The Plastic Lens ~ Words » Twin Lens Reflex

The Lubi

Cameron — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 06:13:27 +0000

The Lubitel TLR (Twin Lens Reflex) is not strictly a toy camera, but it is a reasonably cheap one as compared to other more sophisticated TLRs (more sophisticated in terms of build quality & optics). You will often see Lubitel images in toy camera exhibitions, but it’s glass lens and extensive choice of apertures and shutter speeds pops it into a different category to “true” plastic fantastics like the Diana or Holga. I picked one up (a Lubitel 166B) at a camera collectors market for $25 (Au) which isn’t bad at all, but it had a bit of plastic missing from the bottom hinge (so I wouldn’t have paid any more). I had a feeling it may leak a bit of light, but I always like to run an initial roll through any new camera just to determine how much light they will leak and get an idea of where from.
After getting the first roll developed from my Lubi, I found it leaked everywhere! This is probably a common factor with Lubitels, but not ever owning one before I wasn’t sure. In fact the only image that didn’t have a ruddy great light leak right over the top third of the exposure was one of some buckets, and even that had large leaks at the corners. This is something a generous application of light-proof tape (I usually just use black electrician’s tape) can easily remedy!

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.

Apologies

Cameron — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:34:46 +0000

To those who were asking about the BBF and where they may get it outside of Japan. I’m sorry for both the delay in answering your questions and for other things, which I take full responsibility for and will come to in due course.
I have returned to work after a nice break, so my updates to theplasticlens will be dictated by my fatigue levels after shift work and other responsibilities like family which come before writing here.
Let me update you now and explain my previous remark about other things ~ I feel that my enthusiasm over the prospective release of the new toy camera, the twin lens reflex 35mm BBF (Blackbird, Fly) from Superheadz may have generated a lot of (deserved) enthusiasm and anticipation regarding the camera with quite a few people wanting to get their hands on one. After receiving a few queries regarding distribution outside of Japan I contacted my friends at Powershovel/Superheadz about this. The good news is that unlike the Tolne, (which appeared as a blip on the Toy Camera radar screen and then was not to be seen again), the BBF will be being released and yes, it will find a market outside of Japan. The slightly disappointing news for those outside of Japan who would like one now, if not yesterday is that Superheadz don’t have ordering for these markets in place yet, but they do have plans for releasing it via third party stores such as (perhaps) Urban Outfitters and places like the MoMA shop in the U.S.A. (edit – and ICP in New York – www.icp.org by the end of October) – for Europe they are still considering options… edit ~ I have since heard of two outlets; Incognito www.incognito-uk.co.uk & The Photographers’ gallery www.photonet.org.uk, sometime in mid-October.
They are also looking into a way of providing online ordering for outside countries, but are not able to say when that will be active yet, probably in the new year.
So once again, my apologies for generating premature expectations, for some reason I had thought that Superheadz did have distribution points outside Japan, but that was my mistake, sorry, but rest assured, if you are patient (or if you have a contact in Japan), you will be able to get a BBF eventually!
*note – please see my latest update regarding online ordering outside of Japan.

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.