Craft! Bang! Boom!

Didn’t realize it had been quite so long since I posted here. Huh. Well, the last photo in the last post showed the Polaroid 230 Land Camera. It was part of a mixed lot of cameras and film I got on eBay. It was one of those auctions that actually has a ton of crap in it, but the description and first photo were really bad, so only a few people wound up bidding on it. I wound up getting a ton of 126 film…

…in addition to the Polaroid 230 and 4 packs of film for it. There were some random other cameras in it, too. I relegated the Instamatics and the Polaroid 600 into the bin of cameras for me to eventually sell on eBay. God knows, I am flush with Instamatics and Polaroid 600s. A Kodak Brownie Reflex (127 film) was also in the package. The viewing mirror and glass were grotesque, but it cleaned up just fine and I look forward to trying it out.

The Polaroid 230 was the main attraction, though. It needed a new battery, so I ordered one from Adorama and got a pack of the Fuji peel-apart film too to try out. I’m not sure if any of the Polaroid film that came with the camera will still work. I’m guessing not, but on the odd chance that it does, I wanted to work out any kinks I had with this camera on Fuji film first. That turned out to be a smart thing to do, since I wasted my first two shots with the 230 trying to figure out the camera settings. Now it’s working okay though.

Pretty impressed with the Fuji film. It has nice saturation and depth. I don’t have any issues with it, maybe because I’m a Polaroid n00b, but if this is the only color film I have available to use in this camera, I’m okay with that.

I’ve also been experimenting with the Goop aspect of peel apart films, as you can tell with the top pic. The goop is fun because it’s so unpredictable. I’ve taken 4 successful pics with the 230, and of the 4, the goop turned out to be a negative image on 3 pics. The fourth, the van pic shown above, had a positive goop. Sweet random, mysterious goop!

The 230 is a rangefinder, too, which is something that takes a bit of getting used to. The only other rangefinder I have is one of those stupid Argus bricks and I hate it. I’ve got a roll of 12 pics in it right now, and it’s taking me an eternity to shoot the roll, just because I hate the camera so much. Can’t wait to be done with it. The 230 isn’t so bad, though – you change the focus by shoving the bellows left or right. It’s not difficult at all.

In other news, found some fun film at an antique shop:

Unexposed 116 film, baby! Process C-41 even! Can’t wait to get into that. Also have picked up a few random cameras here and there that have rolls of film in them. A lot of Triple Print, actually. Stupid Triple Print. Guess I’ll be developing all of that in black and white. Oh, I also got some Diafine developer too, when I ordered from Adorama. Maybe I’ll do a developing day this week where I get a bunch of my old films developed.

Got out the Lensbaby and the macro filter for it and screwed around a bit today:

Did a Polaroid/Lensbaby mash-up:

Still waiting for the weather to get warmer.

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So much to tell!

First of all, I’m mad in love with the Yashica C. I want to make out with it. Right now, it and the mint green Savoy are my two favorite cameras. I developed the first roll of film I had taken with the Yashica C the other day and was thrilled with the results.

The above was the first pic I took with the Yashica C. For it being inside, taken at 1/30 sec, I didn’t think it would come out at all. But look at Wee’s little face! She’s wonderfully in focus! Hooray!

Taken through the window:

And taken outside:

Love this camera. It’s easy to use, makes great photos, and I feel semi-competent when it’s in my hands.

I got my other Yashica earlier this week. This was the one from the Yoshica camer auction. It came shipped with the viewfinder hood flipped up. I was all, “What the?” until I examined the top of the camera more closely. Turns out that the center of the viewfinder (the part flips down so that you can use the viewfinder as a sportfinder) was jammed down and wouldn’t flip back up. 20 minutes later and some disassembley, I had resolved the matter. I only managed to lose one screw, too!

Amazingly, despite the poor cosmetic shape of the camera, it actually seems to function okay. The front part of it feels like it’s going to fall off at any second, but I can’t find any more screws to tighten on it, so I guess I’ll just live with it. Loaded it up with Efke 100 127 film and took it out for a test drive.

I mucked up the first third of the roll because I didn’t realize how to properly set the film advance. When I finally figured it out, I must have accidentally exposed the first chunk of film somehow. Oh well. The rest of the pics turned out okay. There seems to be a light leak along one edge, but nothing catastrophic.

I’m not quite as comfortable with this camera as I am with the Yashica C. I think some of that comes from taking pictures of a different subject, though. The dogs were outside, and kept running around, and my brain couldn’t calculate shutter and aperture and focus that fast.

I thought at first that the electric eye light meter (the “LM” part of the 44LM) didn’t work, but I think I saw the sensor move around when I took it outside. There are all sorts of shutter/aperture/film speed calculators on the camera, but I didn’t have the patience to actually work with any of them. I think this will be a good little camera though, especially for subjects that stay still and don’t wander off.

Have a bunch of misc. camera news, but maybe I’ll get to that tomorrow. Am tired. Here’s a teaser photo, though.

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There was a bit of ridiculousness since the last time I played with the Polaroid One-Step Express. I lost the camera. One would think that would be difficult to do, considering the camera is large and green and resembles a whale, but I lost it nonetheless. Travis looked in the car, I looked all over the house, and there was no Polaroid to be found. Finally, I gave up and bought an emergency back-up Polaroid One Step at Goodwill for 99 cents. This one doesn’t have anywhere near the personality as the One Step Express, since it’s entirely black, but hey – 99 cents. You can’t go too wrong.

I figured that buying the back-up camera would immediately ensure that I would find the One Step Express, but a few days went by, and it still hadn’t shown up. Saddened, I loaded up the black One Step up with a pack of film, and Travis and I drove around on a little random excursion up to Amish-land. I took a plethora of cameras.

Anyway, whilst driving around, we stopped at a Goodwill in Millersburg, and there I hit the jackpot – I found a Polaroid Spectra camera in perfect working condition for $2.00. I had been looking for a Spectra since the end of December, when I scored 3 packs of Spectra film at the flea market in Muncie. I had seen some Spectras on ebay, but didn’t feel like paying the shipping, so I’m glad I waited until I just happened to run across one.

Another thing happened in Millersburg – we found the green One Step Express. Turns out it was hiding in the Fit the whole time. So, now I have two of them. Oh well. At least I wasn’t going crazy.

The next day we drove up north to Medina, and along with the normal herd of cameras, I brought along the Spectra, too, to take on a test drive. I haven’t developed any of the film from the other cameras yet (Travis shot with the Capitol 120, and I took some pics with the Yashica and the Uniflex Pinhole), but here are some of the Polaroids from the two days. The square format ones are from the One Step, and the rectangular images are from the Spectra.

Just for fun, a pic taken with the Nikon in all of its silly HDR glory:

In addition to needing to develop the rolls of film that we took recently, I also scored another sizable batch of old exposed film on ebay. I am an ebay ninja. Also, in addition to all of that, I just won an auction for 17 bucks that includes 12 rolls of 126 film and 4 packs of 108 Polaroid film. And there are 6 cameras, too. I’m not holding out much hope that the Polaroid film is still going to be usable, but if the camera works, I should be able to use some of the new Fuji peel apart film in it. I don’t see myself buying a ton of that due to the cost, but I may order a pack or so from Freestyle next time I do an order just to try it out.

Should be some interesting stuff coming up in the next few weeks.

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