Instax Wide 300.

New toy. Yay.

This freakin’ thing is HUGE at 4″ deep, nearly 5″ tall, and 7 1/2″ wide. It weighs in at 1.62 lbs.

The pix are good sized, with the actual image 2 7/16″ tall x 3 7/8″ wide. The whole integral film packet is is 3 3/8″ x 4 1/4″.

I came with a snap-on close-up filter, but ~16″ is as close as it’ll let you get.

I opened the box, attached the strap, plugged in the batteries, then I burned through a 10-pack of the wide film walking around the house, garage, and yards.

Fun camera. It’ll take a little getting use to the heft, and framing with the viewfinder, but it does take pretty cool shots.

Vic’s addiction, Dead roses, Buddha, Lieve’s addition.

Discoveries.

Totally worthy.

It’s funny how sometimes you look at a picture (or 3) and dismiss them as not being worthy. They’re put in an envelope or box, stored away, and quickly forgotten.

I came across these three Instax Mini 8 shots just before the start of Fall ‘Roid Week. They were in a Instax Monochrome box on my desk, a box I hadn’t opened for who knows how long.

I shuffled through all the pictures and noticed these three under-exposed shots being somewhat similar. Interesting.

Only then did it dawn on me to group them as an abstract triptych.

I like the way they look together.

Argus Autronic I.

Broken beauty.

I was given this old Argus Autronic I by a friend, who tells me it belonged to to his dad.

It was produced between 1962-65. 50mm ƒ/2.8. For a 35mm camera it is huge. And it’s pretty heavy, weighing in at 2.77 lbs, including the fan-flash, half-case, and strap.

He also gave me the original manual, a bit tattered but intact.

First thing I did was open up the back, crank the film advance and checked to see of the shutter opened. It didn’t. I tried a few more times, could see the the shutter leaves moving, but no light was coming through. Bummer.

I’m gonna make a wooden stand for it, counter-sink a hole on the top of the stand to accomodate the case knob – so the camera sits flatly on top of the stand – and another hole on the bottom of the stand for a short 1/4-20 bolt/washer to secure it.

I’m thinking I’ll decopage/collage the manual pages to the stand and glue a chunk of felt to the bottom.

It’d be cool to find an old, unused M-base flash bulb, as I’d want to open up the fan-flash while on display and having a bulb in it would be a nice touch. I’ll check eBay.

Very cool.

New toy.

Rusty shutters #36.

Pinholaroid.

September 2008.

Modified Polaroid Colorpack II – 35mm @ ƒ/140. No batteries required!

After removing the lens and shutter, I lopped off a good portion the front, then fitted a neatly cut and trimmed piece of black ABS to cover the resulting hole. This made for a shorter distance to the film plane and a wide angle of view.

I measured for center, then drilled a 4/16″ hole through the front plate. The shutter and shutter-stops came next. I measured for the shutter location, drilled a pilot hole, then attached the shutter with a small brass screw, washer and nut. The stops were super-glued. Super-simple operation.

I cut a 3/4″ square piece of soda can and used a very small sewing needle and a sheet of binder paper folded up a bit and placed beneath it to punch the hole through the aluminum, slowly, sanding the back of the puncture to smooth it out. The pinhole is attached to the inside of the camera with gaffer tape.

I turned the camera upside down and added a viewfinder, using a simple 200 degree peep-hole from Home Depot. I used ABS for the viewfinder support, drilled a hole to accommodate the peep-hole and super-glued the bracket to the camera body. The viewfinder placement is dead center above the pinhole.

Having removed the original Colorpack II viewfinder – which is now on the bottom of the camera – I cut out 6 of pieces of ABS that mimicked the shape of the Manfrotto tripod mount I use, each slightly smaller than the next. I glued them together, then drilled a hole for a 1/4-20 sleeve to attach the Manfrotto mount.

In a stroke of good luck, the pattern on the ABS was a close match to that of the Colorpack II. I finished off the Pinholaroid by painting all the exposed ABS satin black.

A fun little project. I even have a decent stash of Fuji pack-film to use with this camera.

San Jose City Hall

Patriotism

Picture Day

White iron

Me

WPPD2020

#4, #4, #4.

Today is Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day.

I’m planning to get out with this guy – my 8Banners Mc – but it’s gonna be a bit of an adventure.

It has a roll of 120 film in it. The first roll I loaded actually, exactly 10 years ago.

The only clue I could find about which film I’d loaded was in a Flickr post for WPPD in 2010. The plan then was to shoot with the Mc, my Zero Image 6×9, plus a Polaroid Colorpack II I’d hacked into a pinhole. I noted that I was using Fuji film in all three.

Yup. As previously noted, there was a roll of Fuji Acros 100 in the Zero Image 6×9, and that leads me to believe the film in the Mc is the same. That roll in the Mc is on picture #4.

I’ll probably bring my Panny GF1/Pinwide combo, too. Just in case things go south with the Mc, I want to make sure I have something to show for the day.

It’ll be perfect weather for shooting ISO100, sunny and low 80s. I plan on avoiding people as much as possible and not wander too far from home.

Like I said, it should be an adventure.

Rusty shutters #35.

Diana Mini.

August 2009.

I already had a Diana 151 when the Lomography folks released this little guy, and I thought adding this 35mm camera to the collection could be fun.

It’s a cool toy that’ll shoot half-frame and square, but I keep it on the square setting.

Loading film is super-easy, and all the controls are quite similar to what you’d find on the Diana 151, so there’s zero learning curve.

I’ve run 3 rolls of Kodak film through it so far, BW400CN, Elite Chrome 100 (XPRO), and Gold 200. All three performed well.

Yet another film camera I need to put a little more effort into using.

Film type: 35mm
Shutter Speeds: ~1/60 – 1/100 sec
Aperture: ƒ/8, ƒ/11
Focal Length: 24mm
Viewfinder: Optical
Focusing: Manual/zone – ~2ft – infinity
Dimensions HWD: 2.8in x 4in x 2.4in

50¢

Studebaker

3 beauties

Lily

Green flames

Rusty shutters #34.

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 III.

May 2019.

I wanted to bring a few point-and-shoot cameras on our 2-week tour of Portugal and Spain last year, but they had to be small enough to fit in the awesome Peak Design Everyday Sling 5L.

The RX100III was one of three that made the trip.

I like this little shooter a lot. My fave parts are the flip-up LCD, the Zeiss 24-70mm ƒ/1.8 lens, and the lens ring. The macro’s not bad, either.

The camera’s menu system is just okay and the controls are nicely arranged, so using the camera is pretty much a breeze.

I like this little shooter a lot.

I don’t use the viewfinder. No real need. Plus it has the nasty habit of turning off the camera when pushed back into the body.

I added a tasteful Gariz half-case and – since I’m not a big fan of wrist straps – I use an extra neck strap I had, a super-thin Panny with plastic clip/nylon cord connectors. Works perfectly.

Great little digital camera.

Resolution: 20.1 megapixels
Max image size – 5472 x 3648
Display: Tilting 3in LCD @ 1,228,800 pixels
ISO: Auto, 125, 160, 200, 250, 320, 400, 500, 640, 800, 1000, 1250, 1600, 2000, 2500, 3200, 4000, 5000, 6400, 8000, 10000, 12800
Shutter Speeds: 30 sec – 1/2000 sec
Metering: Multi-segment, center-weighted, spot
Focal Length: 24-70mm
Macro: 1.97in
Dimensions WHD: 4in x 2.3in x 1.6in
Weight: 9.28 oz
Power: Sony NP-BX1 lithium-ion rechargeable battery
Memory card: SD/SDHC/SDXC

White Gerber

Unaware

1600

Ana

Agave

New Old Stock.

Quirky new addition.

This little guy arrived in the mail last week. It’s a Smena 8M. A Russian viewfinder camera.

An eBay purchase, it’s New Old Stock. Seriously. The box that showed up in the mail was sealed and unopened. They were manufactured from 1952 until the late 80s, but a little internet research reveals this one’s likely closer to the late 80s.

To call this thing quirky would be an understatement.

Full manual. 35mm. No battery. The shutter needs to be cocked before each shot.

The aperture ring – ƒ/16 to ƒ/4 – is inconvenient as hell, and loading and unloading film will be interesting because the rewind is a smaller-than-a-dime button with a serrated edge on top of the camera. No crank. The film take-up spool is loose.

It has shutter speeds from 1/8 to 1/250 second, or one can go by sunny to cloudy icons at the top of the lens barrel.

There are videos aplenty on YouTube, if you’re the curious type.

So, besides the Smena 8M, I’m down to about 20 cameras to document:

• Fujifilm Instax Square SQ6
• Diana Mini
• Shen-Hao HZX45-II
• Polaroid Land Camera Model 180
• Voigtlander Bessa I
• Minolta XG-1
• Minolta XG-7
• Polaroid Colorpack II
• Argus 520
• Debonair 120
• Pinholaroid (hacked Polaroid Colorpack II pinhole)
• Sprocket Rocket
• 8Banners Mc (pinhole)
• Zero Image 2000 (pinhole)
• Ondu 6×12 Multiformat (pinhole)
• Fujifilm XQ1
• Spartus Fullview
• Argus Argoflex
• Yashica-Mat 66

It’ll take a while to go through them all since they’re mostly old film cameras, but it’ll give me a chance – and excuse – to use up my film stash.

I’m pretty sure I’ll keep adding cameras to the list – because GAS – but putting these cameras through their paces will be my main focus for 2020-2021.

Take a few seconds and check out what I’ve put together so far over on @rustyshutters.

Around the world.

Well, kind of.

There’s always a story.

Back in mid-August I purchased one of the G3 Ondu 6×12 pinhole cameras.

I’d just missed the Kickstarter pre-order deadline, but the good folks at Ondu were kind enough to give the pre-launch price, even though it was my fault for letting the purchase linger in the shopping cart on their site. They actually reached out to me, which was nice.

The 6×12 arrived in around 3 weeks. It’s a beautiful piece of art.

About 3 days later, another box arrived. It was another 6×12. Not sure how that happened, but I reached out to them via email, telling them that I’d be happy to send it back if they covered shipping. They appreciated my honesty and gave me a mailing address. About a week later I finally got to the local post office and sent the package via mail.

I sent them a note with a picture of the receipt and Jessi at Ondu asked how to reimburse me. So cool.

I was waiting for word from them that the package had arrived, occasionally checking my PayPal account for evidence that it’d reached Slovenia.

Nothing.

Then right around Christmas the box I’d sent came back. For some unknown reason it was returned to me. So weird.

I waited a couple of weeks past the holiday to reach out via email to let them know what had happened, attaching a picture of the travel-worn package. I asked them in my note “I’m not sure what to do about this, folks. Any ideas?” and Elvis replied “… this camera just is meant to be yours. Lets not complicate things more.”

Now I have two Ondu 6×12 pinhole cameras.

Still deciding what I’ll do with it, keep it or gift it.