Mellow Yellow?

I was at the local Urban Outfitters before Christmas, and I picked one these cameras up for my daughter. It's the camera marketed by Superheadz that's a replacement for the much sought-after Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim (VUWS) camera. With a 22mm lens, this camera is much wider in the field of view than any other cheap point and shoot. It's got a cult following now, too. Unfortunately the VUWS is no longer sold, but the Superheadz version (in various colors with goofy names) is available. You might get lucky and find a VUWS in a local thrift shop for a buck or two, so keep your eyes open. I walked by UO the other day and saw that they still had two sitting on the shelf, so I bought one for myself. At $20, it's certainly pricey for a small plastic camera. Then again, the online price for these is $38! I'll try and shoot with it this weekend and see what I get. I'm sure I won't lose it with this color. Of course, there is a Flickr group...

First Impressions on the Gakken-Flex

In early December I purchased a Gakken-flex kit from a Flickr contact (mijonju) in Japan. The Gakken-flex, for those that must never have looked online, is a 35mm twin-lens reflex plastic camera kit. It's a shame that there are no equivalent US magazines like that of Gakken's Otona no kagaku (大人の科學) magazine. However, the US-based MAKE Magazine is now selling many Gakken kits online, including the stereo pinhole camera (next on the list?). The Otona no kagaku magazine (#25) has a wonderful-looking section on the history of photography and twin-lens reflex cameras. I wish I could read Japanese! For the relatively modest sum of $58, which included 2-day shipping, I had the kit in my hands in time for my birthday, as a present to myself. However, it wasn't until last weekend that I finally assembled the camera.

First of all, if you have assembled any plastic models in your spare time, you don't need to be able to read the instructions. While there were some places in the assembly that I had to think about before proceeding, the camera went together with relative ease, and I am impressed with fit and finish of the plastic parts. All you need in the way of tools is the small Phillips-screwdriver that is provided in the kit. Forceps are useful for holding small springs or screws in place, so you may want to get those out if you have them. There is a misprint in the instructions where the springs A and B are mislabeled, but if you look at the assembly diagram, you would realize that the functions of those springs are such that it's easy to figure out. (Here is the correction). Anyhow, I probably had the camera together and working in about 45 minutes. It's important to test the sub-assemblies before you screw everything together so that you know how things work. That's the beauty of building your own camera.

The lenses are geared to focus together, so what you see on the frosted plastic waist-level viewfinder should pretty much be what you get on film. The lenses extend far enough from the film plane that you can close-focus to about 18" from the camera. If you have some series 5 or 6 filter holders that are about 25 mm (viewing lens) - 27 mm (taking lens) in diameter, you can put diopters, neutral-density, and color filters in front of the lens.

I loaded a roll of Kodak Plus-X pan (ISO of 125) into the camera the next day, and shot a roll. Note -- the camera has a nominal aperture of f11 and a shutter speed of about 1/150 sec. On a sunny day, ISO 100 film should be just fine. Also note that it might be ambiguous in the instructions that you only need to advance the film 1/2 turn, not 1 full turn. That is why there are two index marks around the film advance knob. I did a full turn, just for safety's sake and after developing I realized that a 1/2 turn was all that was necessary.



Photos? Oooh, what dreamy goodness! After shooting only about a dozen shots on my first roll, I think I have a good idea of what to expect in the future. The lens is a single-element, so there is aberration and dreamy out-of-focus areas when you shoot close-up. Even for shots at infinity, the focus seems to have places where its sharp in the center and OOF around the edges. There is some vignetting close-up. The magazine has easily deciphered hints on modifying the camera, including making a square mask.



Expect more images from me later on , but I give this fun little camera a definite thumbs-up. There is a Flickr group, of course!

Cheap Shots II - Recycled and Reloaded

It was almost three years ago that the Ann Arbor Area Crappy Camera Club (A3C3) held it first exhibition of members' images. In the spring of 2007, we had Cheap Shots at a gallery on the second floor of Nichols Arcade. It was a tremendous success, and we gained a bit of exposure because of it. Since then, we have had some smaller shows, though the one in the fall of 2008 at the Argus Building was certainly very much a large group effort. This year, we are showing Cheap Shots II - Recycled and Reloaded at the ReArt Gallery, located within the Recycle Reuse Center at 2420 South Industrial Road in Ann Arbor. It will run from Jan. 4-31, with the show reception being held on Jan. 9 from 2-4 pm.



The main emphasis for this show wasn't so much that of using "crappy cameras," but that of using cameras that were obtained second-hand, at thrift shops, reuse centers, flea markets, etc. to show that old film cameras are actually part of recycling and reusing. In addition, the frames, glass, and some of the mats are recycled, many obtained right from the Recycle Reuse Center.

Mike and John

I finally got all the cats herded, and Mike Myers and John Baird helped me hang the exhibit today, and it looks pretty darn good. There are 24 images from 11 photographers, and all of the prints are really pretty darn nice. A wide variety of imagery, and I think others will like it as well. Heck, maybe someone will even buy a print. I really like getting a show like this together, and once I had the pieces of work in hand or on the way, I felt pretty relaxed about it.

another wall...

Canonized

A few years ago, I picked up a Canon EX EE, which was a strange SLR, to say the least. Other than shooting with a Canon T70 for a month, and borrowing a Canon Rebel 35mm SLR and using (for years) a Canon Canonet 17, that was the extent of my film shooting with Canon cameras. Although I have managed to acquire and use a number of SLR systems, Canon has not bee one of them until very recently. A week ago, I picked up a Canon FTBn from a fellow A3C3 member, Kevin Mount, for $30, which included the 50mm 1.8 Canon lens. I put in a couple of Zinc-air cells and the meter immediately sprang to life. The camera is rock-solid, much like a Nikon Nikkormat from the early 1970s. I took it out to shoot with on the next day with, bringing it along on a UM Art Museum trip with some fellow A3C3 photographers.



To like:
Match-needle metering
build quality
breech-lock lens mount system
used lenses are pretty cheap
Canon's hi-quality optics
DOF Preview and mirror lock-up
straightforward manual camera design

To not like:
use of PX-627 batteries (Mercury) requires a work-around today
lens controls backwards from Nikon (of course, non-Nikon users will say otherwise)
sometimes odd filter ring of 48mm

The quality of the images I got back were very good, as the 50mm 1.8 is a seriously nice lens. I can see why these older Canons appeal to many photographers, and I now have a camera bag with some lenses to make up a nice kit for future outings.

What was I thinking?

I was rummaging around through some old files on a hard drive, and came across this photo that I shot in 2002 when I must have been selling the item on ebay:

An Apple Quicktake 200, which I recall buying at a deep discount around 1997, when Apple discontinued it. It was not even a megapixel camera, as the images were no larger than 640x480 pixels. But, I was probably seduced by the cute rainbow apple and the ease at which I could upload an image onto the web. The fact is, I probably would have been a lot farther ahead to have taken the money I spent on that camera and used it to buy a really neat film camera! I think today's 5-dollar keychain cameras take photos with about the same resolution. The point is, don't be seduced by new technology, just because it's new. Instead, wait for it to become mature to the point that it does not limit the way you would do things. When I think of the images that I took with that camera that will never be larger than 640x480 pixels, I could kick myself.

The Quicktake 200 originally sold for $600, but I'm quite sure that I paid far less for it, because Apple stopped marketing cameras in 1997. Some history about it is here.

I don't imagine that I sold it for a whole lot in 2002, but I bet whoever bought liked that shiny rainbow apple...