Going Small to Get Bigger
Turns out I’m jealous of all of the cool square-format, lo-fi, edgy film stuff my friends are doing, mostly with vintage medium-format cameras like Bronicas and Rollieflexes. I can’t pay top-dollar for exotic film and processing right now, and I don’t have the time to nurse finicky fixer-upper gear back to health, either. At the same time, I’m fascinated for some reason by the dodgy aesthetic of the Holgas and other plastic toy cameras enjoying popularity now.
So, I bought the blackbird, fly, a plastic toy that does square-format and edgy on cheap 135 film. It actually does a couple of frame sizes/dimensions through the use of some snap-in masks inside the body. While I considered a cheap Chinese-designed Holga (with all of its known and desirable flaws), the TLR form-factor and the common film stock use pointed me toward the blackbird. I saw some sample prints and they looked pretty good. The sales guy said that Superheadz/Powershovel, the company that designed and sells it, were somehow associated with Holga at some point, but that the Japanese just couldn’t bring themselves to make a crappy camera. Consequently, I paid about three times what a base Holga would cost.
I loaded it up with some Ilford 400 B&W and took it to the Orange County fair today. It’s not going to be easy to use without some practice. For one, it’s tiny, and feels a lot smaller in my hands than I thought it would when I read the online reviews. Like most twin-lens reflex cameras, the viewfinder is on top, and you look down into it. Left and right are reversed in the VF, and since one lens feeds the viewfinder and the other is for the exposure, you can’t see the effects of your focus efforts. Speaking of focus, it’s accomplished through a geared mechanism and is set by distance (which is marked in meters, of course). I’m sure the first roll or two will be full of botched focus frames.
The experimenting keeps me going. I’ll post results when I have them.
#1 by Theresa on August 2, 2009 - 7:25 am
Um, what’s this thing called “film” to which you are referring
. Enjoy filmwhile you can. Fuji is one of the last to make traditional film. Kodak stopped a few years back. Plus, With the US government trying to make green laws for corporations, it may cease all together. But there will always be importing.