Toy Camera | FilmSpooler

August 9, 2013 • 2:51 AM 0

PhotoLoc: Bourbon Street Portraits with the Lomography Diana F+

I had the opportunity to fly out to New Orleans this year and fortunately for me, my hotel (while still economical) was around the corner from Bourbon Street. With my Diana F+ in hand, I went out and shot pictures up and down the main drag…mostly shots of architecture. As it was getting dark, I decided to bust out with my Diana Flash and then realized that, at night, the people working the street would be more interesting to shoot than the surroundings. For the first time ever, I asked different vendors if I could take their pictures. I’d say 3/4 of them were OK with having their pictures taken. I also took the precaution to go into a store and get some change in case I was asked for a tip – which did happen about four times…no biggie.

The post work was a little challenging. The Diana Flash is not a bright light. Even with the aperture on the camera set to the widest setting, there was still a little underexposure. The film that I used was Lomography’s Lady Grey 400. In a camera with a higher quality glass lens, I think the shots would have been a lot more clearer…but at the same time, the underexposure wasn’t too bad and the pics came out rather decently after a little Photoshop love.

Oh well, enjoy!

Beer Guy on Bourbon Street – Diana F+

Sports Bar Girl on Bourbon Street – Diana F+

Sign Holding Guy on Bourbon Street – Diana F+

Shots Girl on Bourbon Street – Diana F+

Scary Kids on Bourbon Street – Diana F+

Flower Girl 1 on Bourbon Street – Diana F+

Piano Guy on Bourbon Street – Diana F+

Hot Dog Vendor Guy on Bourbon Street – Diana F+

Flower Vendor on Bourbon Street – Diana F+

Flower Girl 2 on Bourbon Street – Diana F+

Cowbow Guy on Bourbon Street – Diana F+

Filed under: Analog Life, Film, PhotoLoc, Toy Camera, Uncategorized, 120 film, Big Easy, Black and White, Bourbon Street, diana f+, Lady Grey, lomography, New Orleans, Street

December 5, 2011 • 11:59 PM 0

Fixing A Broken Colorsplash Flash…

Not all hope was lost after dropping my handy little Lomography Colorsplash flash and breaking it. A screwdriver and soldering gun helped save the day…

What it is:

The Lomography Colorsplash Flash is a hot-shoe mountable flash unit that gives the photographer the choice of using different pre-selected color gels when the flash executes. The photographer populates three of the four compartments with provided gels (the fourth one is a permanently fixed clear gel) in easy to figure out fashion. Lomography also has a 35mm Colorsplash camera that follows the same design, but the advantage of using the flash on your own cameras is that you can use your camera’s features (ie zoom, multi-exposure, bulb) that the simple Colorsplash camera doesn’t have.

Lomography Colorsplash Flash

What Happened:

While I was helping carry some equipment around with my right hand, the Colorsplash flash in my left hand slipped off the hot-shoe on my Holga. The poor little flash fell about three fee straight onto the hard wood floor. Thinking nothing of it, I picked and put it back on. This wasn’t the first time I dropped it and its resilience to damage was pretty good up to then.

Unfortunately, as I went back into the party and started taking pictures again, the flash wasn’t going off with the shutter. I ended up replacing it with another flash in my bag and moved on for the night.

Next day, I took a look a closer look at the Colorsplash flash and saw that the flash still charged up and the test button still triggered the bulb. So the only problem with the flash was that the circuit connecting to the hot-shoe was broken.

The Take Apart:

I like taking broken things apart and, hopefully, fix them. I probably could have taken the flash back to the store and find out if I could get a replacement, but it was the middle of the week and I didn’t have time to visit in the daytime. Instead, I grabbed a small screwdriver, found a well lit spot in the kitchen and went at it…

Taking the Colorsplash apart wasn’t that bad. First thing I did was take out the battery, but still kept in mind that parts in the flash may still be carrying a charge. Next was to remove the one main screw on the bottom-side of the flash that tightens the whole unit together.

Removing the main screw...

Afterwards, I grabbed the Colorsplash and gently opened it up like a clamshell using the opened battery compartment. There are several tabs on the unit’s end pieces that can be coerced open by gently rocking and twisting the Colorsplash case. Also, at this point, I also removed and set aside the color-gel carousel, the power button and its spring.

Showing the tabs in the "back" part of the Lomography Colorsplash

Lomography Colorsplash opened up

Once completely open, I looked at the part of the flash closest to the hot-shoe and saw a loose wire. That was my broken circuit!!!

The broken connection above the hot-shoe plug

In order for the flash to execute, the shutter has to close the circuit. I’m assuming that the fall and contact with the floor must have broken the solder between the little tab and the wire.

The Fix:

In order to fix this problem, I had to bust out with my soldering gun and some thin gauge solder. After warming up the gun, I put the wire in place and soldered the broken pieces together. Once I checked that I had a pretty decent physical connection again, I put everything back together.

The connection re-established using solder and a soldering gun

Putting the case back together took a little longer than I expected. Once I put the upper part of the case over the bottom half, I also had to slip the color-gel carousel, the button and it’s spring back into the flash body. I needed a pair of tweezers to get the power button and spring back into place since it’s such a tight spot. Finally, after snapping all the pieces back into place I put the main screw back where it belonged and tested the flash. I grabbed an older Smena Symbol and mounted the Colorsplash and it worked!!!

A nice pat on the head/victory dance later, I was back in action with my fixed Colorsplash flash. In all, it took about 45 minutes to an hour of my time to disassemble, solder and re-assemble the Colorsplash Flash.

I did add one other piece to my Colorsplash: a lens cap keeper which I attached to the Colorsplash body using an adhesive tab. The lens cap keeper’s elastic tether can wrap around the camera or lens bodies and keep the flash from falling to the ground again.

Using a lens keeper gives me a little more security

Warning:

Just keep in mind that the Lomography Colorsplash Flash is an electrical device that stores electrical charges and then releases them. I’m not telling anyone to go out and fix their flash units themselves. I’m just showing you what I did and that it was a fairly easy fix. If you’ve worked on repairing electrical devices, then this would be a straight forward fix for you, otherwise I suggest that you keep your receipts and head to your local Lomography store.

The Pictures:

In case you’ve never seen a Lomography Colorsplash before, here are a few pictures that show it at work…

Lomography Fisheye 2 with Colorsplash Flash

Lomography LC-Wide with the Colorsplash Flash

Lomography Fisheye 2 with Colorsplash Flash

Filed under: Accessories, Analog Life, Russian Camera, Toy Camera, Vintage Camera, colorsplash, fix, flash, lomography

December 5, 2011 • 9:43 PM 2

Holga 120 Panoramic Camera

Just showing up on several sites today, Holga released a new 120 panoramic camera, the Holga 120PAN. Announced in November, I just started seeing it pop up on the internet today. Yeah…I’ve been busy.

Holga 120PAN - Front

Apparently out in limited distribution, vendors are selling this update to the 120WPC (wide pinhole camera) as a soon to be hard-to-find item.

Holga 120PAN - Top

Quick Rundown:

90mm optical lens
panoramic viewfinder
built in level
uses 120 film, but a 35mm adapter will soon be available
produces images twice the size of the Holga 120N (around 6 pictures per roll)
two hot-shoes
tripod mount
zone focus (4 zones)
shutter: 1/100s

Holga 120PAN - Angle

Where To Buy:

Vendors selling it are Four Corner Store and HolgaDirect for around $90.

My Take:

With all the Lomography cameras that come out every year, it’s nice to see that someone at Holga cares. I’m looking forward to getting one of these soon. The sample images I’ve seen so far are looking like the same ones I’ve been getting with my Kodak Six-16 Brownie Juniors.

Samples:

Here are a couple of samples that the vendors have been posting on their websites. Hopefully, I’ll have my own soon…

Example 1

Example 2

Filed under: Analog News, Toy Camera, 120, 120Pan, brownie junior, holga, news, panoramic

December 2, 2011 • 1:41 AM 0

PhotoLoc: Alcatraz in San Francisco

Where:

Today’s PhotoLoc article, we’ll take a look at pictures of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco, California.

I went to Alcatraz for the first time, since I was a kid, last year. This time around, with cameras in hand, I tried to some decent shots of the cell house, the land and the views of San Francisco across the water.

Enjoy!!!

Canon AE1 - The westside of the cell house. The stairs lead to the courtyard below.

Desderi Robot 2 Lens - Southwestern side of Alcatraz, just below the lighthouse.

Konica C35 - Arriving on the island via ferry boat...

Canon AE-1 - The Lighthouse on Alcatraz Island facing south.

Superheadz Blue Ribbon - The road leading to the northside of Alcatraz.

Holga 120N - The water tower just behind the courtyard.

Konica C35 - On the way back to shore.

Filed under: Analog Life, PhotoLoc, Toy Camera, Vintage Camera, Alcatraz, Canon AE-1, Desderi Robot, holga 120n, island, Konica C35, San Francisco, SuperHeadz Blue Ribbon

September 22, 2011 • 10:37 PM 2

Scanning 35mm Film with Sprockets using VueScan and a CanoScan 9000F

One of the neat things about taking pictures with 35mm film is that you can shoot a picture and include the film’s sprockets in a frame. It’s a nice effect and for the most part it adds a nice touch of character and personalization to your work.

The Cameras:

The set of Lomography brand cameras that I use for these “sprockety” pictures are the Diana F+ with it’s 35mm Back, the Spinner 360 and the Sprocket Rocket.

The Diana F+‘s 35mm Back is an optional attachment that let’s you easily load, use and unload 35mm film into the camera. In order to get the sprockets into the picture, you need to install the largest of the included masks so that the image you’re capturing hits the entire area of the frame.

The Spinner 360 uses no mask and works out of the box.

The Sprocket Rocket is a wide angle, semi-panoramic camera that includes the sprockets in the picture by default.

The Film:

Nothing special here. Any 35mm film will work.

The Scanning Mask:

I use the Lomography DigiLIZA 135 Film Scanning Mask for the “sprockety” effect. It’s got the right dimensions and is pretty easy to use, especially sincet the Canon scanning mask that came with the CanoScan wasn’t designed wide enough to include the far edges of the film.

The Scanner:

I use a CanoScan 9000F for all my pictures. I really didn’t try any other scanners because the CanoScan was highly recommended by the some of the camera shops I’ve visited. For the most part, I’m happy with it. Since I don’t pay for photo printing anymore and I scan all my developed film myself, I’ve definitely saved more than the $180 I paid for the scanner.

The Software:

I tried using the software that came with the CanoScan, but dumped it because there was only so much I could control. So, after some browsing around, I saw a lot of good stuff about VueScan. I downloaded an evaluation copy and ran it on my computer and it worked great. It uses a tabbed interface that let’s me do a bunch of stuff that I wasn’t able to with the Canon software. VueScan is definitely worth the $70 I eventually paid for it.

The Problem:

Early on, I started scanning pictures that didn’t have the sprocket in them. Scanning these pictures was quick and easy, but trouble started to brew as I tried to scan some of my first pictures off of the Diana F+. I would initially get a blue hue and no matter how many times I tried to fix this, the hue wouldn’t go away and the bright colors in the frame were not shining through.

Now, if I set the scanning mask handles and excluded all the dark parts of the picture, I could get all my colors, but I would also lose my sprocket holes. That’s bad…

After some searching around the internet, I found some help. However, not many people were using VueScan, so I contacted their support. With the pieces I found online and the instructions from the VueScan tech, I was able to piece together a process that lets me scan my pictures with the sprockets holes and without the blue hue!

The Solution:

Here are the basic steps I use to scan my “sprockety” pictures. I’m sure the procedure can be streamlined at some point, but it still works as is…and that’s what counts.

1. After placing your masked film on your scanner and selecting the right settings, click the “Preview” button to get the initial scan. You’ll initially get the blue hued scan…and that’s ok.

2. Use the scanning mask handles and select the area of the picture between the sprockets and you’ll see the colors looking as you were expecting them to.

3. Put a check in the “Lock Exposure” check box and click the “Preview” button again.

4. Put a check in the “Lock Film Base Color” and expand the mask handles to include the sprocket holes.

5. Press the “Scan” buttton to finally scan your colorful picture.

6. Finally, the scanned picture will end up in the default folder set in your VueScan settings.

The Conclusion:

So that’s how I scan my “sprockety” pictures. If I hear or find better ways of doing this, I’ll be sure to update this post. For now, this is just the best way to go…

Filed under: Analog Life, Film, Tip, Toy Camera, 35mm, 360 Spinner, CanoScan 9000F, diana f+, DigiLIZA, film, lock exposure, lock film base color, scan, Sprocket Rocket, sprockets, VueScan

September 12, 2011 • 2:10 AM 0

Lomography Sample Sale

Following a great week up in Redmond and picking up the prints from my first photo exhibit, I went to the Lomography Store-LA for the tail-end of its weekend sample sale.

Picked up a few goodies for myself and some t-shirts for my wife.

Camera-wise, I got the gold colored Pop9 and a second SuperSampler Dalek edition toy cam for starters and more film for future projects.

I’m still figuring out how I’m going to use the Pop9. Maybe I’ll add some gels to the lenses or something.

For the SuperSampler, I’m definitely going to try a permanent modification. I’m modifying the mask inside the camera and plan to convert it from four chambers to two. This can be done by snipping away the correct two chamber walls in the mask. That way, you’ll get two lenses exposing into each of the two remaining chambers. I saw some of Satomi’s pics in a demo once and was really impressed with the results she got by modifying her SuperSampler.

So, along with the two new toy cams, I got several rolls of Fuji Astia 100F (120), Kentmere 100, Fuji Superia CZ 800 and Fuji Velvia 100 (all 35mm). Since I picked up some vintage cams on eBay over the weekend, I’ll be using this film on the new (old) equiptment as they come in. Each roll ranged between $2.50 to $3 each, so it was a pretty decent deal in the end…

: The Lomography Store in WeHo shot with a Lomo LC-A+

Filed under: Analog Life, Toy Camera, Astia, Dalek, Fuji, Kentmere, Lomography LA, Pop9, Satomi, Superia, SuperSampler, Velvia

September 10, 2011 • 12:47 AM 0

Sticky Spools in my Holga 120N

I used to think that Fuji 120 film didn’t like my Holga 120N. I was wrong…sorry Fuji.

Every once in a while, the turning of the film advance dial would get sticky and it would be really difficult to move to the next frame. The further along I would go, the harder it would be to get to frame number 12. I would eventually get to the last frame, but only after wrestling around a bit with the camera and working up a little sweat. After all that work, the results after finishing that last shot were either the spooled film not being tightly wound around as it usually should or not being able to finish the roll as the dial was stuck beyond my mortal strength. Either result usually ended up with my removing of the film from the camera and manually re-winding the film in the dark.

After some asking around and a little experimentation, I think I figured out what happened.

The issue with the loosely wound film was caused because of the missing foam pieces that are usually glued into the film spool compartents in the Holga 120N. Without the spongy pressure that presses against the winding film, you get pockets of slack as the film is winding around the spool. The uneven wind of the film would then put pressure against the chamber walls, making it hard to turn the take-up spool. This can cause pretty bad light leaks (or good ones, if you’re lucky) once you expose the finished roll to light.

Here's a shot of where the missing foam should be. Gotta replace it for future, hassle-free, photo sessions.

The best way to fix this is to replace the foam with similarly sized pieces that are about 3/4″ to 1/2″ inch thick.

The second problem came up from my attempt to temporarily fix the missing foam issue. I stuck a folded piece of cardboard under the new film spool to add resistence. Problem was that the cardboard was a little too thick and as the film spool turned and turned, the piece of cardboard would wedge itself deeper under the spool. In the end, the spool would get stuck and off to the dark room I went.

Here's the newly replaced folded paper sitting under an emptied spool. The piece before it was too thick and the new piece is half the original thickness.

The simple fix to this was to just use a thinner piece of cardboard…or even better, replace the foam with similarly sized pieces that are about 3/4″ to 1/2″ inch thick.

Here’s a shot I took that came from one of my loosely wound spools exposed to light…

The Metro station under Pershing Square in Los Angeles

It’s not too bad of a shot. The light leak adds a little character to the picture. What do you think?

Filed under: Analog Life, Tip, Toy Camera, 120mm film, analog, holga, holga 120n, sticky spool, troubleshooting

September 5, 2011 • 10:56 PM 0

In the Beginning…

Call it Toy Camera Photography, Lomography or Analog Photography – whatever it is, it’s still fun. If it creates an image on film and I can scan it, I’ll do it!!!

Folks ask me, “why shoot on film? Digital is easy.” My response is always the same:

“You either like to eat or you like to cook. I like to cook”

The same goes with photography. I want be a significant part of the process required to get my pictures to where I’ll be happy with them…and hopefully you will too.

In the past year, I’ve learned quite a bit about analog photography. I’ve bought several cameras, attended workshops and consider myself a pretty active photographer. I pretty much keep a camera next to me all the time, just ready to take that quick shot if I see it coming.

The purpose of this blog is share my experiences as I load, shoot, develop and print the dozens of pictures I take every week. Hopefully, the feedback I get will teach me something as well. I’ll focus on toy cameras (Desderi, Lomography), Russian cameras (Kiev, Smena), modern film cameras (Fuji, Lomo) and older cameras from yesterday (Canon, Konica); if I have to spool it, I’ll use it. I’ll also experiment with film, lights and other important pieces needed to make this as informative a blog as possible.

That’s it for now, but be on the look-out for upcoming posts…

: Fun at Alcatraz with a Lomography ActionSampler Flash and B/W film

Filed under: Analog Life, Russian Camera, Toy Camera, Vintage Camera, 120mm film, 35mm film, analog, film spool, lomography, Russian Cameras, toy cameras, vintage cameras

FilmSpooler