Comment by 🛸 bluesman
@norayr I'm aware of radioactive lenses but I've never used one. I remember watching a YouTuber who said he made it a point to never look directly into one (when checking for dust, etc). He also claimed the color and saturation was noticeably better than traditional optics.
Mar 22 · 7 weeks ago
17 Later Comments ↓
I have a polonium brush for dusting records, from the 70's I think. Somewhere in a stack of boxes in the basement.
I also have a nice survey meter of same vintage, takes 4 D batteries and makes very satisfying clicks.
Polonium-210 has a half-life of 138 days, so by now I imagine these brushes are not detectable and all the polonium has decayed into lead.
Some old lenses use thorium, and I just learned, a lot (maybe 30% by weight). Thorium has a very long decay chain that lasts millions of years.
I think my favorite F1.2 lens on my Nikon F-3 is radioactive. It has huge, bright glass. I have to dig it out and see -- haven't shot film in years now.
🛸 bluesman [OP] · Mar 22 at 03:02:
My first 35mm camera was a Nikon F3 on loan from my dad. He also gave me a 35mm F2 and a 300mm F4. Neither were radioactive. I miss film but not paying for it.
That's like getting a giant Harley as the first bike!
I coveted that camera since I was 15, and finally got it when I was maybe 40... Shot a lot of B&W with it, then picked up a used Mamiya 645 and liked it even more. Then I couldn't get reasonable film.
🛸 bluesman [OP] · Mar 22 at 03:54:
My dad was using medium format so it was probably a small camera for him.The flash setup was something else. It looked homemade with a bracket holding the flash off to the side. I was mostly too embarrassed to use it in college. (I did get a few great portraits using that setup though). Now I use a cheap Samyang 35mm F1.8 on an A7-C. Night and day from a size perspective.
I settled on a Fuji digital camera with a nice manual mode with a separate exposure and aperture physical knobs, for a perfect experience.
i guess you can use that glass on modern digital nikon as well.
to me it was a long dream to get a nikon f3. i now have it for a couple of years. i guess i had to buy a more expensive one, it has a problem.
🛸 bluesman [OP] · Mar 22 at 13:33:
@stack I'd love to get the latest Fuji X100. I hear it's nigh on impossible (assuming I had the money).
@norayr I wish. I've adapted a lot of legacy glass to both micro 4/3 and full frame but that stuff was sold long ago. I have thought about buying the 35mm F2 out of nostalgia and I do miss the F3 experience at times. Do you shoot any digital?
i shoot, i have canon 6d but i only use it for dj set video streams nowadays, with carl zeiss 20mm lens, i have x100, the original, i also shoot crap cameras like pinephone or motorola droid4.
but i dont enjoy it and dont like the results usually. i even worked on my own luts and they sort of indeed work, i put an app on play, it applies 4 of my luts created from film, and source is open on github, never advertised it and have 1 paid download.
i can't stand digital colours, though i need to say that fuji is doing their work very well. and their colours are good. probably because they are also a film company and they knew their film colours were better. so they put an effort.
it'll be long to digress but i enjoy shooting film, because of results and process so much, that recently i shoot mostly film or crap cameras. then i apply my luts to the digital photos because i can't look at digital colours. (:
back to the topic: i had a compass when i was a kid, it was made for kids, it had phosphorus for scale and an arrow.
i loved it so much i was wearing it always.
today these old soviet compasses are known to be dangerous.
also in soviet military cars, in some of them there were on/off switches, and those would glow in dark and are extremely radioactive with gamma radiation. i saw them. i think they are still in use, those who use them don't know about the dangers.
Fuji's sensors have a different geometry and I find that it makes a difference
🛸 bluesman [OP] · Mar 23 at 00:48:
@norayr I always shoot RAW so I have some latitude in processing. The results are always better and I can match up different cameras. I miss the idea of film but as mentioned, it's expensive. Great stories, BTW.
@stack I've heard a lot of praise for the x-trans sensor. My understanding is that some Fuji cameras have bayer these days. I really want a Fuji but the days of impulsive camera shopping are over for me it seems.
🛸 bluesman [OP] · Mar 23 at 00:54:
The most interesting digital camera I ever owned was the Sigma DP2 Merril (the one with the 28mm equivalent lens). Its sensor captured three colors per pixel. No filter. Speed and battery life were crap but the results were truly unique. It's one of those cameras I regret selling.
Fuji has a setting that lets you save both raw and an emulsion of your choice, which is the best of all worlds. I always shoot that way, although I have yet to do anything with the raw files (other than figuring out how to use rawtherapy or whatever).
The film presets are pretty good.
The sigma sensors were always very interesting to me.
Fuji's sensors have a different geometry and I find that it makes a difference
@stack apparently the x-trans sensor geometry is to decrease the amount of moiré pattern. other cameras mostly use an anti moiré filter that basiclly spoils the image.
but their colour profiles are very cleverly designed by people who understand human psycho-physiological perception and art and film chemistry process.
so for me the only digitals i recommend are fujis, and then one doesn't even need to shoot raw, well i wouldn't because i can't apply such a colour lookup table out of camera.
or if i shoot raw i can applly different colour profiles to the same image in camera.
@norayr, right on, brother! Fuji forever.
There is software out there that pulls out raw Fuji data, although I haven't needed it yet.
Original Post
I Was Irradiated — I wrote a gemlog about being irradiated. [gemini link] I Was Irradiated