Johnsenclan

Epic Edits weblog has a project going right now which I participated in.   The idea was to get a camera for less than $50 and shoot some film, then publish every shot from the roll and give a review of the camera.

The camera I used was less than $50, it’s the camera I wrote about a little while ago that my dad let me shoot some film in.  I shot a couple of rolls of black and white, and a couple of rolls of color.  Each roll has twelve pictures, and I included a a few from my first roll of color and my first roll of b&w (including my mistakes, just because I thought they were interesting).

The Mamiya C330 is a pretty amazing camera. This is the camera my dad used to take family portraits when we were all younger.  Instead of the usual SLR that most people use now, it’s a twin-lens reflex.  So one lens is used to take the picture, the other used for the viewfinder.  And the viewfinder is really cool.  Instead of a tiny viewfinder you’re looking at from the back, you get a huge two inch viewfinder on top with is very clear.  It’s totally different, and fun to use.  It’s a little tough to focus in some situation (just look at my examples), but if you take your time it seems like the photos come out pretty great.

The film for the black and white shots is new, but the color roll was a couple of years old.  I don’t know if it’s how they were developed, or if it’s because the rolls were so old, but I really love the colors that came out in my shots.  The light meter was broken, so I was guessing some of the time, which is why a couple of them turned out really dark.  The two I took of Wy in the bathtub were all fogged up, I thought I was far enough away from his bath to avoid that, but I guess not.

The camera is so much fun to use, I wish it was a little cheaper to get the film developed.  There’s nowhere local that will do it, it’s a 30 minute drive and a four day wait just to get them back.  So the fun is offset by having to wait and pay to see what the experimenting accomplished.  It’s a little bit exciting to get the phone call saying the film is ready to be picked up.

A couple in the bath, I probably should have let it go another 1/20th of a second

The photo on the left is looking in an abandoned train.  It looked fairly bright in there to me, but obviously not enough.

Your guess is as good as mine, I’m not sure how this happened, unless it let me take two exposures at once, which it shouldn’t have.

I love this one.  The blacks and the color of the truck is just perfect.

Not holding it quit steady enough on the left, and some boring bushes on the right

Sidney reading, another one that could have used another 1/20th of a second

I love that dark purple, it’s a little lighter in real life of course, but I like the under-exposure.

I blew out the flower, I thought about taking it from the other direction so I was shading it, but this seemed like a more interesting shot.

The depth of field is a little off, but this one is probably my favorite.

The camera, taken in a lightbox with my DSLR.