Polaroid Land Camera+ FP100C

Last week was Polaroid Week, (or 'Roid Week) and I made almost no acceptable images, So instead of being sad, I'm honoring Edwin with this post.
I shot Polaroid and Fuji instant film all through Asia. (well at least in Korea and Japan) While in Korea, I had a mostly functional Polaroid 350. I took hundreds of polaroid prints home with me in a box that i'm yet to scan(Still waiting for them to flatten out). Since Korea, I replaced the bellows and accidentally punched a new hole through it. Thankfully a wonderful friend gifted me a brand new to me polaroid 250

If you're unfamiliar with Instant film, It makes some gorgeous images. I have a soft spot for any type of instant film because of my past affiliation with These Guys. In terms of instant film, Fuji's FP100C is especially special. Typically instant film produces a positive print that you can scan and do what you like with it. But with FP100C, you can also recover the negative itself. Some old polaroid films like Polaroid type 55 and Type 665 could get a positive and a negative. FP100C is a color film with a color negative, almost unheard of in modern film photography. The process to get the negative isn't so cut and dry. You must use a form of bleach to remove the black material on the back of the film. I've recently began using The Brothers Wright's workflow. Here are both some really terrible examples, as well as some pretty awesome ones. Using bleach has a chance of destroying, or shifting the colors of the film, so I am especially drawn to this material. Take a look at most of my previous work on my site here, and you can understand some other examples.

Starting with one of the first photos I shot, this was the view I had every evening. My apartment sat on the Nakdong River in Busan.

Poor Kitty Post Spay

Night photography is extremely difficult with this film, the reciporicty failure is very high.

If you leave your film out, this type of surface appears and won't go away when you're reclaiming the negative.

A super weird self portrait, the positive looks vaugely like this. There seemed to be too much bleach with this one.

This was from the lot of negatives in the picture above. My negative reclaimation only improved from here.

And finally a nearly flawless negative. Really happy with this new workflow. Now to find more film....

Dacora Digna + Cinestill 120 Alpha?!

I don't really remember where I found this camera. After arriving back in the US in january, I was digging through boxes and came upon this camera. I liked it because the lens collapsed into the body of the camera. Also, It's made out of aluminum, so its pretty sturdy. It has similar functionality to the Holga or Diana... Or any toy camera.  

A couple weeks ago... well let's back up a bit. Maybe a year ago, I funded a kickstarter. (when I had some extra dinero lying around) It was for the manufacture of medium format cinestill film. I hadn't shot it before, but If you're a company trying to make film, than I'm you're guy. I had a chance to shoot Cinestill50 a few months ago, and after that experience, I was even more pumped to get this kickstarter backed project rewards in hand.

The film tended to have a lot of weird things happen to it, such as static on the film causing some red streaks, which I've never encountered before, along with some other weird things. Since It's the alpha run, there are bugs being worked out. All in all, I'm really happy with this new film on the market.

Canon AutoBoy Tele

This is one of those cameras that have virtually zero value. But for me, finding cameras to sell is only a small component of finding cameras. This model, the Autoboy Tele in Japan and the Canon Sure Shot Tele/ Top Twin in the US. I thought this was a cool little camera.

I began testing it out at a wedding, I found quickly that it operated okay, but the gears that switched from Telephoto to normal were old and cranky, so there would be a loud high pitched screech as when I switched between the two.

It also had a date stamp feature that seems pretty antiquated, but possibly conceptually useful as a tool when making images. The lens reminds me a lot of the cameras I would use when I was a kid.

I shot a lot of different cameras while living abroad. (I lived in South Korea for the year of 2016.) Korea had a good supply of interesting architecture, and cheap cameras.

I guess I've been on a Kodak kick lately. This was also shot on some Kodak Gold 200. I tend to buy film that is expired, and I don't freeze or store my film in any particular manner. Maybe I'll add a photo of my current film stock in the future.