larryepage Loc: North Texas area

As recently as late 2017, I was very happy shooting my D300s, which I got in partial trade for a big pile of retired film equipment. The ISO capability, while not astounding, was adequate to do everything I wanted to do with a little safety margin, including shooting in our back yard after dark. I still have that camera, still keep the batteries charged, and still shoot it occasionally. The resulting images are very good, and it's trivially easy to capture a bracketed group and create a HDR image on bright, sunny days or in other "difficult" situations. Besides all that, there are many times when 12 MP is sufficient (or even more).

My discovery of bigger worlds started toward the end of that year, as I began preparing for a workshop gifted to me by my wife to learn how to create night sky images. The D300s fell way short technically of what was needed for that, which was the capability to shoot routinely at ISOs of 4,000-5,000 and full frame wide angle equipment to capture the subjects. More resolution is also required for best results at night.

But the big thing is this. The fact that I needed different equipment to use at night in absolutely no way rendered my D300s immediately unsuitable for what I had been using it for. It did not mean that it had to go in the garbage or be sold for a small pittance. So yes, I still have it. And it still comes out occasionally. And the images it captures are still as beautiful as they were before. Besides that, it is fun to take on group outings. It produces one of two responses. If the group doesn't know me, I get all kinds of sympathy and sometimes even some special treatment. If they do, they ask all kinds of questions, and we have all kinds of good discussions about visualization and composition and the like. Either way, it's refreshing to talk about artistic things and not to be dragged into meaningless discussions about equipment that don't improve anybody's anything.

OldCADuser Loc: Irvine, CA

Yes, I used to do the same thing back in the day, although it wasn't just because of low light, often it was to achieve a higher shutter speed, as was the case in the image below, taken in January 1971 at a college hockey game. The game was in Houghton, Michigan, home of the Michigan Tech Huskies. This shot was taken with a 135mm lens on a Minolta SRT-101 using Kodak Tri-X pushed to something over ASA 800.

BartHx

I hope you are just not remembering your enjoyment with film. Otherwise, why did you do it?

Sidwalkastronomy Loc: New Jersey Shore

Think before you post. It was back in the day so don't have a stroke ROTFLMFAQ

BebuLamar

When Kodak discontinued Kodachrome I missed it but then I tried the new Ektachrome E100 I found it's great. Not having the nasty blue tint like the old Ektachrome.

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Film processing was just a chore. But acoarst we had no choice.

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You *did* refer to home processing of Kodachrome ? Or did I misread you ? Referencing "back in the day" doesnt change anything ...

Sidwalkastronomy Loc: New Jersey Shore

I went to a David Bowie concert at radio city music hall, I believe it was his diamond dog tour, 1974, and took photos with ectachrome 400 pushed to 800. I also used tunsten film due to stage lights.
At that time I was able to walk down the aisle and get great photos, very grainy photos.
I wish I had today's equipment for that.

Sidwalkastronomy Loc: New Jersey Shore

In American English
we use " marks not * for quotes
We processed some slide film in our kitchen not sure ectachrome or Kodachrome but was a lengthy process that we tried and gave up. We had a slide strip and never mounted them. Went back to in house
b & w developing.

Sidwalkastronomy Loc: New Jersey Shore

Thaz? Is that really a word? Is it hipster for that's, or some poor translation from your english.

RonDavis Loc: Chicago, IL

Hummm, you included my one of my OP statements in your response, so I really don't understand your comment about film?.....

"• THEN, I’m back in the zone……remembering how fun and simple all this was, my high expectations…and how wonderfully gratifying the results were (and still are) when the camera was “younger". (Note….I don’t remember my film days being as enjoyable)."

The last sentence in my statement should make it clear I'm talking about the joy of a digital camera. But, thanks for the comment anyway.....

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Old shots are not the same as shooting old gear.

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Was I quoting something ? You are certainly most welcome to point to wherever that fox paws happened.
I just reread that post. Gopher it !

But do beware: Playing too much wakkamole makes you crost eyed.

Okay then. That was clearly *not* Kodachrome. There is no artisanal method of processing Kodachrome.

radiojohn

Many years ago, high school actually, I bought a very small Minolta 16II camera [kind of like a 110 film camera but you reloaded the cartridges with 16mm film] and used it for a while. I called it "the poor man's Minox" and processed my own negatives.

I even push-processed a roll of film I shot of a Bunraku Theater troupe that was performing outside of Japan for the first time in (I think) 200 years. The camera passed for some kind of opera glasses.

About 15 years ago I grabbed an equally tiny Sony U-10 that was about the same size, was 2 MP resolution and had a tiny screen on the back smaller than a 1/2 frame negative. It was a bit of a homage to the Minolta 16II. I used it in a non-credit class I taught on eBay selling for photos of items the class sold.

As I have said, sometimes you feel like Ansel Adams, other times like Andy Warhol.

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Lomo Rewlz !!!