A great thing about this little rangefinder is that it can be used completely manually, neither aperture or shutter need a battery to operate. I shot this entire roll without bothering to put a battery in it. This makes it easy to do creative metering that otherwise would cause a problem. For example I set a relatively fast shutter speed to capture the building with the neon where the exposure metering system of this or many other cameras would have caused over exposure in an attempt to expose all the darkness as if it were 18% grey. This is a great fixed lens camera and its ‘cult’ status is well-earned. The 40mm f1.7 6 element lens is a fantastic performer with very nice soft rendering of the out of focus areas.
I reached a point in my photographic series ‘Whalley’ that I felt warranted collecting into this book ‘Whalley – colour photographs’ . I took most of the 80 images included in the book over several weeks in the summer of 2013. The pictures were created using various cameras but all have that they were shot on colour film in common. Even though I limited myself to the neighbourhood of Whalley, in the larger City of Surrey BC, for this series the images themselves speak to the larger issue of change and location. It just happens that Whalley is undergoing the most concentrated transformation. Collectively the images provide a snapshot of the area at this liminal moment. It’s as if the neighbourhood is being willed into some new modern reality, even its name is being obscured by the usage of ‘City Center’ rather than the name ‘Whalley’. A name which carries many non positive connotations in the public perception. I know for me the name doesn’t conjur images of small homes overlooking the Fraser River, even though that exists too. My immediate reaction is to recall all the news stories of crime and drugs that I’ve heard repeatedly over many years. As the visual recorder of this location I try not to impart too much of my personal biases into the work but in reality that is an impossibility. The fact of my presence here already alludes to that. The mostly de-peopled pictures included in the book provide a certain distance between the viewer and the scenes much as if they were to walk around Whalley casting their gaze but never getting too close.
A: Because it was there, it’s a beautiful camera, it requires thought to use and I like the look of the results.
A significant difference with this camera is that the shutter release is operated with your left hand. That may sound awkward if your right-handed like me but it’s so good where it is that it’s hard to imagine it on the other, more common, side.
I’ve written about this camera on occasion so a search of my blog will provide some more examples and writings Voigtlander Bessa 46
The Olympus Trip AF mini is the third Amigo amoung my Leica Mini and the Minolta Freedom Escort. As I outlined before the three cameras share a lot of internal components Fraternal Twins. In fact when you look at the three with there backs open they are nearly idestinguishable. The Olympus and the Minolta appear to share the same 34mm lens while the Leica has a 35mm lens that has a different coating (Leica fairy dust)
Now more specifically this camera, the Olympus Trip AF mini has a 34mm f3.5 lens. I found it to produce vignetting on the order of one stop limited to the extreme corners. The lens is quite sharp though and without much distortion. The camera is incredibly light weight but easy to hold with its molded grip area. It has the same flash override as the others and suffers from the same slow startup where the lens extends out in a noisy slow motion mating display. Like the others though it produces results that are much beyond what their plastic shells would have you think.
I once again used my go to Pentax Z1p camera loading it with Fuji Superia film. I’ve included the picture of the lift truck despite the fact that I miss focused it, I was using the Vivitar 28mm close focus f2.0 lens. That just goes to show how difficult it is to focus manually in low light with a camera built for autofocus I thought I had it but clearly I did not.
My mistake its the Big Mini, a great little camera that fits neatly into a camera bag owing to its flat sides without any protuberances when turned off (I had to add that last part when I realized the picture I took of it had it’s lens sticking out). And it’s that lens that makes this camera one to have. I haven’t been disappointed yet when using this camera the exposures have been right on and the image quality great. More Konica Big Mini
I loaded some Kodak Portra 400 into my trusty Pentax Z1p and took it with me on a trip into the Cariboo region of British Columbia. I’ve always tried to stay away from using 400 ISO film in daylight but this is touted as being extremely fine-grained so I relented. Technical details can be seen in Kodak Technical Publication e4050 . The film was upgraded in 2010 using technology previously used in the Vision motion picture line of film but I don’t have any samples from the previous formulation to compare, the film in its current state though is incredibly versatile. It costs me about $8 per roll vs $5.50 for Ektar so with Ektar being yet even finer grained it’s not a replacement for that film. compared to Fuji Superia 400, Portra 400 has a much tighter grain and less colour mottling and seems to have a much smoother tonal range.
Here are a couple of 100% crops from the film so you can see for your self. The negatives were scanned at 3200 DPI and would provide 11×14″ prints at 300DPI. From a normal viewing distance the grain would be visible but not unpleasantly so. With a very slight amount of processing in Lightroom this grain could be greatly reduced if that is what you wanted, I don’t.
Here are more images I hope you enjoy. On a side note I refered to Kodak’s Vision film earlier and I’ve purchased 4 rolls of Cine Still Film 800 Tungsten which is motion picture film processed and packaged for still photography I’m really looking forward to trying it out.
The Nikon Zoom 300’s form was inspired when one of the designers dropped a bar of soap in the shower at Disneyland. I can’t prove that of course but everything points to it. It’s the shape and size of a bar of soap, the lens looks like it has Mickey Mouse ears and its slippery like a bar of soap. In addition I think they showered with the designer of the Canon Prima Mini who picked up the soap after it was dropped. Released in 1994 it is a relatively compact camera considering it’s 35-70 zoom lens rather than a fixed focal length. I can’t find any technical specifications for the lens but you can see that it has coatings that aren’t found on cheaper Nikons and it provides good results in the center of the frame with some coma distortion in the corners. There are a few over rides such as infinity focus and forced flash off which are in my opinion minimums when using this type of camera. The viewfinder though is a tiny little tunnel with a little light at the end of it, not a lot of fun to compose with. The final feature I will mention is that it has a lanyard on the side so it’s more ‘Soap on a Rope’ than Lux.
I tried out my first roll of Cine Still film on a whirlwind weekend in Gatineau Quebec. The film is Kodak Vision 3 Tungsten film that has been prepared and loaded for use in 35mm still cameras. Unfortunately through several issues many of the frames are quite under exposed. Im not trying to make excuses but it is something to learn from. I used my Pentax Super Program which doesn’t meter that accurately in such low light and turned out to have the issue of the self timer not working. The thin underexposed frames resulted in extremely grainy pictures with little detail in the mid tones. When there was sufficient light though the results were very good with lots of detail from dark to bright and reasonably fine grain especially for ISO800 film. As it is Tungsten film designed for use under light with a colour temperature of around 3200degrees I used an 85B filter to correct for daylight, however it was also easy to correct for the colour balance during scanning making the filter possibly unnecessary. As I initially said it was a whirlwind tour with only a brief amount of time mostly at night in very low light and rain, but hopefully I can take what I’ve learned about this film and make some improvements with my next roll.
As a final note on order for the film to be developed with standard C41 Processing Cine Still Film removes the anti-halation rem-jet backing from the film prior to packaging. The absence of this backing results in an interesting halo effect around light sources.
