Fogdog

16 stories

FogdogReviewsThe Controversial 43-86mm f/3.5 Zoom-Nikkor, Part Two I wish I had felt better during the 10 days that I tested the worst lens Nikon ever made. I really wanted to give this lens a good workout, but I came down with a nasty respiratory thing and was just…

11.05

FogdogReviewsThe Controversial 43-86mm f/3.5 Zoom-Nikkor, Part One I picked up this old Nikkor zoom lens for $30 out of curiosity. I have always been more of a prime lens guy and have only owned a handful of zoom lenses over the years.

09.26

FogdogReviewsKodak Ektacolor PRO 400 Kodak Ektacolor PRO 400 is repackaged Portra 400, or so I have read. The Ektacolor brand name is still owned by Kodak and Portra 400 is owned by Kodak Alaris.

07.13

FogdogReviewsHappy Birthday! Nikon F2, 50mm Nikkor-S Auto F/1.4, My Nikon F2 with its un-metered DE-1 prism finder is 50 years old. Based on its serial number, it officially turned 50 earlier this year, but who’s counting.

06.29

FogdogReviewsWide Angle Weekend Nikon FM with 28mm f/2.8 Nikkor AIS I’ve photographed in Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve several times since I have lived in California and have never been able to do justice to the place.

05.23

FogdogReviewsTwo Frames with the Nikkor 105mm f/2.5 Portrait Lens I have always been curious about the legendary Nikkor 105mm f/2.5 manual focus portrait lens. So when one became available at a decent price last year, I snapped it up.

05.05

FogdogReviewsMore Fun With Ferrania P33 My last few rolls of Film Ferrania P33 are a bit past their expiration dates. Not that it really matters all that much with cold-stored medium speed black and white film, but it was a good enough…

04.25

FogdogReviewsMinolta IV-F Some months back, when I wrote my review on the Minolta IV-F light meter, I loved it so much, I went searching for another.

04.16

FogdogReviewsCamera Store Find I am always delighted to find a bargain at my local camera store. Even happier when the bargain is in such nice condition.

03.27

FogdogReviewsTop Notch Gear for Sale Regretfully, I need to sell a couple of my nicer classic cameras. Both of these cameras have had recent service and both are in near mint condition.

03.12

FogdogReviewsSekonic L-158 Auto Lumi: Another Neat Little Light Meter Even though almost all of my film cameras have built-in light meters, I am still a sucker for acquiring and testing hand-held meters. Most of them are relatively inexpensive.

01.16

FogdogReviewsThe Desert, Kodacolor 100 and a Feeling of Doom Kodacolor 100 Prior to Christmas, when airfare and hotel accommodation were more reasonable, my wife and I decided to spend a few days in Arizona.

01.15

FogdogReviewsA Tale of Regret & Renewal: The Pentax Spotmatic I’ve been spending some time lately organizing and cleaning up my archive of analog photographs. In the process, I realized that many of the ones I consider technically pretty good as well as…

2025.12.23

FogdogReviewsPhotography Magazines Growing up as the kid of working class family in the 1970s, I had little extra money to spend on my photography hobby.

2025.12.03

FogdogReviewsOne Photograph: When Even a Bad Shot Can Be Satisfying I have been a lover of fall my entire life. Growing up in Upstate New York, those crisp, clear, sunny October and early November days were glorious.

2025.11.25

FogdogReviewsMinolta IV F Light Meter I admit—I am a bit obsessed with vintage light meters. I think I have a dozen or so. Several old Westons, three or four Gossens and a couple of Sekonics.

2025.11.12

The small bracket on top of every camera, from a phone rig to an ARRI.

The hot shoe is where the flash goes, and the microphone, and the monitor, and whatever the next decade bolts on. Every camera has one and nobody photographs it. This magazine is named after it because that is where the whole business meets: the body, the glass, the light, the sound, and the person holding it.

I shot news in Gothenburg for nine years and documentary for hire after that, then stopped taking assignments to write about the tools. Since 2021 I live in Tokyo, ten minutes from the used-camera shops of Shinjuku, which is not an accident: Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fujifilm, Panasonic, Ricoh and Sigma make almost everything worth pointing at a subject, and their own press writes about it first, in Japanese. So this magazine reads it there, and in German, French, Italian and Spanish, and in English from the reviewers who actually put a card in the slot — around eighty sources and thirty channels, counted and plotted so you can see what is moving.

Bodies and lenses, cinema cameras and drones, film and the darkroom, firmware and the software that finishes the picture, the rumours before the launch and the reviews after it, and the photographers and shows the rest of it is for. I test what I write about on a job before a word goes down. I shoot film on Sundays and do not think that makes me interesting.

A story here is a headline, a short excerpt, one picture and the link to whoever reported it. We never reprint the article, and the picture belongs to the photographer or the maker. A story written in Japanese appears in Japanese, as its author set it down; the link goes to the original.

— Mara Lindqvist, Tokyo