Olympus Trip 35

Rabbit’s artists impression….

My Great Aunt Anne had an Olympus Trip 35 back in the 1970’s. She took it all around the world and then, when she got back, we’d take a look at the pictures and slides she’d taken. They were all nicely exposed and usually in focus. I’ve always fancied one myself and six months or so ago one popped up for sale at my local camera shop. It’s in lovely condition and the light meter works fine.

The camera is self powered. The light meter is uses a selenium cell which generates a voltage. the more light, the more volts. This moves a tiny needle on a meter inside the camera which selects between two shutter speeds and then picks the correct aperture setting. All this happens as you press the button down to take a shot. Amazing engineering. The lens is nice and sharp, but you have to make sure to set the distance to the subject before taking a shot. It uses 35mm film. I loaded mine with Kodak Gold 200 which works well.

I took it along when we went to Florida a while back. The snaps all came back in fine form, despite the camera having been through several X-Ray machines on its travels.

I really should learn to hold the camera straight.

Nice and sharo

It’s not a scratch, it’s a radio aerial

Universal studios looking good

A very imposing souvenir shop

All of my pictures came out with the correct exposure and plenty of detail. I had some prints made and these look lovely. If you’ve always fancied having a go with a film camera, but don’t want to break the bank, I can strongly recommend the Olympus Trip 35.

It’s a solid and stylish cameras with an all metal body. It is easy to load and use and the design was produced for many years, so there are lots out there. I’d rate it much more highly than the the few “new” 35mm cameras that you can buy which have cheap plastic lenses and not much going for them. The Olympus is great for street photography and travel stuff. You can put it on a tripod and it also works with an electronic flash. It has a lovely look to it (I think) and should prove reliable. If you can pick one up for around the price of a video game you could do a lot worse.

If you go to buy one, make sure to do the “Red Flag Test” before parting with your cash. Wind on the film, put the lens cap on (or cover the entire lens with your hand) and try to press the shutter button. If the light meter is working it will refuse to let you take a picture, with a red flag appearing in the viewfinder. Then, remove your hand (or take the lens cap off), point the camera at some light and press the button again. This time the shutter should spring into action. If it does, there is a good chance that the light meter is working OK. You can still take pictures if the light meter is broken, but you will have to select the aperture by hand and use the slower, 40th of a second shutter speed all the time.

Film photography is great fun. It was rather nice to get the pictures processed several weeks after we got back. And I love the colours.

Instax Evo Wide Walk in the Park

I took the Instax Wide Evo for a walk this morning. It’s fast becoming one of my favourite cameras. Not for the absolute quality of the output, but for what it does with the images it captures. There are 10 different lenses and colour filters. The shots above were taken with the radial black and white blur, summer colour profile and collodion process (which I rather like).

One thing I don’t like about the camera though is the “official” case I bought with it. This is a triumph of miss-design. It is hard to put on, easy to put on the wrong way, hard to take off and the leather finish feels far too easy to scratch. What’s more, it’s difficult to use the camera with the case on, and you have to take the case off (which is hard - see above) to charge the battery, get at the microSD card or put a new film in. I’ve just invested in a rather nice clear transparent one.

This looks like it will do a great job of protecting the camera from scratches while it is in a bag (although I need to get a screen protector for the back of the camera) but I do worry that the case might shatter if I drop the camera.

The Instax Wide Evo itself is a really engaging proposition. You don’t need to print your pictures (although they do look good when you do) and you can transfer them to your computer if you are prepared to fiddle around with the MicroSD card. It’s pricey for an instant camera, but as a creative device it is a much more enticing device.

Mamiya Press 23

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.

Fujica Half

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.

Minolta Vectis-S1

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:

1. It uses a type of film which is no longer made.

2. 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.