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Snapshot: a lens to avoid

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Olympus is selling its camera business to a Japan investment company. The Olympus M.Zuiko 14-42mm lens may be a reason why. The lens came with a second-hand Olympus E-PL1 camera, as its standard kit lens. It’s a very sharp, fast-focusing lens. Until you zoom out to 25mm. Then, the lens refuses to focus. At all. It took less than 60 seconds to find multiple threads on DPReview.com that confirmed how widespread this issue has become. Judging from a few posts describing owners’ conversations with Olympus technical support, the company knows about the problem. And hasn’t acknowledgeD the lens’ circuitry issue. The troubled lens is easy to replace. But that’s not the point.  I treasured several Olympus film cameras, and owned a Tough series compact digital. But a company needs to stand behind its products. Or lose its customers. Sigma — a lens manufacturer of fine pedigree — updated the firmware in one of my lenses when it no longer functioned with a new camera body. At no charge. Which len
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Travels with a Fujifilm Z90

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Point-and-shoot digital cameras -- even good ones -- have become semi-relics in the iPhone era . But compact digital cameras aren't pricey paperweights. They can do the job. And on the used market, good P/S cameras can be had for $5-$25 dollars.  Really.  After a downpour.    A local thrift store last week sold me a tiny  Fujifilm Finepix Z90 camera for $3.99. That's no misprint. A 12-megapixel, 5X zoom camera smaller than any smartphone. Under $5.  It's no Leica , of course. In default "SR auto mode," the camera chooses high ISO settings for daylight photos. (Tip: use Program mode, set ISO yourself.) But with a wide-angle to zoom 28-140mm lens (in 35mm terms) and HD video, a nine-year-old camera that outperforms most phones is a fair deal. You can skip eBay, and still land great deals. You get a couple of extra benefits: In this case, the camera came with a case, SD card, and battery. This isn't always so with thrift-store cameras. You need to check the came
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Location: Clayton, NY 13624, USA
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Tracking my missing negatives

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What do Walgreens and CVS drug stores do with the film negatives that aren't returned? Mystery solved. But hardly satisfying. . I've probed this since my Aug. 2016 post . When I asked Walgreens why they don't return negatives with photofinishing orders, a manager called me. He explained that his store sends all film processing orders to District Photo, a Maryland wholesale lab. They send nothing back to the stores -- prints or negs, he said. Image files scanned from negatives are transmitted to the store, where prints are produced and the files are written to a CD. This led me to District Photo, where a polite woman named Ruth informed me that District's contract with Walgreens specifies no return of negatives. That's at Walgreens' request.  District retains the negatives for 30 days, then destroys them. So, Walgreens says it's District's issue. District says Walgreens tells them not to return the negatives. Amid the online finger-pointin
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The camera I didn't buy

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I ran across a Nikon N2020 in a thrift store last week. It would make a great doorstop, or maybe a prop in a war movie. By dw_ross from Springfield, VA, USA (20121213_1371) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)],  via Wikimedia Commons The bottom plate was partially unscrewed. A thin patina of dust covered its surface. You couldn't read half of the control labels on the body. Nikon made many rugged 35mm single-lens reflex cameras. The N2020 wasn't one of them, despite being the company's first autofocus SLR model. I'm a long-time Nikon SLR owner. But I let it go. Some owners baby their cameras. Others toss them in a backpack and neglect them. And there's no hard-and-fast rule about which holds up better. SLR cameras of the 1970s and 80s were built with metal frames, but plastic soon took over. If you find a $10 Nikon in a thrift store, it's likely to need more than a dusting off and a fresh battery. Compact point-and-shoots are a
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Silver theft on Aisle 3

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If you shoot film and have it processed at a drugstore, watch out. Walgreens and CVS are trying to steal your silver. By Eastwind41 (Own work) [Copyrighted free use], via Wikimedia Commons That's the only possible explanation as to why they no longer return your negatives when you develop color negative film. Instead of giving you prints with negatives in your photofinishing envelope, they give you prints and image files on a CD. You don't get your negatives back. By SkywalkerPL (Own work) [CC BY 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons Why? The film contains tiny particles of silver, which can be extracted and recycled, usually benefitting the photo lab. Companies used to offer kits that allowed labs to recover the silver, and you'd get your negatives back. But that technology likely isn't widely offered, since film processing declined. This page of Kodak's website talks about the process. The labs want to keep the silver. So you don't get your negatives
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Three things to know about the Canon Canonet 28

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Rangefinder cameras from the 1970s had fast lenses and enabled you to control the lens aperture. They were quiet. And, if you were confronted by muggers, a weighty Canonet on a neck strap could be used as a defensive weapon. The downside? They used mercury batteries that were outlawed by the 1990s. Their foam light seals dissolved into gunk by the early 2000s. They didn't have built-in flashes. And some owners struggled to load the film correctly. These photos came from my Canon Canonet 28 , shot on very expired Kodak 200 print film. I hadn't seen the camera for years. (The Parkside photos were shot years ago; the flower images are more recent.) The photo processing was questionable, too. See that white squiggle in the price list shot? Dust on the negs.( More on drugstore photo processing another time.) You'll find Canon Canonets on eBay and thrift shops. If the shutter and rangefinder focus work (they don't need a battery), buy one. But, keep these thr
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10 Pretty Good Five-Dollar Cameras

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Your iPhone or Android might take pretty good photos. For $500+, it ought to take photos Annie Leibovitz would buy. But it doesn't. It's more like the world's most overpriced point-and-shoot camera.  Compact 35mm film cameras from the 1970s-1990s are my Kryptonite. I find most of them in thrift stores, next to audio devices with old 30-pin iPod docks. Those film cameras have better lenses than a smart phone. Flashes that actually light up a scene. They make me think about composing a picture that tells a story. And if I drop a camera I bought at a Godwill or Salvation Army, I'm out a whole $5 -- not $500 plus a pricey screen replacement. I can live with that.  Here's a brief guide to real 35mm cameras worth looking for when you're garage-sailing or cruising thrift stores. You can go retro for just a few dollars, and see if you remember how to compose a photo with a real viewfinder pressed against your brow. 10. Olympus Infinity Twin - a some
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