Week 14 - Camera Phone (CotW)

"Seriously?", you say. Yes, seriously. This week (or 2... I stopped counting), I used my good old camera phone. Well, actually, it's a new phone. With a 5MP camera. I can download apps. Camera apps. But, it's not an iPhone. It's the Motorola Android. It's awesome, I love it. I bought an awesome camera app within the first hour of owning the thing. I sat in the parking lot playing with it. It's fun.

"What's so great about a camera phone with an app?", you ask. Well, it makes all my digital pictures look like they came out of a lovely fantastic plastic camera. I can include light leaks, square format, "fake" frame numbers when I "bleed" to the edge of the film, x-pro, polaroid frames... This list goes on and on. This lovely app is called, Vignette. And I'm in love (at least for a little while).

It will never replace my film, because, well... nothing in this world can replace film. But, it is a lovely little toy and I'm having fun. Isn't that what photography is all about?

My favorite, by far (and I love A LOT of them), is the one I took of my daughter swinging.

Week 13 - Lomography SuperSampler (CotW)

This week brought me back to play with another multi-lens single-frame camera, the Lomography SuperSampler. This camera's lenses take 4 mini-panoramas as opposed to the Quad-Cam's window like frames. I especially like this one of my daughter as I think it captures childhood perfectly. Just think of all the happy children you've seen splashing in a fountain...

Week 11 - Noblex Pro Sport (CotW)

It's nice to have friends with cool cameras. This (3) weeks' camera was the Noblex ProSport panoramic camera that my sister-in-law's very generous boyfriend loaned to me. After taking and entire roll of my fingers (because of the very wide angle lens), I figured out just how to hold the thing. It is a very heavy camera (I'm so used to plastic ones) and holding it with just 4 fingers (2 on top and 2 on bottom) seemed dangerous. (Don't worry Jerre, I had the strap around the wrist ALWAYS!) I did, however, get 2 rolls of film with absolutely NO fingers!

I still don't know why I shoot color film... Everything looks better in black and white. Of course, 9:30 isn't exactly the ideal time for good morning light either, so I guess I deserved that. And I still have to work on scanning cross-processed film, but those negs were pretty dark anyway.

I thought the Fredericksburg Battlefield would be a great place to really tryout the panoramas and I was not disappointed. However, I do need to go back again to get some shots with another camera (Holga) of a tree I absolutely fell in love with.



Week 12 - Lomography Supersampler

Week 10 - Seagull 4B-1 TLR (CotW)

If you follow my blog, you may remember my Technical Difficulties with my beloved Seagull TLR. Well, I decided to shoot with it anyway and just move until something in the frame was in focus!! It certainly exercised my creativity in composition. This weekend I will be heading to Dominion Camera to see if they can fix my baby...

Surprisingly, I have 2 favorites this week and I just couldn't decide which to post, so you get both.





After taking a Spring Break, CotW 11 continues this week featuring a Guest Camera, the Noblex SportPro Panoramic camera. It is on loan from the generous boyfriend of my sister-in-law. Woohoo for fun new cameras!

Week 9 - Yunon YN500 (CotW)

Well, this camera has again stumped me as to when or why it decides not to advance the film. I thought I figured it out after the first roll and was *extremely* careful to be aware of my fingers during the winding this time. Well, there they were random partial double-exposures.

I went to load the camera and since I hadn't used this camera in over a year (check out the last post on it... March 2009!), I had forgotten about the roll of film inside....oops again! The camera resets the film counter back to "S" when it is opened, so when I reached 24 on the counter (and I knew the roll inside was a 36 exposure) I was wondering why it wouldn't wind (except a click or so, enough to cock the shutter). So the last frame on the roll turned out to be 5+ exposures of my daughter, a beach, and some drift wood.



CotW 10 - The Seagull (which I know has film in it, I just wish I knew what speed)

Week 8 - Quad-Cam Gold (CotW)

This week's camera was my "new" Gold Quad-Cam, which is very similar to the Lomography ActionSampler. It has 4 lenses that fire consecutively so that you can capture 4 small frames of action on one 35mm film frame. Lomography once had an option of turning these types of images into "mini-movies" looping continuously through the 4 frames, but not anymore. This was the first ever roll through this camera for me and I was not disappointed. While out with this camera I had 2 different thoughts: Will this subject 1) make a good "mini-movie" OR 2) allow all four frames to work together as a single composition. So, I actually have TWO favorites from this week...

The Mini-Movie (painfully put together and artificially looped for 8 seconds of viewing pleasure):

The Single Composition (with 4 frames):


Currently shooting CotW 9 with my Yunon YN500

Week 7 - Holga WPC (CotW)

So, Week 7 came and went without a hitch. I only ran 1 roll of film through the WPC,which isn't a lot since it takes only 6 images on a roll! I do believe there was some kind of user error with the camera, because all but 2 images had this line where one side of the image was lighter than the other. I think it was the problem of not opening the shutter quick enough for the short exposure times (2-4 secs). I absolutely love this camera. It's a huge piece of black plastic, that makes beautiful pictures.



CotW 8 is using my new Gold Quad-Cam. Four pictures, one frame.

Week 6 - Golden Half (CotW)

I can't even begin to explain the elation I felt when I looked at this first roll of film from the Golden Half. It was amazing how long it took to take 48 images on a roll of film, when I can shoot hundreds of images on a digital camera without a thought. It's funny, how using a film camera makes me slow down and think about the image instead of just snapping away. Each frame is precious. From the first look at the negatives, this one really stood out. I am not happy about the reflections in the glass (I attempted to block them out), but this is definitely a window I will visit again real soon!



Week 7 Camera of the Week is the Holga WPC. The first roll is at the developer!

Week 5 - Pinhole Blender Mini 120 (CotW)

Well, week 5 of Camera of the Week got off to a bad start. After days and days of dark grey skies and snow, I finally took the Blender out for some fun. I also decided to shoot with a zone plate instead of the pinhole. Unfortunately, with the roll of film inside (ISO 400) and the aperture of f/64, the exposures were less than 1 second. That is quite difficult when your shutter is a piece of gaffer tape! There were light leaks on most of the roll caused by opening up the can and... OOPS ...finding a roll of film in there. The color on the roll wasn't very colorful, so I changed it to black and white... I definitely will take this out again in the spring!



This week's camera is the Golden Half Chelsea Maika edition. Stay tuned...

Week 4 - Holga (CotW)

The Holga never seems to disappoint, even when its handler is less than enthusiastic about the subjects it captures. Of course, this was the first week of the Snowpocalypse and snow was absolutely the only thing around. I finished off an old roll still in the camera, which had pictures that I had taken in Annapolis (during the warm summer light). I had a nice one of the old barn, but how many blog posts can one do on a barn that is just a lump of lumber? So, the selection of the week was from the roll of Ilford 3200 that was completely shot in the back yard during the snow.



The Week 5 CotW is the Pinhole Blender Mini 120. Since I have been literally snowed in for much of the week (and I could not stand to take any more pictures of snowy trees), I have extended it through this week. I hope to take it somewhere a little more inspirational...

Week 3 - Plastic Panoramic (CotW)

OK, I could finally get out of the house today and pick up my film from Richmond Camera. This roll was from the nameless 35mm panoramic camera I bought on eBay for $5 (including shipping). It is the most basic point & shoot camera (no controls at all) and ONLY takes panoramic pictures. Well, to my surprise every negative came out nicely exposed (however, not all were nicely composed). The real challenge came in cutting the negatives as there is maybe 2mm space between them.

There is also this odd looking light leak that occurs occasionally and with no obvious reason. I have 2 negatives that were taken in the same general direction within seconds of each other and one has a leak, the other does not. The lens does seem to be very fuzzy (maybe needs a good cleaning). And since it only cost $5, I won't mind taking it apart and checking out the insides. I may even be able to fix the image counter!

All in all, I was happy with this first roll. Here is my favorite of the bunch!



Hopefully, I will get my film back from my CotW 4 (Holga) in a few days. This week's camera is the Pinhole Blender Mini 120.

Week 2 - Agfa Clack (CotW)

So, week 2 (Jan 17-23) was spent with a camera I had not picked up (except to move out of the way) for almost 2 years! The Agfa Clack is a medium format camera that takes 6x9 cm negatives. Nice and BIG! Well, I finished the roll left in the camera (from 2 years ago) and one other roll. The rolls were color, but there is not much color in the world in the middle of January! And since I'm such a black and white junky, I had no problem turning the only picture worth sharing (out of 11, since 5 were taken 2 years ago)into a b&w beauty.


I think I am almost finished the roll in the nameless panoramic camera (the counter is broken!!). So, maybe I can get that to the lab this week!

Week 1 - P-Sharan (Camera of the Week)

The week of January 10-16 was the first week of my "Camera of the Week" challenge. Of course, it would happen that the P-Sharan was the first out of the bag (literally). That has been the camera that I've been using almost exclusively since I got her. Ah well, that was the chosen camera. Not too much exciting to talk about, except when I got that roll of film back, pressed it against the window of the van to see it better, my breath was taken away.... I am amazed EVERY time I unroll that film. Everything looks lovely through that pinhole...



I'm using the Agfa Clack this week... Stay tuned!