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I just sold my XA2 that was in my possession for approximately 38 years. Your review is spot on.
To me it was always a good enough pocketable 35mm film camera, provided that I adhered to the “open the camera and immediately set the focus” rule. My XA2 saw a lot of international travel prior to 2007.
Its replacement is a 70 year old Voigtlander Vito II, which in my opinion has a better optic. I purchased the Vito II in 2019 for my 65th birthday for a pittance and did a D.I.Y CLA. — “Alles ist gut” -
Polaroid has just announced a “new” limited-edition design for their SX-70 colour film.
The packaging is a throwback to the original packaging by Paul Giambarba (1928-2023) that drove so much of the Polaroid aesthetic in its heyday thanks to its genius simplicity, vivid colours, and memorable geometric art.
However, the packs are not a 1:1 reproduction of the earlier masterpiece. They’re a bit of a mix of the old (graphics, including the logotype) and the new (lowercase bubbly “polaroid” font). Unfortunately, the new packs still contain just eight frames instead of the original 10.
(While Polaroid could probably fit ten shots in their new battery-less I-Type film packs, the SX-70 and 600 packs for vintage cameras simply can’t, as the new materials produce slightly thicker frames.)
Back in December 2023, I built an instant film camera out of gingerbread with a lens made of isomalt sugar. The fact that it worked felt miraculous — even though the images were super soft. This invention generated enough interest to get featured on PetaPixel, 35mmc, designboom, CBC News, and many others.
The camera still works today. Despite sitting on a shelf for over four months, it smells delightful, and the construction feels just as strong as it did on day one. And so in honour of Worldwide Pinhole Day and the DIY photography spirit, I decided to dust off the old bread and spend the last remaining frame that I kept there since December.
I was delighted to see that the camera remained light-tight and fully functional. The frame that remained inside all this time did not receive any light leaks. Unfortunately, the up-close photo of a garden flower I took (attached) is intensely soft — much softer than expected — which made me wonder if the isomalt sugar lens has degraded significantly enough to warrant a replacement.
Like many old film cameras, Gingerbread 2 appears capable of outlasting its intended lifespan. But it needs proper maintenance (in this case, it could use some lens polishing and/or replacement).
The blood was seriously dodgy! I tried with rosemary. I extracted the phenols by boiling the rosemary, then let it cool and filtered it, then added a touch of caustic soda and vitamin C. It worked really well for photo paper. Maybe I should try with film too.
We tried almost all the things we could think of to concoct viable film developers (EpiPen, moss, pee, etc.) with our standardized bracketed samples on Ilford HP5+.
Really enjoyed the take in this video (and thank you, Daren, for inviting me to be a part of this experiment!) Very well explained, easy to understand, and lots of fun.
I’d like to share a unique and serendipitous image my film camera created this Earth Day.
British Columbia had a record number of forest fires last year (cbc.ca/news/canada/british…); the 2024 burning season is close.
The fire that appears to consume the Vancouver Island beach forest in this image is a spontaneous and unintended effect of the photographic film’s physical properties.
I won’t stretch the symbolism here (instead, I’ll share a couple of tips on how we, as film photographers, can do better — below). But the way this photo turned out is fascinating, and I’d like to talk about it:
35mm film canisters use felt to shield the emulsion from unwanted light. Their little hairs can leave a pattern on the first frame (unless you or the camera advances 2-3 frames immediately after loading film). That pattern often resembles little flames because of the red dyes, which react to light following the pattern of the tiny hairs.
The Island beach forest in this photo is in the far distance, approximately in the middle of the frame. And it just so happens that the tips of the trees coincided with the part of the frame that was exposed to the light through the felt hairs. The result: it looks like the forest is on fire.
I’ve got emails from Dupli Ltd and CineStill announcing the resumption of the Kodak Professional Photo Chemicals series, which was in limbo for about a year after its previous manufacturer (Sino Promise) stopped making them. XTOL, T-MAX, and D-76 will be made and sold again.
I was meaning to write about this earlier, but the task escaped me. 35mmc has announced the news today (and PetaPixel did so a little earlier), which I’d like to acknowledge as a helpful reminder; you can read their summary of the news here: 35mmc.com/13/04/2024/kodak…
This film was long gone from the shelves in the US & Canada (+presumably the EU), yet it was still sold in Japan (see analog.cafe/comments/nfg3 #video🍿)
Fujifilm is famously secretive about its film production lines, at least in the anglophone world (Kosmo Foto’s Stephen Dowling often has to translate Fujifilm’s announcements from Japanese to get the news across). This tight-lipped approach likely gave rise to a conspiracy theory which suggests that Fujifilm stopped making films decades ago, and we’re simply buying frozen stock. (I don’t think it’s true; all evidence points to the contrary).
However, back in 2021, Fujifilm exec Mark Reynolds came to meet photography retailers in the UK to assure them that Fujifilm is “committed to analogue products” (35mmc.com/10/11/2021/inter…, additional write-up & context: analog.cafe/r/film-photogr…). At that meeting, Mark said that restarting the production of Fujifilm Pro 400H is an “ongoing conversation.”
This is all I could think of when I saw Yvonne’s video last month. Unfortunately, instead of Pro 400H, we’ve got another discontinuation. 👎
The inaccurate light metering may be due to the fact that most LR44 batteries available now have a voltage of 1.5v. Using batteries with a voltage of 1.45v may yield better results. I hope this information can help others.
CineStill got a lot of pushback from the community. Many bloggers and YouTubers vowed never to buy their products and called them names (probably for clicks).
But real life isn’t made of villains and heroes. Lives and businesses are complicated stories involving countless decisions, and the repercussions of those actions aren’t always clear. This is why it’s so important to stand back for a moment and do the due diligence to get as many facts about an event as possible. This is what makes good reporting.
Daren did just that for us in his podcast-style video about the CineStill controversy that shook the film photography niche to its core late last year.
Crown + Flint is an iOS and Android app for generating EXIF data and keeping detailed notes while making exposures on film.
If you’d like to store the camera, film/ISO, lens, shutter speed, aperture, date, location data, and photos, this app can help you get there. This is comparable to the kind of data that digital cameras will embed for you automatically (something that film generally can not do).
Crown + Flint uses automation to help you pre-fill well-known cameras, films, lenses, and date/location data. However, you’ll still need to fill out the rest by hand for each shot and whenever you load new film. You’ll also need to take an additional photo on your mobile device as a reference for your film frame.
The app launched back in Sept 2023; this April, it brings a fourth app update with bugfixes and additional features (see the complete list here: crownandflint.com/press/20…)
Crown + Flint is free to try (you can store data for five frames) and $24.99 for unlimited use.
I would be amiss not to mention a free Analog.Cafe app, Film Log here as well (analog.cafe/app/film-log).
Film Log works on all devices and stores the essential information about your film and camera. It’s made to help keep track of your emulsions and equipment while freeing you up to shoot film independently.
Dmitri May 5, ‘24
Andrew in Austin May 2, ‘24
Dmitri May 1, ‘24
Dmitri Apr 29, ‘24
Marco Giai-Coletti Apr 28, ‘24
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Dmitri Apr 26, ‘24, edited on Apr 27, ‘24
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Daren Apr 20, ‘24
Dmitri Apr 15, ‘24
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qiang wong Apr 11, ‘24
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Howard Sandler Apr 6, ‘24
Dmitri Apr 3, ‘24, edited on Apr 27, ‘24
Patrick Marquetecken Apr 2, ‘24
Dmitri Apr 2, ‘24