A few examples can be found here: link

There's a couple of pairs showing the problem with shots at the end of the rolls compared to earlier shots. Sadly not shot on Pentax gear so I can't post them here.

John.

I've just had my expired/old 120 rolls back from Peak Imaging. This was Fuji Provia 100 (probably Professional) and dating back to being exposed in 2005 ish and Provia 100 Pro expired 2009 shot recently. Storage was not temperature controlled in a cupboard. All were exposed at ISO 100 and as far as I'm aware received normal development (I noted they were old films on the order form but didn't request any changes).

Apart from slight signs of light leaks (probably through/around the backing paper) on the last couple of shots on some of the rolls exposed in 2005 and the rebate on a few frames leading up to this, everything came out like new.

EDIT - The expired 2009 film and shot recently came out looking fine (different camera) but no obvious signs of light leaks.

Seeing trannies on a light box again is very refreshing!

John.

Have you tried combining auto-bracketing with exposure compensation? When you set the auto-bracketing up you get the numberline with the positions under/middle/over on. You can them move these as a group with exposure compensation away from the cameras metered exposure.

Doing this in Av might achieve what you want as long as your 'difference' from the camera metered exposure is predicatble or can be determined by a test shot.

This worked well on my Z-1 and from memory the K-5 works the same way (I don't have mine to hand at the moment).

John.

You could also try a rubber band around the filter to give some traction.

There are two Tamron K mount adapters, the KM (no 'A') also repeats the aperture scale of the lens so it it projected into the finder of those cameras with windows in the finder (MX, LX etc.). The scale isn't engraved though, making it harder to read it in the finder in some lighting conditions.

The other is the KA mount, which has an 'A' setting (but not the aperture repeater).

The KM is easier and cheaper (approx. £20) to find, the KA version is easy to find but can be expensive (up to £60).

My preference for older lenses would be Super-Tak or SMC-Tak primes, you need the M42 adapter but the lenses are beautifully built and more importantly work on my Spotmatic bodies.

John.

I think the days of bargain Spotmatics with lenses on Ebay are now long gone. Most people have realised they can sell the lenses to Canon/NEX owners for much more than the selling the camera and a lens. Quite why they want 40yr old manual focus lenses so badly is a mystery to me.

There are loads of Spotmatic bodies going for £25, take your pick. The 55/1.8 lenses go for about £30, anything else can go for a lot more.

My best bargain was a Spotmatic + '49mm' lens which hadn't attracted any interest - turned out to be a SMC-Tak 50/1.4 - got them both for £60.

I've bought several and of those I've run film through, they've all worked (one has a seized battery compartment though).

John.

For that price you could get a very nice Mamiya C330 which offer interchangeable lenses - which was my next step in medium format.

This isn't the right forum for this, I'd recommend avoiding the 'Lomography' forums (or ignoring a lot their content) because the Lubitel is better than that.

Don't knock the Lubitel, it is (or at least was) a cheap - rather than toy - camera. It has a few drawbacks when using it that the more expensive cameras don't have, but the results can be very good. The first prints I got out of mine were better (size for size) than I got using Ektar 25 on an MX with M series lenses. The lens is a bit soft (my prints were about as sharp as my 135 ones from M series lenses), but the tonal graduation on the larger format is much smoother than 135 film could deliver.

Prices went silly a few years ago when 'Lomography' became trendy, I paid £18 in the '90s and think they're worth £20-30 today but no more.

My 166U has the following characteristics:
- The focusing screen is completely clear (un-ground) apart from a circle in the centre, focusing requires some patience.
- You have to look straight down the screen axis to see the whole frame.
- There's no interlock between shutter release and film winding (via the window on the back), makes multiple exposures a doddle.
- My 6x4.5 mask scratched the film.

Be careful though, my Lubitel was the first of a large collection of medium format gear (and no, its not for sale).

John.

Hi Bjorn,

I don't know, but I'm currently shooting a mix of Velvia/Provia from 2003, 2005 & 2009 (not recently stored in the fridge) - simply to refresh my 120 film/camera (Mamiya 645) handling routine. I'll get a couple of rolls processed before deciding on the rest.

I'm not expecting it to be useable, but it gives me a bit of familiarity before deciding whether to start looking for a 6x7.

The mono is probably a lot less likely to be a problem, there's no colour to worry about and with slight changes to exposure/dev you might get some good results.

I also fouind a lot of exposed but un-processed film from '03 onwards, wondering what to do with that too.

John.

I appreciate the problem, it's one I have on my Sigma 70-300, but it works better in AF-S than AF-C. It seems to have to hit the end-stop before it switches direction.

I always wondered whether there's a drawback with the Sigma AF lenses focusing the 'wrong' way to infinity (compared to Pentax). Not only does the focus ring of my 70-300 go the wrong way, so does the screw-drive connector. Sometimes I wonder how the camera manages to focus at all!

John.