The Plastic Lens ~ Words » Tokyo

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!

Magical Superheadz & BBF imminent release!

Cameron — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 05:41:23 +0000

I just love Superheadz. Not only because they feature my youngest daughter on the opening banner page for their Magical Camera Tour 2008! as seen at left, but for the whole feeling of verve and fun that pervades the whole site, from the colourful graphics and their enthusiastic approach to life, the universe and everything (but especially photography). The great news for all who have been patiently waiting for the BBF (Blackbird,Fly) camera to be released is that it will be out very, very soon. A little bird told me that around September the 3rd Superheadz will have hopefully have these cool cameras in stock ready to be ordered and shipped and this information is backed up by ‘our man in Tokyo‘ Skorj, from filmwasters.com. To see more tasty visual details of this camera, visit here: the official Blackbird,Fly page. I read someone say in the forums that you could pick up a “real” TLR (I presume they mean a second hand Yashicamat or something like that, as the BBF is as real as any other camera I’ve ever used, it’s not imaginary!) and buy leather replacement kits if you wanted funky colours to which my answer is – this is a plastic camera we’re talking about which is probably the appeal to a certain market; it’s a toy camera TLR rather than a glass and metal one, I have a nice Seagull TLR to use for sharper focused medium format TLR photography, but I really loved playing with the BBF for it’s simplicity and toy camera feel and end results. The BBF also takes 35mm film for those who either don’t want to or can’t afford to be working with medium format, which is the film that most TLR’s I know of use… these points are why I have been writing about it here, on theplasticlens blog. I think I’ve had more interest shown in this one little camera than I have in any thing else I’ve written about here.