized printing house like PsPrint has several advantages over large printing services.

For one, they are geared towards small businesses, understanding the need of small photo business owners.

For Two, they are completely equipped with large & extra large printing. Color poster printing is a high-impact, affordable way to make a great impression. The full-color printed posters are gloss coated for durability. Posters up to 24 x 36 can be printed in a very short notice.

The Third advantage is that PsPrint has a complete range of products & services to serve your home photo business needs. So while they can print your pictures ready to be sold, they can also provide all the photo stationery needs for your home photo business – from greeting cards to business cards.

While you evaluate your printing service providers, you need to keep a few pointers in mind:

• reliability of the printing service – how many times will they be able to deliver on time & within cost
• quality of the printing service – including the quality of materials like color pigments, paper used
• delivery & shipping options – involving the quality of packaging & package tracking
• customer service – willingness to work with small home based business

Organization like PsPrint could prove to be a long term partner for small business & home based photography business.

Once they get comfortable around you, your camera or flash lights will not amaze and distract them any more. For a street photographer trying to get candid shots of children, you have to be patient till they don’t notice you anymore!

This is a candid picture of Suraj, a teenager from Kolkata, who loves to play & dive in the water of the Ganges.

Suraj & his group of friends spend the morning at Ghats of North Calcutta. And they have their own kid’s games too.

Like for example, they would dive and swim to the steam boats ferrying across shores. They would compete from one buoy to another. Thats all these children need to make them smile!

Suraj had a characteristic smile. A perfect “ear-to-ear” smile, and his eyes closes every time he laughs. He posed for me after a dive & could not resist laughing every time the flash went off.

This candid street portrait of a child from Kolkata is taken with handheld Nikon D200 & a wide angle lens.

Following my experience in San Francisco in documenting Street Musicians, I have started a similar project in New York City too. While most of the usual musicians are still playing in the subways, this group was one of the few that added a nice flavor to the city.

The image is taken on hand held Nikon D200. I did not use flash which could have distracted the musicians.

The rumors about Nikon D700 suddenly picked up a couple of weeks back with pictures & news running all over the internet. The stories mainly came in from Chinese websites. But UK was the first to make a sensible announcement with a date & a specs list. Although the prices have been taken down to avoid confusion, the news of Nikon D700 news is now holding back potential Nikon D300 buyers.

Here is a snapshot of the UK shop announcing the arrival of Nikon D700 for sale.

You can check the prices on Digital Depot website by the first week of July. The specs released by Nikon to another UK retailer mentions that the Nikon D700 is a hybrid of the Nikon D300 & the costlier Nikon D3. It also mentions that the new Nikon D700 is a 12.1 mega pixels full frame camera.

Here are the other features released to some of the reputed UK retailers:

• 36×23,9mm CMOS sensor FX format 12,1mp effective
• RGB Color filter array, build in low pass filter
• EXPEED processor, 14-bit
• NEF, NEF+jpeg, TIFF, Jpeg file formats
• Auto crop when using DX lenses. All other lenses usable.
• 51 point AF, 15 cross type sensors
• Live view mode
• 3D Colormatrix II metering modes
• ISO 100 – 25600
• CF card slot FAT32
• Accu and grip same as MB-D10 (from D300)

Nikon is yet to come out with a press release, but shops in UK believes that it will happen sometime on July 1 2008. And most of them have already started to stake in orders for the new Nikon D700. You can also order your Nikon D700 here at the danish dealer Photografica.

For a price list released by Photografica earlier & now removed, see post on Journal Image.