Rediscovering Film – Part 1

Pentax ES II

It’s been over 25 years since I last shot with a film camera but recently circumstances conspired to put this little beauty in my hands. I was actually looking for a small bag in a junk shop, but the one I found had this camera inside which I knew instantly I was going to buy purely to get the lens – an Asahi SMC Takumar 50mm f/1.4.

I’ve been trying a few old manual focus lenses on my Fuji X-T3 and as I love night street photography (without a tripod) the wide aperture will prove useful, so it’s a nice addition to my collection. A quick test shot of the simplest subject I had to hand at home shows promise with the smooth background bokeh.

I recently visited Winter Wonderland in London’s Hyde Park to test it out and I was happy with the initial results.

I was fully intending to sell the camera straight away (it’s a Pentax ES II from around 1974 onwards and it’s built like a tank!) but once I started handling it, old memories of my early days in photography came flooding back.

So I thought I would run a roll of film through it before putting it on eBay. I’ll add some test shots later.

Rediscovering Film – Part 2