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I’m still a film guy at heart. I have to be. I have hundreds of feet of it in the fridge. That was a joke. Film is just cool.

Better Living Through Chemistry

It’s just the magic of the chemistry. Don’t get me wrong, digital is cool too, but there’s something about taking some plastic into the dark, bathing it with chemicals and having an image appear that is just absolutely awesome, mystifying and expressive.

So anyway, I was watching the review videos of some high-end consumer cameras, EOS 5D Mark II videos and Nikon D700 videos.

We’re at an incredible moment in photographic history. The amount of capability in these consumer machines is truly amazing even for a neo-Luddite like me. OK so maybe that’s a bit harsh. I am a software guy after all.

And if I ever really did splurge to go all out, my heart gets all fluttery when I look at the EOS 1DS Mark III or the Nikon D3X.

The one thing that still amazes me though is how much the costs of these cameras are above the costs of the professional film cameras that they have replaced. I guess with the cost of processing film it might be worth it. I don’t know. I seem to spend more time with Adobe Photoshop than I should.

OK, well as a film photography guy, I’m a little paranoid about old cameras breaking and I’m more paranoid about who is going to fix these things in the future. It seems like with digital, you know it’s going to break or become obsolete so at this point, plan on replacing them periodically.

But with film, hopefully we can hang on to our cameras much longer. Some are timeless beauties. And hopefully, there will always be people around who know how to fix them correctly.

I am going to begin listing people on this site who do camera repair if I see that they have a good overall track record on the web.

So the first of these is Sherrie Krauter. I’ve seen her referred to many times as a reputable repair person and dealer of Leica Cameras.

Now about that Leica MP that I ***must*** have…

Leica i, ii, iii, iiic, iiif on eBay

Leica M2, M3, M4, M6, M7, MP on eBay

For something a little different, here is a movie made by Paul Strand.

Manhatta

I just can’t leave out the still photography, here’s a site with some Strand pictures. It is photography-now.net. Several other photographers are represented on the site as well. More about it later.

Be sure to check out Paul Strand On Amazon