I had heard about the Vintage Computer Festival Midwest maybe two or three years ago. Pandemic
and everything I just didn't want to risk it, however this year I checked it out!
Of course, I wanted to do some photography there. With old vintage equipment I think there's
a really interesting aesthetic to it and my goal was to take photos.
The event website is vcfmw.org. It's a free event featuring past technology.
There are informational displays, booths setup for selling equipment.
Many computers and other types of equipment available to try out.
I think they also had panels running, but I wasn't sure where that was going on.
Related to YouTubers and video makers I did talk to one of them...
"Lukeisafinename" is his YouTube channel, you should check it out!
A lot of photography content. I've seen some of your photography videos...
Oh, cool, yeah, yeah... So I decided to go a little bit manual,
nice, at least slightly manual... yeah, yeah... It's ahhh Fujinon...
Definitely worth checking out! Also his brother does
the vintage computer stuff, LGR. And also I saw The 8-Bit Guy as well as Ben Heck.
Anyways, I did try to take a few quick snapshots. My main focus was on taking photos of equipment,
so I didn't put a ton of effort into taking the people photos.
One of the booths I especially liked right in the front was the video gear display.
The YouTube channel is Dave's Retro Video Lab. You should check that out, I will as well.
So many camcorders with a lot of really interesting Canon lenses.
The camera equipment I was using it was the Nikon Z5, 28 millimeter F/2.8,
and also a Fujinon 55 millimeter F/1.8 m42 mount lens that I actually received yesterday.
I thought an old vintage lens would be a good fit for a vintage computer festival.
But at 55 millimeters it's not the most practical focal length even on full frame, so a lot of
the time I was using the 28 millimeter F/2.8. I also had the GoPro Hero 9 for the video portion.
If you're looking for something interesting to photograph I think a
convention like this is a great option. Because there is so much detail.
There's so many things to take photos of... Circuit boards, old computers, monitors...
which actually is a challenge. I did not take that into consideration. However,
I knew it was going to happen with the CRT displays. The refresh rates and how they display
images related to shutter speeds that I was using. I did start off with the 28 millimeter F/2.8. Did
a full loop around the convention area so I could make sure that I got decent photos out of it.
It's a great all-around lens and focal length for conventions.
I have used this at least one anime convention. However, I have not edited the video for that.
That'll eventually show up, but it's a nice focal length. It's a cheaper lens,
it works well for that stuff. It's very compact and lightweight which
is nice with the Z5 in combination. And then I switched to the Fujinon
55 millimeter F/1.8 m42 mount lens. I don't think I took a single photo
with the lens before going to this convention. However I did clean it up and it was ready to go.
One thing of note with that geiger counter and related video I did on radioactive lenses,
this one isn't nearly as bad as the Pentax Asahi Super Takumar 50 millimeter F/1.4 that I had,
but I think from the back element it is a little bit radioactive.
Kind of inconsequential, but fun fact! With that lens I was using probably around F/2.8
to F/4 most of the time, but I did venture into F/1.8 and f/8... at least up to f/8 a few times.
Obviously, without exif information I won't know for sure what aperture
each photo was at, but you get the general idea. When using that manual lens and related to focus
I was primarily taking into account the focus peaking feature without zooming in too much.
But after looking at the photos the results can be a little bit mixed here and there.
I didn't use that lens quite as much as the 28 millimeter, so it probably should have been trying
to zoom in a little bit more here and there. However the the event space was pretty cramped
and 55 millimeters, even on full frame, is relatively tight for those situations.
When you're taking photos of equipment, things like that,
I don't think focus is quite as important. However I did have a user mode ready to go
or at least one that I could quickly modify on the Z5 because I had used an AstrHori 50
millimeter tilting lens quite recently and I still had those in the camera.
So I adjusted one of them to make sure that the shake reduction was functioning properly
with the 55 millimeter focal length and the maximum aperture of f/1.8.
The Z5 needs that information to make the shake reduction based on the sensor function properly.
There's so many little details to see and photograph at a convention like this.
Circuit boards... these older computers which I think have a great aesthetic to them... The
computers themselves, but of course, inside the computers. All the boards,
integrated circuits, and all that. There's just so much more than current technology
which has been getting smaller and smaller and consolidating a lot of the functionality
into a chip that does a ton of stuff. But the older technology, you have a lot
more components on the boards which I think makes them very interesting to photograph.
There were also gaming systems. At least for me it's kind of funny
seeing something like a Sega Genesis with information printouts of what it was and
what it did and everything else. I think it's meant for the younger
people.. younger kids.. which there were quite a few around. Which is nice to see!
Parents taking their kids to learn about older technology, I think that's super cool!
Besides just the computers around... which you could play some games on a
few of them, try them out, SGI workstations... They had a full internal phone network set up.
I didn't do too much with that, but looks super interesting around the convention
area there were a few phones you could try out and type some numbers into them.
Of course pay phones are always fun! I think they have
a great aesthetic to them on their own. Old ahh phone technology of some type?
Yeah that's a Nortel Meridian PBX okay... a switcher?
Basically it's running the phones for the whole show.
Except the stuff on that table because he brought his own PBX.
Oh nice! It's also cool to
see what I think are developers creating their own boards, their own hardware, and related software.
You can buy kits of those and assemble them yourself.
It's nice to see the older technology being improved upon or added to.
Someone making a similar type of device with current components and current technology.
I saw a big display of various Weather Channel systems.
Running information from those, different eras... and I do recognize the mix of weather information
and then also listings from TV channels. Imagine having to wait for the channel list
to scroll as you see other information. My first computer was a Commodore 64.
It was a hand-me-down so I think there was a pretty big gap of when I was able to access it,
however I do remember specifically a Babbage's game game store.
Inside there they had some Commodore 64 games at the time.
There was a Ninja Turtles one that I really wanted, but funny enough,
years later I remember seeing a review of that game. It didn't look too good!
Besides that I didn't get another computer until the mid 90s...
Really fun convention, it's nice to check out if you're big into computers or related technology.
Everything else retro I guess you could say. Or if you like doing photography I think it's
a great option because of all the detail... the aesthetic of that older equipment and a
lot of things you'll never potentially see in real life except at a convention like this.
Thanks to everyone that makes these events possible!
Super cool convention, might check it out again in the future,
but fun to photograph and fun to see all that interesting technology.
Hope you enjoyed this video... Scott of Photography Banzai, thanks!