Camera Oasis

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 ...

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...