Hello from Denmark

[Lars Holte]

Hello all,
I am a new member as of today. I am a Norwegian living in Denmark. I have been practicing photography as a hobby since 1976 or thereabouts (which says something about my age). My first proper camera was a Pentax ME with a 28mm, 50mm and 135mm kit, and later additions were the Pentax MX, ME Super, Super A, MZ-3 … and lately a retro, but well-functioning Asahi Pentax Spotmatic F.

At the end of 2005 I strayed into digital with the Pentax *istDS DSLR, and trying to catch up with the rapid developments in digital photography I also acquired the Pentax K10D, K20D and Pentax K-5 before I realised that this was not the way for me. I have retained the K-5 and some DA* lenses and still shoot some digital now and then, but my new-found love is film.

In the last couple of years some classic Pentax 6x7 cameras with a number of gorgeous lenses have snuck into my camera bag, later to be joined by a couple of Pentax 645 N film bodies with a small assortment of lenses - some manual, some autofocus - and a number of film inserts. What a fantastic system! A Mamiya C330 Professional with three lenses has also turned up somehow.

I started doing darkroom work (self-taught) in 1978 and my Meopta Axomat 4 saw regular use up until the so-called “Millennium”, when digital began to take over.

Luckily, I never sold my old film gear, and when a local professional photographer went “all digital” two years back, I cleaned out his darkroom. I am now the lucky owner of two Durst Laborator L1200 enlargers with one standard condenser head, one BWL 450 diffuser head, one CLS 450 colour head and one Ilfospeed Multigrade 500H head between them. I also got me a Jobo ATL-1500 film processor with several Jobo 2500-series tanks that I use to develop B/W, colour negative (C-41) and colour positive (E-6) films.

In spite of (or maybe just because of) all the new (old) gear I have acquired lately, I still feel like a beginner with a lot to learn and am therefore glad to be able to join a forum such as this. I look forward to reading and hopefully participating in many interesting discussions. Film certainly is not dead!

My flickr handle is holtelars
... and my favourite podcast is the FilmPhotographyPodcast