The title of this post is a nod to a previous post. I thought I’d do a post with some links that I find interesting or useful in my film photography hobby. Some of these are widely known, others not so much. I’ll return to this post from time to time to make additions and updates.

The Massive Development Chart: This site is touted as the world’s largest source of processing times for the development of black and white film. Plug in your film and developer and it’ll provide the appropriate developement time. And the provided times take into account the temperature and dilution of the developer, box speed of the film or push and pull times if you rate it higher or lower than box speed. There’s also a handy phone app that provides the same information while also helping with figuring out dilutions and prompts for agitation during development. You’d be hard pressed to have a film/developer combo that isn’t represented.

Photo Film Index: This site doens’t give any development information, but is a great place to research a wide array of films and their attributes (both color and black & white). User reviews are avaiable for the films and each one is rated for Saturation, Latitude and Grain. There is also a photo gallery available for each film which showcases photos taken with each film. This film guide is a project of thedarkroom.com.

Lomography.com has a robust database gallery of over 17 million photographs which can be sorted by country, city, date, camera used, lens used, film used. The photos are submitted by Lomography customers. I’ve used this site to see sample photos produced by cameras, lenses and film I’m considering buying. It almost always makes me want to buy. In addition, they host online photography competitions which are a fun way to stay motivated taking photos whether you submit entries or not. Lomogography sells their own branded film and other products, but the site feels more like a community landing page than a sales site.

Learn Camera Repair: This site caters to both advanced camera repair folks as well as beginners. They have an online course which covers everything from basic camera cleaning to advanced shutter teardown and rebuilds. The course materials are from the National Camera Training Program, and the site’s founder has received permission to make their copyrighted materials available. Service manuals for a wide range of cameras are also available here. Their companion Facebook group is a great way to interact with people who can give advice on one’s current repair projects.

Cameracollector.net is a no-nonsense index of vintage cameras. It’s a great place to start for reading up on your favorite vintage camera. You can search by brand name, format, country of origin, etc. For insance, when I was recently considering adding yet another camera to my Yashica lineup, I went here to read up on my camera of interest, the Yashica Electro 35. There was so much information on this camera and its legacy that it was almost overwhelming.

Camera Wiki is exactly what you’d expect it to be. It’s Wikipedia, but for cameras. It has nearly 10,000 articles that provide detailed info on cameras of all kinds. It’ll even (sometimes) include electrical schematics for cameras that have electronics for exposure meters and the like.

Film Camera Manual Site is the self-described “World Famous” web site of 6500+ film camera manuals. It’s more commonly referred to “Butkus,” which is the last name of the guy who founded the site. “Did you look on Butkus for a manual for your camera?” Got an old camera you don’t quite know how to operate? Go to Butkus. Don’t know what that knob does on your vintage camera? Go to Butkus. All manuals are offered up in PDF format and are avaiable for download. I always download a manaual when I aquire a new-to-me camera and upload it to my Google Drive account so I have access to my manuals when I’m out in the field and have questions. The site is ugly. It will make you think you’ve pulled up a 90’s style website, including scrolling text and spinning GIF’s. But it’s usefullness can’t be denied.

Camera Batteries – A Complete Chart helps when you have an old camera with battery needs. It’s not uncommon to have a vintage camera that originally took batteries that are no longer produced. I guess mercury batteries are super bad for the environment, but a lot of old cameras used them. I ran into this issue with my Yashica 5000E. No need to fret, this chart will get you back in business with a modern battery solution. Be it by offering a modern day equivalent or suggesting an adapter, this chart has helped me on several occasions. This chart is available via photoethnography.com, a web site / blog by Karen Nakamura. She’s a professor of Anthropology at a little university called Yale. Her site appears to be a “side hustle” but without any of the hustle and more of a labor of love.

Film Retrospective is a post I stumbled across while going down rabbit holes one night. The blog author, Alex Luyckx, has (at the time of his post) done 100 film reviews. He brands himself as “Explorer, Wanderer, Photographer.” I can’t find an “About Me” page, so I don’t know much else about him. But this Film Retrospective post is his way of looking back at those 100 reviews and making sense of it all and giving valuable insight to the rest of us. His post is thoughtful and intelligent, and features some of his photos which are just great. It was this post that turned me on to Kentmere 100 which I now basically buy in bulk. He also has camera reviews, lens reviews and lots of other goodies.