Message from Dinostrich

The wonder of Flickr

On Flickr user Dinostrich offered some surplus films for a donation towards a wildlife or childrens charity. Of course these will be posted onto Flickr in due course. So this morning they arrived.

That was the wonder of Woolies

This time last week the Woolworths chain of shops closed for the last time. This back entrance of the shop in Great Yarmouth was closed up much earlier in the eighties. For some the decline had already started then. For me as a child of the seventies it was the the most nearest entrance to the toy department and as an adult in the 21st century it sums up the present situation very well.

Great Yarmouth and Gorleston The Twentieth Century 1900 - 1999 by Colin Tooke

I have been enjoying this book "Great Yarmouth and Gorleston The Twentieth Century 1900 - 1999" by Colin Tooke. Well worth a read and look. If you are into history and photography you would find this very interesting. As it contains a wealth of pictures from the area covered by the title.

See how this develops

High street film processing is not what it use to be of ten years ago since I used it. Unfortunately it's a lottery as it's the weakest part of the chain where you have no control. In this part of Norfolk it is not so readily available to walk to a specialised film lab. I already changed from one source to another due to bad processing. So since November 2008 when I started using film again I have had three rolls with errors in developing out of eight rolls. But in perspective this does mean it is in less than a dozen images out of a total of 192. With just these 3 recent images that you can't repair in post on the computer.

So a search for consistency may mean self development or mail order film lab.

Kodak Color Plus

Kodak Color Plus iso 200 from of all places Poundland. That's a UK store where everything is priced a one UK pound. I have this in the camera waiting to finish a roll of this off. I was given this roll yesterday, so subsequently today I went and got ten rolls to play with. I'm very pleased with the Fujicolor C200 so will see what this is like. because I would like to use a more expensive film such as Kodak BCN400. Which is black and white film that you can get developed using a color process. Though this costs more. So I wont have to just use one or two rolls a month as an equivalent if I mix the two together.

earth resonance

earth resonance
Originally uploaded by -{The Broken Camera}-

The soil is turning over for a fresh season of growth.

Came across this newly ploughed field when shooting a test roll in my Zenit B. I hadn't used this camera since 1986. Don't ask me why because I don't really know the answer. It was only five years later when I got a computer for music sequencing did I get a scanner... then the image making began again.

Zenit B + fujicolor C200 + sunny16 + little bit of burning the sky in

Can you tell what it is yet?

Example of a picture taken by the DIY macro.
This just a smaller 600 x 600 pixel of the larger image.

The DIY macro Lens

Gaffa taped the Helios44 F2/58mm lens off my Zenit 3 onto my Cosinon 50mm prime lens on my DSLR. Must say works a treat. Tried it with these two lens because they match each other diameter wise and physical size. Don't want to cause any physical damage to either lens or camera body.

I found my first camera

In the first half of the 1980s... My first electric guitar was an Ibanez ST55... my first synth was a Roland SH101... but the Prinzflex 500 was my first camera at around 1984. A rebaged Zenit B. Being the same as the Zenit E but without the light meter. Probably why I prefer manual cameras today.... Similar to the Zenit 3 in that is of a similar specification and layout. The cloth like covering gives it a vaguely Ashi Pentax Spotmatic look I think. Serial number 70118661 denoting made in 1970.

The Industar-50-2 3.5/50mm lens is quite a find. The number 2 denotes it's a M42 srew mount rather than M39. So I'm pleased that with an appropriate M42 adapter it can fit on any camera body. The non stepped aperture is changed from the outer ring at the front and the focus is by the external ring at the back. The lens serial number is 6968772 so from first two numbers denotes made in 1969.

After a test roll this has shown it has an intermittent light leak in the body. If it's not coming from the view finder I could temporarily gaffa tape the front and back seals externally and use the ever ready case. Though it could be reflected light coming through the view finder possibly. I was using this camera without a case on a sunny December day in 2008 since I last used it in 1986.

2009

A small post to herald its arrival. Hope everyone has a good year.

How to hold your camera in the USA

An excerpt from a manual about a Honeywell Spotmatic. This is an american rebadged brand of the Japanese Ashi Pentax Spotmatic.

How to hold your camera in the USSR

Excerpt from an instructional manual of a Zenit E

From Russia with love

It's xmas 2008 and I wasn't expecting a Russian made Zenit 3 SLR from 1960-62. Infact they found it too expensive to make so they only made it for a couple of years. The better made ones were sent for export or sorted out by the importer with better quality control. An interesting journey this camera has had. Individually stamped with the serial number of 62202303 where it was made in the Zenit factory in Krasnogorsk in the USSR and was purchased from the John Wells camera shop at Lowestoft in the United Kingdom in the seventies. My aunt using this camera to pass her photography exam with it.

It's a beautifully ugly camera that carries a certain charm about itself. Substantial and uses no batteries but feels reassuringly comfortable to use. Therefore it has no light meter built in. So you would have to use the Sunny 16 rule or a light meter. The very large viewfinder is very comfortable to use. It's like looking at a television screen inside. The mirror plate is worked by means of a length of string! You have to advance the film lever to operate this to be able to through the lens. It shuts down after every shot. It has shutter speeds from 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, 1/250, 1/500 of a second and a bulb mode. The Helios 44 f2 58mm lens it carries is a Russian copy of a Carl Zeiss Jena Biotar 58mm f/2 M42. So the optical quality is going to be of a very good pedigree. Other Zenit 3 also came fitted with an Industar 50mm/3.5 lens. On this camera they use a Leica M39 mount. So adapters exist as later in the sixties they started to make cameras with the more universal M42 screw mount. So a demand for Russian and communist bloc citizens wanting to use these lens on these later camera bodies was answered. Of course this then means you could also fit that adapter onto a M42 adapter to fit on a required film or digital SLR body. You could also use a reversing ring with a relevant camera mount to attach this lens backwards to make it a macro lens. A high quality macro lens in this case. So two possible potential avenues to explore in recycling old pieces of equipment.

Because I haven't a manual for this there were some issues to resolve. One of which I have resolved through a Google search. At first I couldn't see where you could rewind your film back after you had finished your film to unload it. Otherwise you would run the risk of ruining your film! Here you need to depress and turn clockwise to lock the ring around the shutter button. This enables the winding back of your finished roll of film. Like the relatively sized Halina 35x of the same time period the body has to be unlocked from the bottom to enable you to unload/load film. To unlock the rewind feature you need to turn anti clockwise fully then turn the top shutter so it pings back.

On the film rewind dial there are markings of film speeds going from 350 to 11. This in GOST (a pre-1987 arithmetic standard which was used in the former Soviet Union) . This translates to iso 400 to iso 12. There are three points marked on the outer rim. One black dot marks a circle with a dot in the middle (where the 180 is in the image) and the other two are red dots marking a sun symbol (shown) and a light bulb respectively. The function of is it acts as a visual remider for what film you are using and doesn't have any effect over the film exposure!



This week weather permitting I shall be discovering what this Soviet eye makes of the Suffolk area. This isn't an exercise about making images look old by using old equipment. It's about using affordable photographic equipment to make something new. It's about guerilla photography as a methodology. In these financial and environmental times it's more important and relevant as it ever was.

Banks in Need?

The financial crisis in a nut shell

Countryside by moonlight

I explore Fritton woods via

Gorleston
&
Bradwell
&
Browston
&
St Olaves

walking back via

Ashby
&
Somerleyton
&
Lound

Tesco C41 iso400

Tesco C41 iso400 own brand film. Another cheap and cheerful film I've been using. This is rebranded film from another manufacturer that Tesco have rebranded. Very good film it is to. Some might turn their noses up at it but it has it's uses as it works brilliantly. Though a word of caution where it says "For best results, please return your film to a Tesco store offering a processing service" they can give you imperfect development of negatives. which in my case was blotches on a couple of the pictures with dark contrast and night time shots. Nothing that you can't remove with the clone tool in Photoshop, but...

Fujicolour C200

I've been using Fujicolour C200 recently. Still have to get a couple of rolls developed and it's an iso200 C41 process film. Another supermarket find of 5 rolls for seven pounds there of. Capable of vibrant colours outdoors for such a cheap and cheerful film. I'm on the lookout for a film scanner is this is a necessity in the long run. Bypassing the need and expense of having prints and scanning from those by just having the negatives developed. Which should pay for it self in a very short while. In times like these that's a bonus as I'm doing this all on buttons.

Building up endurance

I had to drop some work off at Martham. So I decide to walk back home from there. I've walked longer distances whilst living in London. So 12 miles and then some more to get home. An excuse to take some landscapes. I certainly got more out of it this way. Something I wish to do again because I think it works as a methodolgy even in winter. it forces you to look harder at the landscape around you. I only took 12 shots along the way. So how's that for discipline! My arm aches this morning after carrying my tripod! Remember to carry the minimum amount of equipment for this so you can just think about composing your shots. Should've taken my DSLR I would've taken some more night shots. Though I would still be there if that was the case.

This weeks episode of Gurrilla photography

I spend the UK out of recession with a 49mm UV filter from Jessops for 95 pence......

Find a Kodak one use film camera. Was toying with the idea of opening it and using the film but thought not. The film has expired in october 2005 so that should be interesting as a project.

Tesco box of 5 rolls of own brand 24 exposure iso 400 C41 film has gone up to so I had the bag of Fuji Colour iso 200 instead in ASDA. Interestingly Boots do a pack of own brand iso 200 C41 36 exposures I think for the same amount. I shall do a test at some point in near future. All these own films are rebranded from another manufacturer.

...and now the sun has come out on this wet day so I can take some images.