Dave, in honor of you adding a photo so we can all put a face with your name, I've updated my photo.
I am so glad you really enjoyed my expired-film post. And I would be disappointed if, given that you are septuagenarian, you did not tell stories. I believe that when you reach 70, the government should give you a certificate entitling you to tell stories to all passersby, granting all the rights and privileges attendant thereunto. Anyway. I've considered the cost of film photography on my blog before, and I believe that it has never been less expensive (relative to inflation) than now.
http://blog.jimgrey....less-expensive/
Unfortunately, since I wrote that post, the CVS near my house took out its one-hour color lab. Goodbye, dirt cheap and super fast processing. I will miss you.
Anyway, yes, by 195x standards ASA 125 was screaming fast. Fortunately, Verichrome Pan was famous for extremely wide latitude -- in other words, you could get the exposure quite wrong and VP would still return a decent image. Films like Kodachrome had very narrow latitude -- you'd better get exposure just right or your image would be ruined. This is why VP was arguably the most popular b/w film in the world for 40 years -- you could jam it into any kind of camera and you'd get snapshots worthy of the family album.
This is why I expected that I'd get overexposed shots from the Brownie Hawkeye when I shot the Kodak Gold 200 -- it's way too fast for the camera and its exposure latitude, while certainly wider than any slide film, is assuredly narrower than good old VP.
Kodak appears to be getting out of the slide film business. I keep meaning to buy some E100G (a version of Ektachrome) to put in the fridge for my old cameras. But I keep shooting Fujicolor 200 negative film because it's so darned inexpensive and I can get it at Meijer (kind of a slightly upscale Wal-Mart we have here in the Midwest). When I was a boy, I eyed non-Kodak films suspiciously. Today, I embrace them -- not only because the Fuji films are generally very good, but because they are often more available than the corresponding Kodak films.
Dig these crazy awesome colors I get from E100G -- it's a shame it's out of production.
Your camera stash of yore sounds perfect, especially the TLR and the Yashica rangefinder. I have a very soft spot in my heart for old rangefinders; they form the core of my collection. I must admit, though, that for everyday film shooting I use a K-mount Pentax SLR. You can't go wrong with old Pentax glass.
Oh my, I see that I've hijacked my old thread. So I will circle back and say that as I wrote about John's Modern Cabins, you came to mind as I wrote about how the cabins are just right in their current dilapidated condition. It's too bad we can't freeze them in this moment.
