Things do not always go your way. But this case was (almost) expected. Too bad, because the Fuji GS 645 Professional is a very good camera, built with a mix of old criteria (folding structure and rangefinder) and more modern ones, especially the good and sharp lens and the meter. A good friend of mine lent me a copy in perfect condition, were it not for the presence of numerous pinholes in the bellows. I tried a repair with the “liquid electrical tape” but unfortunately it was not enough.
Wandering through my usual analog groups on the web, some time ago I saw a post about a “modern” Canon film camera and I remembered to have it. It’s the Canon Eos 3000n, purchased in 2005, already in a digital era and used very little (just a couple of rolls with Russian fisheye, as you can see in this post). So I went to rummage through my boxes moving house and I … exhumed it. To make it work I had to buy two new (and expensive) CR123A batteries. The camera, however, quickly got to work fine, like it was just out of the store. The 3000n was an economic model, built with abundant plastic use, but with many useful features and more, thanks to Eos mount, I can use my Canon lenses I owned for professional use in digital. As the first film I chose to test again the Foma Retropan 320 after the unsuccessful first test souped in FX39. This time I planned to use the Ilford ILFOTEC DD-X and I have to say that the results were quite interesting ….
About a year ago, I got a nice Minox GT camera and I took some rolls of film straightaway. The second and third have already seen them in these posts. The first one however, remained hidden somewhere, patiently waiting for me to find the time to handle it. In fact, there was the problem of the film tail completely rewound in the cartridge: the first empirical attempts, however, had not brought good results and the “Film Picker” I had purchased had disappeared during the move. Well … a long story.
Walking along the Via Appia Antica, in Rome, it’s like taking a leap into the past. Nearby, the modern city with all its noise and its concrete while before our eyes they lie green fields, luxury villas half-hidden among the ancient trees and above all, to the sides of the old road (often with the original flooring), construction of the Roman era, statues, temples and votive plaques. That alone could be enough to bring the visitor back in time more than twenty centuries but, sometimes, you can do amazing meetings, which return a scenario worthy of those immortalized by landscape painters of the nineteenth century.
thefilmrenaissance 