Category Archives: Shop Talk

{Praktica MTL 5}

April 29, 2015 1:29 pm ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅

My first SLR was a Ricoh Singlex TLS, which wasn’t a proper name brand, but it took a very common lens mount called m42. I have had various m42-mount cameras over the years, but since I have been using Nikon film cameras the last several years, my m42 cameras and lenses have fallen into disuse. I had a mind to change that here of late, so I started looking at m42 cameras again. There are so many brands with that lens mount, you’re actually spoiled for choice if you decide to buy one! I have a Praktica that I like but which needs a new focusing screen (I kind of tried cleaning the one it had and things went very wrong…) Rather than investing in a new screen for my existing Praktica, I happened upon a different model for a steal! I seriously got this camera body for $7.50. Isn’t that crazy! I didn’t need to buy a lens with the camera because I already have numerous ones.

Photo of the Praktica MTL 5, taken with an Olympus Stylus Epic

The Praktica MTL 5 is pretty basic. It will run without batteries, but it does have a built-in meter that needs a mercury battery that is no longer legal in most places. I initially tried to adapt a smaller battery (of the proper voltage) to fit in the camera, but the meter needle was jumpy (meaning I didn’t know if its readings would be accurate.) I eventually bought a battery called a WeinCell that is actually meant as a replacement for the outlawed mercury one that the MTL 5 needs. Unfortunately, the meter needle was still pretty jumpy.  Compared to meters in cameras that I knew gave accurate readings, the Praktica seemed to be about a stop too fast (meaning it would underexpose the photos if I shot film at the “box speed.”) I decided to just go ahead and shoot a test roll to see how well the meter was working anyway. Because I was worried the photos would be underexposed, I shot most of the roll at 50 instead of the film’s actual ISO of 100 to compensate for the meter’s inaccurate readings.

One of my frequent camera test subjects lately ^^^

My sister’s kitchen decor

My sister’s dining room table

The rope: another frequent test subject

David recommended I read Jaws *eep!*

Scanning prints for blogs which I have since published (Olympus Stylus Epic, Fuji Mini 90)

^^^my sister’s life philosophy

Cookies and cream cake I made at work

Afternoon spent alternating between crocheting and reading, whilst drinking tea

First signs of spring

 Super charged

Wyatt!

“This is what a strawberry tastes like!” after having subpar strawberries for so long, I had forgotten what they should really taste like.
(taken with a my shortest macro extension tube attached to the lens.)

 

Praktica MTL 5 • Fujinon 55mm/1.8 lens • Lomography Color Negative 100 film

Conclusion:

Well, the thing that makes photos good or bad is usually the lens. The lens I used for these Praktica test photos is one of my favorites, and it certainly proved itself worthy of being held in high regard by me! The MTL 5 though?  I can tell that a lot of the photos were a little overexposed, so I probably should have stuck with shooting the film’s actual ISO. And, yes, the exposures were pretty good, but the meter needle still didn’t give me a very confident feeling that it was giving me accurate readouts. I mostly had to use my intuition/experience to decide whether or not I trusted what the meter was telling me at any given time. Because I didn’t feel comfortable with the meter, I actually ordered another m42 before I got this film back. Perhaps I shouldn’t have jumped the gun, since these photos were not wildly under or over exposed. However, if I’m out shooting with a camera, I don’t want to feel iffy about the exposures the meter is indicating, and buying a second camera made sense to me (especially at such low prices!) I won’t be tossing the MTL 5 by the wayside though, I’m sure. I liked using it a lot!

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Diana F+ Black Jack {Two Rolls In}

March 19, 2015 10:36 am ⋅ 2 Comments ⋅

Subtitled: “The Dog Ate My Homework”

If you’re just now joining us, my history with Lomography’s Diana cameras goes like this: I bought a Diana F+ a couple of years ago. I didn’t get along with it, so I sold it after a handful of rolls. I decided to buy a Diana+ the next year because I found one for a very small price. I thought I might want another F+ because I had light leak issues with my Diana+. I found a new-in-box F+ on ebay for about $60 less than it retailed and very happily bought it. I was excited to have the new camera, especially since it came with a flash (my two previous Dianas did not.) Excited, that is, until I got home from work the day the Diana F+ was delivered. My sister’s dog is a bit of a chewer. He got he box containing the new camera and went to town on it.

Bummer, right?

While the whole point of this new camera was the possibility that I wouldn’t have to tape the whole thing up to keep light out, I decided I would just tape up all the holes and give it a try anyway. Here’s how that went…

Roll #1 was expired Fuji Provia 400, cross-processed

Pinhole exposure

This is my newly-adopted cat, Sonja. My first time using the flash for this camera.  I don’t know what the bright orb in the photo is about. Freaky, huh?

This is actually an (intentional) double exposure. You can only faintly see the first exposure on this frame of film.

Another intentional double exposure

The remainder of the photos from this roll were taken in Holly Springs, Mississippi, where I’ve done some mini photo excursions lately.

Truck advertising for the auction of Graceland Too.

County courthouse on the town square at Holly Springs

Roll #2 was (fresh!) Kodak Tri-X

Photos taken in February during the ice and snow days, on and around the property where we live

 Conclusion?

Since I have written my conclusions about the Diana+/F+ in previous blog posts, there isn’t much to conclude here. Except that I will maybe admit that I think I am getting a little better at using the Diana, and I can even appreciate it for what it is (I know which camera to pick up if I want strong vignetting, now don’t I? 🙂 )

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Conquering Diana

February 9, 2015 10:19 am ⋅ 2 Comments ⋅

“Conquering Diana in a few several easy long and drawn-out steps”

(This project may only involve few rolls of film, but the rolls themselves were taken over the course of more than a year.)

I’ve been hung up on a camera named Diana for some time now.

Diana+ and Diana F+ are Lomography versions/recreations of a classic toy camera called a Diana that originated in the 1960s. I thought using a Diana F+ would be no step for a stepper, since I have used its sister from another mister, Holga, with great success (IMHO.) The two cameras couldn’t be that different, right?

Wrong.

I assumed the Diana had similar specs to my Holga. But I failed to notice some key differences before I set out to conquer Diana. I bought a Diana F+ from Urban Outfitters in the autumn of 2012, just before I went to England for a couple of weeks. I didn’t need the camera nor did I need to take a camera I’d never used before on an international photo expedition, but I did it anyway. The results from my first rolls were mixed at best.

Examples of photos executed with varied levels of success from England 2012. To be fair, I’d never used the camera before and didn’t really know what I was doing. And they don’t look half bad, compared to what was to come with the Diana+…

When I say that there are some “differences I failed to notice” between the Diana F+ and my Holga, I’m mainly speaking of the apertures available on each camera. On both of these cameras, the apertures are chosen by using icons on the lens. The Holga has “sunny” and “cloudy.” The Lomography Diana cameras have “cloudy,” “partly cloudy,” “sunny,” and a pinhole aperture.  On the Holga, the cloudy exposure setting is f/8 and sunny is (supposedly) f/11. I only ever use the cloudy setting though . On the F+, cloudy is f/11, and partly cloudy and dunny are f/16 and f/22 respectively (plus the pinhole that’s f/150.) In layman’s terms, the Diana F+ is more light hungry than the Holga. It needs more light to get a good exposure than the Holga does. If only I had realized this when I had the F+ in England! Since I had a Holga that I loved and understood, I ultimately sold my Diana F+. I just didn’t feel like I was any good at using it!

Bye bye, Novella Diana F+. I kinda of want you back now.

But several months later, I got a bee in my bonnet about getting another Diana so I could feel as if the camera hadn’t defeated me. I ran across an auction for a used Diana+ in my favourite special edition, the Edelweiss, for about $10. I bought it. It arrived and, gee, it was pretty.

I made a poor choice in film my test roll: some Lomography Lady Grey black and white film. As with all Lomography branded films, the Lady Grey is another manufacturer’s film but with Lomography’s name put on it. In this case, I had Lady Grey film that was made in China and is brand called Shanghai. Diana+ and Lady Grey film did not mix well. I even made notes of which settings I’d used for each frame of film, so I thought maybe I could learn from my mistakes. I couldn’t really learn from my mistakes this time, because the film itself was so terrible.

Roll #1 in progress – an attempted (unsuccessful) pinhole photo. The resulting photo is the fifth one below here:

(Accidental double exposure)

(Aforementioned pinhole exposure)

(Pinhole exposure)(Pinhole exposure)

Lady Grey looks like a “fat roll” (common problem in rolls shot with Dianas.) It was just husky to begin with. Fat rolls usually have light leaks because the film isn’t tightly wound around the film spool.

Not wanting to give up on the Diana+, I ran another roll through it. I used film from my stash of expired Fuji Provia 400 (slide film) and had it cross-processed. Results were an improvement over Roll 1, but not great. Roll 2 also revealed that light leaks were going to be a problem. Womp womp.

(Pinhole exposure)

Roll 3 was another roll of expired Provia 400 to be cross-processed. Maybe I should have tried some fresh film in the Diana+ for once…but every time I thought of putting a better grade of film in it, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I try prefer to use the good stuff in better cameras!

(And just look at those light leaks!)

(Pinhole exposure)

I did put tape on a couple of the seams for Roll 3 to try to keep out stray light, but I can admit that I didn’t do a thorough job of it. The camera is so pretty that I didn’t want to ugly it up with black electrical tape! After the third roll, I decided I had to try one more time but would tape the camera more thoroughly this go round.

For Roll 4, I used Provia 400 again. I figured, at that point, the film was the “control” factor in my Diana experiments. Trust me: I taped the camera up BIG TIME for my fourth roll.

This is actually a double exposure, but the first of the two exposure looks very faintGasp! This picture is one of my top favourite toy camera photos now! It’s everything I could ask for in a cross-processed, toy camera photo.

By golly, I was somewhat happy with my fourth Diana+ roll!

The Diana+/F+ is a toy camera through and through. It can give you mega vignetting, light leaks, a lens that renders images both blurry and sharp in places, and very limited exposure settings. But, heaven help me, I don’t hate all the vignetting or even all the light leaks. What is even happening to me?? I will say that I wish I’d kept my original Diana F+ because it didn’t have catastrophic light leaks, even though I never taped it up.

Conclusion?
 Read More →

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Fuji GA645i {Two Rolls In}

December 22, 2014 10:41 am ⋅ 8 Comments ⋅

Upon purchasing a Fuji GA645i recently, I published a retrospective of photos I’d taken with its older sibling, the GA645. Now that I have the 645i, I’m ready to embark upon a review for it!

I was so happy when the camera arrived. It has that “new camera feel.” It’s in beautiful condition!

About the Fuji GA645i:

  • The Fuji GA645i is an auto-focus medium format camera, with manual focus available by override and is achieved through zone focusing
  • 60mm f/4 lens Fujinon Super-EBC lens (equiv. to 37mm focal length in 35mm format)
  • Produces 6 cm. x 4.5 cm. negatives
  • Accepts either 120 or 220 film. 16 exposures on 120 or 32 exposures on 220 (earlier GA645 models, like the one I had, only gave you 15/30 photos per roll)
  • Vertical-oriented viewfinder (must turn camera sideways for horizontal photos)
  • Two shutter release buttons: one atop the camera for vertical photos and one on front of the camera for horizontal photos (the release on the front was not available on the GA645)
  • Auto film advance
  • Auto ISO setting with certain Fuji films. Otherwise, you can manually set film speeds between 25-1600
  • LCD display on top of the camera with exposure counter, film type (120 or 220), exposure mode, focus distance, and other pertinent information
  • Moving parallax correction frame marks in the viewfinder, to give you more accurate framing
  • Exposure modes: program auto exposure, aperture priority, and manual 
  • Built in pop-up flash
  • Aperture range of f/4-f/22
  • Exposure compensation of ±2
  • Shutter speed range of of 2s – 1/700s, plus Bulb (though apertures f/4-f/9.5 can only use up to 1/400s shutter speed)
  • Minimum focusing distance 2.3 ft. (.7 m)
  • Option to imprint data between the frames of film – you can select to record date, date and time, exposure mode/shutter speed/aperture/exposure compensation/focus mode, etc.

On/off/exposure mode/ISO dial, data selector button, self-timer button, flash button

LCD info display, auto focus/manual focus selector button, exposure compensation button, and selector wheel

Primary shutter release on top, secondary shutter release on front

By no means a small camera, but smaller than so many other medium format cameras

Some thoughts

I had read online that the GA645i was quieter than its predecessor. While I don’t have a fresh memory of the noises made by the GA645, I do feel like the GA645i’s focus is a bit less “grindy” sounding (and is in fact quite quiet when held for horizontal photos – I’m not sure why it is louder when held that way as opposed to normally.) I think the film advance is a bit more quiet on the GA645i as well. Still, a co-worker made a a little fun of me for the noises the camera makes while focusing.

A maximum aperture of only f/4 is somewhat off-putting, because I like big apertures (and I cannot lie.) You know,  for selective focusing and because the slower the aperture, the less light you can gather. That also means you’ll need longer shutter speeds in low light. On the bright side, the GA645i has a leaf shutter, making it easier to hand-hold slower shutter speeds than you would be able to on a camera that had a focal plane shutter/mirror.

Size is an interesting issue with this camera. It’s almost unbelievable to see it in person. In a world full of people accustomed to seeing digital SLRs everywhere you turn, the GA645i will get you some attention when you’re out and about with it! Yes, it’s more compact and lighter than a medium format SLR, but it’s still a sizable camera. With the batteries installed, it weighs 1.89lb. (856g.) Lighter than its medium format SLR counterparts but not exactly a featherweight!

For comparison, the GA645i pictured with two of the smaller cameras I’ve traveled with: The Ricoh FF-1 above and Nikon EM below.

Roll #1 was Ilford FP4 Plus (ISO 125.)  I cannot believe how beautifully these turned out. Totally made me happy that I’d decided to buy this camera.

Started my first GA645i roll in the local cemetery. Always a good place to start with a new camera. I’ve done it loads of times. The statue of the young woman is a particular favorite of mine. 

Section A in the cemetery. Or “A’ is for Amanda?

Like a photo I took with my Kiev 4AM 

I have no idea how perfectly the camera focused on this winter goldenrod. The depth of field is extremely shallow, yet the thing that’s supposed to be in focus is in very sharp focus.

An afternoon where I managed to take a few photos of my niece without her staging a revolt

Alyza and Annie

Annie, the prettiest dog in the world

Roll #2 was an expired roll of Fuji Provia 400, which was cross-processed.

My camera tests this autumn prominently featured foliage

The beautiful portrait of Annie on Roll #1 was an anomaly. Normally, she turns her head just as I’m taking the photo or is otherwise derpy, as above.


I love this hand-painted sign at a beauty shop in our town. I photograph it fairly often.

My “acts of Christmas” one day were putting up my mom’s tree and the little silver tinsel tree in my bedroom.

1964 Pontiac Catalina that was at the auto auction where I work (in catering) one day a week.
(Also shown in my Bronica S blog)

Sushi restaurant in our town

Jessica and Dustin’s engagement session Polaroids, before I sent them to the couple

I loved how the branches were formed on this tree

Conclusion?

Love it! It was a bit of an investment for me, since I am a very frugal camera shopper. But the Fuji GA645i is wonderful. I don’t know if it’s actually a huge improvement over the GA645 I had, or if I just am more appreciative of a camera like this now than I was then. I’d love to take the Fuji traveling with me. It’s well-regarded for as a great travel companion. You get medium format quality in a package that, while not small, quite easily slips into a smallish camera bag or a biggish coat pocket. Not to mention the fact that it has auto focus and built-in metering. The GA645i doesn’t have the quietest autofocus, but when I look at the results, it’s hard to fault that when the lens itself is so incredibly wonderful. And the lens is really what matters, after all.

♥♥♥

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