Posts

Showing posts from 2022

Lomography Time Again

Image
 I've been having fun with a couple of Minolta Dynax cameras. These were very expensive beasts in the 1990s and 2000s but are now available for around £20 including a lens on the secondhand market. No duds yet. They seem pretty reliable. Anyway I've been taking some Agent Shadow pictures with a one f-stop boost to get round the dull autumn light in Scotland and the results are on my Lomography site. Lomography And here are a few pics to get you started.

A Wet Afternoon, A Wind Farm, My Petri 7S, and Rollei RPX400

Image
The other day I took a trip to the Whitelee Windfarm with some of my family. Unfortunately it was a heavily overcast day with frequent rain; so not much light for photography. It seemed a good opportunity to try out some Rollei RPX400, a fine grain fast film, in my trusty Petri 7S rangefinder. After some struggles pinning down an exposure setting I got some acceptable results and the Rollei film gave a nice range of greys despite the almost total lack of light. The windfarm itself is Scottish Power's showcase visitor centre for their green energy systems although, on the day we were there, the exhibition was closed and the tour bus driver was off with Covid-19. We had a great lunch in the cafe and had a good look round on foot. See the photos. The light was variable but there were some nice information displays on the visitor centre terrace. It's also a good place to charge your car with some green energy. The cafe is definitely worth a visit.

More Yashica Photos

Image
 I took out the old Yashica TL-Electro minus the Electro recently (plus a whole load of other photographic stuff, hence no posts here for a while). The new yellow camera had an issue or two; so it's back at the camera hospital being finely tuned. I loaded up a roll of the newly rebranded Fomapan 200 Creative panchromatic film. Apparently they loved the graphics that KosmoFoto had put on their new Agent Shadow film and decided to freshen things up themselves. Anyway, the combined forces of this lovely old camera and this shiny new film came up with some very nice images showing plenty of tone levels and fine detail. There are a few here but many more over on my Lomography album .

A Wee Update

Image
 I was becoming increasingly aware I haven't posted here in a while. In fact I am thinking about moving the whole blog over to my Lomography page. I'll leave directions here if I do. At the moment I'm allocating cameras to purposes. I think the Petri 7S will remain as a good street photography camera. Of all the miniature cameras I have it's a choice between the Rollei B35 and the Minolta 460Tx. The Minolta seems more secure in a pocket and has its own flash but the Rollei takes full size 35mm negatives with a good range of exposure settings. I think it may depend on the occasion with these. As to general purpose photography and something of an all rounder to take on a trip I'm a wee bit reluctant to use the old Zenit 11 at the moment with the horrendous actions of the Russian government that are ongoing and I also have discovered what a good camera the Yashica TL Electro is. I have one that works beautifully as a manual camera and takes all of the nice M42 lenses I

Half Frame, A Parallel Tiny World

Image
  I managed to get hold of an Olympus Pen-D at a very reasonable price. I've been checking these out on eBay for a year or two and the prices are usually overinflated for what is a nice but fairly basic camera. The collectors are after them because they form a unique little story in the development of compact cameras in the 50s and 60s. This is the story of half-frame 35mm cameras and the pursuit of these in the Japanese camera industry. Olympus produced a series of these called Olympus Pen cameras over a couple of decades right into the 1980s. I like the Pen-D because it has one of the best lenses in the series, a 6-element F.Zuiko 32mm f/1.9, and, while having an uncoupled meter on board, it doesn't need batteries, especially those mercury ones from the early 60s, as the meter is a selenium type. The meter uses the EV system that I'm used to from my Minolta A5; very handy as you set the aperture and speed rings relatively for the light level and then you can turn then as

Exercising Old Cameras

Image
  I dusted off my Rollei B35 the other day, realising I hadn't used it in over a year. This is not a good thing for old cameras which need their cogs and springs exercised once in a while to maintain them. I had had a couple of problems with the winding mechanism and so I decided to run a film through and see if there was a real problem with this. It turns out that patience is the solution and just taking a bit of time over making sure the film is secure in this tiny little camera means that all is well. I've posted a gallery of some of the best shots on my Lomography Home . Sure enough the little camera is alive and well and I got some good results on my roll of Fomapan 400, although the small aperture lens really does prefer sunny summer days.