Attic Sale Spoils

This mornings attic sale was pretty piss poor but did find a lovely Agfa optima 200 sensor rangefinder for a fiver



I'l more than likely put a roll of film through it next weekend

The Impossible Project

The Impossible Project have finally put a new website up after about a months delay and much to I'm sure many peoples disappointment it is just Polapremium with a new picture but oh well march 22nd is the big day!

To all of you who don't know, The Impossible project is remaking Polaroid film and plan on releasing a B&W 600 type film on march 22nd. Coloured 600 and sx-70 are planed to follow in the summer. The New55project are are also recreating the type 55 Polaroid film for larger format cameras.


My Fave polaroid of my mum and dad

If you can't wait for the new film the check out Poladroid which turns any digital image into a digital Polaroid with vignetting and everything.

The Impossible Project
New55project

Diana Mini Mare

That's right I've jumped on the PR band wagon that is Lomography and got myself a Diana Mini with The Diana Flash. Its a lovely charismatic camera with a square frame and half frame option, but I just cant get over the price of around 45 pounds for what is essentially a bit of plastic


Cute little thing aint it

annoyingly mine was broken and the film advance just quite clearly didn't work then some bits fell off like the shutter release but I still managed to get a roll of film through it before the whole thing eroded away and I got some amazing results with multiple exposures on the same frame and and exposures overlapping all by accident. A lovely bloke at Lomo did help me to get a replacement one though, which was nice.



about 4 exposures stretched over a frame and a half


few more exposures stretched inbetween 2 frames

I love what Lomo are doing but still cant justify the price of any of there cameras in my head!

Nikon AF600 Trumps Most Digital P&S

The Nikon AF600 (lite.touch) is an absolute gem! and a feat of genius, it is one of the smallest compact 35mm cameras I've ever seen (smaller than a lot of APS cameras in fact) The camera was first made in 1993 but it still looks slick. I can only imagine the amount of time and care that went into making that lens (f3.5/28mm) as this baby will easily out perform a lot of compact digital cams the kids are wielding these days.



I got this one on eBay for only £12, and have seen ones fly by with one bid and go for 99p, the camera feels lovely to hold and has all the features you would expect of a mid level 35mm compact plus a panorama mode for making it look like you and your mates are in the movies! which is nice.


Taken using my nikon AF600

as you can see the pictures are crisp and have a lovely D.O.F even for a f3.5 lens the sharpness and bouquet of colour achieved by this camera I think would even rival some entry level SLR cameras like my Nikon F65



I took this one using Ilford XP2 400 which is a B&W film that can de processed in C-41 chemistry meaning you don't have to send it off or in my case use the lab at Pinewood studios to get it developed, it is not 100% monochrome though and prints will all ways have a slight blue green or brown tinge to them.

GET ONE OF THESE CAMERAS AND YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT, FILM ISN'T DEAD JUST YET!

Super-Takumar f1.4/50

So I was having a little look around in the attic, as you do and found a load of my Grandads old camera bits and bobs, which included a Praktica L2 in not to bad condition and a Tesco bag containing 12 screw mount lens's. Happy days. After sorting the wheat from the chaff I was left with

Super-Takumar f3.5/28

Pentacon f2.8/29

Domiplan f2.8/50

Pentacon f1.8/50

Super-Takumar f1.4/50

So obviously finding the Takumar 1.4 was better than Christmas and all the other lens's apart from the shockingly made Domiplan were quite nice finds. I whacked the Takumar on my D60 using a M42 -> Nikon converter which annoyingly doesn't allow infinity focus it actually reduces its ability to focus on anything beyond 10 meters quite dramatically!

The lens is of course a manual focus with aperture ranging from 1.4 to 16 and minimum focus distance of 0.45 meters when mounted on my Nikon D60 it does not recognize there is a lens attached so everything needs to be shot in M mode, I think this is the same with most DSLR and most screw mount AF lenses will not auto focus unless a much more expensive mount converter is purchased. in order to get infinity focus on these lenses when mounted on a DSLR another glass element needs to be introduced but this of course will effect the image quality and properties of the lens.

Wide open at 1.4

wide open at 1.4

wide open at 1.4

This is a lovely lens and would really recommend getting one or any other decent M42, there still quite readily available on the internet a good shout is the Sweedish version of ebay Tradera, as it recieves alot less traffic you can pick them up for cheaper. eBay prices are rapidly rising due to increased popularity of using screw mount lenses as digital SLR type lens substitutes. ofcourse you could also try car boot sales and the odd charity shop a lot of people will look at these old lenses and just asume there worth nout! when they can easily fetch £40-80!