Camera Stuff

Here's the often-ailing but always-cool Lomo 135BC I've been experimenting with lately, and which is responsible for all of my uploads on Dec. 16, 2006th!! I took the photo with my reliable, but not always exciting, Pentax MZ-10, which appears to have performed flawlessly on this occassion. :-)

I took this partly because other people were taking photos of THEIR film back in February. I guess these things go in cycles. Anyway, there's nothing exotic about Velvia, really, but of course Agfa Vista is no longer made, Ilford Pan F is a little hard to find but highly respected, especially among vintage camera users (which is why I have it), and Jessops is virtually unheard of outside of Britain, even if it's very common within Britain.

You know what I mean. :-) Everybody fantasizes about finding something really interesting buried away in one of their closets that they never knew they had. Here's my discovery. :-) Recently, while handling my vintage slide projector, which I don't know a whole lot about since my Mom got it for me on a whim for only $20, I decided to open the mystery box that had come with it. I assumed I would just find some spare bulbs, but having heard some very interesting stories on Flickr I figured I would live out my fantasy. I was very surprised to find that my imagination, for once, was absolutely right. In the box was exactly what you see here. Some spare bulbs, as I knew would be in there, a spare lens (I'm assuming for the projector), a package of lubricating oil, and some vintage film, all of it of course expired or used. There's some 8mm there, if you look very carefully, which appeared to be movie film, which most 8mm film was, a roll of Kodak Super-XX 35mm black and white, expiration date 02/49, and a roll of mystery 35mm Kodak film still in the canister, with it being left to mystery whether it was ever exposed. I'm very tempted to open it in a light bag one of these days and see what it's situation is, actually, although most stories I've heard about developing vintage super-expired film haven't been particularly positive. At least I can say I have it. :-)

Well, this is my latest photographic toy. :-) I bought it for 400Kc (about $25 now, and less back in November when I got it and the dollar was worth a lot more), and it's a fully manual rangefinder camera with a Zeiss lens, that takes great pictures!! :-) Unfortunately, it's missing a screw right now, and I'm concerned I'll never be able to fix it, so I'm waiting until I get the roll of film developed that was in it at the time (maybe back in February???) and see if it still works. I'm hoping that it can do without the screw, as I really like this camera!! :-) This shot isn't a self-portrait by the camera, though, but rather it was taken with my Nikon N80.

Lately I've been seeing a Kodacolor variant sold in Prague called "Color Plus," but whenever I get the box open I find one of these ancient original Kodacolor cassettes, without even the VR name, so it makes me wonder if it's the real thing, or just a very basic Kodacolor cartridge without any hype. Color Plus is definitely an economy film, and isn't really "plus" anything, and it therefore wouldn't be nonsensical for Kodak to try selling something really basic right now, given that the film market is increasingly people trying to save money and/or people running around with Lomos looking for the cheapest color film possible.

My next photographic trip was to Modrany, although for this one I didn't take my bike, even though I had originally planned to. Instead, I went by bus, since it would be easier. This was when I was at the Opatov bus stop, and I had both my Nikon N80 and my cameraphone. I had seen shots like this on Flickr before, so I decided to experiment, and this was the result.

My family know that I shoot mostly film (at least for display), so it was natural that I would get a lot of film for Christmas, although the roll of expired Fujicolor Superia 1600 there was sitting in a drawer for a couple of years until I got around to shooting it on the Prague Metro. It's in my Nikon now, with one shot to go. I'm hoping to finish it today and get it developed immediately, so that I can have my second set of Metro shots ever committed to film (the rest are cameraphone shots). The Plus-X is at the lab, after I used it to shoot the snow in Prague earlier this month in my Contina (the first time that camera has been used in over a year), and the Ektar and the BW400CN are still in my camera bag waiting to be used.

Just before Christmas break, I went through my film and discovered that the roll of Ilford Pan F in this picture was already very, very expired (in 2008), so as soon as I got back to Prague I loaded into my Ikoflex and shot a series of shots around Prague in the snow, finishing it in my first weekend back. I'm still looking for a place that will scan it (at normal resolution), though, as I don't have a 120 film scanner, and at this rate I may just have the roll printed and scan the prints. The Fomapan is currently in the Ikoflex, as if I can solve the scanning issue I hope to use it a lot this year, as opposed to the last two when it wasn't used at all. Does anybody know of a decent film scanning service in Prague that will do normal (1200-2400dpi) film scans? All of the popular photo labs are so incompetent that they don't even know what I'm talking about.

These are actually empty boxes, as I got the Tri-X for Christmas, and the ColorPlus in Greece, and shot them before I got back to Prague. This was my first time shooting ColorPlus (it's grainy I think), but Tri-X is an old favorite.