Nikon Pronea S - 52 Cameras, 52 Weeks

Week 9 camera is the Nikon Pronea S that I recently acquired from Ebay. It's an advanced photo system (APS) camera that uses APS film in cartridges that typically come in 25 exposures and sometimes 40 exposures. I used a cartridge of Kodak Advantix black and white 400 from a box of film that I've used previously and find to have a nice grain and contrast. I've tried this film in several different APS cameras and it's come out great in each of them. 

The Nikon Pronea S uses two 3 volt lithium ion batteries and automatically advances the film after each frame. It rewinds the film when reaching the end of the roll. The camera has an autofocus 30-60mm f1:4-5.6 lens and can use other nikon lenses.

It was a slightly rainy Sunday afternoon when I took the Nikon Pronea S out to shoot photos. I thought the 400 speed film would work on interior shots at the Civil War Museum in Gettysburg, but the shutter was too slow for hand-held shots in the low light of the museum. After visiting the museum, I drove over to the Evergreen Cemetery close by with the intention of getting photos of the monuments there. The Evergreen Cemetery is notable for being the burial place for Jennie Wade, the only civilian killed in the Battle of Gettysburg. I took a quick walk around the cemetery road as it was starting to drizzle, it was lightly raining by the time I got back to my car. I finished the roll with photos around the house using the flash of our pets and my son, Isaac.

Overall, the camera worked well, which was great as the Ebay listing said that it was untested. The Kodak Avantix film was developed and scanned by The Darkroom.

Nishika N8000 Quadra Lens 3D Camera - 52 Cameras, 52 Weeks

For this week's camera, I got out an old favorite of mine - the Nishika N8000 Quadra Lens 3D Camera. I had purchased it a few years ago from Amazon because it was such an unusual looking camera, and produced lenticular photos. Lenticular photos have the illusion of depth and appear to change or move when you tilt them back and forth.  I had hoped that it would still be possible to get lenticular prints made when I ordered the camera, but the lab that processed them was no longer in business, and there wasn't another one available at the time. A recent google search indicates that there is a lab that prints these types of photos, so that may be something worth checking into for future reference. 

Even though I wasn't able to get lenticular prints, I still liked the way the camera produced four almost identical photos from two frames, resulting in a total of 12 four frame photos for a roll of 24 exposures, or 17-18 four frame photos from a 36 exposure roll. Each photo is slightly different in that each one is shot at a slightly different angle through each of the four lenses. It's like the way that each of your eyes sees a slightly different angle if you close one or the other. This concept is also used when creating stereo cards that can be viewed with a stereoviewer to see a three-dimensional effect. There is a free software program available for Windows PCs that can create antique looking stereocards called StereoPhoto Maker. I have used this software previously with negatives from a Kodak Stereo Camera and other rolls of film I've shot with the Nishika N8000. I would create the stereocard and then upload it to Walmart Photo to have the stereocards printed, they worked great in my antique Holmes style stereoviewer.

Brenda and I decided to take a ride over to Gettysburg Battlefield to shoot the photos for this week. I thought some of the monuments would make good animated gifs and and the landscape would make interesting stereo cards. I also wanted to ride by the old Distelfink Restaurant outside Gettysburg, on old Route 15, to snap another photo of the aging sign, it has a very Pennsylvania Dutch design. The restaurant has been closed for a long while, a history of it can be found with an internet search.

For this week's roll of film, I used a 2002 expired roll of Kodak Portra 160NC film developed at home with a Unicolor C-41 kit purchased from the Film Photography Project store. The negatives were scanned with Epson V500 Photo flatbed scanner and some were converted to animated gif files in Photoshop.