Many Cameras

'Double Digit' Price Hike on Fuji Film, Effective May 2012. Yikes!

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 22:23:00 -0400

'Double Digit' Price Hike on Fuji Film, Effective May 2012. Yikes!:

Time to stock up!

Bravo, Kodak!

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:36:00 -0500

tokyo-camera-style:

What a headline! Kodak phases out digital businesses, keeps film alive

That’s unheard of in this digital age. Good for them! And good for us, film shooters!

heather powazek champ - Impossible Project Colour Film — an incomplete illustrated history

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:30:30 -0500

heather powazek champ - Impossible Project Colour Film — an incomplete illustrated history:

The latest Impossible Project instant colour film looks very impressive! I wonder if you still need to shade it from light when it ejects. If not, that’d be perfect!

My Cameras: Coronet Flashmaster

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:54:00 -0500

I found the Coronet Flashmaster at the local antique market last month and got my husband to get it for me for Christmas. It’s a simple, point-and-shoot, medium format, bakelite camera from 1950s with no settings whatsoever. I thought I’d run a test roll through it, to double as a test roll for a new batch of C41 developer/fixer that I was going to mix. The film I used was Kodak PPF 100 that expired, oh, only 12 years ago.

Obviously, I’d forgotten a lot about C41 processing after not doing any of it since last summer. The results show that many things that could go wrong during the processing did go wrong. But thanks to the crappy lens on the camera and the light leak in the top left corner, I still like some of the shots anyway. Hope you do too! :)

And thanks to this roll, the second roll of film I developed with this batch of developer/fixer this morning turned up just perfect. Can’t wait to scan and share!

A DIY Film Developer Problem

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 08:32:07 -0500

There is no dead pixel problem in film photography. Only dead fixer.

Solo | Brownie Hawkeye Flash Solo passed away today at age 25....

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:38:00 -0500

Solo | Brownie Hawkeye Flash

Solo passed away today at age 25. He was one of the donkeys at the Donkey Sanctuary of Canada. I’m saddened by his passing but glad that I caught this moment in his life on film and that I have this picture to remember him by.

How to make a film pack ND filter for your Polaroid SX-70 | Angie Muldowney

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 07:13:10 -0500

How to make a film pack ND filter for your Polaroid SX-70 | Angie Muldowney:

If you want to use Impossible Project PX680 film in a Polaroid camera designed to take SX70 film and you find shipping cost to order the pack filter from Impossible Project too crazy (like I do), the linked blog post shows you how to make a DIY pack filter using a sheet of gel filter that can be had pretty cheaply from a local source.

Building an instant Holga

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 20:36:56 -0500

Building an instant Holga:

I’ve always wanted a Holgaroid. I’ve got a Polaroid back for my Hasselblad that I could potentially use, but I don’t really want to destroy my beloved Holga. This is an excuse for me to get another one, I guess!

Shading Your Silvershade: DIY camera sleeve and lightshield for SX-70 and SLR680 cameras

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:49:14 -0500

Shading Your Silvershade: DIY camera sleeve and lightshield for SX-70 and SLR680 cameras:

Another link to another do-it-yourself light shield for the Polaroid SX70 cameras. This one is even simpler than the other one I posted last week and the material used is fabric, which should be more more durable than paper. It could also double as a camera sleeve. Very elegant.

I don’t know why I didn’t find this first when I first started looking for a tutorial. I was just searching for more tutorials when I found this as I just got the two packs of Impossible Project film I ordered in the mail today. Exciting! Will post pictures soon, assuming the SX70s I’m about to test are working great.

Bulb Exposure | Brownie Hawkeye Flash) Just wanted to show what...

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 08:41:00 -0500

Bulb Exposure | Brownie Hawkeye Flash)

Just wanted to show what could be accomplished with a Brownie Hawkeye Flash on Bulb mode. It’s about a 1-minute long exposure. The film I used was probably the discontinued Kodak Portra UC (I used to shoot with this film exclusively before it became really difficult to find).

This is one of the reasons the BHF is my most favourite box camera ever. :)

DIY Light Shield for Polaroid SX70

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:47:00 -0500

DIY Light Shield for Polaroid SX70:

I’ve got two packs of Impossible Project film coming that I’m going to use to test a couple of SX70 cameras before putting them up for sale. I realize that I’m going to need one of those shade accessories so that the pictures won’t turn up looking like crap, but I don’t want to fork out $14 for something that could potentially be made at home for a couple of bucks. I turned to Google, and voila! Found this link to a blog post with instructions to create a do-it-yourself light shield. Perfect!

Just thought I’d share.

My Cameras: Sawyer's Nomad 620

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 09:37:00 -0500

The Sawyer’s Nomad 620 is a rather bulky, bakelite camera with cool-looking design on the front plate (Google Images). It was made in the USA in the 1950s, I believe. The camera’s manufacturer was the original maker of the View-Master line of products! I find that last piece of information rather interesting.

The camera takes some pretty sharp pictures despite its plastic build. Check out my Flickr set for samples. I’ve only used this camera once because, well, it takes 620 film and I’ll need to respool 120 film to use it, which I’m always too lazy to do. Too bad, huh? The picture above of vintage water skis in the boathouse up at the cottage is actually one of my favourite pictures I’ve ever taken on film.

I must’ve got this camera from an antique mall because it doesn’t look like the kind of camera I’d get off of eBay. I only buy the more popular cameras from eBay because they usually come with a hefty price tag at antique malls. The least popular cameras are usually the other way around. Priced unreasonably on eBay (they’d call it RARE) but come cheap at antique malls. Go figure!

marklobo: I recently found a camera I had been meaning to buy...

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 22:11:00 -0500

marklobo:

I recently found a camera I had been meaning to buy for a while on eBay. I first saw it used by Audrey Obscura, here on tumblr. It’s a Nishika N8000, 35mm camera that takes 4 frames from slightly offset distances on a horizontal plane. It was initially designed for lenticular printing, kind of like the “holograms” that you sometimes see on mouse pads or the occasional movie poster for a 3D effect. Online, they work well as animated gifs. I also have a similar project using two disposable cameras called Ghetto Stereo.

This image was shot during a shoot for my “School Teachers” series. I’ll post the actual photo soon. I just a have a backlog of them to edit!

marklobo.com.au
@marklobo

Hey, I actually have two or three of those Nishikas somewhere in the basement that I never got around to using. Now that I know what they’re good for, I’ll have to dig them out and shoot something with it!

Polaroid Z340 review: instant digital fun quickly wears off

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 10:59:00 -0500

Polaroid Z340 review: instant digital fun quickly wears off:

That said, I’ll have some more old-skool Polaroid cameras listed in the store in the next couple of days, in case you’re interested. ;)

Off the top of my head (because I’m still in bed with an annoying cold), there’ll be a Polaroid Spirit 600 (the flash-less model), Polaroid Cool Cam (in red), Polaroid 640, Polaroid Sun 600 LMS, Polaroid Impulse, Polaroid Impulse AF, Polaroid ProPack (this one can take Fujfilm), and some others I can’t remember right now. There might even be a black Polaroid SX-70 Model 2, freshly reskinned with black cowhide, if I can get myself to part with it. It just looks so damn good I want to keep it for myself!

If you’re interested in purchasing any of those cameras, contact me through Etsy or email me at firda [at] manycameras [dot] com for more info.

Happy New Year! Hope 2012 will bring you a lot of photography fun, goodness, and opportunities!

Old Timey | Ansco Shur Shot The Ansco Shur Shot is my first box...

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 16:26:00 -0500

Old Timey | Ansco Shur Shot

The Ansco Shur Shot is my first box camera. Picked it up from one of those antique barn places out in the country for, I believe, $5. I took it with me to a cottage weekend with friends, not expecting to get any good shots from it, but for a simple box camera from 1948, it performed rather well. The picture above is my favourite from the one and only roll I’ve ever shot with it. I love how timeless it looks. It could’ve been taken in the 1950s!

This Morning Sky | Polaroid ProPack I was about to list this...

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 14:56:00 -0500

This Morning Sky | Polaroid ProPack

I was about to list this Polaroid ProPack camera for sale on Etsy, but then I took some shots with it and fell in love with the results. Now I’m not sure I want to sell it.

I’m such a camera hoarder.

Happy 11/11/11! (Hasselblad 500C/M, Ilford HP5+ developed in...

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 14:13:00 -0500

Happy 11/11/11!

(Hasselblad 500C/M, Ilford HP5+ developed in peppermint and green tea.)

I took my Hasselblad 500/CM loaded with a roll of Ilford Delta...

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 10:43:00 -0500

I took my Hasselblad 500/CM loaded with a roll of Ilford Delta 100 for a walk downtown this past Sunday just so that I could develop it with my 4-Tea-C developer that most of you have probably read about over at the fantastic Cool Girls Shoot Film tumblr. I must have over-agitated the tank a bit because the roll ended up being a little overdeveloped. Hence the big grains. As for the black area on the left-hand side of each photo, that’s what you get for putting 500ml of developer in a tank that takes 550ml.

You may have noticed the lack of black spots in the pictures from this batch. Well, I ran the developer through a strainer twice. The first time when I transferred the solution from the saucepan to the measuring cup and another time when I transferred it from the measuring cup to the developing tank. Caught a lot of fine tea residue the second time around. Can’t say that I like it better without the black spots, though. It just looks like there’s something missing.

If you have any questions about b&w film developing with 4-Tea-C, please feel free to ask. I’ll try to answer your questions the best I can. Keep in mind that I’m neither the most consistent nor the most precise or scientific film developing person out there. I just like to experiment and do things differently each time. I am that adventurous. :)

PS. Use the arrow on the right- and left-hand sides of the photo above to navigate through all the pictures. There are eight of them! Unless, of course, you read this from the Tumblr dashboard, in which case you would have seen all of them. :)

French River | Polaroid Land Automatic 100 Once upon a time, I...

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 14:43:00 -0400

French River | Polaroid Land Automatic 100

Once upon a time, I bought cameras just for the sake of adding quantity to my camera collection. Not really for using. The Polaroid Land Automatic 100 was one of such cameras. Only two years ago did I realize that this camera takes the widely available Fuji FP-100C film! But to get the camera to take modern batteries requires a bit of hacking. Luckily, I’m married to a brilliant engineer who kindly did the hacking for me. And that is how this camera became my second favourite Polaroid camera after the SX-70.

Fallen | Pentax SP-1000 Bought the Pentax SP-1000 from a garage...

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 13:36:00 -0400

Fallen | Pentax SP-1000

Bought the Pentax SP-1000 from a garage sale on some sideroad in the country. I think we paid $15 for it. Anyway, one of my husband’s best friends got married that same day so I took the camera to the wedding, shot a roll of film with it, stuck the pictures in a scrapbook once developed, and gave the newlyweds the scrapbook as a belated wedding present. I think they liked it.