Black and White Film Photography

I had the opportunity to shoot black and white film on three of my Minolta cameras recently. Overall, I am pleased with the results from my Minolta cameras!



The pictures, taken in Old Placerville, in this collage were taken with the Minolta Hi-matic 7s. I have had it for about 3 years at least and this was the first I'd tried it out. The first shots I took with it, I forgot to focus on the subject by utilizing the built in parallax correction. And there were at least four instances where I forgot to remove the lens cap!! I am rather pleased with the output of this camera! Next, I will be using expired film with it, the better for producing lomography effect!



Here's another shot taken with the Minolta Hi-matic 7s of Main Street in Old Placerville.



I forget how dependent I have become on the auto-focus function of the digital cameras! The pictures in this collage were taken with Minolta X-370 using 28mm f2.8 and 50mm f1.4. The focus on the majority of the pictures of people was not particularly sharp. It was a lot easier to focus on objects.



I owned a Minolta Hi-matic AF2 when I was a college student in the early 80s. I was always happy with the output of that camera and when I saw them on ebay, I just had to get one! I got a beautiful looking one for under $20 and I just couldn't wait to try it out. I used a C41 process roll of black and white film because I didn't want to wait two weeks to get the pictures back! As it turned out, the pictures had a reddish tinge on them because the C41 process black and white film was not truly black and white. That was the first I'd tried such a film. I bought a few rolls, but now I know better - the true black and white films produce much better pictures.



The local water tower here in Galt, shot with Minolta Hi-matic AF2 using C41 process black and white film.



Finally, here's a "self portrait" shot with Minolta Hi-matic AF2. :-)