Lomo'Instant Wide Camera At Lake Marburg

I really wanted to get out yesterday and shoot some instant photos with my newest instant camera, the Lomo'Instant Wide. I've haven't shot with it extensively to get a feel for the camera and I thought I could try using the close-up lens and the Lomography Splitzer. I had also packed two other cameras, my Holga WPC 120 and my handy Pentax Q10 mirrorless camera. I spent a good bit of time by the lakeside trying to capture some detailed photos of the shore debris and made a few mistakes, but that's how you learn the camera. I also took a walk out on one of the horse riding trails as there weren't any riders on such a chilly day. There's an area along the trail thick with tall needle-less pine trees that I've wanted to get back to take some photos. Here are a few samples from the afternoon.

Polaroid Spirit 600 - 52 Cameras, 52 Weeks

Week 7 - Polaroid Spirit 600 Camera with expired Impossible Project Color Block Film. Another Polaroid camera that I've had in my collection but never used, I believe my wife's sister found it in her closet and gave it to me when she saw how much I liked collecting cameras. I wasn't sure that it worked, but I tested it with an empty Impossible Project film cartridge and the camera whirred into action. I had bought the expired Color Block film from ebay sometime in the past year, so I wasn't sure that was going to work at all either.

The Polaroid Spirit 600 camera has a built in flash, which was one of the reasons I chose it for this week, as I was planning to shoot indoors. It has a plastic fixed focus lens with a minimum focusing distance of about 4 feet. There is also an exposure compensation slider on the front. There were many variations on this same basic camera made in the 1980's and 1990's like the Polaroid Sun, Polaroid SuperColor, Polaroid Camel, etc.

It was really cold outside over the weekend and I wasn't about to go out around town and try to get photos with an instant film camera. I shot a few photos around the house of ordinary things, though the unicycle is a bit unique. My son has built and rebuilt that unicycle over the years, he doesn't ride it as much as he used to but it still commands a space in our dining room for when he feels like trying a few tricks in the alley beside our house. We went grocery shopping in the beginning of the week when it warmed up a little and I stashed the camera in my bag with the intention of grabbing a few shots around the grocery store. The cashier asked why I was taking a photo of the flower display near the register and I explained that I was working on a photography project. She asked what class I was taking and I explained further that I collected cameras and I was posting my photos to my website on a weekly basis. I guess it's not everyday a customer comes in the store with a Polaroid camera shooting photos of the canned food display.

Bonus Camera for 52 Cameras, 52 Weeks - Holga WPC 120

A bonus camera for my 52 Cameras project this week - with my birthday cash, I ordered a Holga WPC 120 Camera that I had been wanting to get for a couple of years. I thought I should get one soon as I wasn't sure how long they would still be available at a reasonable price. I bought one from Lomography's online store seeing they still had them in stock at a much lower price than other places where it was still available. I thought I would try another roll of the 2002 expired Kodak Portra 160NC in it and brought it along this past Sunday when we went to Codorus State Park and Glen Rock, PA. The camera is capable of shooting 6x9 or 6x12 photos with two interchangeable masks and has an f/135 pinhole, requiring the use of a tripod and a shutter release cable. I have been very impressed with the ultra wide photos that can be achieved with this camera, with some great examples being found on Flickr. After finally shooting with it myself, I can see that I need to try to come up with more interesting angles and subject matter and get in closer. Next time I will use my old standby, Shanghai GP3 100 Pan film developed in caffenol. 

Film developed in Unicolor C-41 Kit purchased from Film Photography Project store and scanned with Epson V500 Photo.

Imperial Mark XII Flash - 52 Cameras

For week six of 52 Cameras - 52 Weeks, I have a camera that's been on my shelf for a very long time, the Imperial Mark XII 620 film camera. It is a plastic camera made in the 1950's by the Herbert-George Co. in Chicago and was made in various colors. It makes 6x6 photographs using a fixed-focus, single shutter speed, single aperture lens. I respooled Lomography Redscale 100 film as, according to a blog post I read on the Film Photography Project website, February is Redscale Film month. I found that shooting with redscale film with this camera requires lots of light, best to shoot with plentiful sunshine to get the best photos. I shot a few of the photos of favorite subjects on my daily commute home from my job in Baltimore, MD. The Prettyboy Dam is not too far off my journey home, I've made a quick side trip there on many occasions to snap photos with other cameras. The daylight was running out on the day I was there, and the photos I shot didn't turn out as well as they could have. I also have a favorite cemetery angel that is along the roadway at a country church that I pass each day, she has been the subject of many camera and film tests over the years.

For the remainder of the photos, Brenda and I packed a backpack picnic and headed out to Codorus State Park on Sunday with the intention of hiking the La Ho Trail around Lake Marburg, but upon arriving we thought the better of it with the muddy conditions from the recent snow melt. We ate our backpack picnic  by the lake and then drove out to Glen Rock, PA to grab some photos of the town. There is also a place called Ruins Hall with lots of graffiti that I saw previously when we rode through Glen Rock on the Steam Into History train from New Freedom, PA. 

The film was processed using a Unicolor C-41 kit from the Film Photography Project store and scanned with Epson V500 Photo.

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.

No. 1A Autographic Kodak Jr - 52 Cameras

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I dug out a nifty old No. 1A Autographic Kodak Jr. 116 film camera from my collection for this week's featured camera. The model I have is one that was manufactured in the 1920's and features an f7.9 lens with Time, Bulb, 25 and 50 shutter speeds. The focusing range is from 6 feet to 100 feet with a maximum f-stop of 45. The camera is in great condition and I checked it over fully before researching what I might need to do to get it to work with 120 film. I found several postings online and a youtube video of a hack using zip ties positioned at one end of the 116 spools to better fit the 120 film. This creates five photos from one roll of film, though I made a mistake when counting the frames which caused the first two shots to overlap. I also experienced light leaks in the last two frames, probably because the film was not wound tightly enough at the end of the spool. 

I thought it would be neat to get a few photos of the aftermath of the huge snowstorm we had last weekend, but I didn't really see any interesting photo opportunities when we walked around town last Sunday. I wound up shooting a couple of portrait photos of Brenda in my studio for the last few shots on the roll. I developed the film in Caffenol C - I've had good results from the recipe that I found on the Photojojo website a couple of years ago when I first started developing my own film. The process is to mix 4 3/4 teaspoons of super washing soda in 9 ounces of room temperature water and combine it with 7 1/2 teaspoons of instant coffee and 3/4 teaspoon of vitamin C powder mixed with 9 ounces of water. I develop for 9 minutes, use a water stop bath, and fix for 5 minutes. I use the cheapest instant coffee I can get, usually at the Dollar Tree. It seems to work really well with the Shanghai GP3 100 pan film that I buy from ebay to test out the cameras in my collection. Scanning was done on Epson V500 photo.

HolgaGlo 120N with Expired Kodak Portra 160NC - 52 Cameras

For week 3 of 52 Cameras, 52 Weeks, we have the HolgaGlo 120N with expired Kodak Portra 160NC. I had recently been given the expired Kodak Portra 160NC by a close friend after he found it an old darkroom, he thought I might want to try it out to see what I would get with it. I have used the HolgaGlo 120N in my collection before, but only once to shoot a roll of Shanghai GP3 100 black and white film to try it out after I first bought it. I wanted to use color film in the camera, which I developed with a new Unicolor C-41 home developing kit that I bought from the Film Photography Project Store. This is my third kit, I've had good results from the previous kits, but my last one was greatly expired, time for a new kit.

For this week's roll of film, we took a trip down to the Conowingo Dam on the Susquehanna River on the border of Cecil and Harford Counties, Maryland. The Conowingo Dam is known for it's winter Bald Eagle population, as the birds come here to feed off the abundance of fish that are released through the turbines of the dam at times, which according to the visitor center hostess, the eagles anticipate when the warning lights start to flash. I wasn't really thinking that I would capture a Bald Eagle photo on my Holga camera, I just thought it would be fun to take a few shots of the dam and maybe a few things along the drive there and back. The weather was perfect, sunny and not too cold. We packed a picnic lunch, our cameras and binoculars, and had an enjoyable couple of hours watching the birds and talking to fellow photographers while we were there. A nice couple told us about the visitor center, so we stopped in and had a very informative conversation with the visitor center hostess about the construction and history of the dam and surrounding areas, as well as information about the Bald Eagle population.

Back to the Holga - In addition to the Conowingo photos, I also tried a few photos with a flash. I enjoy shooting with it, I just need to remember to set the focus before I take a shot. The film came out pretty nice, some color shifting and blue vignetting, but overall I like the color in these. I had shot another roll of this film with the HolgaGlo at Gettysburg, but that's not in this week's post, you'll have to check out my Flickr page to see those shots.

Kodak Brownie Holiday Flash - 52 Cameras

I'm in the second week of my 52 Cameras project for 2016, and this week's camera is the Kodak Brownie Holiday Flash. The Holiday Flash uses 127 roll film and produces 8 photographs per roll. It's a bakelite camera with a Dakon lens that was produced from the mid 1950's to the early 1960's. I knew that I would need a bright sunny day to get good results from the camera and film that I was using - Rera Pan 100 film that I bought from Freestyle Photo last summer. The overcast, rainy weekend weather didn't look too promising for getting out to shoot, so I said to my wife on Sunday, "today looks like a good day to stay in my pajamas and work in my studio." She thought she would do the same and work in her sewing room. After taking a lunchtime nap, I woke up to see that the sun was glaring and I quickly got dressed and packed my camera bag to take a walk around town. It was good to get out for a walk even though it was chilly outside, the sun felt good. I had an idea of the some of the places where I wanted to take photos, so I headed in that direction. I thought it would be pretty easy to compose 8 shots on the route I was planning, but on my way to a spot that I'd thought about photographing before, the wind gusted and in came a blasting shower of sleet then rain. I quickly walked to an awning over a store entrance and texted my wife and asked her if she could come pick me up. I was soaked and had only been able to shoot 5 photos. I went home and changed into some fresh pajamas for the rest of the day. I did finish shooting the roll on Monday on my lunch hour and developed the film later that night. The finished negatives were scanned on Epson V500 Photo.

2016 Film Project - 52 Cameras, 52 rolls

Thinking about what creative projects I might want to try in 2016, and considering my longstanding goal of shooting a roll or pack of film in every camera in my collection that I'm able to (I have over a hundred cameras), I've decided to attempt a 52 week project for 2016. My goal will be to use a different camera from my collection each week and shoot a roll or pack of film for that camera depending on the film type. I have a range of film cameras to choose from that I can decide which camera each week depending on the weather or what might be going on in my life that week (pinhole photo day, polaroid week, vacation, etc.). Some of the cameras use film that is no longer manufactured or hard to come by (116/616 cameras), so I will try to use another size film like 120 film respooled onto 116/616 rolls or even shooting 35mm sprocket photos. I will mostly be developing my own film when possible and posting the results on my blog. To start off my 52 Cameras project, I have a Miniature Remington 127 roll film camera that I've had for many years, but never used. It's a bakelite camera manufactured in Chicago, Illinois sometime in the mid-twentieth century. It has dual red film windows on the back which enables 16 vertical half frame photos on a roll of 127 size film. It has two shutter modes, instant and time. I checked over the camera to make sure the shutter was working and for the most part it's basically a point and shoot camera. The problem I had was that while I was shooting with it, one of the red film windows on the back of the camera came loose and was letting in light to the back of the camera. I quickly put it in my camera bag and when I got home I covered the hole with black electrical tape and decided to continue shooting with it but would only be able to get 8 photos instead of 16. I used Rera Pan 100 film developed in Arista Black and White film developer and scanned on Epson V500 photo. Most of the roll was shot on a lunch time walk to the post office with a co-worker in Baltimore. I was pleasantly surprised that I did get 8 photos after developing the roll, though there were some light leaks. But my goal here was to get something out of a camera and roll of film each week, so first week down for 2016!

My First Holga - HolgaGlo 120n

I've had getting a Holga camera on my list of cameras to get for a long time now and I promptly ordered a bright green HolgaGlo 120n when I heard that the Holga factory had ceased operations. I've also had a Holga WPC pinhole camera on my ebay wish list for some time and hopefully I can find one of those in the next few weeks to add to my pinhole camera collection. These photographs are from the first roll I shot in the new Holga with Shanghai GP3 100 Pan film. I developed the roll in the usual caffenol concoction in the kitchen sink and scanned the negatives with my Epson V500 Photo. My favorite one is the first photo I made, an accidental double exposure in Mount Vernon, Baltimore of the Washington Monument. I also accidentally made a double exposure of a cool VW Bus and our Lava Lamp, they kind of go together though. I'm hoping to get out and shoot a couple of rolls with it on my upcoming Christmas vacation with some recently acquired expired Kodak Portra 160NC.