Richard Haw's Classic Nikon Repair and Review

Hello, everybody! I was listening to an Eagles tribute band (one of hundreds!) and they’re so good that I thought I was listening to the real band. I was searching in YouTube for the song “Best of My Love” but the only thing I could find was from this tribute band. I was a bit upset when I found out that it’s just a tribute band but I gave them another minute. It was worth it because it satisfied the damn earworm that’s ringing for the past few days! I stopped the video and thanked the opportunity to listen to them and also for the lesson I that learned on giving something or somebody another try. Today, I am going to tell you a story about how I used to hate a certain film stock but grew to love it as I gave it another chance and learned more about its nuance and quirks.

Introduction:

Fujifilm Venus 800 is one of those films that make some people scratch their head because of its odd speed. It was made to be sold together with the disposable plastic cameras and with the lower-end of the Japanese film market in mind (mainly aunties) who don’t want or own a fancy setup or film and all they cared about are nice vacation photos. This was probably the reason for its feminine name because it was mainly aimed for this market. Fujifilm probably wanted to give the impression that it takes good photos of people and it does according to the official Japanese catalog. Many people mistake this to be the same film as the Fujifilm Superia 800 but there are small differences according to the catalog. It probably is so insignificant that you can treat them both as the same film in most cases. I am sure that the subtle differences will only show in controlled conditions or when these 2 stocks were shot side-by-side to compare the resulting prints or scans. Its official name is called the Fujicolor Superia Venus 800 just to make it clear to all that it’s a Superia with different formulation. If you want to be technical about it and if you read Japanese then I will just lead you to this official PDF and let you decide if the differences matter to you or not, you can’t get more official than that since it’s Fujifilm who wrote that film guide. You may also want to see this detailed datasheet for the Fujifilm Venus 800 (Japanese only).

Many people outside the Far-East haven’t heard of this film because it wasn’t sold outside of the region through official channels but it’s available through importers and these can be bought easily online these days. Some people treat this as a novelty film because of its “rarity” but more and more people are getting to know and love this film lately. It used to be hard to find information about this film just a few years back on the English-speaking web but you can now find plenty of sample photos online these days thanks to those who like to share their photos like yours truly.

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Hello, everybody! I was listening to Air Supply this afternoon. While I liked them in my younger years I got tired of listening to this group after buying their “Goodbye” album. It is a fine album with a catchy song in it but it was played-to-death by DJs so you could hear the song everywhere you went. It got so annoying that listening to somebody singing in a falsetto voice made me want to act violent. After some 3 decades after “Goodbye”,  I’ve decided to make my peace with Air Supply and began to enjoy their music again. It looks like I just need some time-off from them in order to rekindle my love for their music. It’s fun again to listen to their music and relive my younger days when you dedicated a song to a girl that you liked and had the DJ play it. Today, I’m going to show you something that was so popular that people began to treat it as a mere lens cap despite the fact that it’s a nice lens with more than decent-enough performance.

Introduction:

The Nikkor-H 50mm f/2 Auto is probably Nikon’s most prolific 50/2 lens and it’s certainly the most successful if you consider the longevity of its optical design. It was sold in 1964 as the Nikkor-H 5cm f/2 Auto, that was revised as the lens in this article and later on as the multi-coated Nikkor-H•C 50mm f/2 Auto. A huge redesign effort by Nikon in the 1970s or the late 1960s turned it into the New-Nikkor 50mm f/2 and it arrived at its final form as the Nikkor 50mm f/2 Ai in the late 1970s. All the lenses that I mentioned used the same basic lens formula and it was modified in small ways to improve its optical quality or to give it new features like the ability to focus closer. The reason why it was so successful is because its performance is great for its time and so the need to develop a better design wasn’t so urgent. This earned a lot of money for Nikon as the same design was used for almost 15 years, spanning several versions. The key to all of this is the design’s simplicity which makes manufacturing easier. These were usually sold with cameras as “kit-lenses”, as they will be called later, cheap and decent lenses. This lens fulfilled them all and so it became one of Nikon’s most successful “kit-lenses” of all time.

Many folks consider this to be one of Nikon’s best 50mm designs that could still compete with many modern lenses. This was so successful that it stayed in production until 1979 as the Nikkor 50mm f/2 Ai which is simply the New-Nikkor 50mm f/2 with minor modifications. It’s a good lens if you ask me but I like the Nikkor-S 50mm f/1.4 Auto better for artistic purposes.