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)

First roll from the Yunon...

I'm decently pleased with my new Yunon YN500 since every image came out perfectly exposed. I shot a 100 speed Fuji B&W film (the name escapes me and I'm not running down in the basement darkroom to find out, it's cold down there!). The only issue is that occasionally it only partially wound the film. It happened 3 times on the roll and seemed to occur randomly. So, I had a look. Well, since it is completely manual, it has this nice little button under the right-ish side of the camera to be used while only rewinding the exposed roll. It is a perfect place for someone's thumb while using the camera because it is aligned with the shutter button. So, apparently, I was occasionally pushing the button while advancing the film which, of course, caused the film to only partially wind and I got lots of junk. No happy accidents. Unfortunately, it also caused a partial double exposure of my favorite image on the roll, which I thought would have been better with out it. Luckily I could do a little dodge & burn in photoshop to lessen the effect, but you can still see a little of the ghost frame. The good thing about this??? I've got a sure way to do double exposures on this thing. So, I suppose I did get a happy accident, even if it was a discovery and not an image. Boy, did I ramble....

Someone stop me now...

Yes, I bought another camera...

Yesterday, while waiting to pick up Alexis from school, I took a little stroll downtown Fredericksburg. Anyone that's been downtown knows that it is not short of antique stores. Not being one for antiques, I never have gone in any of them. Well, after reading blogs of people that go out to these strange stores and find great deals on old/weird/fun/cool cameras, I had to try it myself. Well, the second store that I went into had an entire case full of old Kodak cameras (brownies, instamatics, etc) as cheap as $3 each and were in great condition. Well, I'm really not into buying cameras when the film is nearly impossible to find (i.e. 620, 126, 127, 110), so I passed them all up. Well, there was this one very oddly named camera that looked like a very small SLR. So, I asked to see it. It was, in fact, a 35mm plastic camera called a Yunon YN500 from Taiwan. I've never heard of one and I've not found any good info online. Well, this one is perfectly clean, with strap, case, & instructions. The coolest thing about it is that there are 4 apertures on the lens with the pretty pictures (clouds, partial clouds, "shiny", bright sun) that correspond to the following numbers on the other side of the lens (6,8,11,16). There is only one shutter speed, however, and no bulb. There was already a roll a film in it that I can't wait to finish and see what surprises this holds. Oh, and it was only $6.40 after the 20% Valentine's sale! :)

Isn't she a beauty???