Wallace Koopmans Artlog

This may be the golden age of digital point and shoot cameras or it may be the amber ale age I’m still undecided.  At the top of this heap of little mighty cameras is the new Sony RX1.  It’s reached that peak by pairing a sensor equivalent in size to 35mm film with a fast 35mm focal length lens.  After a wander in the photographic wilderness it seems Sony has conjured the spirit of Minolta once again, likely before they slip back into the dark and we wonder where they went.  The stand out feature of the camera though is its price.  I don’t doubt that the price is closely related to the developement and production costs but $2799 buys a lot of consumables (Beer and film).  My tongue in cheek chart explains this as clearly as an unfiltered beer.  I have no doubt that the camera will actually produce quality images in the hands of competent photographers but then a good photographer would no matter what the camera is.  For disclosure one of my all time favourite cameras was the Sony DSC-V3 which I used for years and my primary SLR camera was a Minolta x700.

Other autofocus cameras with a full 35mm size frame and a 35mm lens that now cost less than 1% of a RX1  include; Pentax PC35AF, Canon AF35ML (OK it’s 40mm but it’s also f/1.9), Nikon L35AF, Olympus Stylus Epic.  I’m sure there are more but I think I’ve made my point and shoot.

A camera that’s more about style than function. I had hoped that its having a 35mm lens would put it on par with the lens of the Stylus Epic but that camera has an f2.8 maximum aperture vs the 3.5 of the LT-1. The epic is all around a better camera it just isn’t wrapped in a nice fake brown leather. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Some film shots from my Yashica GX in October 2012. Amoung the images is one of Copp’s shoes which will be closing at the end of December after 87 years.

When I got this instax mini it still had some film in it. Not being one to waste film I decided to shoot with it despite how obviously out of date the film was. So like leaves in the fall these pictures should be raked up and composted.

While not quite pocketable the combination of the Pentax Super Program and the M40 Pancake lens does make a relatively small package. I used some off brand film that was outdated by 6 years but it seems to be fine for this use and I made some extreme adjustments to the digital files anyway.

Other cameras in this small SLR class would be the Nikon FG and the Olympus OM-1 both alternatives having better direct exposure controls.

I don’t think I’ve ever come across a camera with less online information about it. It’s as if there was a cover up. Like Sigma wanted this camera and any information about it wiped off the face of the earth. I don’t blame them. When I first came across this camera the rubbery plastic it’s made from was all sticky I thought maybe that was a one-off but I’ve since found an even stickier Sigma Zoom 50 (that’s the almost identical camera with a 50 to 100mm lens) Once I rendered the camera holdable I needed to put a battery in it. Backing up just a little the camera appears rugged and perhaps weather resistant but far from it the battery door is the flimsiest loose plastic that is jammed by the carrying strap. Once you manage to get the battery in you can start the adventure. The lens is of the zoom variety covering 28 to 50mm with an undetermined aperture. It does have a nicely placed shutter button and an actual hotshoe, I needed to say something nice. I had a notion in my mind that as a lens manufacturer that this camera might have some promise as a wide-angle film option but the lens really isn’t designed to cover the entire frame of 35mm film. I can’t recall any camera having worse vingetting, not even the Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim with its 22mm lens. You don’t believe me well look at this……

No point crying I gave you ample warning. We tend to applaud and celebrate out of the box thinking but maybe just maybe sometimes you should keep a few ideas inside or ever to yourself. I challenge anyone reading this blog post to come up with the specifications for this camera, you will win my coveted admiration. and a mention in the update.

If you find a few of these images vaguely familiar it may be that you have previously seen my post about the Sigma DP1s which I used at the same time.

There are several reasons that the Fujica 35SE is a favorite of mine. The primary one is how you focus. As it is a rangefinder you determine focus using a focus patch in the center of the viewfinder as you would expect but the focus movement is done via a thumb-wheel on the back. This is both quicker and easier than using the left hand around the lens as is more common. and has the added benefit of freeing the left hand to just steady the camera in a comfortable grip, this can not be overstated.

The other is the results from the 45mm 1:2.8 lens. Other things that make this camera different are the film advance lever location on the bottom and the exposure system where a change in shutter speed changes the aperture correspondingly. There are other little touches that help to add up to make it more than the sum of those parts.

I used the camera attached to a long sliding strap where I allowed the camera to just hang upside down. This is actually the perfect camera to use like this because you can advance the film with one hand and then bring the camera up and focus with the same hand.

While I was out shooting on this day I had a Sony CS1 GPS attached to my camera bag tracking my movements.  There is a mix of my walking and some of my driving including when I forgot that it was still on and drove over the Cambie Street Bridge.

Much like the Canon Elph the Pentax efina T is a tiny little metal wonder. The Pentax has slightly more zoom range but gives up some light gathering ability with a slower lens. The image quality through the lens is surprisingly good but of course in the end it is APS film and it is quite grainy.

A nice feature of this camera is the large mode dial around the shutter, rather than poking at tiny little rubber buttons you can know with certainty how the camera is set.