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

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.

Rusty shutters #33.

Polaroid SX-70 SE Sonar OneStep.

October 2007.

This blue-button SX-70 – that’s why it has “SE” as part of the camera’s name, maybe – was purchased at the San Jose Photofair.

Sadly, I no longer have this camera. It started to produce a series of 4 small, fuzzy, and bright yellowish dots vertically just off-center left. Don’t know why or how that began, but I stopped using it altogether about a year after I got it.

I got some great shots with it before its demise, though.

I did a slight variation of Adrian Hanft’s hack

Auto focus was pretty cool. I was able to use a bit of my 600 film stash, too. At the time 600 film was still available and I would snag 5-packs at Costco for around $40 US, as I recall. A good deal.

To use that film in the Sonar OneStep, I did a slight variation of Adrian Hanft’s hack, which involved just removing the ND filter over the photocell and turning the light/dark dial all the way to dark for each shot. It worked well.

Body: Black plastic with brown vinyl porvair
Focusing: Split-image rangefinder. manual or autofocus
Lens: 4-element 116mm glass
Manual focus: 10.4 inches – infinity
Shutter: Electronic
Shutter speeds: 1/180th to 14 seconds
Aperture range: f/8 – f/74
Dimensions: DWH 6.49in x 3.93in x 1.77in

Cowgirl boots

Marek

Grate|Ripples

Nicki

89

Because one is never enough.

My light meter collection.

Left-to-right: Minolta Spotmeter F (newest, as recently posted), Minolta Auto Meter IV F, (I’ve had this one the longest), Gossen Luna Pro (yard sale find), Sekonic Flashmate L-308s, Sekonic Twinmate L-208.

After posting about the Spotmeter F, I thought to round up all my meters and document yet another of my many photographic obsessions.

All these meters were purchased for use when shooting film.

I bought the Minolta Auto Meter IV F back in the mid-90s, not long after it was released. Great little incident meter. If memory serves, I bought it at Keeble & Shuchat Photography in Palo Alto, CA.

The Luna Pro was part of a bunch of gear and expired film I purchased at an estate sale in Sunnyvale, CA. for US $22.50. Not bad, and it works.

The L-308 was added in June 2009. Another nice incident meter, a little smaller than the Auto Meter IV F.

I bought the tiny L-208 in August 2008.

All four incident meters can be used as spot meters, too. Just move the white globe out of the way of the sensor and point towards the subject.

 

Bom dia. Buenos días.

Vámonos!

Torri n’me recently took a two-week tour of Portugal and Spain. We had great weather throughout the trip and everywhere we went the food was really good.

13 cities in 13 days. A whirlwind.

Lisbon. Sintra. Cascais. Evora. Merida. Seville. Jerez. Gibraltar. Marbella. Ronda. Granada. Toledo. Madrid.

13 cities in 13 days. A whirlwind.

It was jam-packed with all sorts of activities and city-by-city tours. We visited historic palaces, cathedrals, and synagogues. We saw Roman ruins, Muslim and Catholic architecture. Took a horse and carriage ride. We witnessed a Flamenco performance. We had a guided tour of an equestrian school. We even sampled Port and Sherry in two different cites.

My last-day favorite was a slow, lengthy stroll through the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum, where art that I’d only seen in history books was right in front of me. Awesome.

I brought along three cameras – The Panny LX100, Olympus XZ-2, Sony RX100m3 – and my iPhone 8. Talk about an extended photo stroll!

We had a great time.

I put together an album on Flickr with all my fave shots. Take a peek…

Roman columns, Evora

Street lamp, Madrid

Las Setas, Seville

La Mezquita silhouette, Cordoba

Tile, Alhambra Palace, Granada

A slight breeze, Lisbon

Shop girl waiting, Toledo

New shoes, Jerez

Angel, Evora

Watching, Jerez

Stained glass, La Mezquita, Cordoba

Flamenco, Granada

Ornate, Coach Museum, Lisbon

Palace ceiling, Sintra

Yellow Hibiscus, Marbella

Cherub, La Mezquita, Cordoba

Every once in a great while.

Not often, but…

Every once in a while an image I’ve made gets a little attention.

One of my pinhole images was published in SHOTS Magazine, Fall 2019 Issue No. 145 “The Journey.”

It’s 35/45, the picture I made with the Zero Image 6×9 and an expired roll of Fuji Acros 100. The story of this pinhole adventure/experiment is well documented in an earlier post.

I pointed to the same same post when I uploaded the image to Flickr.

To my delight, the picture in that post ended up on Flickr’s Explore, which is something that hasn’t happened for my work in a really long time.

I noticed it earlier this month. Any comments on Flickr are rare these days and the notification made me check it out. At the time there were 58 faves. Crazy. The comments indicated the picture made Explore.

I went there, scrolled through until I found the image. Verification! Pretty cool!

As of today “35/45. a little experiment” has 9,121 views, 75 faves, and 4 comments.

Amazing.

I make images to satisfy a personal need, but it certainly is nice to have this kind of reaction to my work. And I appreciate it.

Rusty shutters #20.

Polaroid SX-70 Model 2.

November 2008.

I’d won an SX-70 SE Sonar OneStep (with a blue button) on eBay around a year earlier. It was working pretty well but after a good amount of use, 4-5 evenly spaced white spots started to show up in the pictures I was taking, lined up vertically and slightly left-of-center. A real bummer.

Looking for a replacement, I won this Model 2 on eBay.

It was in really good shape. The plastic was clean, and the porvair was spotless. And everything worked. I was using the Hanft-hack so I could use a few packs of my 600 stash.

I still have it. The porviar has degraded pretty badly over the years, but the camera still works.

When I went to fetch the camera for the product shot, I noticed there was an empty 600 pack in it. When I pressed the shutter – amazingly enough – the camera went through all the motions. Those batteries are incredible.

I have a few packs of 600 film left… I better get to taking pictures before my luck runs out!

Body: White plastic with brown vinyl porvair
Focusing: Split-image rangefinder
Lens: 4-element 116mm glass
Manual focus: 10.4 inches – infinity
Shutter: Electronic
Shutter speeds: 1/175th to 14 seconds
Aperture range: f/8 – f/22
Dimensions: DWH 6.89in x 3.93in x .98in

Giraffe

Molly

Hoody

Scotty

White rod

Lensless.

x 3.

I recently added the ONDU 6×12 Multiformat pinhole camera to my pinhole camera collection.

Nice little box. I got the walnut version. It is so pretty.

I also have the 8Banners MC and Zero Image 2000 6×9 pinholes.

I’ll use the 8Banners for 6×6 and keep the other two at their intended format.

I found an inexpensive padded insert on Amazon that has handles and a hook-and-loop attached lid with a zippered pouch, perfect for storing a yellow filter for the ONDU and a shutter release cable for the Zero Image.

It came with a pair of padded dividers, to help keep the cameras separate. Nifty find.

Each camera has its own Manfrotto 785PL Quick Release Plate, used with the awesome 785B Modo tripod.

I also put together and printed a separate exposure chart for each box using Mr. Pinhole’s Pinhole Camera Exposure Guide. A very useful resource.

I’ll get out with these boxes in a couple of weeks, most likely shooting B&W for a while so I can tank develop at home. I’ll shoot color, too.

Should be fun.

Rusty shutters #19.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX100

January 2015.

Hands down, my favorite camera. I pretty much exclusively used this little guy up until its demise – the dreaded dusty sensor problem – earlier this year, and then replaced it with the same model, a NOS box directly from Panasonic.

Other than that, this shooter is just amazing.

I have the LX5. Skipped the LX7. When the LX100 came out I was immediately impressed by the fact that it had controls for manual operation on the outside of the camera, an aperture ring on the lens plus aspect ratio, shutter speeds and exposure compensation with the shutter release nestled neatly between them on top of the camera. The back of the camera is just as tidy.

The Leica ƒ/1.7 glass was an added bonus. Sharp. Plus it uses a 4/3 sensor. Huge.

I made some of my favorite pictures with this camera. Love the in-camera effects. Toy Pop, Dynamic Monochrome, and Rough Monochrome are super cool.

The LX100 is just a pleasure to use.

Resolution: 12.7 megapixels
Max image size – 4112 x 3088
Display: Fixed 3in LCD @ 460,000 pixels
ISO: Auto, 160, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400, 12800, 25600
Shutter Speeds: 60 sec – 1/4000 sec
Metering: Multi-segment, center-weighted, spot
Dimensions WHD: 4.53in x 2.6in x 2.17in
Weight: 13.9 oz
Power: Lithium-ion rechargeable battery
Memory card: SD/SDHC/SDXC

After the rain

Ottoman

Gary

Orange Ranunculus

Barbara’s room

Rusty shutters #18.

Diana 151.

May 2006.

Lots of folks were using toy cameras around that time. There were a couple of Flickr contacts whose Diana 151 work convinced me to find one on eBay.

I seem to recall the price wasn’t too high, maybe US $40 at the time.

I haven’t run a whole lot of film through it, but this particular camera has a decent lens that’s true to the prescribed focus lengths, plus it came with a weathered manual, and a lens cap. I don’t know what happened to the original box.

To eliminate light leaks, I’ve made small removable flaps using gaffer’s to cover the red picture number window and the latch at the bottom of the camera back.

These cameras make the most magical images. Check out Nancy Rexroth’s work.

I’ll be getting out with this little gem again in the near future.

Film type: 120
Exposures: 16 @ 4×4
Shutter Speeds: ~1/50 – 1/100 sec
Aperture: ƒ/11, ƒ/13, ƒ/19
Focal Length: ~60mm
Viewfinder: Optical
Focusing: Manual/zone – 4-6 ft, 6-12 ft, 12 – infinity
Dimensions: 5.3in x 3.7in x 6.8in

Emily

Lamp

Around town

Airplane

’61 Chevy wagon