The Plastic Lens ~ Words » toycamera

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 Throw in the fact that the film was decades out of date and I’m surprised I got as many shots out of the roll as I did.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.

Blackbird,fly – Loading Film

Cameron — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 22:40:19 +0000

fter a few enquiries and the fact that I have been meaning to put together and upload this for a while but just never got around to it, here is an otherwise boring (insomniacs if you need a cure look here) visual tutorial on how to load film into your BBF (blackbird,fly) camera, I hope it is of use to someone out there.
As I said, I have been planning on uploading a guide to loading film into the blackbird,fly camera for a while, but life (and having fun taking photos!) sort of distracted me. The reason I initially planned to do this has not changed; when I first got the prototype version of the camera I was initially very unsure if I was actually loading film into it correctly – and this is someone who is used to loading film into cameras, so I could only imagine how approaching the job would be for people not as familiar with film photography!

The trick with loading film into the bbf is patience and practice. When I first got the camera I found it quite fiddly as my fingers are fat sausages in relation to the fine workings of the camera, so I felt quite clumsy (which I am anyway) but even I got there in the end.
(loading film into a Horizon panoramic camera is far more of a challenge IMHO)

Please note – if you find that you are winding the film on after loading and the film advance knob does not ‘lock’ in place then this means the film leader has not properly engaged in the take up spool and you will need to open the back and try again.
(After each exposure the film will advance a certain amount and then the film advance knob will stop winding on, indicating that the camera is ready for photography and the shutter needs to be released before the wind on knob will advance again)

Loading Film Into the BBF from artpunk on Vimeo.

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.

Some more photos back from Tokyo

Cameron — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 12:35:37 +0000

For those who have been trying to access the site and been getting a “server not responding” message (as I have for the last few hours) – my apologies. I have requested some sort of explanation from my host for this and other buggy behaviour I’ve been experiencing lately.
Back to business. The bbf website has been updated with lots of cool stuff including a gallery ~ most of the text is in Japanese of course, but I did note that it looked like there was going to be an option for an English version in the future – why else would they have a small tag on the home page saying Japanese (which is pretty obvious, looking at the site) except to offer the choice for other languages further down the track?
True to their wonderful nature, Powershovel sent some prints from the recent set of film I took for them. I got some of my photos back from Tokyo today. The only disappointment is that the over 30% of exposures I took with no mask in the BBF (exposure to the sprockets) were not printed as such, obviously the lab Powershovel used in Japan couldn’t handle that… but not to worry, when I eventually get the negatives I can scan them myself. (Responsive as ever, one of the people at Powershovel read about the lack of sprocket holes on my flickr photos and emailed me a promise to send the negs to me as soon as their art director was done with them) – they really are that nice to work with.

Of Diana + Lenses

Cameron — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 05:38:43 +0000

A friend of mine on flicker sent me a message, quite concerned that she had stuffed up her Diana + camera by putting on one of it’s accessory lenses the wrong way. She had put her fisheye lens on without aligning the white dots and was also finding it quite stiff when trying to remove the lens. She eventually did remove the lens, but it must have been a bit fragile as it fell into a few pieces.
Normally putting accessory lenses onto a Diana + camera just involves getting the lens in the right position and giving a clockwise turn to secure it. You do the reverse to remove the lens. On initial usage the lens can be quite firmly engaged and you do need to use a bit of a firm twist to remove it, but this action usually loosens up a bit with repeated use and time. If you mis-align the lens, it won’t break your camera, but you will find the distance settings aren’t positioned where you expect them on the barrel. The alignment dots are for ergonomic reasons more than anything, so you can get to the distance adjustments easily.

Dealing with Diana + Lenses 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.

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.

Superheadz Shots back from Japan!

Cameron — Sat, 24 May 2008 08:24:56 +0000

These shots actually came back at the start of the month, as promised, but I’ve been so distracted by other stuff that I haven’t gotten around to discussing them yet. If you click on any of the thumbnails a larger image should pop up. As mentioned in this previous post I was given 5 rolls of 400 asa 35mm to expose using the Holga 135BC camera sent to me courtesy of Powershovel and Superheadz Ina Babylon. Once exposed they were sent back to Japan for development. I have revisited many familiar themes for me with much of the photography in the collaboration due to the fact that the film was being sent back to Japan, so I took images of Melbourne and my family life and so forth to give them a taste of my corner of the world. The Madly Waving image shows the ‘B’ shutter option in use, my daughters and a friend happily obliging in my request to ‘stand as still as they could for a couple of seconds but just wave their hands madly’! Zebra Face shows how the threaded cable release in the shutter release can be used for silly self-portraits. The only shots I didn’t take that I would have liked to try were night exposures, but I’m sure this camera would have been fine with those too, making use of tripod, ‘b’ setting and cable release. The vignetting with this camera is evident in most of the shots I took, less obvious in brightly lit exposures but still giving most of the shots characteristics reminiscent of most of my favourite medium format plastic cameras. I may have mentioned in the last entry I wrote regarding this camera reminding me of the Lomo LC-A, but with softer feeling images due to the plastic lens I suppose. The images in this post are just a few of the shots that Powershovel have since developed, printed and returned (both prints and negs) to me. it was a surprise to receive these images after two months, as I really wasn’t sure how they would turn out. I was pleased to see that most of the shots I took were adequately exposed and sort of interesting. It was a challenge to explore different creative possibilities for approximately 100 shots! I hope Powershovel and Superheadz can use my contributions to their project in some constructive way. Speaking of projects, I’m hoping to take part in a new plastic camera project with Superheadz very soon. More on that later! Origato!

35mm Film In Your Toy Camera

Cameron — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 07:41:28 +0000

Here is a fairly straight forward tutorial video showing how to simply adapt a toy camera (a Diana + in this case) that usually takes 120 (medium format) film to take 35mm film. Even though I’m using 35mm in my Diana + here, this should be achievable in just about any medium format toy camera you might have. Why do it? Because you can and because you get some cool image to the film edge looks! addit: (see some resultant photos from the first roll).
To work out how far you need to advance the film there is a handy guide at photon detector – remember if you have the 4×4 mask in your Diana + the turns will be for the Diana, Agfa Isoly guide. Without the mask (i.e. with 6 x6 exposures) work off the principle that you will need to advance a little bit more between frames. As the film is wound on you need to turn the advance a little bit less each time as the film bulks up on the take up spool. * Please note that my estimation of 3/4 to 1 full turn as stated in the video is inaccurate and will result in overlap – with a traditional Diana and a Diana + with the 4 x 4 mask in work on 1.1 turns at the beginning of the roll reducing this to approx 0.8 turns towards the end of the roll. In a Diana + without any mask (ie 6 x 6 exposures) work on 1.6 turns going down to 1 turn. Also, I needed to tape the leader of the 35mm film onto the take up spool, something not obvious or mentioned in this video (sorry). Have fun!

35mm Film In Your Toy Camera from artpunk on Vimeo.

Holga 135 BC

Cameron — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 11:38:58 +0000

It sounds like a B grade epic theatre type movie about old testament life, but the 135 BC is a new Holga camera that takes 35mm film. The bc stands for (I think) bent corners which refers to the vignetting you get on your photos, probably produced from the curved corners mask inside the camera body. *addit (April ’08): the lomographic society is now selling these cameras and marketing them as the Holga 135 BC black corners and that makes sense too. Mind you I notice they (lomo) are bundling them with 200 iso film in some cases, I would suggest that 400 iso film is a better option.
The deal was this – Powershovel sent a few lucky people worldwide a 135 BC camera with 5 rolls of film. You shoot the five rolls of film within a certain time, post the film (undeveloped) back to the nice people at Powershovel and keep the camera. Later on, the developed negatives and photos from the 5 rolls you shot will be posted back to you.
I had fun using this camera. It has a typical Holga lens mounted on the front of a plastic 35mm camera body, the difference between this lens and the lens found on the 120 format Holgas is that this is labelled as ƒ = 47mm instead of the 60mm of the 120 format cameras. Also the shutter release is on the top of the camera itself and it is threaded to take a cable release with standard shutter speed selection is ‘B’ and ‘N’ (1/100sec according to the documentation). With an uncoupled film advance multi-exposures are possible and with the “b” setting long exposures are easy too. A tripod thread is there to attach a tripod to steady your camera for your long exposures and a hotshoe for flash photography. The viewfinder is centrally placed right above the lens. There is an aperture switch on top of the lens housing, identical to the Holga 120 cameras for cloudy/flash or sunny. I thought the aperture may have been slightly smaller with the sunny setting, there seemed to be a smidgen of square masking at either vertical edge of the aperture, but it wouldn’t have affected the ƒ-stop by that much.
The main challenge for me using this camera was thinking in non-square format, as that is the usual mental/visual compositional template lately – but that really wasn’t too much of an issue. Another (perhaps greater) challenge I faced was not seeing the results of different shooting conditions with the camera, as I had to send the undeveloped film (results unseen) back to Japan at the end of the project. Being a control freak I just had to get an idea of what conditions produced what visual result on the negative, so I ran a roll of film of the same speed as the project ones (400 asa) through the camera after the first roll I took for Powershovel.
I was pleasantly surprised by the look of the shots. With the black corner vignette effect around the edges, they reminded me of Lomo LC-A exposures, but the Holga has a lot less latitude as far as different lighting conditions and slower film speeds of course. The provided lens cap fits so snugly to the front of the lens that in a couple of exposures I had forgotten to actually take it off. This never happens with my Diana cameras as you have to set the subject distance by rotating the lens within the confines of the plastic lens barrel, whereas with the Holga lens you rotate the whole barrel for distance settings.
All in all it was a fun experience, but it will be strange to see the negs a couple of months after I actually took the shots! In the meantime, here are a few from my test roll (click on the thumbnails to bring up larger images)