Analogue Wonderland must have been very busy over the last few days, processing the films from the 40 photowalks that took place last Saturday. We got the rest of our pictures back today, which is much more quickly than I expected. Pretty much all of them have come out, which is very pleasing
I’d not used Kodak Pro Image 100 before, but I’m a convert now. Very nice grain and lovely colours. And on offer at the moment..
I spent a chunk of today loading film into holders, ready for some photographic fun tomorrow. This involves putting all the elements into a bag and then shoving my hands through a pair of elasticated cuffs to keep the light out. Then, with my hands in the dark, I open a box of film, take out a sheet, put it into the holder and then close the dark slide. Then I take my hand out of the bag and let light in. Which is stupid. Fortunately I noticed in time and, since the film stays in a light tight bag most of the time, I think/hope I got away with it.
One of the problems that you have when doing all this is that you are working by touch. What you are looking at is irrelevant. I end up staring stupidly into space. Something which I’ve been told I do a lot of without my hands in a bag.
Anyhoo, today I tried something I should have tried a long time back. I closed my eyes. Suddenly everything made a lot more sense, and it was actually easier to load the sheets. I’m going to do this more in the future. There is no picture of of me doing any of this because it would, of course, turn out to be black.
I carried a great big camera all round Leeds today. It was totally worth it.
They have a camera on every table. Ours had a hasselblad
The London Camera Museum is one of my favourite places in the world. And I only went there for the first time last Saturday. It’s a camera museum in, er, London. It’s based in the Tottenham Court Road area. You just turn off the very busy main street into a quite side road and there it is.
They serve very good coffee, there’s loads of stuff on display just in the café and if you pay 3 pounds you can go round the museum and see even more. It’s not enormous. Just a couple of large rooms. But they are packed with interesting stuff. They also have a shop which sells cameras, film and other bits and bobs. I made a couple of carefully considered purchases.
If you go to London you should drop round. It’s a great place to grab a drink and a cake. And if you are into photography I think you will really like it. Hopefully I’m going back soon. I want to buy a T-shirt….
Every now and then I take a picture I’m actually quite pleased with. See above.
Here’s another.
York was very nice today
It turns out that broken windows are surprisingly hard to photograph.
A few weekdays of lovely weather and then the weekend brings this. Oh well, at least the clouds make the sky look interesting.
Pro tip: If you buy a bunch of camera batteries (like I just have) then label each one so that you know which is which. That way you can spot if one of them is not working properly, and it helps you remember which is the one that is charged.
I went to the Photography and Video show last year and bought a camera. This year I didn’t buy a camera, but I did buy a lens or two (or three) along with some film. It was a great trip, although getting up at 5:00 am to catch the 6:02 am train wasn’t really one of the highlights. Kudos to Hull Trains though. I got from the local station to London and back without changing trains. The trains were comfortable and speedy and I got there in enough time to join the queue waiting for the show to open at 10:00 am.
No second hand camera purchases this time. Perhaps I’m growing up a bit. Perhaps I’ve bought them all already. Anyhoo, there were lots of interesting stands and a whole bunch of tempting offers.
They have these little tableau set up for you to photograph. I think the lady is saying “You’ve forgotten you guitar again haven’t you”. They even had a Lego camera.
The next show is in Birmingham in 2026. I’m already counting down to it.
I fancied some 3D printed lens cases. So me and ChatGPT wrote a little Python program that runs inside FreeCAD to make them. I find ChatGPT a useful coding companion. It doesn’t usually get the code right, but it does provide enough insight into how the code is supposed to work to make it much easier to create something that does what you want.
As an additional flourish, we managed to put text on the outside of the case by rendering a TrueType font into a shape and then cutting it out of the case. You can see the results above. Next step is to get some foam and make some inserts to keep the lens nice and safe. I’m going to tidy up the code a bit and put it on GitHub.
They say it is ugly, but I like the quirky charm it has. This one has the extra viewfinder on top for the wide angle lens.
If you were a photographer working for a Japanese newspaper in the 1960’s you’d probably spend a big chunk of your life carrying round a Mamiya Press camera. The camera is actually a whole ecosystem of film backs, lenses and other bits and bobs. The one above is a setup with a nice wide angle lens which will make a good job of the kind of scene setting pictures the editors of the day wanted.
The camera is big and heavy but the hand grip, which also incorporates a trigger shutter release, makes it quite easy to wield. It can take enormous 6x9 cm images on 120 roll film. You get loads of detail in every shot, which must have been greatly appreciated at the time.
The viewfinder is bright and clear and has a rangefinder spot in the middle which is coupled to the lens. This makes focusing very easy and accurate, as long as your lens and camera body have both been properly calibrated. The lenses are lovely and very sharp. The Mamiya 23 above has been in the wars. Some of the screws are missing and it could do with a good clean up. But it still turns out really nice pictures.
However, it is a nightmare to use. Taking a picture involves a sequence of steps which must be followed precisely if you want to get a result. And you only find out if you’ve missed a step when you develop the film and find you have empty frames, two frames on top of each other, blurry images and whatnot.
When you get everything right though the camera really sings. The good news is that if you fancy getting into large negative photography on the cheap these are a great way in. They are much less expensive than the Pentax 67 and no less capable. They are also much easier to repair. The shutter assembly is part of the lens, making it easy to swap out a broken lens for a working one. And lenses are not expensive. The rangefinder adjustment on the camera body is a bit tricky, but not impossible. And the film backs are all interchangeable too, so if that breaks you can get another. They were built for heavy use by working photographers and that means they are pretty tough. There are a number of different versions. I rather like the simple utilitarian appearance of the earlier models.
Worth a look if you’re prepared to put in the effort and put up with the odd wasted shot.
Click the image to view the video. It’s only 30 seconds…
Sometimes things work in spite of what you do, rather than because of it. With this in mind I present my PICO Powered Camera Shutter Controller. It works. It has quite a few batteries inside. It makes interesting noises when it has to work hard. I’ll show you the insides if you come to my talk at DDD North in a couple of weeks.
Well, all it took was a bigger servo and a battery pack. I’ve now got a computer controlled shutter. Now all I need to do is build the box, add the controls and find a two foot long cable release that works….
I really, really want to be able to control the shutter on my Polaroid camera. So I’m in the process of building an actuator which will push the plunger on the cable release. Version 1 was a bust. Almost literally. The shutter button on the camera hardly moved while the servo made some very unhappy noises.
You can see version 2 above. Considerably more beefy. This servo actually contains metal gears. I’ve done a quick test and it seems to work, which is nice. Next thing is to build a cable release holder and attach it to the actuator.
If you want to see it in action, sign up for DD North and come along to my session.
Now that I’ve got a very old digital back for my very, very old camera I thought it was time to take some pictures with it. I’m a bit constrained, in that the camera has to be connected to the computer when I use it, but this is still much easier and cheaper than using film.
The digital back that I’m using has a sensor which is around the size of a 35mm frame. This means that I’m only capturing the centre of the picture, but I’m not unhappy with the results.
It’s been great fun walking around the house and taking pictures of stuff. It has allowed me to practice focusing and framing without spending a fortune on film. I’m really looking forward to taking some portraits with the setup. The absolute picture quality is pretty good. I know that modern cameras, and even phones, can produce images which seem sharper and brighter, but that’s not the point. I love the filmic quality of the results I get from this kit.
If you have an old computer (and you will need an old one - new ones are no good) that you can dedicate to the project and you happen to have an old film camera that will work with a digital back you should definitely have a go.
it is in good condition for its age
I’ve been messing around with Polaroid Land cameras for a while. Today I thought I’d do something with their flash lights. The Polaroid Wink light was created to add a bit of extra light to your pictures. If you buy a second hand Polaroid outfit you will frequently find one included in the package.
YOu can’t get 45 volt batteries any more. And this is a good thing.
Above you can see inside the light. The silver thing at the back is a capacitor which is charged up from the battery before the shot is taken. When the shutter is fired the charge in the capacitor is sent into the bulb producing a bright “wink” of light. The bulb in a wink light was made for use in cars which have a 12 volt power supply. The wink light sends 45 volts through the bulb making it get extra bright for a short time. If you want even more light you can plug a little holder into the side of a wink light which holds a “proper” flash bulb. These bulbs contain fine magnesium wire which burns with a really bright light - although you can only use each bulb once.
Anyhoo, I wanted to make the wink light actually do something. I had a number of ideas but in the end I decided to see if I could fit a standard G4 lighting led into the light. These use a 12 volt power supply. The most I could get from my batteries was 6 volts so I dug out a little voltage converter which steps this up to 12 volts.
The power switch is in the case at the bottom left hand side
Above you can see what I ended up with. There are two battery holders, each of which contains 2 AA batteries. They are connected via a switch to a “buck converter” which steps their 6 volts up to the 12 volts the bulb likes. I’m not planning on making the light switch on when the camera takes a picture. I’m a bit concerned that it might take too long for the circuit to fire up. Instead I’m going to leave the light on all the time while I take pictures. This also gives me a bit more light to focus with, which is nice.
Ready for action
Above you can see the light on the camera as it is meant to be used. The next step is to take some test pictures and get a feel for the exposure settings it needs. This was a fun way to spend a Sunday.
It is a stylish little camera
Half frame cameras are having a moment right now. The attraction of getting twice as many shots on your roll of 35mm film is hard to ignore. Pentax have recently launched a new half-frame camera and there are also cheaper (although rather expensive for what they are) half frame offerings out there too.
The Fujica Half dates from 1963. It is a quality lump of metal that looks the part and unlike the new cameras you can buy today it has shiny metal and proper heft. It is quite easy to use. You set the film speed on the back and it sorts out exposure (rather well in my experience) but you have to do the focusing yourself, adjusting the lens to the right distance. The film advance uses a neat little lever.
No batteries are required. The exposure meter uses a light powered selenium cell which lasts for ever, or until it breaks. If the camera has been kept in its case the cell will probably be OK, if not you can set everything manually which is a bit more of a faff, but not a stopper. The viewfinder is nice and bright, and it shows the shutter and aperture settings selected by the camera along with marks that help you frame close up subjects. You can use a flash with it, but you’ll have to plug it into the socket on the front and then set the aperture by hand. The frame counter is hidden on the bottom of the camera. It goes all the way up to 72 shots, which is what you would get from a 36 exposure film.
The camera takes pictures in portrait mode. If you have a film processed you’ll get two images per frame, which is rather nice. The lens is lovely and sharp and I really like the pictures it turns out.
These are two of the first pictures I took with the camera
The Exposure meter coped well with low light. I need to work on holding the camera straight,
I had to tip the camera on its side to take these pictures
The lens doesn’t flare too much
If you are thinking of getting into film photography you could do a lot worse than pick up one of these. And if you are already into photography it’s a nice thing to have around - and you can use the camera in full manual mode and set the shutter and aperture yourself if you want to get creative.
They seem to be nudging up in price at the moment (at least in terms of what folks are asking for them on ebay). If you see a tidy one with a working meter for less than the price of a video game I think it would be worth a punt.
The Minolta Vectis S-1 camera is not particularly pretty. But it is pretty cheap. I picked up the example above for less than ten pounds. It is cheap for two reasons:
It uses a type of film which is no longer made.
It probably won’t work when you get it.
The camera uses Advanced Photo System film which was launched in the 1990’s and abandoned in 2011. But this is not a huge problem, you can still get film cassettes for it, albeit ones which will be at least 13 years old. The system uses a very complicated film loading mechanism containing many whirring and clicking parts. The first example of this camera I got made a few unhappy sounds too, followed by total lockup. But the sample above was made of sterner stuff and seems to be able to load film and take photos OK. I got hold of some film and took some shots.
I’ve not made the holders that go on top of the film yet.
The system was designed so that the film stayed in the cassette at all times. The processing and printing machinery was clever enough to get the film out of the cassette, print the shots you wanted and then wind it back in again. Of course I don’t have any of that machinery, so instead I designed a little holder which I can load up with film for the scanner. I then pulled the film out of the cassette and cut it into lengths for scanning.
The negatives are 16mm high with a “widescreen” aspect ratio
The results are pretty respectable for a twenty year old camera using fifteen year old film. Above is one of the more interesting ones. There is plenty of detail and the image is sharp enough . The shadows are very grainy though, probably because of the age of the film.
I’m not sure if I’d use this camera and film combination for any pictures that I really care about (although the auto-focus and exposure seem to work well). But it is fun to get out and play with.
Rob Miles is technology author and educator who spent many years as a lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Hull. He is also a Microsoft Developer Technologies MVP. He is into technology, teaching and photography. He is the author of the World Famous C# Yellow Book and almost as handsome as he thinks he is.
