alexteltevskiy

[alexteltevskiy]

Why I take photos

Hey everyone, how’s it going?

I’m back. Been taking a break from social media this past year. Recently moved to SoCal from Chicago and was busy settling in. Also, I took this time to step back and look at where I’ve been and where I want to go with my photography, as well as how I present it online.

I’ve got a lot of fun new content planned and will slowly start rolling it out. Meanwhile, to make up for my lack of updates, this post is chock-full of awesome photos and interesting thoughts on photography. Climb aboard and enjoy the ride!

Throughout this past year I continued taking photos, but I left social media entirely, feeling that it was becoming a bit too much. Too much of a time investment and mental drain, researching & following, using all those silly hash tags… Too much attention being eaten up by a constant bombardment with a never-ending flow of imagery. Too much bots, too much spam & too much noise. Too much “for the likes”. Too much stuff I couldn’t care to care about anymore. Instant gratification and desensitization were the new norm. Even the quality stuff didn’t matter anymore. I knew it was time to jump ship.

But I did miss the things that were actually good about it. There weren’t that many, but still… I knew that it was only a matter of time before I plugged back in again. And… here I am. Meanwhile, my sabbatical allowed me the luxury to think about my photography from the ground up, and think I did. In this post I’d like to share with you some of the fruits of all that thinking: I’d like to share with you the 10 reasons why I take photos.

1. Exploration & adventure

Photography allows me to explore new, unfamiliar places, as well as see the old and familiar places in new light, over and over again. Back in the olden days I used to call it a “Passport to adventure” (pardon the cheese). And I still feel that way.

Nothing else gets me out the door as quickly as a camera and a fresh new roll of film, and not much enriches a life more than travel.

2. Meeting people

Meeting new people is always fun. It’s a life-enriching experience and helps one feel connected to the greater world. It’s not always easy to connect with strangers on the street, but a camera usually helps break the ice in more ways than one.

Since many of my interests lie in old mechanical objects, having a vintage camera with me actually sparks a lot of conversations to happen entirely by themselves. And at the end of the day, 9 out of 10 people actually feel honored to be able to tell their story and have their picture taken.

3. Family and friends

I don’t need 691 snapshots of what we ate for breakfast every year. I need just a few quality photos that are engineered to stand the test of time and will always bring back the fondest of memories spent with my family and friends.

Quality photography, where I put in the time and effort to make each shot count (ahem, film, not pointing fingers, ahem). It’s rewarding and it makes my relationships feel that much more special (sorry for the sentimental cheese).

4. Recording milestones

Speaking of family and friends, the moments that we cherish most are the ones that deserve their own dedicated photo shoot. Being a photographer transcends into being a historian and keeper of family history and even tradition.

“Production values” are high, trips are planned, adventures are had and lasting memories are made. Photos serve as testament to us and the big advancements in our lives - a big move, getting married, having children…

5. Fueling curiosity

To be curious is to be human. It’s what defines us as a race that’s able to advance and grow. There would be no fire, no wheel, no semiconductor and no landing on the moon and (gasp) no Instagram.

Taking photos for me is a continuation of that fine tradition of discovery. I see, I like, I take a photo. I obsess over the photo and object that lies herein. I learn more about it, wiki-ing about the design decisions on that olive green ’67 Cutlass or the impact of that historic Main St. movie theater on the town or how surfboards are shaped. Or why the moon is sometimes red. Or why Dingbats have such a funny name.

Photography helps me learn more about my world. Always a nice thing.

6. Imagination exercise

Every once in a while I’d take a photo and it would entertain my mind in many not-so-obvious ways. Could happen with a picture perfect landscape or a failed Holga long exposure. It would mysteriously linger in memory for a while, prompting repeat viewing. Often times the effect would be immediately after seeing the photo, other times it would surface years after the fact.

I would be drawn to the photo, get lost in it, imagine myself in it. All sorts of metaphorical thought would crawl into the picture, all sorts of things would form in the shadows and bubble up. Sometimes nostalgia would paint the skies a dull yellow and I’d feel warmth in my toes that I haven’t felt since 17. Sometimes at night, the skyline of Port of LA turns into Port Town from F-Zero and at midday, the sand dunes on the beach turn into a romanticized version of early 20th-century Arabia.

Humans are visual creatures, and photos have the power to play all sorts of tricks on the interplay between imagination, memory and all the 5 senses. Photos help me tie my mindscape together.

7. Giving back

It’s only natural to want to share with the world something that you truly, honestly love!

Photography is a craft that has lots to do with understanding fundamentals, repetition and learning from your mistakes. It also has lots to do with many other things that are not so immediately obvious due to the exceedingly esoteric nature of what makes or breaks a good photo. Not to mention that there’s a very complicated technical side to photography as well, film or digital...

The answers to all of these come with time and experience, and as always, with a little help from our friends. As such, it’s always a humbling and enjoyable experience when I can offer my friends a little help of my own, based on my personal experience and observations.

8. Experimentation and happenstance

Photography has always been about experimenting - seeing what works and what doesn’t. Every time I try something new I am faced with fresh and, dare I say, invigorating challenges.

Sometimes I learn something cool that I’d like to continue doing (redscale or Pen-o-ramas). Other times I find a format that completely changes the kinds of shots I’d do for long stretches of time (half frame or a 6x9). Or I would find a camera so unpredictable that I wouldn’t know how the shot will turn out at all (pinholes, Holgas, solarcams, old soviet cameras, etc).

In the world of film photography, there is absolutely no shortage of film, formats, cameras and techniques to try out. We have, after all, more than a hundred years of photographic legacy to fall back on and tinker with. It keeps things interesting and the perspective - fresh.

9. Getting lost in the moment

This is a big one, especially with film photography. A craft so diverse and expansive that condenses down to a singular moment when the shutter goes off. There’s so much to love, so many details to enjoy.

Starting with the obvious - not having to chimp or preview the photos and being limited by a scarce, diminishing resource (film) allows more time to bask in the surroundings and bond with the moment rather than just keep popping off the camera like a machine gun. Waiting for the moment (or setting up the shot), anticipating the scene, watching it all come together. It’s meditation.

The gear, so varied and spanning such a breadth of generations, each with its own intricacies, procedures and character. The mechanical, tangible nature of control manipulations. It’s all very tactile and ASMR-ish. Come on, all you Leica fans out there - tell me you don’t go through an elation every time that cloth goes sssssshwick, haha )

10. Feeling the passing of time

Photos are like a quality wine - they get better with age (I actually don’t know if that’s true, but that’s how the saying goes). A lot of photos we admire today were received completely different when they were first presented to the world. We look back at the photos from the 60’s, 70’s and go through a portal to that time. How people lived their lives, where they lived, what they drove, how they had fun. It’s all put through the context of history. Same goes for movies, music - any cultural item.

It’s important to understand that your photos, if you choose to keep them around for that long, will be viewed many decades down the line and will offer a glimpse into those times. Viewers from the future will look at the cars and marvel at how people got around in these dead-dinosaur-powered vehicles, or how everyone on the street was stuck staring down at tiny glass screens, or even the fact that the very photo they’re looking at is static, isn’t an immersive 3D experience and has limited resolution.

Things get especially interesting when the photographer himself is the subject of the photos...

11. Cars

Wait, didn’t I say it was 10 reasons? Well, there’s always room for cars! Awesome, timeless automotive examples, each with its own personality and style. As they say, there’s always room for cars...

Conclusion

Sorry if that was too wordy! A lot of reasons, huh? And everybody will have their own… That’s the beauty of this thing called photography - everyone makes it their own. Hopefully this post presented you with some interesting food for thought, or maybe inspiration for your next photo project. Thanks for reading, everyone.

Stay awesome!

#film photography #analog photography #filmisnotdead #ishootfilm #film #fujifilm #kodak #35mm #120 #4x5 #believeinfilm

[alexteltevskiy]

On a roll no. 7

I’ve been toying with the idea to expand my submersible camera fleet for a while, namely adding another Nikonos body / lens combo. The I was too archaic, the III and IV - too big and automated. II was the sweet spot, I told myself, and saved a search on eBay, waiting for the right opportunity to come up.

Some time later this guys dropped into my lap, straight from the Land of the Rising Sun. Obviously, it didn’t look the way it does now on the photos when it came straight out of the box. The things was used rather extensively - and probably by real divers. Took some real elbow grease to polish it into the shiny tapered little chunk of aluminum it is right now. But it was worth it!

On this photo it becomes clear just how much Nikonos has deviated over the years from Mr. Cousteau’s original vision. Once small, nimble, elegant even - sculpted for the diver’s grip - now bulky, knobby, angular and much heavier...

Almost makes me want to quote a certain Mr. Kenobi, when introducing a certain farmboy to a certain light sword in a certain movie, a long time ago... “A more delicate weapon for a more civilized age”... No?

Speaking of which - read up on the history of the Nikonos line and its relationship to the famous ocean explorer if you’re not familiar. I won’t spoil the exciting read.

But enough about that... on to the roll. I semi-promise I’ll do a proper review of the camera and the myriad lens that were released for it some time later. But now the only thing holding me back from running some film through this beast was a fresh set of o-rings. After installing those (had to procure them from none other than Amsterdam, of all places) out into the streets I went. Bulk-rolled HP5+ in a plastic Kalt canister, 24 exposures and counting.

Now before you go into a rant about the focus (or rather lack of it), please allow me to explain. The lens that my Nik II came with is a 28mm UW-Nikkor. UW stands for, you guessed it, underwater-only. For those unfamiliar to the Nikonos lens range - there are only 2 lenses that are rated for both above water and under water usage - the 35mm and 80mm. There was a third - a special version of the 28mm that was just splash-proof and nowhere near dive-rated - but that one is infamously hard to find and honestly, I wasn’t interested in it. I actually dive with my Nikonos stuff. Anyway, all the other, underwater-only lenses will distort the image when above water, as well as make it hard or impossible to focus properly above water. That was the case with my UW 28mm...

Being a rather obscure lens in the lineup, I couldn’t exactly scavenge a wealth of info or reviews on it. But one person claimed to have been able to take decent photos with it above water. That was enough to make want to give it a try and hope for at least some semblance of usable photos to be produced by the lens. What I pulled out of the developing canister in the darkroom was, as you can see, not exactly what I had hoped for...

I totally dig the slight fisheye effect, reminding me of some vintage lenses that Wes Anderson would use on a film, but the inability to focus was downright depressing.

But maybe there’s a workaround for that... I remember reading that some people with the 20mm and 15mm UW lenses were able to focus a bit clearer above water when they cranked the focus much closer than estimated and closed the aperture down... I’ll have to do some further testing, or maybe try to fit a ground glass to the back and figure out the focusing in real time...?

But in the meantime we have these gorgeously unfocused globs of unintentional bokeh. A mess? A blessing in disguise? You decide! I do lament that some good shots were missed, but the ghoulish visuals do suit the mood of the day rather nicely. It was almost freezing temperatures with ice-cold rain, the world draped in shades of lead...

Another added bonus is the instant vintage “cachet” overwhelmingly present in the resulting imagery. Kind of looks like Jules Verne actually did invent a time machine and was chilling in 2018, tooling around the murky streets of Chicago with a wet plate and a faux-achromat, admiring the futuristic tall building and the futuristic people that inhabit them...

#film #analog #film photography #35mm #nikon #nikonos #nikonos ii #ilford #hp5 #chicago #camera #review #bw #black and white

[alexteltevskiy]

On a roll no. 6

If spending a Sunday afternoon stumbling half-aimlessly through an urban industrial neighborhood devoid of all lifeforms sounds like fun, you’ve come to the right place. Ladies & Gentlemen, I present to you the latest installment of my On a Roll series, aptly named Pedestrians Not Included.

All puns aside, I did have a legit reason to be out and about: the other day I scored a Canon Z135 point and shoot camera at the local thrift store. Originally non-functioning, the mechanics inside were stuck due to disuse and copious amounts of sugary pop spilled all over the lens assembly a decade and a half ago. A quick CLA brought it back to life.

Grabbing a chilled roll of Fuji Superia 200 out of my fridge, I hopped into my car on a Sunday afternoon and drove downtown. I decided on a location for my photowalk the way I always do - by taking a random exit on the highway, when the feeling strikes.

Having just recently used a Contax TVS II, a premium compact zoom camera, my hopes weren’t very high for the IQ performance. The sharpness of that lens was a big, big letdown. I’ve almost just about given up on expecting sharp imagery from zoom P&S cameras. After examining the negs from this camera, I’m glad I haven't given up all hope.

On paper, the specs appeared decent - 10 elements in 9 groups. But what really set this lens apart at a glance was the deep amber of the coating, liberally applied to all visible lens elements. This was “some premium stuff”, it whispered.

The construction felt abnormally solid as well, all around. This was no Contax TVS II, mind you. But it has a metal faceplate, controls approximately where you’d expect them and a comfy little rubber grip formation. Viewfinder is average. It’s quick to turn on and retract. Sigh, but it doesn’t remember flash settings.

As far as durability goes - the particular camera that I’d scavenged has seen some action in its previous life. But, apart from that pop drink lens freeze, it’s been durable enough to withstand and persevere.

Packed with features, it’s got all sorts of modes and settings. Exposure compensation, servo focusing, etc. Some even come with date backs (mine didn’t, unfortunately) and a unique caption system that imprints a phrase to the image. My favorite feature - the spot metering mode. My most vilified feature - the crazy hard to close battery door.

PS: Sorry for the scratch running through most of the roll - it wasn’t my fault. It was the squeegee’s, which has since been retired.

Long story short, it’s an awesome performer. The lens blew my mind when I examined the negatives. Brilliantly sharp across most of the zoom range. Doesn’t flare much. Medium contrast. Somewhat soft corners but nothing like the Contax TVS II. Feels very confident at 38, 50, 70 - the focal lengths I use the most. Very little distortion. The biggest shortcoming of this lens (if you call it that) is the truckload of vignetting that manifests itself in every shot. I, actually, rather like this imperfection, otherwise I wouldn't bother with film. Want perfection? Shoot an a7r III with Art glass.

This actually leads me to another idea that I’ve been entertaining for a while... Just how much overrated some of the premium compacts are. 5%-10% more image quality for 1000% more money. That’s bad economics, blown out of proportion by social media. Sure, they have other features too, and are usually more compact (hence the name), but that still doesn't stop the fact that 1) their shots look virtually the same as ones from these cheap $5 cameras under normal conditions and 2) all of them will brick out and die eventually as compact cameras are generally unrepairable. But that’s a can of worms I’ll open up some other time.

By this point you’re probably looking at me (figuratively) and thinking, how did this turn into a camera review? Well, I was just thinking the same thing. Maybe it’s because I just really like this camera AND I WASN’T EXPECTING IT. But enough about the tool, let’s look at the subject matter...

... that was shot on a 24 exp. roll of Fujicolor Superia 200. For the record, I won’t be using Superia 200 or 400 anymore. Maybe a little Pro 400H here and there, and obviously the E-6 stuff. But no more cheap-o consumer film. The emulsion just doesn't sit well with me, my computer, my scanner and my software. The tones are miles off, the base is slippery and causes issues with my scanner. Not to mention that the film base is ever so slightly thinner and flimsier than comparable Kodak stock. Fuji really cheaps out on this one. No more. Gold 200 and Ultramax 400 all the way.

The city was a joy to walk around that day. Most of the areas I passed through were completely silent, with nary a human or automobile in sight. It’s Sunday, after all.

All the smokestacks were plugged up, bridges dormant and general machinery dreaming away in a gentle hum, getting some well deserved rest before the next work week starts.

The late afternoon sun casting longish, inky shadows over cars, buildings and lampposts. Like a spotlight at a theater during intermission, bathing the stage, props standing, actors on a smoke break outside.

It may sound counterintuitive, but for me, the city is especially fun at this time. A surreal feeling at times, it shows a completely different side when you’re all alone on the streets of its more industrial areas.

You take it all in at your own leisurely pace, where neither pesky pedestrians nor tenacious truck compete with your camera for the scenery. It’s like a real-life video game where you’ve entered a couple of cheats to stop the missions and just walk around the level and admire the designers’ handiwork.

Speaking of handiwork... I’ll quiet down for a bit and let the photos do the talking. 

And with that stop sign, we’ve reached the end of the roll. Hope you had as much fun reading it as I had writing it. It really is a great camera, especially considering the steal it goes for these days, completely slipping by the radar of most film fanatics. Fanatics that are so busy obsessing over which kidney to sell to afford a Contax T3 that they (in my mind) forget the nature of 35mm film photography instead of just going out and taking photos.

Until next time!

#film #film photography #35mm #new topographics #fujifilm #fujicolor #superia 200 #canon #z135 #prima super 135 #autoboy s ii #urban #photowalk #cityscapes #industrial #camera review #analog #chicago #near west side #west town #point and shoot #compact camera

[alexteltevskiy]

On a roll no. 5

Sometime mid-summer last year I was driving through the burbs and happened to stumble upon my old neck of the woods. By pure coincidence I happened to have my camera with me, loaded with a roll I was planning on using for another project. A fairly worn-down Mamiya 6MF, armed with a 75mm lens... ready to displace copious amounts of silver halide from a mint roll of Portra 160.

Hey, why not?

I drove into town, found as minimally shady parking spot as I could scavenge, and set out on foot, headed for the local park and ready to embrace some serious nostalgia... My family moved around a lot, and I spent around 3-4 years here in the mid-nineties. It’s funny how little has changed, with the biggest visible difference being the shiny new cell tower they put up in the most obnoxious of places...

You know how places seem so huge in your memories, but when you see them for the first time as an adult, they seem tiny? Yes? No...? Well, I call this the Alex Paradox. The entire park seemed like another continent to me back in the day different playgrounds dotting the landscape acting as individual countries. Had no idea it took three minutes to walk from one end of the park to another.

I was lucky it was a school day and all the kids were busy studying their studies somewhere away, otherwise I would have looked like a 30-something weirdo walking around a playground, all alone and sullen, taking photos with a big black camera. But the grounds were entirely empty and I used this to my advantage, getting lost in memories of my childhood spent at this very same park and trying to faithfully capture the environment on medium format film...

PS: that park bench over there, behind the orange slides, is where I remember spending a few hours during a wonderful, cloudless and utterly starry night with my father as he was teaching me about all the different constellations and other astronomical curiosities out there.

This is the last shot from the Mamiya taken at that place. In closing, I made my way to a nearby collection of small hills somewhat on the periphery of the park. This is where I learned to mountain bike - a sport and a lifestyle which I still practice today. It was probably never meant to serve the purpose of training a whole generation of kids to take their rickety two-wheeled machines down mountainous slopes and was probably the place where the construction crews dumped the excess ground material unearthed during the park’s construction.

Walking around the extremely modest slopes (by my standards of today) I could almost feel my 10-year-old hands clenching hard on the stiff bars, thinking I was going to die any second taking my bike down the hill on nothing but a friend’s dare and prayer... Careening towards uncertainty. Lost in these thoughts, I sighed, took a good look around and just sat in the carefully manicured grass, right where I stood. Letting it all just go through me. It was overwhelming, to say the least.

The park sits near a municipal airport not far away, and every once in a while a plane would buzz by. A prop or a jet, they would occasionally zip across the park’s sky. I slumped deeper into the freshly mowed grass and found an an angle that I thought would work well. Had to really wait for the next plane to show up, and almost missed the moment when it did. But I think I was able to capture the symbol I was after...

The first time I rode down the hill, all those years back, I had quite the accident. There was a bump at the very bottom of the hill and in it, I had met my match. Wiped out hard on my first run. Came, no... limped back home, all bloodied. Took me a while to heal the emotional scars and my dad - to fix the bike... But after a month I was back on that very same hill. Second time down, I remembered to hang tighter for the bump. Was good, but still far from perfect. Third time down, I tweaked even more. The fourth brought a smoother ride overall and on it went, until I lost track of the number of times and totally mastered the slope, and paved the foundation for one of my most cherished hobbies of today.

This homely little twin-prop airplane, flying off a seeming tangent from the modern-day slope, yanked me out of this nostalgia-fueled daydream and reminded me, in an instant, of my burning childhood desire. I saw myself flying off of that cliff instead of that plane, up and away, into the distance... Words really escape you when you’re trying to describe something so personal, but just trust me - it was emotional.

The next few days, I was out of it, beyond any reasonable doubt. Needing to finish the roll of film, I tried to make the best of daylight by bathing both the gentle emulsion and my soul in the radiant hues of greens and blues emanating from the nearby parks.

I tried to get back into my usual routine, taking photos as before, infusing them with my usual sensibilities.

But I couldn't help but wonder...

How would the 10-year-old me see the me from today?

Would he be proud of how I’m doing? How many of his dreams came true?

Or would he be upset about the many realities that didn’t materialize, that weren’t meant to be?

I really don’t know... But I’m sure he enjoyed the ride getting here and curious as to where I’m headed next!

#film #film photography #analog #analogue #film is not dead #I shoot film #stay broke shoot film #medium format #120 #6x6 #mamiya 6 #kodak #portra 160 #short story #photo story #nostalgia #summer #story #memories

[alexteltevskiy]

On a roll no. 4

A Gloomy Day to Keep the Big Cameras at Bay... Humming something like along as I pulled off the highway on a randomly chosen exit I immediately glanced at my surroundings to determine if I’ve been here before or not. Having combed through many Chicago neighborhoods over the years, there weren’t that many that I’ve missed. But this one seemed somewhat unfamiliar. Sure, let’s park and go take some pictures.

The Set Up

That right there is the reason I’m out and about. Not that I ever needed a reason to go outside with a camera and take pictures... But today was somewhat special. You see, I’ve recently acquired a pair of these lovely little German Fotoapparaten - Minox 35 GT. Yes, I buy most about everything in pairs, and yes this was made a while ago - in 1981. Back then the most popular battery for these cameras was a mercury 5.6 volt...

But today all mercury batteries are extinct. These cameras can still be used with modern, similar-fitting 6V solutions, although they won’t provide accurate metering due to higher voltage. If you’ve ever wondered why your Minox underexposes like mad with modern stacked LR44′s - wonder no further.

Luckily, a film camera store in Japan manufactures adapters with a built-in way of reducing stacked inside batteries back down to 5.6V. Kanto Camera makes this and a variety of other adapters to keep vintage gear supplied with juice. A bit pricey, and shipping from Japan takes about a month (maybe it was less, I was just really anxious to try it out), but it’s worth it. At least, I was about to see if it was worth it.

The Story

But enough about that, let’s move on to the pictures themselves. I loaded the camera with Kodak Ultramax 400 and set out. 400 film was used for a number of reasons - chief amongst which is this is a scale-focus camera. No rangefinder, no SLR, just you and your eye to gauge the distance. Unless one works in construction and deals with measurements every day, most would find it hard to be accurate on a regular basis with their distances. Solution? f/8 and be there. Since it was completely overcast, need higher ISO film to keep to sane speeds.

First shot...

Not bad, I guess. A bit underexposed, but then I remembered a quirk of the camera’s metering system, in which it’s overpowered by anything too bright in the FOV. That VW qualifies. Mental note - use the 2x adjust switch more often.

Moving on...

Nice magic trick, huh? Just kidding. Shot reminded me of some steampunk dystopian world, decided to wait for some actors to crash the scene. But on the whole, it looks like I got the hang of it. Getting out of the alleys I proceeded to move to other alleys (that’s where all the fun stuff is) and snap away. Here are the shots from the entire roll. Unedited, uncrossed, unstraightened, straight from scanner.

BTW, I have no idea why this pair of frames overlapped. Old cameras, I suppose, eh?

The Summary

And that is a wrap. For those counting, these aren't the entire 36 shots - some were lost for various reasons. This wasn’t a serious camera review, which I’d love to do later. Nor was it even serious subject matter, just a stroll through an unknown part of town on a gloomy Saturday afternoon.

But what it did show me was that the adapter works, and works well. Take note, Minox users. Now, the next test will be to put some Provia through this little plastic brick of a camera to see if the metering can handle it... Wish me luck, and thanks for reading!

#film #film photography #analog #analogue #35mm #minox #minox 35 #chicago #urban #photo walk #photography #I shoot film #film is not dead #neither is minox 35 gt #kodak #ultramax 400 #downtown #camera test #kanto camera #battery adapter #mercury battery #px27

[alexteltevskiy]

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

“Today’s cult of convenience fails to acknowledge that difficulty is a constitutive feature of human experience. Convenience is all destination and no journey. But climbing a mountain is different from taking the tram to the top, even if you end up at the same place. We are becoming people who care mainly or only about outcomes. We are at risk of making most of our life experiences a series of trolley rides. — Embracing inconvenience may sound odd, but we already do it without thinking of it as such. As if to mask the issue, we give other names to our inconvenient choices: We call them hobbies, avocations, callings, passions. These are the noninstrumental activities that help to define us.” —

Shooting film, printing in a darkroom are enriching inconveniences.

[alexteltevskiy]

On a roll no.3

The story.

I’ve been in and around Waukegan, IL many times - but always as a place that I just drove through, en route to some other destination. This time though, armed with a camera and a full Saturday, I decided to drop by and say hello.

Charming little industrial town, chock-full of photo-goodies. Historic, with a decidedly small-town feel to it. Out of the way. The overcast skies tinting everything a shade of green and murk. It was a perfect backdrop for the subject matter at hand.

The shotkit.

I had with me a Fujifilm GW690III and a GSW690III. These shots camera from the wider one of the two. Film in both was the Fujicolor Pro 400H, which I though worked brilliantly with the lack of colors present in the scene (see what I did there, haha).

Wish I had a tripod with me, as some of these negs, upon closer inspection, are lacking the eye-bleeding sharpness that these Fujinons are known for. All hand-held, around f/5.6 or f/8.

The sign-off.

I have multiple other rolls from this trip, will share them some time in the future. The town has much historic value, and the wiki article is an interesting read. Fun fact - Ray Bradbury is from Waukegan and Dandelion Wine is set here. Anybody that read the novel will probably encounter many familiar places.

#film photography #120 #fujifilm #gw690iii #gsw690iii #fuji pro 400h #waukegan #illinois #medium format #6x9 #analog #photo story

[alexteltevskiy]

On a roll no. 2

The story

All shots taken in and around Chicago in December, 2017. Me and Kris had some errands to run downtown so we grabbed the loaded 120 camera at the time, a cable release and our sturdy tripod with us. Was chilly that evening. Couldn’t feel my hands towards the end.

The set up

Camera was a Minolta Autocord I, w/ a 75mm f/3.5 Rokkor lens. A Tessar-type lens, with plenty of playful character and smoothness.

Fujicolor Pro 400H film was used because it provides excellent highlight retention and smaller loss of dynamic range during long exposures. 400 ISO allows for reasonable exposure times at night.

Developed with the Cinestill C-41 dev kit. Scanned wet-mounted with an Epson V800 and Vuescan. Converted in Colorneg.

The streak

The magenta streak and underexposure (corrected somewhat in the converted images but present in the negs) are the result of improper development. A Paterson-type daylight tank was used with one 120 reel inside.

When developing, conventional wisdom would have it to tap the bottom after every agitation to dislodge the air bubbles. But my problem was that I tapped too hard and the reel shifted up on the core, exposing a part of the film to air instead of developer.

As developing times are usually much shorter with C-41 developing, even a small mistake is enough to create big problems. My solution was to next time fill more developer than is required and to tap gently on the side, not the bottom. Have not had this issue again.

#film #film photography #analog #filmisnotdead #ishootfilm #staybrokeshootfilm #minolta #autocord #fujifilm #chicago #night photography #long exposure #medium format #120 #6x6

[alexteltevskiy]

On a roll

Intro

Being an avid film shooter, I’ve committed quite a staggering amount of photons to different emulsions over the years. A multitude of cameras, lenses, films and formats - preserving distant, cherished moments. Yet only a few of these frames ever make it out of the archive and into the limelight of portfolios and social media. A shame, wouldn’t you agree?

An anachronistic atavism - so imperfect, yet brimming with character - just like humans themselves. A real-world chemical reaction, turning fleeting moments into tangible slices of the past. The satisfying sound of a smoothly meshing wind lever, the balsamic aroma of a freshly opened roll of 120 film... The feeling of gleeful awe and curiosity, pulling a newly developed roll of HP5+ out of a Paterson tank...

Film is an experience in more ways than one, and what better way to experience it, than by sharing with others? Starting with this post, I’m launching a new regular series on my blog - “On a roll” - where I will share photos from a single roll of film - the good, the bad & the ugly. Topped with a sprinkling of whimsical narration, with a side of technical specs and the occasional contact sheet.

The roll

Different people have different ways of dealing with sleepless nights. Some take pills or a shot of whiskey, others read a dull piece of literature until they doze off. I felt like doing neither of those things on a Sunday night and decided to roll off around 12 exposures of carefully refrigerated Ilford HP5+ from my Llyods bulk roller into a canister, pop the canister into a Minolta CLE, arm the CLE with a 28mm f/2.0 Voigtlander Ultron VM-mount lens and vow to go outside to take handheld shots at 11PM. You know, just to see how it would turn out.

Since light was scarce, the decision was made to rate and develop the film at 1600 ISO. Since I wanted to practice extreme handheld night photography, a second decision was promptly made to shoot all exposures between 1/8 and a 1/4 of a second at f/2.0. No tripod, no cable release. Just a minuscule, almost weightless cloth-shuttered CLE. Thank God I didn’t drink coffee or the shots would’ve had a lot more light trails.

Any nocturnal photographers’ natural reaction to such an adventurous proposition would be to head to the nearest creepy and desolate industrial park, right? Why, of course! A quick glance at Apple maps and I was on my way. One quick & breezy early-October open-window car ride later I was walking amongst very hospitable smokestacks, warehouses and railroad tracks. Lovely. Forgot to grab my business cards.

Mirroring an earlier, off-season trip to the Wisconsin Dells, this locale was surreal in its absence of any human presence. Tired machinery, resting under shadows cast by a web of wires and posts. Silent trains, dozens of cars long, filling voids between factories. A dark forest of lonely big building with lonely little doors and lights. Very romantic settings, wish I had brought along my girlfriend.

But seriously, there is something special - philosophical even - about the heavy presence of solitude that comes when traversing such territory under nary but the moonlight. It slows things down, heightens the senses. Makes one think and imagine. Travel back through time, even... to a much simpler life of childhood ignorance and fantasies. A strange place evokes a strange feeling, I guess.

After getting back home, still feeling a bit restless, I figured I had an extra half an hour left in me. Having developed the film in HC-110 for 11 minutes at 68F, I was pleasantly surprised by the grain, grit and grunge of the resulting photos. When I hear the word “noir”, this is exactly the look that runs through my mind. Overcooked, burned even - images that are equal parts high contrast, deep mystery and low fidelity.

I absolutely ADORE this look. In my humble opinion. Tri-x 400 looks a tad classier when pushed to 1600, but the taste is very similar. All that training shooting steady shots with a Canon 1V + 50 f/1.2L at night in the trenches of Chicago paid off, with reasonably sharp images at as low as a 1/4 of a second. The vibration-free and smooth-as-silk cloth shutter of the CLE probably had something to do with it as well. In hindsight, 1/4 (and even 1/8) may have been a bit too much for some of the shots, with 1/15 being sufficient. But hey, it was fun.

Outro

And that’s a wrap for the first roll! Thanks for sticking around to the end, hope you had as much fun reading it as I had writing it. More rolls coming soon...

PS: full-size scans on Flickr https://flic.kr/s/aHsm5SRNuU

#35mm #film photography #ilford hp5 #night #industrial #pushed to 1600 #adventure

[alexteltevskiy]

What do you see No. 2

7:11 PM, Anna reads off the faint shimmer barely escaping her stealth matte black Tag Heuer. "He's got 49 minutes..." she muttered through her breath, teeth clenched. "Come on, don't be like that..."

Anna was laying flat on a makeshift bed, constructed of two tables moved next to each other, pushed flat against the window. Minimal padding, a half-eaten bag of potato chips and the bristly crackle of a burning fireplace on the other side of the large living room - her only comforts. The thermostat showed a 66 on the wall, but she didn't seem to mind the chill, wearing only a matching gunmetal gray sport bra and simple cotton panties.

She tried to remember what her last New Years Eve was like, what she did, where she was. She remembered nothing. Not last year, not the one before that, or the one before that. Gray static. Her life, just a blurred stream of decadent hotels, damp alleyways, foggy nightclubs. One after another, one city after another.  This New Years Eve was no different. People hurrying across the street, shiny boxes in hand, smiles on their rosy faces, escaping the cold. Lights lighting up everywhere, just not for her.

Her fists were clutching a pair of mil-spec Nikon binocs, poking through the blinds. Chicago looked gorgeous from 37 floors up, but she wasn't in it for the views. On the receiving end of those optics was a lonesome figure sitting on a couch in a minimal apartment, in the building across, 3 floors down. The figure was mostly motionless, budging only to hug the medium-sized brown-coated American Red-Nosed Pit Bull that would occasionally jump up next to its owner, licking him in on the cheek, then slumping down to stare on up melancholically from owner's the lap.

Last remnants of daylight had completely set long ago, Anna split in half by the sodium vapor from down below, painting her face with zebra stripes in all the shades of orange zest, and the faint green cast on her almost bare back from the lonesome LED clock on the wall, showing 7:37 PM, slowly ticking down in the back of her mind. By this moment she had steadied her pulse - breathing slow and deep. She had prepared herself and her mind, as she had countless times before. His subtle and sincere smile, long beard and bushy eyebrows moving slightly with the wind every time he stepped out into the balcony to drink his morning coffee. Or the way he would tousle his dog's big, flappy and joyful ears after treating the canine to a fresh bowl of dog food. Even the way he would sit down in the living room on some evenings, put on an old Thelonious Monk record on low, sipping away a glass of chilled Chardonnay while looking across the modestly sized quarters at a small photo of a beautiful young woman with a big, spunky smile and starkly contrasting soft features.

All those moments, forcibly abandoned, ejected into the far recesses of conscious. A whole month of waking up earlier than the sun just to see him open his bright blue eyes in the morning. 31 days of breathing every breath with him, cooking his favorite meals, reading his favorite books and listening to his favorite music. And 31 evenings of sharing his silence, solemnly remembering his late wife. A whole month’s worth of surveillance data, etched into the flickering nebula of hard drives next to the window in Anna’s apartment couldn’t convey the closeness she developed to her subject in the building across, 3 stories down - Zach Bertrand. Anna would close her eyes and feel like she knew Zach for years. In the brief bouts of deep sleep which she sporadicly had over a month-long presence in the rented apartment she sometimes had dreams of her childhood and teenage years in the stuffy, crumbling old orphanage in Arizona. Little fluffy clouds, sprawled across a neon gradient of a sky… A perfect backdrop for lazy summer days spent sneaking out of the dorm just to hold her boyfriend’s hand as they drove in his rusty, canary-yellow 69’ Beetle down to Vermillion Cliffs. Watching the sun dip below the plateau, the searing orange reflected in the bright blue of his eyes. These memories, becoming more distant with each passing year, seemed like they happened a life time ago. Zach, from the building across, reminded her of that boyfriend from long ago. Zach was also wanted man - living under an alias and owing Anna’s incredibly powerful overseas client an enormous amount of money, which he had till 8 PM today to transfer.

An icy-cold tear rolled down first her left cheek, then her right, cutting her face in three. She snapped back from the trance, pupils tightening, quick glance at the Heuer. 7:55 PM. “Oh my God…” She fumbled down from the table, knocking over her phone with the uplink to her employer, a bright red blinking sign “Transfer Not Completed” sprawled across the freshly-shattered screen. Having landed hard on her left knee, she limped into the bedroom and, with all her might, forcing back the piercing knee pain, threw the mattress off the bed base to reveal a specops-issue surpressor-equipped Steyr AUG A1. Clutching the cold hard steel of the sight barrel, she made her way back to the window. Check mag, sight align, bolt charge, safety off. After years of experience, she went through the very same motions without flinching. Opening the window just enough to stick the barrel out, a piercing gust of wind blasted her face, making her flinch, turning a fresh stream of tears to ice. Staring down the sights at Zach, he was still on the couch, with his dog sleeping next to him. “Just get to that damn laptop, press the button already! Press it now! Go, damn it! Why are you still sitting!?” Anna was now screaming.

7:59 PM read the clock. Zach quietly stood up, trying hard not to wake the dog up, and went into the kitchen. His shiny metal MacBook was on the kitchen counter, screen lit with windows of all sizes and colors. Anna’s heart sank when he walked past it and gently closed the display down, serving himself a chilled Domaine Anderson Chardonnay, 2012 vintage. Fresh white shirt, collar undone, he stepped out onto the balcony. The man seemed incredibly at ease, relaxed even as he gave his Mid-North District refuge a final, sweeping look-over. After his first sip, Zach set his sights on the building immediately across from him, staring at a very specific point in space, 3 floors above him. Staring right into Anna’s sights. Those blue eyes, burning through years of ice in Anna’s heart… He knew all along, she concluded, unable to swallow the rock-like lump in her throat.

Anna’s phone started to vibrate, a message was delivered. She knew what it said without lifting her eyes from the sights. 8 PM rang out with the sound of a gun being cocked from the opposite side of her room. She could feel the barrel of the gun in the corner, having come from the shadows, aimed straight at her, piercing the left side of her back with an invisible line. “Do it,” the voice in the corner calmly said. The time had come to do her job. Through the fogged up sights she could see Zach raise his glass to her and smile. A smile so peaceful and endearing, she could only hope it meant that he forgave her for what she was about to do. Clenching the trigger with her trembling finger, she held her breath and started counting to three…

1..

2…

…

#what do you see #wdys #film #analog #photography #35mm #minolta #sr-t 202 #58mm f/1.4 #kodak #tri-x 400 #bw #black and white #short #story #fiction #chicago #architecture

[alexteltevskiy]

What Do You See?

Intro

I  grew up in a very big building, in a very big city. Density was a part of everyday life, as well as urban grime, grit and decay. Most of the buildings in Moscow, Russia are high-rise apartment towers - looming monolithic blocks with few embellishments, peeling pastel hues wearing years of neglect and pollution. Arrays of vaguely controlled habitation, at night turning into an infinite mosaic of little dim stars. You could easily tell the time by the amount of lights on the walls.

The founding fathers of the modern skyline must have been in awe at the fact that a single building housed more people than an entire village of yore, but present-day residents navigated a claustrophobic maze of concrete corridors with flickering lamps that emitted more buzz than actual photons and staircases outfitted with a constant presence of cheap tobacco smoke, hard liquor and bloodthirsty street kids.

I don't mean to make it sound bad - I found the whole environment quite fascinating, actually. Part of the experience, good for the imagination as well - provided one had any to begin with. Escaping boredom was as easy as tuning the ear to pick up muffled sound waves a couple of rooms down in any direction. But there was a catch. One might have seemed close to other people, but they were still just lonely little satellites. Ironic how lack of distance can breed isolation. Walking outside at night, I couldn't help but gaze upwards at the sea of lit windows, offering glimpses into the lives of countless others. The city is teeming with stories, just waiting to be caught.

Skipping decades to present times, having learned to identify and capture these fleeting moments, feelings and experiences in the comfortable confines of the visual form, I thought it may be high time I began (re)introducing, in writing, the subconscious post-it-notes detailing what I see in the imagery that I take. Marrying picture and word in a (mostly) non sequitur narrative while exploring the hidden stories racing through my mind from the soprano click of the shutter to the glowing celluloid on the light table...

I've always explored new ways of telling stories and am happy to launch a new experimental project series dubbed simply - "What Do You See?" (that's #whatdoyousee for the tag-happy among us). In essence - a collection of images, each with a short narrative (fiction or non), allowing expression of idea in both visual and textual form. Without further ado, I present to you the first such pic. Let the eye wander and the mind make up the rest!

What do you see No. 1

We hit the border of Mariposa Plains about two hours ago. The ride was bumpy but our  four-axle rig was handling it well, ditto for the goods out back. Plenty of slowdowns, though. Lots of roads we previously though were accessible have been razed over by sandstorms and debris from crumpling infrastructure. Had to have radio-boy plink in code yellow - we were going to be late reaching the next hub.

So far, this new route has seen less scavengers than we usually encounter, but I'm having the guards keep the net up. Less mines, too, although I'm starting to wonder whether those copper-tops have any juice left in them at all, what with the war now more than 80 years ago... I did notice that Old Zeb was acting kind of funny, though. Just sitting on the roof, staring into the haze, radioactive sun bleaching his ancient wrinkled face. Dog next to him, trying to lick his hand from time to time.

We drove for a few more minutes in silence. A large husk of a building from another time barged into view, looming ever closer as we made our way past it. I almost lost interest in the old man when I saw a tear roll down his cheek, carving a river in the canyons of his face. I never saw Zeb like this. "What's the matter, Zeb?" I asked. He just shrugged and after a moment's hesitation murmured "Nuthin' much." His face cut by more tears. Never knew Old Zeb to have a softer side, is what.

I examine our navigator, probably three times my senior, until I realize that it's probably rude to stare. "Sorry," I said softly, slumping down halfway into the hatch and lighting a smoke, looking at the burnt remains of the gargantuan structure receding into the distance. Wondering what life was like before the world went totally insane and up went the bombs... Zeb finally said "I used to live here, you know. My mom and brothers and I. 25th floor... Right across used to be a big park..." A long silence set between us, broken up only by the howl of the desert wind...

#mamiya 6 #short story #bw #film #chicago #abstract #kodak #tri-x #what do you see #wdys

[alexteltevskiy]

Vintage camera mini review - Argus C3 w/ 50mm f/3.5

There's something special about using old film cameras from days long gone. Maybe it's the thought that the camera being used has real history behind it, having taken untold legions of exposures in the decades since it was assembled, passing hands of maybe two, three generations of users. Or maybe it's the easily traceable evolution of human engineering thought and craft, where each successive decade of camera technology brought with it new tricks, affecting the way it looks, feels, functions as well as the the style, the character, the soul of the camera...

I have owned a number of film cameras from different time periods, always on the lookout for something new to eat through rolls of photosensitive polyester. Araki once said that in order to change your photos, you need to change cameras. I'm a firm believer in this, and lucky for me and other like-minded photographers, there's around a century's worth of different cameras to saddle up and try to tame.

The story

At a friend's party I spied a couple of old cameras, tucked away in the far corners of a dusty bookshelf. One was a collapsible Kodak Tourist 6x9 which, unfortunately, had a few parts missing and couldn't be reanimated, and the other was a little brick-shaped art-deco-inspired 35mm camera - the Argus C3. Covered with thick layers of dust, it responded well to basic operation and had nothing missing. The camera would stick at all shutter speeds as well as require Hulk-like strength to change focus and aperture. The back wouldn't even stay shut. But the doctor had high hopes for the patient.

Having borrowed the Argus, I began the immersion process, surrounding myself with wikis and manuals. Made from 1939 till 1966 by Argus in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The camera was surprisingly entry level, designed in the late 30's. Saw use by photojournalists during WWII, even managed to snap some iconic shots from the front lines. In the later years it saw widespread use in many American homes, its affordability, ruggedness and repairability fueling its popularity. Even Jimmy Carter had one. But with the flood of inexpensive Japanese SLRs in the 60's, the archaic rangefinder design of the C3 phased it out into obscurity.

The Brick (as it was affectionately known) had a coupled rangefinder mechanism with a separate viewfinder. Focusing had to be done in one window, framing in another. Both finder windows were some of the smallest I've encountered - even smaller than in my Olympus Stylus Epic - which didn't lend to usability. The leaf shutter speeds went from 1/300 to 1/10 and included provisions for cable release and bulb. Winding the film was manual and separate from winding the shutter. The lens is, surprisingly, interchangeable, but required tools and minutes to change and an external finder for any other focal length than 50. The bare essentials were there, but literally nothing else.

This skeleton crew of camera functions was a contributing factor to its simplicity and ruggedness. The camera proved incredibly easy to disassemble and work on. The original lubrication had half-evaporated and half-turned-to-stone, but that was quickly remedied with a fresh coating. Play had developed over time in the gears, knobs and dials giving that bucket-full-of-bolts effect - but everything was tightened to spec with simple garden variety screwdrivers and wrenches. Very easy to see why the camera continues to work well even 61 years after it rolled off the production line - inside was a date stamped indicating a 1955 production year.

After everything was put together, the kid-on-Christmas-Eve syndrome took over and the decision was made to test the camera next day. Weather conditions were highly unfavorable for testing out an all-metal, f/3.5, all-manual camera from 1955. Nearly sub-zero (that's in Fahrenheit, folks) temps, hours of traffic and inches of snow separated us from our intended destination of Downtown Chicago. Mercury was dropping faster than the sun on the horizon as I hoped I could still feel the unfamiliar controls of the C3 through my thick winter gloves. Film of choice was Ilford Delta 3200, rated at 1600 to keep the grain from consuming the image. Original choice was Kodak Tri-X 400 to keep the entire package in the same era, but the mailman failed to deliver forcing the switch, which actually allowed me to shoot for much longer because the light got sucked out pretty quick with all the extra snow in the air.

The destination was chosen simply because there is no better fit to the form and function of this photographic relic and its place in history than Chicago's own iconic architecture, with its arcane pillars of weathered steel and iron, chiseled art-deco-esque bastions of concrete and slabs of modernist lines receding into infinity. Chicago's facade went through many styles and movements, fueled by advances in construction technology and architectural sciences. But its roots are still bare for the eye to see with the future layered over it. Much of the same applies to the C3.

I was joined on this trip by lovely fellow 43S-member Kris (wo)manning the A and B cams for our video review of the trip. Dodging snowflakes, she kept the video rolling while I was busy keeping a mental checklist of the 10+ steps I had to do before taking a single shot on the Argus. Plan was to try to score shots that would reveal the gritty limestone-laden angles of a city that originally inspired Batman's mobster-mastertown of Gotham. Segue through to Ohio Street to Michigan Avenue, make our way down to the Riverwalk and continue clicking all along Wacker Drive. Sneak peaks of the Water Tower, John Hancock, NBC and Tribune towers, as well as the transformers building (35 E. Wacker Dr.) and Merchandise Mart - all were on the snowed-over map that was increasingly harder to follow.

One of the reasons I like using medium format cameras is because you have less frames to worry about, allowing you to focus more on quality, than quantity. All of a sudden having 36 shots to work with sometimes feels like a burden on short, one-day trips. I actually found that fact comforting the first time using a new old camera, resurrected from the dead. Which leads me to mention some of the things I disliked while using it - first of which is ergonomics. Or rather lack of them. It takes very little time to figure out that this camera is not going to be comfortable to hold. Ironically it takes much longer to figure out how to hold the darn little brick in such a way as to not cover up any viewports or get the shutter finger jammed in the way of the shutter cock/release lever. When the shutter button is actuated, the cocking lever springs back, and if the finger is in the way, you get a very, very long exposure (if you know what I mean). At least some shots fell prey to this malice. The other biggest gripe I had with this camera is that everything is manual and separate, including the frame advance winder. Accustomed to using mainly 60s Japanese SLRs and up, where the shutter cock and frame advance are all in one lever - here it's actually three(!) separate mechanisms. One for the shutter cock, one for the frame wind, and one safety latch to allow the frame winder to wind. While probably the stuff of pink fluffy dreams for fans of multiple exposure photography, I was actually quite enfuriated at having to remember to do so much to accomplish something so simple - leading to multiple shots being overlayed one atop another. Did I also mention that I wasn't a fan of the brick-like shape and ergos? I did? Good, I'll mention it again, because it really is not made for human hands. Maybe for robot hands...

But it wouldn't be a proper camera review without mentioning some of the positives of this fully mechanical monster. And there are quite a few. Surprisingly they have more to do more with its flaws than anything else. The main reason I picked it up is because I really wanted to create some imagery that looked like it came from another time period. Anachronism is the name of the game for me when I use vintage gear and the included 50mm lens delivers in spades giving you that vintage "look". Supposedly coated, the effect is thankfully nowhere to be seen, with images full of silky-smooth, flat-as-LOG gradations of gray almost completely devoid of contrast. Due to a short focal flange distance the lens is surprisingly sharp in the center with minimal distortion, while its antiquated optical formula contributes copius amounts of vignetting that's present even when stopped down. All combined, makes shots look like newsreel footage from the past. Second positive is that just like any film camera, this one slows you down and lets you think more about the content. But where other film cameras are more of a moderately mindful experience, this one is hands-down almost ritualistic in the way it forces you to adhere to the craft. Almost nothing short of actually picking up an old 8x10 - complete with bellows, dark slide, curtain, ground glass and all - can compare. And third is, of course, the conversation starter effect. Just that day alone, three people approached me interested to find out more about the camera. Just not that many crazies like us out there any more, I guess...

All in all it was a wonderful experience, will be a sad day when I have to return the camera back to my friend. The Argus C3 is a great camera for very niche and very vintage-looking photos. Just treat the cons as pros and embrace the craft. Already looking forward to my next vintage camera to try out - have an old 4x5 from the 30's which I still have yet to fix...

PS: ending the review with a little poster I designed commemorating the trip ;)

#film #analog #photography #35mm #argus #c3 #50mm #camera #test #review #vintage #black and white #bw #ilford #delta 3200 professional

[alexteltevskiy]

Vintage camera review - Vivitar 220/SL with 50mm f/1.8

Intro

Always on the lookout for vintage cameras to try out, me and Kris (from 43 Stories) stumbled upon by chance on another long-lost closet treasure - her Grandfather's Vivitar 220/SL, complete with original strap and the Vivitar 50mm f/1.8. I was told the camera was originally bought for family candids of the grandkids but later also entered active duty in her Grandfather's business as a Private Investigator, chronicling the daily stream of evidence, clues and suspects. Quite honestly, the no-nonesense jet black finish of the camera lent it an aura of cool composure much more suited to covert snaps than trying to get the kids to smile. Seriously, the thing looks like something Darth Vader would carry around. Camera looked and felt like a tactical tool, with a weight of authority to it, oversized controls and chiseled, no-snag tapered lines.

First impressions aside, second impressions told me that this derelict detective's sidekick will need quite a lot of CLA to bring it up to spec. Viewfinder was dimmer than a dark forest path on a moonless night and the shutter was in no hurry to count the time at speeds of 1/30th and slower. Lens seemed almost opaque. Foam seals were stickier than gorilla glue and there were as many layers of dust on it as layers of family history, with the camera being handed down a couple of generations until it was ultimately phased out by its distant digital cousins. Oh, and the entire lens helicoid assembly, focus ring, front elements and all, rattled back and forth about half an inch. This one was going to be a piece of work.

History

Until this camera I honestly had nearly zero knowledge about Vivitar as a brand, always writing them off as not only a second-rate, but closer to third-rate third-party lens maker from the distant past. A regular in the discount dust bins of used camera stores, I wasn't expecting much from a body/lens package going for $10. Delving deeper into their history proved there was more than met the eye. An American company from California, in the late 30's two partners began importing first German and then later Japanese cameras into the US market. When it came time to expand in the 60's, they created the brand name Vivitar and started to make first their own lens, then bodies as well.

Turns out they were of pretty decent quality too. The design and construction of the lens was contracted to different factories at different times across the US, Europe and Japan. The bodies were made mostly by Cosina of Japan (as far as I could tell). All of these items were know for their great quality at a modest price, sold by the truckloads in department stores from one coast to another. An every man's camera.

Specs

Due to Vivitar not having exactly the same level of cachet as, say Leica, BMW or Apple, there are very few dedicated resources available online that would shed light on the more delicate historical intricacies of this particular product line. Best I could tell, the 220/SL was introduced in the mid 70's and was in production sometime into the early 80's. Was made by Cosina in Japan, ditto for the lens. M42 mount, accepts myriads of other lens spanning multiple decades and budgets.

Marketed as a mid-grade SLR, the package was decidedly minimalistic, save maybe for the light meter. After having handled a few significantly older cameras lately, shutter speeds of 1sec-1/1000sec seemed like a luxury. Bulb and cable release are always welcomed. Knurled knobs and medium stroke winder lever are decently ergonomic, nothing to rant about though. Viewfinder has a split center and circular prism focusing aids. Not sure about coverage, but I'm guessing around the 90% mark. Has a "film is loaded" indicator, might be useful for some, especially with multiple old cameras in circulation (wink wink).

Self timer, rewind knob, light meter activation switch. That's pretty much about it. CLA took longer than expected, all the lens elements were out of whack and the lens needed an entire reconstruction (with subsequent ground-glass-taped-to-film-plane focus calibration). Pentaprism had de-silvered and I could see a Milky Way through the viewfinder, but that requried too much work to fix so that had to be left alone for the time being. Shutter speeds and all related gearing was cleaned of lube-tuned-hard-wax and freshly oiled up and run through click-clack boot camp to bring it in sync. The meter was adjusted to work off the slightly higher voltage due to original spec batteries being discontinued for eons. Nowadays it takes 675 hearing aid batteries.

Design & build quality

This little black SLR’s design is a rather slippery little beast to nail down - split between being a 747 seat buckle on a 70’s Pan Am flight and an 80’s experimental stealthy lunch box for Lockheed F-117 pilots on covert combat sorties. Some might call it a little bland, lacking any embellishments that spearheaded Japanese SLR design of the time (think of the Pininfarina-envy dials and pentaprism housing of Olympus OM-1 and the pre-digital transformer-esque lines, panels and angles of the Canon AE-1), instead aspiring to the stoic looks of a 1981 Buick Century. But, if one does the math, it doesn’t look out of place at all. I quite like it - it’s a product of a less complicated time and a place where heavier meant better quality, and black meant professional. It may be a bit disproportionate here and there, but I enjoy its company. Besides, Mies van der Rohe would probably totally dig it, so it’s cool in my camp.

Where I do have a bone to pick is with the QA department. A little note on Cosina, where both the body and the lens was made in… As much as I respect and admire (nearly to the point of worship) quality products made in the Land of the Rising Sun, Cosina products get very little love from me. They are a company with an interesting history and a knack for innovation and at finding an ever-evolving niche for themselves. But most often that niche is inextricably tied to providing an increased value compared to the competition. I personally feel like they cheap out on the quality. I own a number of modern Voigtlander products (all made by Cosina) and in the short time I’ve had my Bessa R3M I’ve had a meter LED burn out (!) and, wait for it, the rubber grips are starting to unglue all around. Also had a really hard time adjusting the rangefinder (the mechanism was supposedly loctite’d by the factory, but a screw came loose that shouldn’t have anyway). Also have a brand-new Voigtlander VM 40mm f/1.4 Nokton Classic MC and the helicoid jams at times. Why? Also why does the little plastic red mount guide dot on my Voigtlander VM 21mm f/4 come off so easily? Why, oh why?? Now I’m starting to see why people shell out for Leicas (even though they have problems too). I guess Cosina has to cut corners somewhere.

All of this applies to a camera they made 30-40 years ago as well. Chop shops do a better 5-minute paint job on hot cars than this camera has ever been treated to. The shutter speed dial was coming loose. The hot shoe is crooked and the bakelite underneath it is starting to crack. The detent on the meter switch has gotten snuffed out. The pentaprism has started to de-silver. Badly. Heck, even the enamel they used to fill in the embossed lettering on the body has aged worse than the hieroglyphs on King Tut’s tomb. And don’t even get me started on the lens. That thing had more loose parts than a bucket full of loose… bolts. And that says a lot. It certainly cemented my opinion on the quality of used vintage Cosina and Vivitar products.

In use

Angry rants aside, as soon as the CLA was done it was time to put the hefty little slab of black steel to the test. Taken on a couple of street sorties several days apart, I’ve run a couple of rolls through it chronicling a wide gamut of topics, from moody bouts of existential angst in gentrified neighborhoods to an impromptu photo documentary of my niece and nephews’s trip to the zoo.

Mechanically, the camera operations were sound, predictable and relatively smooth. Biggest gripe on the first trip was the supremely dim viewfinder which made focusing possible only via f/8 + scale on lens. This was promptly remedied before the second trip (had to tear the entire top down and give it a hot bath). Focusing accuracy was dramatically improved after that and a reliable f/1.8 became almost within reach.

The meter pulled a total Pinocchio on me every single time I flipped the switch, almost making me regret the $7 I spent on the batteries, but luckily I was able to readjust the meter the second time I went in to clean the viewfinder/prism assembly. Like I said, the voltage of the only modern-day battery that would fit was a bit higher, so the pots inside had to be toned down. Metering is now in-sync with both of my Sekonics, and has a center-weighted pattern. For those curious, the prism houses two CdS cells. But I still relied on my Sekonics every time I pulled the shutter, as early pre-matrix meter tech was very temperamental.

With such a simple camera, there’s not really that much else to write about. It has nothing nostalgic about it for me, as do some of the older cameras I test, and it has no exotic features or form factors which might still pique my interest if all else fails. It is a photographic tool, one that just works. Somewhat clumsy at times, but works. I mean, the camera is just as fun to use for photos as a horse saddle is to sit on. They’re practically invisible. If the camera didn’t have the looks which I still admire, I would almost call the camera character-less. On a side note, I really enjoyed popping the back open with the little lever on the bottom. Haven’t seen that one before.

Image quality

Image quality is something that comes mainly from the lens and film being used. The Fuji Superia 200 that I used both times enjoys the reputation of rather mediocre film stock, with somewhat muted, true-to-life colors but still a somewhat solid, finely-grained structure. I know I can get sharp results from this film. But they were nowhere to be found on either of the two rolls I ran through. And it’s not just the sharpness, which is abysmal at f/1.8 and only becomes decent at f/5.6 (optimal at f/8 then a sudden rollercoaster drop into endless mush) - the contrast is nonexistent. I was really surprised that the lenses on the Made-in-USSR Zenit-B from ’70 and the Argus C3 from good-ol’ 1955 offered more contrast than this Japanese-made lens which might have even had computer input on the optical formula.

No visible distortions, flares irregularly, although appears to have some coating on it. Chromatic aberrations are there, but don’t bother much as long as you embrace the 70’s faded-textbook-color-photo look.  Honestly, by the time of the second outing I didn’t care much about the lens anymore or the image character it brings with it (was none), so I just skimmed past the rest of the planned tests. Bokeh is probably the nicest thing about the lens and, at f/1.8, there is generally plenty of it. Not too busy, not too bland - just the right level of blurry pop to bring the center subject truly into focus, just don’t forget to add a generous serving of unsharp mask to start seeing the hair details again.

Conclusions

So, it’s that time again, huh? What do I think of the camera? I look back at the review and notice how I started on a high note and then cycled lower and lower through the octaves, tapping out a brooding baseline in a D minor by the end. That’s how I feel about this camera. It gets you hooked with its looks (all black, must be pro) and heft (very heavy, must be reliable), but then starts to fail at impressing you with every stroke of the winder. Don’t get me wrong - it is a decent camera. If we just look at just the body and discard the almost-legally-blind lens it ships with (no, just no), it actually performs reasonable well and has competitive specs compared to its peers. But the biggest turn-off and the last nail in the coffin for me was the camera’s complete lack of character. This camera seems like it was made for citizens of Lucas’s dystopian THX 1138 or Equilibrium’s Libria, or some other dystopian work of fiction where people aren’t bothered by quaint silly little things like emotions and feelings. It works, just not on an emotional level.

PS: for the (ever so slightly more) money, just get a Canon AE-1 or a beat-up Pentax K-1000.

Sample images

#slr #200/sl #film #analog #35mm #50mm #camera #test #review #vintage #m42 #fuji #superia 200

[alexteltevskiy]

Vintage russki camera review - Zenit-B w/ Industar 50-2 f/3.5

Intro

I have a modestly sized family and most about every in it is/has been crazy about photography at some point in their lives. My father, in particular, has been in the cozy company of cameras since, like, forever. I've got a picture of him somewhere: a cheerful little lad, no older than a year, crawling around right next to my grandpa's trusty little rangefinder...

What does this have to do with anything? Well, today I'll be reviewing one of my dad's many old cameras - his trusty Zenit-B with an Industar 50-2 50mm f/3.5. He used this one as his 35mm camera of choice after his FED rangefinder, having abandoned it much later after moving on to Japanese SLRs. I actually accidentally bumped into this camera about a year ago in my older brother's attic. Turns out, my dad gave the camera as a present to my bro, who used it for a bit but ultimately forgot about its existence, having moved on to more modern snappers.

Imagine my surprise when I unearth the leather-case-clad tank-of-a-camera with a big bold Made in USSR stamped onto it. The thing was lightly used, lens had no malices typical of a subterranean attic-dweller (haze, fungus), nothing was seriously loose or wrong... until I popped it open to check shutter operation...

Design & build quality

The thing is built like a tank. Mass produced from 1968 to 1973. Rugged and over-engineered, and that is even before I tore it down to get inside and fix it. Inside it looked like it was built to withstand a nuclear blast. A Tchaikovsky Overture of heavy duty gearing, solid steel parts, heavy gauge springs, all tightly wedged against each other with thick flat head screws.

All the more baffling why, oh WHY did they bother to use simple glue to keep together the rubber-coated cloth shutter??? The most important piece of the puzzle, the cornerstone, the heart of the system... why was it made to be so weak? And it's not like there was a large amount of redundancy built into the mechanism - a little bit of glue going undone and the whole curtain self-destructs. Just don't get it.

Anyway, I had to hunt down a spare body with a functioning shutter on eBay to kindly act as a donor. As soon as the box touched down on my front porch the organ transplant was underway and not long afterwards my neighbors probably heard me go on a creepy "it's alive" howl. Frankenzenit was ready for action.

Apart from the shutter glue drama, the camera is a brick, chiseled out of the Terminator's spare parts. And there's just something about that Soviet design aesthetic that gets me every time. Like an old friend you'd sometimes like to forget, but can't. An eclectic mix of extreme cases of forms following function and the necessity for every single object in the country to be fixable with a skeleton toolset of dull screwdriver and hammer. Heck, most of the time even just the hammer was necessary.

Tech specs

Under the covers it was all business and no frills. Barebones feature set, all manual, nothing extra. Shutter goes from 1/30 to 1/500 (the accuracy of which I can't attest to after seeing the mechanism up close and personal), has Bulb. Shutter knob has twist-proof mechanism, reminded me of something you'd find on a T-34 instead of a camera but it has a charm to it, adding an extra step to process.

Winder/shutter button combo with a built-in hand-resetable frame counter and provisions for a standard cable release. A rewind button and rewind/ISO memory wheel. Oh, and a self-timer. Mirror slap is not too obnoxious but don't expect to pull a ninja with this camera - loud and clunky. Next to zero foam in the body, the only seals are made of felt that are still going strong after 45+ years.

The lens is a copy of a Zeiss design, M42 mount, opens up to 3.5 and stops down to 16. Filter thread is, wait for it, 35mm in diameter. Good luck finding a pinch lens cap for it. More details on image quality further down the review.

In use

Armed with a meter and a trusty roll of Ilford HP5+ @400 (I ran out of Tri-X at that moment), headed out Downtown with Kris from 43 Stories to see the sights and sounds of the Big City. From the sun-soaked vantage point of a 12-floor parking garage all the way down to chilly pale breeze of the distant skyline from the shores of Navy Pier, the 7-mile 6-hour walk took us all the way from Printer's Row, through the Loop on the L and onto River North, crossing the Magnificent Mile and into Streeterville. Crash at Navy Pier then back home.

Right from the beginning you get a sense that this will be a no-nonesense camera. Everything is roughly where you expect it. The gears are less ergonomic than its peers and the levers dig a little deeper into your skin, but the classic layout was a breather from some of the other cameras I've tested lately. Compact, easy to hold and grip, even with gloves. Aggressive knurling on the controls made fine manipulation easy. Everything clicks solidly.

In addition to the Victorian-Era steely thunderclap of a shutter, the camera has further handicaps that keep it back from being a street-smart photoninja. The shutter speed can't be set blindly, as there are no indicators of what speed you're on anywhere else but the knob. And to change speeds, you have to raise the knob, rotate it and plop it back into the correct setting. There are no physical clicks or stops when you rotate it, so unless you have super-dexterous fingers and a built-in angle meter accurate to the degree, you have to take the camera off of your eyes to readjust exposure.

Same goes for aperture, but this time it's even worse - camera needs to be focused wide open as the finder is too dim. And after you focus you'll most likely have to stop down the aperture. This cannot be done without peeling away from the camera and looking down at the aperture ring. It's clickless, so unless you have a sixth sense for degrees, you will need to look down. Forget quick turnaround time on the streets - this camera is a methodical shooter that requires planning ahead and patience, both from you and any animate object in front of you.

The viewfinder is pretty dim and features a regular ground glass - no fresnel circles in the center or any other focusing aids. With a f/3.5 lens it may not make that much of a difference, but any other lens with a larger aperture may require you to hunt quite a bit to nail that f/2 or f/1.4. Another minor (major, actually) annoyance is that the ring around the viewfinder is, just like most else on this camera, made of metal. Yours Truly Four-Eyes over here needs to first focus with glasses on, making sure not to have direct contact with the metal ring, then slide the glasses over to zoom the eye closer in to compose. The viewfinder optics are recessed deep into the body and it's impossible to see the entire viewfinder area coverage with glasses on. Haven't been able to dig up specs on viewfinder coverage but I have a hunch it's around the 80%-90% mark - I always saw extra features on the negs that I thought were long gone from the frame.

One final note about the viewfinder is that in the camera that I have, the viewfinder is misaligned horizontally, with a couple degrees of rotation to the right. Plain English: when the horizon is straight in my viewfinder, it's actually crooked in the actual photo. I haven't tested this with a bubble level yet, but people call me "human horizon" for a reason - I'm usually very, very careful with that. You hear horror stories about little irking details like this all the time with Soviet cameras, guess they've got some validity behind them, eh? Looking inside, I found no way of adjust the mirror or the ground glass. After peaking into the donor body, that one was misaligned as well, this time leaning to the opposite side.

The winder on this camera is an absolute beast. Quite literally. Be very, very gentle with it. Treat it real slow, nice and easy. The winder sprocket cams inside the body are born from a crude metal cast with razor-sharp edges on the teeth. I consider the Ilford HP5+ film base to be on the pretty durable side, yet even it has had ripped sprockets along most of the length. The winding lever has virtually zero feedback compared to modern cameras and Hulk-like leverage. The only way I was informed that I'd gotten to the end of the roll is when I heard a loud rip of the film from it's canister. Removing it required a dark changing bag. Apart from that expect to get 37-38 shots per 36 exposure roll. Film spacing is pretty consistent and film gate is at a slight angle but at least with no major light leaks (pressure plate still good after all these years).

Image quality

So what do the images look like? They're pretty good, actually. I was expecting it perform a lot worse, but it is a knock-off of a Zeiss design, so that probably helps. First, the numbers. 3.5 is predictably soft, with decent center, medium vignetting and mildly mushy corners. Modern pixel peepers would consider this atrocious, but that's not what film aficionados are after, and to my eye it actually appears pleasantly vintage looking. I found the lens sharpest in the center by f/5.6, with f/8 improving the corners but starting to lose a bit in the center. F/11 exhibits a uniform image from center to corner, that's as in "uniformly soft", and f/16 starts looking like somebody took the photo and printed it on a rug made of low-denier fabrics.

Bokeh is minimal and can get quite busy unless you get REAL close to something. Wide open the bokeh is also quite swirly (couldn't find a more technical term), reminiscent of many vintage lens, where it looks like time and space itself are being bent around your subject matter. A look I actually quite like and one that is currently being revived thanks to Lomography's efforts with lens based on ancient optical formulas.

Flaring can be an issue, but the way the lens handles it is by dissipating the flare across the entire field of view, unlike some other lens where the flare affects the image only partially. I would assume this is because minimal, if any coating was used on the elements. I actually prefer this.

I was also quite surprised by the copious amounts of barrel distortion I noticed when photographing objects close up. I mean, come on - it's a 50, not even a 35! At infinity though, distortion is gone and buildings don't look like they're binging on burgers.

Conclusion

So, what do I think about a camera that has more misalignments than a knocked over vase that was superglued back together? The camera has a lot of sides the modern snapper would find archaic, impractical and irritating. It's a menace to film rolls and close ups of straight brick walls. It's an exercise in patience and meticulousness. And it's a lottery of settings and angles plagued by inconsistency and vagueness. But despite all this it still works, and works solidly. I am still surprised by the engineered heart failure on these cameras, but at a dime a dozen, there's no reason one should stay away from these exotic relics from a bygone world order.

PS: Did I mention that it's a conversation starter? "Hello sir! May I make a portrait of you?" "What kind of camera is that?" "It's almost 50 years old, shoots black and white film and was made in the USSR!" (eyes bulging in surprise) "No way! Sure man, take as many as you like!"

Sample pics

#film #analog #35mm #photography #vintage #camera #test #review #ussr #soviet #russian #zenit #zenit-b #industar #ilford #hp5 plus #chicago #downtown #black and white #bw #urban #street #navy pier

[alexteltevskiy]

Intro to blog & Nishika N9000 camera review

Hello everyone! Welcome to my very first blog post. I have big plans for this far-flung little corner of the internet: camera reviews, photo techniques, experiments in visual storytelling and more! Art, design, filmmaking, photography - all here. Let’s roll! (no pun or reference to 35mm film intended)

Intro

Today it’s all about photography - I’ll be taking a look at a rather obscure little imaging device - the Nishika N9000. A unique, highly specialized stereo camera that that takes 4 images at the same time from slightly different angles, which, when combined into an animation, create a miniature Matrix-like effect of the objects in the shot appearing three-dimensional. It’s a specialized camera and the only reason you use it is for its GIF-making capability. It is also a complete pain to use, totally unreliable and makes pictures of horrendous quality. Despite all this, it is a total blast and very fun. Read on to find out why.

This camera, along with the original Nimslo and the direct predecessor Nishika N8000 are responsible for the influx of countless animated GIFs on Tumblr, FFFFOUND! and other image blogs alike. I always found them a gleefully enjoyable exercise in lowbrow picture-making fun, something that could add real depth to the mood of a BTS, a casual project or just plain fun while hanging out. I denied these inner callings for a while until I stumbled upon @tkbmedia and finally bothered to look at the tags being used. “Nishika” it said. And here we are. Now, part of the reason I want to write about it is because its a genuinely fun little camera and the other part is because there is next to zero easily-digestible info online about this little plastic wonder, or even how it relates in quality and specs to its progenitor, the Nishika N8000.

History

The first quad-lens stereo camera was the Nimslo. Designed in the US, the camera was made overseas has solid metal construction, electronically controlled shutter, high quality glass lens and is pretty compact as well. If you read between the lines, you figured $$$. Then came along the N8000, made by a different US company called Nishika, which some claim blatantly knocked off the design idea, made it much cheaper and marketed the living daylights out of it, promising the next big thing in photography. There is much history written about both these companies and why they fell from grace, but that’s not the goal of this review. Both these cameras were originally designed for lenticular mail-order printing where you would take the photos and send the roll in, getting back lenticular prints. In its waning days, Nishika learned on their design mistakes and made the N9000 camera, hoping to renew interest in the franchise, but by that time the infrastructure was starting to fall apart along with the public interest for these items. Nishika went out of business and the overstock was silently decaying in warehouses around the country for decades. Prices went down to near-free and, with the advent of the digital revolution, the camera started seeing a resurgence when experiment-happy photogs figured that these can be used for great artistic effect.

Unboxing & tech specs

Prices bordering in the $10-$20 made this novelty a no-brainer, so I splurged and received a sealed, new-in-box N9000 in the mail not long after. Was a lot of fun opening the package - the whole process resembled an unearthing of a time capsule from a prehistoric age. Best I could tell by the chintzy design and fonts used (I’m an art director by day, I pay attention to these things), my particular specimen was from the early 90’s. The N9000 is made, save from the hotshoe, entirely out of cheap, ready-to-break plastic. Even the lens are plastic. Relatively compact, looks and feels like a beefy, cheeseburger-binging point and shoot. Weighs next to nothing. Small size and weight is a plus for anyone that wants to travel and take multiple cameras for multiple shot types. This one doesn’t take up much space. Each press of the shutter creates 4 tiny half-frame images spread across two regular frames of 35mm film. A 36-exposure roll gets you around 18 shots give or take. A 24-exposure roll probably takes around 12, haven't tried. Has a closable lens cover. Aperture selector between F8 and F16. Button. Rewind button and knob. And winding gear, yes, the winding gear. Reason I want to focus on it is because I genuinely hate it so very much, from the bottom of my usually very accommodating and forgiving heart. They cheaped out and replaced the lever from the N8000 with a finely-sharpened flesh-shearing winding gear to advance each frame and wind the shutter. I can live with it, but I dread every time I have to advance frames. The shutter speed is a fixed 1/60 sec. Has a tripod socket, an unremovable strap, and, well, that’s pretty much it. No batteries. Surprisingly small amount of foam in the back door, so even with vintage, less likelihood of light leaks. Has a little sticker inside recommending 200 film outdoors and 1600 film indoors. I'd personally load it with 400-800 film and tweak exposure with aperture.

Comparing to the N8000

The main reason I went out on whim and got the N9000 instead of the N8000 is size and weight. As soon as I saw pictures of the N8000 in hand AND read that they put a large chunk of metal inside just to make it feel more expensive and reliable than it is I knew it wasn’t for me, as my photo bags are always packed and space is at a premium. The N8000 is a very, very large camera, I’d say roughly twice the size and weight of the N9000. But, at the same time the picture quality looked to be the same (identical lens) and features are largely identical. The N8000 is also the very definition of gimmicky, with the fake LCD screen on top showing recommended settings for exposure. The "meter" built into it is just there to remind you when to use flash. And with today's film exposure latitude the f/11 is totally redundant. That's a whole lotta strikes out against the N8000. The only feature that I miss from the N8000 is the wind lever instead of gear, the rest of the playing field belongs to the sleeker, more modern and compact N9000. The best camera is the one you have with you, remember?

In use

Load film. Wind to 1. Set aperture. Point. Shoot. That's it. When you get to the end, hit the rewind button and crank that knob. Live life and be happy. They have a rather complicated set of recommendations for ideal positioning of foreground/mid/background elements, but in use I found that they correlate pretty neatly into my shooting style anyway so I just base a shot on instinct and click away. Just frame the subject either medium shot (waist up) to long shot (full figure) and try to compose stuff into the foreground and background for perfect harmony. Even when the rules are totally broken I still notice a 3D effect (works better for objects closer rather than further). When it gets even a little big (very, very little bit) dark - use flash. Theoretically, any type of flash should work, but my Canon 600EX-RT wouldn't trigger because the firing pin is a fraction of an inch off. Go figure. Had to MacGuyver a workaround with a coiled hot shoe extension to make it click. Even then, the flash wouldn't fire every 3-4 frames, killing the shots. Also, some films with a softer base (looking at you, Fuji Superia) tend to be torn at the sprockets when advancing the frame, renderings the entire roll useless. Reason for that is that there is only one film advance cog in the top of the body and winding pressure is applied unfavorably to the top sprocket holes only. Be very, very gently, or bye-bye roll.

Image processing

After taking the shots, what's next? Everybody has different procedures from here on out but the general goal is to develop the film, get scans and then combine those scans into an animated GIF. If I'm shooting B&W, I develop in my trusty D-76 concoction and after drying, proceed to scan on the Epson V800. Negs are converted in ColorNeg and the final images assembled in Photoshop. Obviously, there are lots of other substeps involved in each respective step, but they are outside the scope of this review. A bit later I am planning to write about my experience with developing your own film, scanning film and using ColorNeg and Lightroom/Photoshop to get the most out of your film shots, but for right now PM me if you would like advice/tips/tricks. Last step is to export an animated GIF or an MP4 video if you're planning on uploading to Instagram. Sounds like a whole lot of steps, huh? No fear, after doing this a couple of times it becomes second nature and many processes can be automated with Actions in photoshop.

Conclussions

So why do it all? Funny thing, I almost filmed a mock camera review where I smash the camera into moon dust against a brick wall. That's how frustrating it sometimes gets with all these inconsistencies and deficiencies in build quality. Would I bring something like this to an even remotely professional shooting environment? Absolutely not. The only camera capable of pulling that off is the Nimslo. Forget anything with a Nishika badge on it. But, if you are looking for a novel (and cheap) way of taking pictures and impressing friends, family and followers, as well as having the technical chops necessary to use film and assemble the GIFs, it's hard to beat the Nishika. The resulting images are what make all of the hassles worth it. It's like I sometimes describe the allure of film in general to people. Film is grainy, soft, full of imperfections and lacks the punch and pizzazz of digital. But oddly enough, that's exactly the way most of our memories work. Warm, somewhat vague,fuzzy. The Nishika just takes it to a new level by introducing depth. It's like a good old memory, animated.

Sample pics

#nishika #film photography #n9000 #n8000 #camera review #analog #black and white #bw #gif #ilford #hp5 plus #film #35mm #half frame #3d photo #stereo photo #kodak #tri-x #animated memories