Still here...

Been busy finishing up the semester, and being generally lazy. I'll be posting some new stuff pretty soon. Building a pinhole Polaroid, hopefully with a wide angle. Also working on a mystery Holga build project...if I could get all the stuff I need in the mail. Still going to talk about the Banner/Diana thing, too.
A few shots from the Arizona State Fair on Halloween of this year, with a Banner, using I think Fortepan 100. Pretty sure that's the last time I've shot anything.







I'll also be reviewing a new Japanese toy camera called Tolne, which roughly translates to a slangy "Can I take your picture?" If you want to take a funny funny picture, it might be for you. Hopefully in the next three or four weeks or so I'll get that done. Not much else to report. Check out The Rosewood Thieves. Great band.

Meteor from the Past

I know, that doesn't really make any sense, does it? Anyway, World Toy Camera Day was a couple weeks ago, now. One of the cameras I took with me and used for the first time was the Meteor. A crappy camera disguised as something more than what it is, made by Universal Camera Corporation, probably in the 1950s.


It even has a fancy leather case....real leather. I'm not sure who this camera was marketed to, but it probably was an older crowd than it deserves.


Not to say it's a piece of junk or anything. It's actually fairly solid. Mostly metal with some plastic parts. About the size of a Diana, but a couple pounds heavier. It has some 'features'. First, the barrel slides out to make it a tiny bit more compact that it would be otherwise.


It also has a little pin under the shutter release, so you can't fire the shutter by accident while the barrel isn't out. And you see it has a handy meter guide on top of the camera, though I didn't really see any difference in photo quality with different apertures...much the same as other toy cameras. It doesn't affect DOF or anything -- it's just there.


So it does have aperture and focus settings, an Instant/Bulb switch, and a flash hotshoe (though no timing thing for the flash to plug into). Oddly enough, I didn't see a lot of difference in focusing, either. It was all about even if it was in focus. It also has an interesting film loading angle. From the bottom.



Not has difficult as it looks. A little bit awkward, as it's just...different. And, believe it or not, this setup doesn't keep the camera from leaking from somewhere. It's all very snug, but I guess not that snug.
Sometimes designers are just funny. Take the viewfinder.


So we have the viewfinder. Hey, it looks kind of crooked. Let's put another one next to it. What? Costs to much? Then we'll just plug it. So we have another decorative circle to balance it out.
So, how did it shoot? Well, mostly pretty good. The most...disconcerting thing about the camera is how quiet the shutter is. I mean it is so quiet that I wasn't sure if it was even firing through the entire roll. I have the typical 'looking at my face' shot trying to see if I could tell if it was working. You just hear a slight "shk" sound, and that's it. It qould be a great stealth camera if it wasn't so big and obvious. The shutter was a little slow a couple times, but overall was on the money. These are shots from in and around Quartzsite, AZ.






It has some typical toy camera features. Blur and vignette along the edge, lightleaks, somewhat unpredictable. Reminds me of a Holga, mostly. Has the same issue where the viewfinder only shows half of what will show up on film.
What I found very interesting is that it has the same odd "light" square along the inside edges of the frame as the Diana+. Still not sure what this is from...reflection? But I haven't seen it elsewhere. Just odd that it is almost exactly the same. I can't really see inside the Meteor because the back doesn't come off.
So what do I think of it? Well, I don't dislike it, but I'm not all that impressed, either. Maybe if it were a bit smaller, or at least lighter. Funny, I read how people tape coins to Holgas to give them some weight, so they feel more substantial. If I could lead my floating camera along with a string, I'd be happy. And this camera is heavy. It's not all bad or anything, and I like the output to a degree. It's just all kind of...meh. It's like totally middle of the road. Some toy camera effects, some real camera ideals. Nothing bad, but nothing all that interesting, either. Granted, the subjects aren't that great either, but I've used better. There are so many other cameras to use, this one will probably only see daylight once a year. I'd like to run some color film through it. But I'm in no hurry.
Hmmm... sometime soon, I think I might compare the Diana with her retarded stepchild (and I mean that in the least offensive way possible), the Banner, also known as Arrow and a few other names. There are straight Diana clones, and there are copycat clones. The Banner is different enough that I think it is not really a Diana. It's just mostly shaped like one. More on that later. Ja, ne...

Odds and Ends and...uhh...just stuff

I haven't done anything particularly interesting for the past few weeks, so this is just a collection of different whatevers.
First of all...tomorrow is World Toy Camera Day! So, if toy cameras are your thing, go out and have some fun. And if they aren't your thing, try it anyway. Borrow a Holga, you grandpa's old Kodak Brownie, that crappy panoramic you bought at Goodwill, anything toy-like you can get your hands on and shoot a roll. Maybe you will hate it, maybe you will convert. It's the day for that kind of stuff! My last gf once asked me, "Why does it have to be on that day? Can't we go out tomorrow?" Well, yeah, sure. I can go out any day. But I can also do anything I want on any day. I can put up a Christmas tree in July if I want, but that kind of defeats the purpose. It's not all that important in the grand scheme of things, with war and poverty and pollution and whatnot, but it is what it is. And I like to enjoy the day for what it is...a chance to let my cameras shine. So celebrate your toy cameras on October 20, 2007, wherever in the world you might be! I'll be heading to Quartzsite, AZ and some of the surrounding towns with various toy cameras.
Second, I have very sad news. My Nova color developer died last week. I assume it died because the roll I developed was completely blank, and I know it wasn't the camera (my Diana+). The color did seem a little off, like darker, but I can't really remember what it looked like before. I've been using it since May of this year and I think I got 10 rolls out of it. It costs about $25 plus shipping from the UK for the developer, so I guess it's a money saver at about $5 a roll to develop at a store. I'll have to think about buying more. Maybe I'll save my color rolls for a year and then buy some more. That's kind of a drag, though. I'll do a little research on other brands.
And last, just so I have some pictures to add to this, here are some cool old film boxes. I haven't used the film in any of these yet, but I do take it out so the film can stay in the fridge and the boxes out. It always seems a little too humid in the refrigerator for long-term cardboard storage.

Ekfa 620, expired December 1964


Fuji Neopan SS 120, expired September 1963

Tower 620, expired April 1965


Var-i-Pan 620, expired January 1964. Someone was nice enough to send me a roll of Var-i-Pan 120 that expired February 1964, which I will be using on WTCD.


And just a couple spools and backings from Kodak Verichrome that expired in 1958, I think.


That's about it for today! I'm going to be using a couple 'new' cameras on WTCD, so I'll probably post follow-ups on that and other items of disinterest later. Also, check out the new Toycamera.com. Came together very nicely! Now turn out the light and let me sleep. It's only 2:52 in the afternoon? Whatever.

I made a scary mask for my Holga

Not for Halloween, though. I was thinking...if the new Diana+ has a removable mask so you can take 12 Holga-size shots, why shouldn't the Holga have the ability to take 16 Diana-size shots? So I made a (very ugly) 42x42mm mask for my Holga.


I used my regular mask (which actually used to be a rectangle mask that I modified, because Holgas didn't have large masks when I bought mine) and the plastic cover from a school notebook cover. That was the only plastic I could find. I cut it out and taped in together, and then colored it all black with a marker so I wouldn't get any light shining through the green plastic. And that was it...


I also used a new lens in my Holga. The lens mount still had the Diana lens in it, and it was just easier to put a new barrel on rather than screwing with the lenses. I was curious if there would be a difference in quality, as I've heard that the newer lenses are "better", as in sharper and less vignette. Impossible to tell here, of course, as I pretty much cropped the vignette out when making the image smaller.


The other weird thing I did was to pre-rinse my film before developing it. This takes off the anti-halation layer, which is supposed to keep light from reflecting back on the film from the backing or back of the camera. No particular reason to do this, other than curiosity. Soon I want to pre-rinse some film before I even use it, which is supposed to make your whites whiter or something. But this was just to mess around and see. The film was Fuji Acros 100. The water that washed out was dark purple. After a couple rinses, the water was pink, so I stopped and just developed for the regular time in D-76. When I first looked at the film while rinsing after development, I though it was totally screwed up. It was...white and opaque. Like maybe the film didn't fix properly.


But the shots were still there, so whatever. Not sure how or why this happened, chemically speaking, but as long as I gits my photos, it's cool.
I wanted to head up to Castle Hot Springs, check it out and take some shots. So I get past Lake Pleasant and the road turns to dirt. I figure, okay, 15 miles of dirt road through the desert...no problem. I drive about eight miles of up and down, side to side, and come up to a riverbed. No way. Looked very dry (of course) and very sandy. It wasn't more than maybe 200 feet across, but I wasn't about to get stuck 20 miles from civilization. That happened once before, and lucky for me there was a rancher nearby with a tractor. Everything I've read says you only need a 2WD to get there, but this riverbed looked kind of nasty. So I said screw it and turned around and just took shots of the desert and whatever. No shortage of mountains and cactus here to shoot. I seriously can't believe there isn't an easier way to get there. I mean, look at this place. And it's out in the middle of absolute nowhere. Oh well. It was still nice to go do something. My next road trip is on World Toy Camera Day on October 20th.
Anyway, here are some shots. I think the film was getting caught later in the roll, because the film was crinkled along the edge, and the pictures bow out on the sides. Oh, and fyi...this is autumn in the desert. Not much changes.








I like the results. It's not really Diana-like. And it doesn't really look like a Holga shot, either. It's something new. They have kind of a vintage quality to them. A little blur, a little haze (probably from the developing). One thing I noted (besides my mask being crooked) - I was trying to visualize a smaller frame, like I do with the Diana. I figured I would see more than what I was shooting. Wrong. The Holga already shows more than what you are shooting. Putting this mask in pretty much gives you a one-to-one ration. You are photographing what you see in the viewfinder. No extra and nothing cut off.
I want to make a better mask now. Adding that tape and all to the original mask made it a tight fit, and the plastic I used was too soft.
I also took my Diana+, without a mask and using expired color. Messed around with the pinhole function a bit. I'll probably develop it in the next couple days. I also took the Holga 135BC with Polachrome film in it. I only took a couple shots and will probably finish the roll on WTCD. And I need to get an Autoprocessor to develop the film. It's 35mm instant film. Seriously. But when I got it, I was like, wft? How does this work? You get a roll of film and a funky little canister and no directions. Did a little research, discovered I need a special processor. More shtuff fo cover in the future.

The results are in! And the winner is...

...not up to me! It's up to you. I did take out both the Diana+ and my Snappy (Diana clone) cameras today. I wanted to take actual photos, like "art", as opposed to just random snapshots, like we've seen before on flickr. This is what Lomography is all about, so whatever. But I wanted to shoot like I would normally, instead of just wasting film to hurry up and see what the new camera shoots. So I went up to New River, which is out of the city, but not so far that I have to drive more than 20 miles. And it's out in the desert...and there are lots of interesting things to shoot around the area (until the day Anthem takes over everything). I used about half of each roll to take the same shot with both cameras, with the same settings and focus on each camera. My Snappy doesn't have an aperture plate anymore, so I just left the Diana+ on cloudy (all the way open), even though it was sunny. Never seems to make a difference, anyway. I used Fortepan 100 (one of my favorite films - has a nice tonal range and good contrast) and developed both rolls at the same time in 1:1 D-76. I used the 42x42 mask, so the shots are the same size as the Diana. I'm cleaning the dust and cat hair off the scans, of course, but no sepia...just straight black and white. So they should be as close as possible to each other - only the camera differences should be apparent. I'm actually scanning the Diana+ negs right now while I'm typing, so this is an interactive experience! What do I see so far? You want to know the truth? I really, REALLY like what I f*cking see. Sorry Lomography haters, but this camera rocks. I'll type some more while I scan. When I first hung each roll, I couldn't tell them apart. I had to look really close to figure out which was which, and I identified the Diana+ by the sharper corners. From a foot away, I was like, wait, that's the Snappy...no, wait, that's the Snappy. Scanning them, I can see the differences, which we will see in a minute...but they look really good. I know, you probably aren't even reading this...you just skipped ahead to the photos. I'll have eight comparison photos here eventually. Right here.

Diana+


Snappy


Diana+


Snappy


Diana+


Snappy


Diana+


Snappy


Diana+


Snappy


Diana+


Snappy


Diana+


Snappy


Diana+


Snappy



Look pretty good? Differences? Well...I never thought it would happen, but my Snappy shots are actually sharper than the Diana+. Particularly when focusing close up. The Snappy's focus is a bit softer, while the blur on the Diana+ seems to actually double, with slight multiple lines along the edges of things...like the Snappy is romantic and the Diana+ is psychedelic. There is more detail in the Diana+ blur, while the Snappy loses detail...it's just "grayer". The Diana+ has a sharper blur. Dunno how many other ways I can say that. But you can see for yourself. I guess it's the difference between accidental blur (the Snappy) versus intentional blur (Diana+). The original Diana was just made cheap, probably with little quality control. The Diana+ lens was engineered to look crappy. The Snappy has more vignette than the Diana+. The Diana+ seems to rely more on blur. I'd imagine that taking out the mask would increase the vignette. And the most obvious difference is the odd "square" along the edges of the Diana+. A slight warp. I don't particularly like this, but I don't hate it either. With the mask out, though, it's going to be this square on all your shots a third of the way in from the edge. What causes this? No ideas. Must be something to do with the shape of the opening (it's round with corners instead of round). I guess. And the actual edges? As I ALWAYS include the edge, because, for me, that's part of the toy camera. It's not as bad as I expected! It looks so much straighter...and it is. But it still is a bit wobbly. I see a slight indentation on the sides, from manufacturing, I guess. The corners are sharper on the Diana+, which is how I identified the negatives. And the Snappy, it kind of glows along the inside edge as the image falls off, from reflection on the plastic edge, I assume. Oh, and the Diana+ does a pretty good job at scratching up the film...more so than the Snappy. But the plastic is harder and not as smooth as the snappy. And there is lots of dust and grit here that could have gotten in the camera, as all of the shots aren't lined.
One other difference, that's really only apparent when you put one scan next to another, the Diana+ shot is somewhat smaller than the Snappy shot. Maybe by a centimeter. I was wondering why there was more space between shots with the Diana+.
I did try the pinhole function. I was wrong when I said the book doesn't have suggested exposure times. It said 1-2 seconds for full sun. I did that...actually for five seconds in full sun. Nothing. Way underexposed, I guess, as I got nothing at all. I'll have to check to be sure there is even a hole, as the pinhole is plastic. Or just experiment more.
Now how did it compare when using the two? One thing I didn't notice until I started shooting - the focus distances are different. On the Snappy (and Diana, of course), the settings are 4-6 FT, 6-12 FT and 12 FT-INF. On the Diana+, it's 1-2 M, 2-4 M and 4 M-INF (oh...duh, thought it was feet when I was out shooting). So it's close, but a little different. I was glad for the strap, too, because I was afraid of beating up my new camera. That's why I don't like shiny, unused Dianas, because I know I'll just mess 'em up. The Diana+ sounds different when you fire the shutter - almost like it's not firing. The clicky film winder sounds different, too. Not bad, just a different sound...louder.
I tried to line up my shots as close as possible (with a winding break between cameras so I didn't forget to advance the film). What you see through the viewfinder is slightly different between cameras. Besides being incredibly sharp and clear in the Diana+ viewfinder...it just doesn't line up exactly like the Snappy. Though it has the same tendency to show more "up", while the lens shows more "down". As in it shows more dirt on your neg than what you expected and cuts off the sky.
So...who is the winner? Okay, while the Diana+ is great and all...it's not the winner. I love my Snappy and nothing will replace it...but it's not the winner, either. So...I'm the winner! Because now I have two great cameras! It's not about one replacing the other. I'm glad the Diana+ takes cool shots...and I'm glad it is different than my Snappy and Diana, because now I just have another choice!
It's ALL good.