The Plastic Lens ~ Words » Superheadz

BBF under the ‘Big Sticks’

Cameron — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 02:08:14 +0000

It is completely inexcusable of course, but I haven’t had a chance to do anything much except fulfil work & family responsibilities lately, so my apologies for any lack of content here. I hope everyone has had a very safe & happy festive season and wish you all a incredible New Year!
Here is a small edited snippet of some 8mm film I shot for Powershovel/Superheadz featuring my favourite plastic Twin Lens Reflex Camera, the blackbird,fly – http://www.superheadz.com/bbf
Thanks to my nephew who filmed most of this clip (on a Fujica ‘Single-8′ P2) whilst I wandered around with my bbf. Many, many thanks to Nick and all at Powershovel/Superheadz.
I have edited the footage in iMovie ’09 the backing music is ‘comfortable mystery’ by Kevin MacLeod – http://incompetech.com

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.

Loving The BBF

Cameron — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 09:53:02 +0000

A good old fashioned movie camera.

This post shows a video which was edited from a digital transfer from some good old fashioned analogue 8mm film. Taken with a Fuji Single-8 movie camera; no sound, 16 frames per second, fixed focus, point and shoot – probably the movie camera equivalent of a ‘toy camera’ with wonderful artifacts, colour and retro look to the finished movies.
This example is just a small snippet of some film I shot for Powershovel/Superheadz featuring my favourite plastic Twin Lens Reflex Camera, the blackbird,fly which anyone who has actually been reading this blog (and I know there are a faithful few, thank you!) will be aware of.
Thanks to my lovely family and many thanks to Nick and all at Powershovel/Superheadz.
I have edited the footage in iMovie ’09 and the backing music is ‘Laconic Granny’ by Kevin MacLeod

We Love the BBF from artpunk on Vimeo.

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.

Instant Film News, 110 Camera Reviews etc

Cameron — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 22:01:12 +0000

Paddling - taken with an Polaroid SX-70 camera

My thanks to Nic Nichols and his excellent blog Four Corners Dark from where I gleaned much of this information. I’ve been a bit crook with the flu so having an informative resource like Four Corners Dark to read whilst locked away (to prevent me inflicting my bugs on anyone else) feeling muzzy headed is a boon. Of course there are a lot of great toy camera related sites out there (just check the links on the sidebar or the sites of interest page) but I have been getting a lot of enjoyment reading Nic’s latest reviews and news, not the least of which the latest reviews with accompanying results of a couple of cool little (and I mean little) Cameras from Superheadz Ina Babylon, the demekin 110 format fisheye camera (that’s right!) and the ikimono, another 110 format camera that takes more conventional shots. You can read Nic’s reviews here:
The Demekin
The Ikimono

Again through reading Nic’s blog, I found out more good news about the future of instant film, in particular Polaroid, you may remember my post on The Impossible Project a while back, well it seems things have progressed read more about it at Dave Bias (one of the co-founders of Save Polaroid)

Plastic, Plastic, a little bit of digital…

Cameron — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 08:24:38 +0000

Superheadz Plamodel DIY 35mm Camera

Well, my entries here have been sparse lately, as I have been caught up doing lots of other fun stuff which I will talk about over the course of the next few posts. I have been taking lots of photos with the blackbird,fly as well as capturing my photographic excursions on good old fashioned 8mm film, as part of a project in collaboration with the excellent people from Powershovel/Superheadz. I hope my movie making skills are up to par, I suppose we won’t really know until the film is developed (in Japan) and transferred to digital media for editing, fingers crossed the material will be useful to my Tokyo friends. I’ve certainly had fun taking my family around different locations to photograph and film them, we have traveled to all the usual places I would go to capture the world around me through a plastic lens; the seaside, into the city and just generally mucking around at home as well…

In other upcoming projects I have planned, I will endeavour to construct the SuperHeadz Plamodel DIY 35mm Camera (pictured) before your very eyes in a video how-to. Phil and I discussed this camera in the Photogeek.tv podcast #84 and it looks quite interesting, as well as educational. I am fortunate enough to have one of these kits, so this should be a bit of fun and will test my D.I.Y. skills, as the instructions are in Japanese, but the diagrams seem very straightforward and understandable. I think it should go OK, but the proof of the camera is in the building. Whatever happens – any problems will be due to me, not the kit, I’m sure! Stay tuned for that one anyway, could be interesting!

The Digital Harinezumi from Superheadz

The little bit of digital I refer to in the post title is the Digital Harizenumi, a forthcoming piece of kit from Superheadz that looks to be the coolest blend of analogue ambience encompassed in a digital camera that I have ever seen. Looking a bit like a 110 film cartridge (only way cooler) this piano black camera produces some wonderful analogue like movies as well as shooting still images. Harinezumi translated to English from the Japanese is “hedgehog” and anyone familiar with the cute graphics of Superheadz will know the particular character this refers to! Sure it’s digital, but the results are so full of old-school character (and just sheer magic) from the videos I have seen produced by it, that I would be more than happy to use one! Here is one example movie in colour made by my friend in Tokyo, Nick Dangerfield and another using the cameras black and white mode by him as well. I just love them. I am sure you will be hearing more about the Harinezumi here as well as elsewhere…
You can get more of a taste at this link here: digital harinezumi! You can also read more about it at Nic Nichols site.

Camera Cabaret

Cameron — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 01:39:59 +0000

After posting my BBF video, (which is hosted on Vimeo), a fellow named Gianfranco Chicco made a comment on it there. He is on sabbatical in Tokyo and has visited Powershovel’s Camera Cabaret recently.
Camera Cabaret is the Powershovel/Superheadz Ina Babylon shop in Shibuya, Tokyo and looks (from Gianfranco’s video) to be chock full of interesting analog cameras and other cool doo-dads. He interviews one of the guys (Jun) who works
in/manages the store and they talk about the new blackbird,fly from Superheadz (What? You’ve not heard of that yet? Get outa here!) Gianfranco was loaned the camera for a while so it will be interesting to see how his images turn out. The video is a great virtual tour of the Camera Cabaret for those of us who aren’t able to get to Japan in the near future, so thanks for sharing Gianfranco!

Camera Cabaret from Gianfranco Chicco on Vimeo.

**Please note! ~ anyone asking about the availability
of the blackbird,fly outside of Japan might like to check out this link!

360 photos

Cameron — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 20:33:22 +0000

My mission is to try and shoot 360 photos in 14 days (well the little piece of paper said 7 days, but I let them know that I couldn’t possibly manage that in between family commitments and other essential things like going to work, sleeping and eating) I have already taken two rolls worth of Agfa 400 asa 36 exposure rolls of 35mm film through the BBF for Superheadz which leaves… um, let me see… 288! No worries! Gee I’m glad I’ve got a couple of days off coming up! When I first got my nice cameras from Superheadz however, I did manage to load one of them with one of my own rolls to make sure my second personal roll from the original prototype was mainly fuzzy due to my mistakenly leaving it on “b” for most of the time. Which it was (surprise, surprise)! Click on the image of my eldest with the blue blackbird, fly to enlarge it (and see more from my first personal roll from the *new* bbf if you have javascript enabled) For the next few days I think I’ll be shooting film for Tokyo…

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.