My 35mm film cameras. The first is the all-mechanical Nikon FM2n, acquired from a professional photographer who had long stopped shooting film. I actually bought two bodies from her, but sold one on eBay. The other is a Canonet QL17 G-III rangefinder. (Also here.) This has a nice and fast 40mm f/1.7 lens.
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In addition to the Polaroid Models 240 and 350 pack-film cameras that I bought, I also acquired three other Polaroids. (Well, technically, two Polaroids and one Minolta.) They are all integral film cameras, i.e. there is no peel-away layer.
The first below is a Spectra QPS, then a Minolta Instant Pro which shot on Spectra film. Minolta licensed the technology to produce the camera, which featured more image controls than the original Spectras. Later, Polaroid would produce its own version called the Spectra Pro. Finally, the SLR 680, a descendant of the groundbreaking SX-70 (also see the Wikipedia article). The SLR 680 used a different type of film, which was not gel-based and thus was not amenable to manipulations after exposure. On the positive side, the film is faster, allowing for more flexibility in taking conditions.
Film is available from The Impossible Project.
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I did, after all, put all that Polaroid gear that I acquired to use this past summer. A friend graciously posed for me for this series on my favorite summer pastime: reading. Locations are mostly recognizable places in Winston-Salem, NC.
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I have been doing a fair bit of shooting with my Polaroid Land Camera, on Fujifilm FP-100C color instant film, and also FP-3000B monochrome film. I just found out that one can, with a little bit of bleach and work, reclaim the negative. This post at New55 Film provides instructions. (Of note is that New55 are going to produce a 4x5 instant film that gives a good negative as well as a print.) Picture of a reclaimed negative from there.
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In the past two weeks, I bought a couple of Polaroid Land Cameras: the big old folding things, which take packfilm (3¼ × 4¼"). A Model 240:
which came in a complete kit in a case: portrait lens and viewfinder attachment, UV filter, flash gun with two bulbs, original leather strap in good condition. All for about $65 including shipping. (Plus about $15 for a pair of fresh batteries.) The fatal flaw was that the electronic eye, which controls shutter speed, was not functioning. I am in negotiations with the seller who had reassured me before I bid that the camera was functioning.
So, I plonked down $100 from a reputable seller, who sells lots of Land Cameras. It's a Frankenstein: the main body, including front lens and electronic assembly, combination viewfinder/rangefinder (by Zeiss), and bellows, are from a Model 350. The back is cannibalized from a different model. (In addition to the color, which was not a 350 color, the battery compartment was labelled to use a 4.5V battery while the 350 uses 3V batteries.) The battery holder had been modified to take 2 AAAs instead of a weirdo size. A good cleaning and fresh light seals rounded out the refurbishing.
Now, the standard Polaroid films of the time came in speeds of 75, 150, 300, and 3000. However, Polaroid no longer makes them. Fujifilm has a beautiful 100 ISO color film, the FP-100C, and a high speed 3000 ISO B&W film, the FP-3000B. Using the 100 ISO film means tweaking the exposure compensation dial (up to +2 stops, and -1 stop).
I shot a pack of film to figure out how to compensate exposure without manual controls, with one exposure wasted because I managed to rip the paper pull tab on one.
And just now, I found that someone had uploaded basically all the packfilm Land Camera repair manuals to Scribd. Brilliant! Maybe I can figure out how to fix the broken 240.
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Fujifilm unveils a changeable lens compact camera, the X-Pro1. Similar retro-goodness to the previous X-100. Note the controls: shutter speed dial, exposure compensation dial, and on-lens aperture ring. Also the optical rangefinder.
UPDATE: Gizmodo is predicting body price about $1700.
UPDATE 2: Gizmodo loves it, and a price has been announced: $2400
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The Fujifilm Finepix X100 that I mentioned previously is given a brief first look at dpreview based on a prototype model. Among the niceties is a shutter release that has a threaded mechanical cable release connection.
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Announced at the Consumer Electronics Show, this Fujifilm Finepix X100 digital camera has a classic rangefinder design. More importantly, it’s a functional design: all the traditional physical controls, including an aperture ring, are there.
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I just got an iPhone 4, and I really like display. I also like the built-in camera: a vast improvement in image quality over previous iPhones. Even better than the Sony Ericsson (SE) phonecam that I like. The HDR mode is great at getting a nice image out of super-contrasty scenes. (The image below was shot in HDR.)
That said, it has one major deficiency, even compared to the simplest fixed-focus SE phonecams: lack of white balance presets. The ProCamera app helps a bit by giving the ability to lock the auto-white balance. So, you can tap and hold on a neutral-color area (or grey card) and then lock the white balance. But, it doesn’t match the convenience and consistency of having WB presets.
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Let’s say you have multiple images, all of which need to have white balance adjusted in the same way. First, make the adjustment on the first image. Then, in the browser view, right-click on the adjusted image and select “Lift Adjustments” from the contextual menu. Next, select the remaining images to be adjusted, right-click on any one of the selections, and choose “Stamp Adjustments” from the menu. The shortcut is Shift-Cmd-V. When I found this out, it saved me a whole lot of tedium.
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