A new hand-held large format camera is “coming soon.”
I saw a video this week on YouTube about a 4x5 film camera explicitly designed to be carried and used without a tripod. It uses a mirror and a ground glass for top-down focusing and weighs “just over 2kg.”
This 3D-printed camera also comes with a unique focusing screen mask designed to host a mobile phone for immediately capturing the ground glass output on your digital device. While that may seem unusual and unnecessary at first, from what I understand, it’s a genuinely novel feature that lets you capture the world (inc. video) through the 178mm (50mm eqiv.) large format lens — which gives you an advantage of the incredible depth of field in a wide-angle. If you’ve ever tried to capture the view through a viewfinder of a regular film camera, you’ll know it’s nearly impossible to do it well. But a large ground-glass plane can make it happen.
Truly an incredible camera. But in retrospect, I think I’d be OK with just the T5 — it’s so much lighter! And the weight really adds up with every mile. 😅
Chemvert is a new stand-alone, subscription-free scanning software for macOS, compatible with all major scanners and digital camera RAW formats.
This weekend, I got to try Chemlooks’ 163MB software demo with my Nikon Coolscan TIFF scans.
The most impressive part of this app is that, unlike NLP, it doesn’t need any Adobe product to work. It is entirely stand-alone, and it’s possible to complete the inversion and do the most necessary adjustments right there.
Chemvert costs $89.99 as a one-time payment and “includes all minor updates and at least two major updates,” as specified by Tim, one of the app creators in our email exchange. This is an excellent alternative for those wishing to ditch Adobe and the monthly payments that come with it.
The software is new and built by a small team in Australia. I enjoyed its ability to complete most tasks I needed, various inversion engines, and the ability to analyze the entire roll. However, I hope that future updates will address the slight delay before each adjustment is previewed or applied. From what I can tell, Tim and Brent are hard at work on it; the Windows version is promised to be launched soon after.
You can try Chemvert to see if it’s right for you or purchase a full copy here: chemlooks.com/chemvert/
The demo version leaves a watermark and has a limited trial period (30 days). Plenty of time to evaluate the software and perhaps send feedback to its creators to help improve it.
True. It’s tough to beat vintage prices, especially if the cameras are built exceptionally well and aren’t likely to break.
Premium point-and-shoots are tricky. They can be more expensive than the 35AF and may break suddenly without a warranty. But these cameras are exquisite tools with features and build quality we may never reach again.
But there’s a segment somewhere in the middle of folks excited enough about this camera and able to afford it. I also hope it’s large enough to fund further research and development for cameras like the 35AF.
“Homemade CineStill,” I like the sound of that! I’m considering trying something similar at home by pre-stripping the remjet as an experiment. I’ll post about it if I end up doing it. Cheers,
Thanks a lot! I’ll look into it. As for B&W, Delta 3200 would certainly be a safe bet, and it’s not that bad price-wise, but pushing HP5 (and Tri-X, thanks!) sounds like it’s worth trying too. As for colour, I might consider pushing Ultramax but I’ll keep in mind what you say. Unfortunately, all the native ISO800 films are too expensive for me to use more often than once in a blue moon, but as it happens, I’ve recently discovered here in Poland a “homemade Cinestill” making project, so I’ll probably try out their film as well.
Очень красивые фото, насыщенные цвета!!! В самом деле, наблюдая за буйством красок природы, можно получить неизгладимое удовольствие!!! Автор, браво!!!! Продолжайте в том же духе, радуйте людей своими красивыми фотографиями жизни и подлинных красок мира!!!
HP5+ is loved by many because of its ability to handle pushes. But Tri-X shouldn’t be ignored either, it’s a good film for that. This year, Tri-X dropped in price considerably, so it may be an economical option.
I haven’t pushed Ultramax previously. If you develop at a lab, it may be actually cheaper for you to get something like CineStill 800T and develop at box speed or push one stop (since labs often charge per stop pushed). I’ve had good luck pushing Pro Image 100 to 400 (which may be a similar experience to pushing Ultramax). However, it added a significant amount of contrast to the shadows, which is often the price you pay for pushing cheaper stocks. It could be worth a try anyway, depending on what you’re looking for.
If you’re planning to shoot dark scenes and are looking for clean results, you may be better off with B&W stocks as colour films may sometimes add colour noise to the shadows, which could be difficult to get rid of in post. Or you can just shoot Delta 3200 or T-Max P3200, which will be grainy but generally as good as you get at that ISO.
As it happens, I have one more question regarding pushing film! Do you have any recommendations on the cheapest options to shoot something in ISO800/1600? I assume the cheapest option would be to push some ISO400 emulsion, but I’m wondering what would yield the best results. When it comes to colour, Ultramax looks somewhat promising? In B&W, I suppose that HP5 seems like the safest bet.
Buyer’s remorse about the modern film cameras is beginning to cut through the hype.
I’d like to preface this by saying that there’s nothing wrong with being excited about new products. I take a positive approach to most products I review because I love film photography, I understand production constraints in 2024, and I do not expect perfection.
However, it must be difficult to be critical of a relatively expensive gadget that one gets and has limited time to play with. This is also fine. I am not happy about being attacked over not accepting that modern tools are somehow better in every way than their vintage counterparts (that happened, and it’s the Internet, so no surprise either).
But as time passes, the novelty wears and criticisms surface. Whether it’s Lok’s dissatisfaction with the build quality and design of the new Pentax 17 (youtube.com/watch?v=gwnlnE…) or @theinstantcameraguy’s complaints about Polaroid’s slow software fix cycle for critical bugs for I-2 (see: analog.cafe/comments/z0ow).
The truth about those tools is probably somewhere in the middle, and it will depend greatly on individual experience and expectations. But no matter what our collective opinion is about those new tools, it is nonetheless remarkable that there’s such a strong demand for film and film cameras in 2024. I sincerely hope that the manufacturers take note and remember that the user experience matters the most, whereas the hype always fades.
You can replace the internal battery at home if you are comfortable taking a small piece of the camera apart. It’s the port just underneath the zoom buttons. The battery is a common one. See “fixing blinking LCD” above. But I can’t promise it’ll fix the full functionality as it may be something else.
So this is what I learned. Both the internal battery (a button cell of 2025 type) and the external 2CR5 have to be fully charged for the camera to operate. In my case, the internal battery is out of juice and I need to get a technician to replace the internal battery as it takes some skill getting to that part inside the cam. What a ridiculous feature Yashica put in it…
Thank you. Yes, new 2CR5 battery was placed im both cams yet zoom buttons don’t work. I guess I will bit my lip and place a roll of film and test it myself if it then works. Will update the result here.
Hello, the zoom should work when the camera is on. But please ensure that you’ve got the battery installed. The display will function without the main battery installed, which may make an impression as if the camera has power (this is because a small internal battery powers the screen).
Can the camera controls like zoom be tested without placing film in it? I have a 3.0 ad 4.0 and while the camera turns on, the zoom buttons on both are unreactive. So I am doubting whether it requires film to be loaded.
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