I'm excited!! Hi everybody!!
This is my first post, so I'll introduce myself. I started shooting with a digital SLR a handful of years ago and absolutely fell in love. I own a Nikon D3000 body and D7000 body and have shot a few tens of thousands of frames with them. I shoot a lot of nature, macro, landscape, and some night sky shots. But I wanted to get back to basics with my photography, and so started investigating shooting film. I recently purchased a Nikon F100 film body on craigslist and have shot a couple rolls through it. I love the way I think about making my images when shooting film, and am now in love with analog photography!
I recently picked up a Mamiya Sekor DTL 500 body with M42 screw mount and a few lenses at a yard sale for $15! and just finished shooting a roll of black and white. And boy is the viewfinder dim and hard to use on the Mamiya!!! Still need to get that roll developed and scanned, but I immediately was left yearning for something with a better viewfinder, but a similar style. That's when I found the Spotmatic F, did some research, and decided I would give it a try.
Found a (supposedly) working and excellent condition body with functional meter on eBay and just placed my order!!
Since my main complaint about the Mamiya was the viewfinder, I'm wondering if anyone has experience with the Mamiya DTL 500 viewfinder compared to Spotmatic F? My Mamiya was dark, dusty, yellow, and just generally hard to use and VERY frustrating to focus with. I've read that the Spotmatic viewfinders are bright and pleasurable to use. Can anyone confirm?
This looks like an awesome community, and I'm excited to have a walk-on-part in it