The value I see in the iPhone's variable aperture is videography, where to lock the exposure at 1/48s + best ISO setting, previously you'd need a clip-on ND filter for bright lighting conditions.
As someone who has only touched one once, heat guns kind of scare me mostly because the airflow is invisible. I have destroyed things with it and almost burned myself.
It's hard for me to gauge if you have too much or too little heat on something.
Too far away it's doing nothing and too close you're frying a piece, and there is no indication where on that range you are without some learned intuition.
The Hakko desoldering gun he’s talking about is the FR-301 (or close equivalent), which is a soldering iron with a hollow tip that the gun has a vacuum pump that can suck solder out through the hollow tip.
It’s not a hot air soldering station.
After decades of using copper braid, I recently splurged for the 301 and wish I’d done it sooner. My teen kid could effortlessly desolder the button on his worn out gaming mouse with it after 30 seconds of training (me demoing how to use it).
You can buy the Japanese version, desolder 1 resistor, and solder in two replacements to adapt it from Japanese 100VAC to US 120VAC and save about $100, plus it will remind you how awful desoldering with braid is by comparison. It takes 30 very unhurried minutes at most to do the mod.
I got an SL108 I'm really happy using with my 67W Anker brick (far more convenient than the FX 951 station I had to store + set up every time). I think I could do some precision work with my SL108 but if it became regular or a new project involved it I'd get something smaller, like the TS101 or similar, I guess.
Sadly it seems a lot of Nikon lenses were not designed with reducing focus shift as a priority. That completely wrecks them near their minimum focus distance on film bodies. Phase-detect AF only sees light coming from the f/5.6 direction so AF will systematically miss its target at any aperture with a different focal plane. There is no live view on film, obviously, so no on-instrument way to correct it.
I am going through this right now... I really wanted an 85mm 1.4G but according to reviews it will put focus completely behind the subject from f/1.8-f/5.6 when closer than head+torso distance. In headshots if you target the eyes it will focus somewhere on the temples. I have no idea if it really matters in real life. So I am stuck with the 1.8 G.
Edit: A focus screen with some kind of prism mechanism would let you manually focus, at least, by holding down DOF preview. Richard Haw describes cutting down and shimming off-body focus screens so it's possible. Actually now that I look it up, whoa, an off-the-shelf one exists on aliexpress ("Dual 45 degree Split Image Focus Focusing Screen for Nikon D1 D1H D1X F100 PR129")
Yeah that's exactly what happens. The 85mm 1.8G is really good enough though! I wouldn't want to fudge with focus screens - I managed to cock up a D750 doing that once. Took ages to get it right after.
Really I stopped shooting film in 2022 because of the arrival of CT scanners at airports. Fed up of arguing with people as I do most of my photography out of my home country. And it's expensive. Sold it all, bought a Nikon Z50ii basic kit in 2024 and that was so good and tiny that I sold my D850 and the rest of the F mount lenses. AF on the newer Z cameras is something special, even on the crap bodies. Haven't felt the need to buy an FX Z yet as the DX ones are so good.
