The Plastic Lens ~ Words » Review

T-Tab Unboxing

Cameron — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 00:41:45 +0000

Last week Telstra provided me with a T-Touch Tablet to review. I shot a quick video unboxing the pack before I got down to using it (as ‘unboxing’ videos seem to be popular) I’ve only just had time to upload it as I’ve been a bit busy (in between playing with the T-Touch Tab) A fuller review if this 7″ Tablet will be along shortly, but I can let you know so far I’ve listened to music, drawn pictures, browsed the web, downloaded apps from the android ‘market’, watched videos, listened to podcasts, played games and taken photos and videos with it!

The backing music is ‘April Elsewhere’ by THE ORCHESTRAL MOVEMENT OF 1932 found on opsound.

Respect

Cameron — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 00:36:47 +0000

A photographic exhibition by the friends of Jeff Moorfoot

One hundred photographers show their appreciation for the hard work done by the Ballarat International Foto Biennale Director, donating some of their finest work to be sold on his behalf. A once in a lifetime opportunity to purchase works by these artists at a very modest price.

Works are on view at the Gallery from tomorrow and opening drinks are on Thursday Feb 11th from 6 – 8pm

Feb 8-28
at New North Gallery and Fine Art Printing
15a Railway Place Fairfield Vic 3078. Opposite Fairfield railway station.

PH: 9018 3081
e: david@newnorth.com.au e: michael@newnorth.com.au

Open Tuesday to Sunday 10am to 4pm.

Opening drinks Thurs. Feb 11th 6-8pm

Artists involved:
ABBOTT Colin, ADAMS Peter, AVELLINO Mark, BACHMAN Bill, BODIN John, BOWES Peter, BOWYER Julie, BROOK Fiona, BROWELL Anthony, BROWNBILL Sally, BUCKLEY Carolyn, BURDER Tim, BUTCHER Noel, CALLOW David, CHAPMAN Andrew, CIANTAR Alan, CLARK Alan, COYNE Michael, Da COSTA Nuno, DIAZ Maggie, DIEMER Kristin, DINAS Heather, Di PAOLO Lucy, DOVE Melanie Faith, DUCKWORTH Neale, ELMS Greg, EVANS Joyce, EVERTON Samantha, FARRELL Leo, FEIL Joseph, FLETCHER Gillian, FORD John, FRANKLIN Chris, GARWOOD Roger, GAULD Robin, GERHARD Andre, GILKES Brian, GLATTAUER Silvi, GODMAN Lloyd, GORDON-BROWN Susan, GRIFFITH Tim, HAMMOND Shireen, HARRINGTON Elda, HAWKES Ponch, HIRANO Masaki, HERZOG Naomi, HOUGH Julie, HOWLETT Fran, IMHOFF Robert, IOANNOU Ellii, JOHNS David, JOYCE Deb, KUMNICK Richar d, KURAVITA Philip, LANDT-ISLEY Karen, LARCOM Donna, LARCOMBE Randy, LASLETT Susan,LUKEY Brent, LUSZPINSKI Jarek, McFARLANE Jim, McKENZIE Ian, MEGALOUDIS Mercury, MIFSUD George, MILLOWICK Julie, MONROE Mark, NAOROJI Nadish, NEWITT Neil, NICHOLLS Lynden, O’SHEA Meredith, PAGE Colin, PECKHAM Senga, RIORDAN Carmel, ROESSLER Thomas, ROSS Carol, ROWE Tracey, QUILLIAM Wayne, SAAD Lisa, SALVATI Maurizio, SAWDON Elizabeth, SEIGERMAN Krystal, SHAIN Christopher, SILVER Michael, SIMMONDS Dave, SLEETH Matthew, SPOWART Doug, STEPHEN Cameron, STOREY Abby, STREET John, SUBLET Charlie, SYNDIKAS Alex, TAM Howard, TITZ Tobias, WATKINS Skip, WISEMAN Colin,WOLF Anna, WOLF Andrew

Pinhole Day and a Quick 1st impression of Harinezumi

Cameron — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 01:20:40 +0000

Pears WPPD 09

This years Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day (last Sunday) was less than optimal (for me) for a lot of reasons. The weather was shocking, we had power failures, my computer froze when the power finally came back on and I was suffering from the jet-lag feeling that comes from just finishing night shift and having to adjust your body clock through a 12 hour 180º shift within a day…
Apart from those factors, I had fun and actually managed to grab a few pinhole exposures that I thought were not too bad (not brilliant either however). My two cameras of choice this year were my converted Polaroid EE66 with Polaroid 125i pack film and my Holgamods Pinholga using type 84 packfilm. I started the day with little coffee cups and ended (as I seem to do) in the kitchen with some fruit…

I‘m having a lot (A LOT) of fun with the Digital Harinezumi.

Harinezumi by Harinezumi

This probably has a lot to do with how much it reminds me of using an analogue toy camera. When in still capture mode, you do not get a LCD viewfinder mode, you have to estimate what you are capturing (and anyone who uses toy cameras will know that their viewfinders are less than accurate) You also have the option of turning off the review mode of the camera so that you won’t know what you have got until you download the images to your computer (so I suppose that’s the digital equivalent of waiting to get your film developed).
In movie mode, they’re is no audio as such, there is a bit of white noise. I think it may have been fun if they had the option of the whirr of an old 8mm camera sound as well as the movies generated by the camera remind me of those and the results look very analogue, like some old family home movies from the 1960′s.

Macro Toes by Harinezumi

The colours are kick-ass funky and similar to some sort of weird cross processing type of thing going on…
As you can see from some of my initial test images, the macro function (two choices of focus here macro or normal) works very well. There is nice grain in lower lighting conditions, feeling more reminiscent to me of film grain than ‘digital’ grain. I could go on and probably will, when I do an ‘out of the box’ video review of this little electric hedgehog later on this week, but I remain impressed with what Powershovel & Superheadz have come up with.

Harinezumi!

Cameron — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 01:44:08 +0000

harinezumi ambulance -a frame grab from the digital harinezumi movie

OK, here are my first takes with the super cool & groovy Digital Harinezumi from Superheadz in Japan, the footage here was captured in very poor light conditions, mainly due to:
1. The first shots being shot at night in subdued lighting (as I was on night shift at the time) &
2. the rest of the shots being taken in very overcast conditions (which have been present since I got the camera)
Despite these factors, I am very pleased with the results so far. I really can’t wait to take this camera out in the sunshine to see more of what it can do.
Post production was in iMovie ’09 and most of the video footage is ‘as is’ the only filter is put on a 2 second segment at the ‘Ambulance Only’ doors where it goes B&W and static-like – some footage has been reversed, but that is about all as far as post production trickery goes…
The great backing music is ‘post’ by oco, from the ‘Lost Films’ compilation from www.powershovelaudio.com
I truly think that in this camera, Superheadz have created the first true digital ‘toy camera’ but also one that takes movies a well! A fantastic analogue-digital hybrid concept!

HARINEZUMI! from artpunk on Vimeo.

Demekin Results

Cameron — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 08:10:45 +0000

The film was over 20 years expired, 100 ASA and the shooting conditions were pretty overcast most of the time, but I am happy to say that I picked up the developed first roll from my demekin fisheye camera (made by Powershovel/Superheadz in Japan but available (along with other great products) in Australia from Via Alley
I am even happier to report that about 50% of my shots resulted in some sort of recognizable image! Let me clarify that statement in that it is not unusual to have a few ‘misses’ with the first trial of any new toy camera, given unfamiliarity with the way the camera works and responds in certain lighting conditions etc. Throw in the fact that the film was decades out of date and I’m surprised I got as many shots out of the roll as I did.

Chimney & Clouds - taken with the demekin fisheye camera

In true noob style, forgetting I was using a fisheye camera with a 146 degree field of view, I even managed to get my finger in one of the shots! (see example image called ‘olympicfinger’ you can see more examples by navigating forward or backward through the images once you’ve brought up the lightbox viewer). It’s hard to really judge the camera from this one roll given the variables I have mentioned, but I can at least comment on my personal experience using the camera for the first time and my initial impressions. Please take the example images provided in the context previously stated (over 20 years 100 ASA expired film, overcast conditions and first use of an unfamiliar camera) – so, my impressions? Well, I found the camera great fun to use (or should I say ‘play with’) and it is certainly a conversation starter. Even though the camera controls are very simple, I did mange to get the winding/shutter operation a bit wrong to start with, I wound on to the number 1, but when i went to take my first shot, the shutter did not seem to ‘click’ and I wasn’t sure if I had taken a photo or not – it turns out you have to wind until the film will not advance anymore and you here an audible sound (faint, but detectable) as the shutter cocks – then you can use the shutter release to take your shot, it should ‘click’ then (just like a real camera – heh).

olympic finger - taken with the demekin fisheye camera

I guess I am just too used to using my medium format toy cameras where you just wind on until the exposure number is in the window and which don’t need the shutter cocked by the film advance. Apart from this one small user interface problem (which was totally down to my inexperience with the camera) it worked fine. As mentioned you have to be careful not to get your fingers in frame, as the camera pulls in a wide field of view, because tha camera is small, the way you hold it could well have some stray fingers waggling in the front peripheral areas of the camera.
When I get some fresh 110 film (also available from Via Alley in Australia), I will be able to review this camera (and the Ikimono – stay tuned for my review of that) more thoroughly – as it deserves.

Demekin Fun

Cameron — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 12:51:35 +0000

The Demekin Fisheye Camera from Superheadz next to some 35mm film (for scale)

After reading the review of the demekin camera on Nic’s blog (see previous post) I was inspired to unwrap the expired 110 film and load it onto my demekin and take it out on the weekend. Unfortunately the weather was pretty overcast most of the time and the film speed of 100 wasn’t great for low light captures. In the brief breaks in the lowering clouds I did manage to snap off a few shots, once I worked out the advance mechanism and how it cocked the shutter. I think I wasted a couple of frames because of my unfamiliarity with the advance/cocking thing (well, I might have wasted them all, as I haven’t had the film developed yet). Not to worry, that’s all part of shooting with an unfamiliar (and slightly quirky) camera.
I was pretty lucky to have film on hand for the demekin really. My father obviously must have had a 110 format camera at some stage (I think it may have been a Kodak point & shoot, I vaguely remember a tiny Kodak) as I found the two packs of expired 110 in a box of his old slides, but I can’t find any photos from any such camera in the family photo archives…
Researching the 110 film online (well on wikipedia) I was brought up to speed on just how small the exposures on this film are, which is kind of obvious when you see the film window on the 110 cartridge, but is really brought home with examples of scale like those illustrated below (also from wikipedia)

110-film-negative with pencil shown for scale.

It seems quite funny to me that my first foray into toy camera photography was using a camera that took medium format film, with the lovely large negatives that format offers and following the plastic path has led me to this camera! It is great fun to shoot with and certainly makes for a good conversation starter, so I’m really looking forward to seeing what comes of it, as well as the results from the other 110 camera I have, the ikimono. I will share the results (hoping that I get some usable images) as soon as I get them.

35mm Back for the Diana +

Cameron — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 00:18:36 +0000

received my last order from the Lomographic Society on Friday; a 35mm back for the Diana + cameras, with most of the English instructions missing due to a misprint. I had also ordered a Diana + Edelweiss edition that was broken (lens assembly completely detached from the body, dangling by the wires for the flash) before I even got it out of it’s box. I will be interested to see how the LSI address my concerns, but I have been feeling that the business side of the lomography community/family has changed from being customer focussed to being totally profit driven now, with a good deal of cynicism thrown in for good measure. A few of my friends and online contacts would argue this has been the case for a while but I have held out until recently, believing (hoping) they still cared more about analog photography and the people still practicing it than just the money…
Oh well. Because my manual had missing information, I had to ask online for the missing pages (thanks cannibal.animal) as I didn’t want to bust anything when fitting the 35mm back. I thought some people might appreciate a visual walkthrough of the process of fitting the back to the Diana + camera. Kai’s ‘out of the box’ review of the 35mm kit which I mention in the video can be found here.

Mounting the 35mm Diana + back from artpunk on Vimeo.

Yet another BBF post

Cameron — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 09:27:48 +0000

Sorry to keep banging on about the BBF blackbird,fly but according to Woopra (which I now have up and running thanks to my friend Philip putting the idea in my head to use it) the majority of visits to the words part of this site lately have arrived here because of referrals or searches regarding this camera. Yesterday a package arrived from Superheadz my friends in Tokyo, and yes! it was my BBF camera with some more film to shoot for them (some of which I have exposed today) last night I thought I would make an updated review video of the camera, because I really wasn’t happy with the first one. I split it into two parts, this first one dealing with the basics of the camera and mask options, the second part deals with loading film into this camera which I shall add later on.
The first ‘teaser’ review can be seen here: BBF – The Teaser and I first talked about this camera (with detailed close-up photos) here: Blackbird,Fly.
So apologies regarding my boring presentation skills, but here is another BBF review and at least the camera has heaps of personality!

blackbird,fly – an updated review from artpunk on Vimeo.

BBF – the teaser movie

Cameron — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 23:45:05 +0000

Below is a ‘teaser‘ video of a great new plastic camera that is in development by the company Powershovel, in Japan. I have mentioned Powershovel on this blog before, they are the driving force behind many great artistic projects that involve music, books and photography and behind the company Superheadz Ina Babylon who market all kinds of cool cameras that use film and often alternative formats.
Powershovel sent me a test camera of theirs under development called the BBF (initially it was going to be called the ‘blackbird, fly’ but a company representative tells me it has decided to market it as the BBF now) As seen in this post the camera is a plastic TLR (twin lens reflex) that will be capable of taking different format exposures on 35mm film. As far as I know this is the first ‘toy camera’ TLR that is exclusively designed to take 35mm film and it will also have the option to use two different masks in the camera, the sizes of these masks will be 24×36 and 24×24. The test camera I was supplied with had the 24 x 36 mask which is removable so you can actually get exposures to the edge of the film complete with sprocket holes!
Anyway on to the ‘teaser’ of the camera as well as a few example photos I shot with it at the end. Apologies for the low fi video quality. The video itself shows that the camera has ‘N’ & ‘B’ shutter selection, a hotshoe (which works as expected) and two aperture settings (sunny/cloudy). Also illustrated is the waist level head-down viewfinder familiar to any one who has used Twin Reflex Cameras like the Lubitel, Yashica, Seagull etc. Different framing lines are obvious for the different masking options I presume.
This was a fun camera to try out and I was sorry when I sent it back, I wanted to ‘play’ with it more, but time was a factor. Remember the BBF is not available yet and is still under development, so the final product may be slightly different with different features. I am led to believe it should be released in August or September 2008.
The lovely background music for the video is a piece called ‘Soup’ by a Powershovel musician, Ken Takehisa and is available on the release ‘Lost Films Vol 1″ from the Powershovel site powershovel audio

BBF a new camera from Powershovel/Superheadz from artpunk on Vimeo.

Blackbird, Fly

Cameron — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 13:07:35 +0000

Powershovel, the forward thinking Japanese company that involved a few lucky photographers (including yours truly) around the world in a photographic collaboration using the Holga 135BC (as mentioned in previous posts) has kindly invited me to trial a new toy camera they have in development, a plastic 35mm Twin Lens Reflex called the Blackbird, Fly. As with the Holga 135BC collaboration, I received the camera and 5 rolls of 400 iso film to shoot with. This time I will be returning the camera as well as the films however, as it is a prototype and the camera is still in development phase. For those who would like to have a closer look at this camera, I have uploaded a few images (click on the thumbnail) of the very light, very cool, very black (I’ve seen photos online of one with an orange front panel) Blackbird, Fly camera. Soon I will upload some example shots from the camera as well as a brief review of my experience using it. I understand this camera will probably be released sometime in August (but don’t quote me on it)! *update – I have been informed that the camera will be marketed as the BBF camera now.