Wallace Koopmans Artlog

Most cameras have a mechanism to ensure that the film is advanced to the next frame before you can release the shutter again, what a shame.  Yes that helps to make sure you don’t get a double exposure of a squirrel on your favourite aunt’s head but it prevents experimentation of multiple images stretched across the film.  Enter the Konica 1 to save the day and put that squirrel right where it belongs and provide the ability to trip that shutter as many times as you want, film advance or not.  My favourite thing to do with the Konica 1 is to take a picture then advance the film only partially and then take another each time panning from left to right.  Going from left to right is important because the image is recorded upside down and backwards on the film (That’s how lenses work).  The result is something like this.

And the other thing I like to do is take multiple exposures therefore collecting the light from different times all onto the same image.  Like this one which represent a short drive.

More experimentations with the Konica 1 can be seen here  Multiple Exposures and Multiclick

Simple is the word I would use to describe the Chinon CM-4s but in no way do I mean that as a (warning bad photography puns) negative rather it’s quite the positive. The shutter and aperture are completely mechanical and require the photographer to set them. The exposure meter display consists of three LEDs red ones for over and under exposure and one green one for correct exposure. What could be simpler this side of automatic exposure? In operation you can choose a shutter speed or an aperture and vary the other one to get the correct exposure, that’s when the green light comes on, or you can disregard the exposure as you like.
In addition I took many of the pictures on this roll using a simple flash, the Pentax AF160 for fill light. Some results where better than others. With this and other simple auto flashes you set them for a certain auto range and look on the chart to see what aperture you should use for the film speed. If you want to balance the flash to ambient light you can select a shutter speed anywhere from the minimum up to the cameras flash sync speed which is 1/60 sec for the Chinon.

The CM-4s uses the same K-mount as manual focus Pentax SLRs and mine has the Chinon 50mm f1.9 lens on it. The camera operates much like a Pentax K1000 while being smaller and lighter like a Pentax ME.

Here it comes I’m about to tell you how good a performer it is and how much I liked its light weight, …done. Yes I have met a camera I didn’t like its just not this one.