In 2009, Kodak announced that production of it’s Kodachrome film (a color slide film develped with the now defunct K-14 process) would cease. Famed photographer Steve McCurry, who often used Kodachrome film in much of his work, asked Kodak to give him the last roll of film off the production line and Kodak kindly agreed. A video crew from National Geographic followed McCurry around the world on his quest to photograph with the last roll of Kodachrome film and recently released the following documentary (the final roll was actually developed in 2010). The video not only chronicles how McCurry used the last roll of film, but also provides some great advice from a professional photographer.
The preset aperture mechanism — a click-stopped ring to set the stop-down aperture accompanied by a stopless ring that smoothly moves between wide open and the aperture preset on the other ring — has several advantages for digital cameras:
– Digital cameras generally can’t automatically stop-down a manual lens when you press the shutter button, so they behave exactly like the film bodies that were expected to be behind preset lenses.
– I’ll often preset the aperture at the smallest aperture that will not degrade the image quality by diffraction or sharply-imaging dust, then just use the stopless ring to vary within the acceptable range.
– The stopless ring allows changing the aperture during videos without steps or click noises.
The preset aperture mechanism — a click-stopped ring to set the stop-down aperture accompanied by a stopless ring that smoothly moves between wide open and the aperture preset on the other ring — has several advantages for digital cameras:
