Self portrait

I've been bitten by the photography bug. More to the point, the film photography bug. I didn't bring a film camera to Estonia, but there are a lot of old cameras in the markets and "antiik" shops. 60's and older cameras have a nice heft to them.

After reading a lot of good reviews of the Soviet copies of Leica cameras I decided to try one myself. I bought a FED 3 (with a bad shutter), and then immediately went out and found a FED 2, which I really like. I've had a manual Praktica SLR since the early 80's, so aperture, f-stop and manual focusing are nothing new. Rangefinders are new, but no big problem.

Lack of an internal light metering system take some getting used to. I ended up with an old selenium based Soviet light meter. It seems to work, unlike some old ones, but I don't have a lot of confidence in it. I carry my digital Lumix as a light meter too. I probably look strange, with my modern digital camera to check the light, then double checking with a light meter, then finally shooting with an early 60's rangefinder. But I am enjoying the deliberate pace of shooting on film.