Last week I bought film for the 1st time in 5-6 years. I thought I'd just pop around the corner to the variety store,pick up a roll or two of B&W and be on my way to do some shooting. About 30 miles and an hour and a half later,I was on my way ,well after it was too late to shoot. 
All the box stores,pharmacies,etc carried were maybe two brands of 400 color print film and nothing else! I eventually ended up in Salem at an actual camera store and found a couple rolls there. It just seems that the last time I looked,there was always that huge rack of film behind the counter with umpteen different brands and varieties. Now when you ask they point you off to a corner and tell you "we might have a couple rolls left over there". Not surprising of course,it just shows the impact digital has had in that respect.
Anyway,I hope to finish a roll or two when the weather clears this week. I was feeling a little nostalgic a while back for the first "real camera" I'd owned and watching Ebay,found an almost mint copy of it (no lens fungus!) and the light meter I used through junior High & HS. The original succumbed to water damage years ago. Nothing fancy,a Voightlander Vito II that my dad had bought while he was on Adak Island back in the '50s. No rangefinder (I got extremely good at guesstimating distance) or internal light meter,but it had an amazingly sharp lens. I don't think I ever shot a roll of color film in it but my dad had gone thru hundreds of rolls of Kodachrome and I'v still got all of his slides. I'll find out how this one does later this week if the weather clears.
All the box stores,pharmacies,etc carried were maybe two brands of 400 color print film and nothing else! I eventually ended up in Salem at an actual camera store and found a couple rolls there. It just seems that the last time I looked,there was always that huge rack of film behind the counter with umpteen different brands and varieties. Now when you ask they point you off to a corner and tell you "we might have a couple rolls left over there". Not surprising of course,it just shows the impact digital has had in that respect.Anyway,I hope to finish a roll or two when the weather clears this week. I was feeling a little nostalgic a while back for the first "real camera" I'd owned and watching Ebay,found an almost mint copy of it (no lens fungus!) and the light meter I used through junior High & HS. The original succumbed to water damage years ago. Nothing fancy,a Voightlander Vito II that my dad had bought while he was on Adak Island back in the '50s. No rangefinder (I got extremely good at guesstimating distance) or internal light meter,but it had an amazingly sharp lens. I don't think I ever shot a roll of color film in it but my dad had gone thru hundreds of rolls of Kodachrome and I'v still got all of his slides. I'll find out how this one does later this week if the weather clears.
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