Olympus XA

Finally eighteen months of placing low bids on Olympus XAs on ebay has paid off. I pick up an XA2 last year as a possible replacement for my very temperamental LC-A, and while I loved the feel and handling, I felt the pictures just didn't quiet have enough life to them. I resolved to get my hands on an original XA, as even if the lens wasn't quiet up to the minitar-1, it was generally regarded as being a cut above (and almost a stop faster) than the one on the XA2, not to mention aperture priority and true range-finder focusing.





Anyway, I picked up an XA with a stuck rewind button, sold as spares or repair, for the very fair price of £7. I thought there was a chance it'd be an easy fix, and worse case scenario I was looking for another project to work on, so even if I couldn't fix it it would keep me busy. Turns out the only fixing it needed was a solid slap on the base, and hey presto it was good to go, fully working. The only downside is I now need to find another fixer to keep me busy. Anyway, here's a couple of shots off the first roll - I'm pretty happy, looking forward to giving a proper go out in some nice light.




Here's a great resource site for the XA http://www.diaxa.com/
And here's the flickr group http://www.flickr.com/groups/olympusxa/

Woop!

The excellent holgablog.com has put one of my shots on the best of October list. cheers! http://www.holgablog.com/2010/10/31/monthly-best-october/

Gakkenflex Flash Mod

Been a long time coming, after a house move and a busy time at work, but finally found time to put this up.

So, the Gakkenflex is great - charming toy camera look to the pictures, lovely sweet sharp centre and blurred edges, sweet vignetting and the TLR viewfinder focus works brilliantly. The only downside is it's basically a daylight camera - no B setting (I can't be arsed faffing around with the half shutter push business) and no flash synch - so I figured since i'll have to build it, why not build in a flash connection?

If you look at other simple cameras there's not much to the flash - a simple switch that makes contact when the shutters fully open. Using a couple of bits of thin, springy metal salvaged from a Polaroid 104 (which I mangled to make this http://dustscratches.blogspot.com/2010/04/polaroid-hack-poormans-180.html )soldered to the flash plug from the same made this.




The nest step was to fit this in the camera. I drilled a hole for the flash plug in the front of the camera, then played around to work out how to position the two springs so that when the shutter blade was fully open it pushed the two bits of metal together to close the circuit and trigger the flash. It is mostly held in place with blu-tack, I also drilled a hole and screwed a bit in too. Some superglue helps to keep it all firm.





The next photo shows how it all looked when it was in place (sorry for the low quality pics, cameraphone, I don't really do digital, so don't have a decent one).
And here's a sketch to try to explai
n it better...


So that's it really - it works, and it's nice to be able to use the flash!

To hold the flash on the camera I took the head off a mini tripod, which screws in the tripod socket, and super glued a cold flash shoe on. A PC cord with a hotshoe on one end slips into this, and the PC cord into the socket on the camera. A LOMO colour splash seems to give the right exposure for close up portraits.

If you want any more details on this, message me on flickr (address at the top). Oh, and here's a shot to prove it works!

In praise of fill flash

Fill flash = brilliant. I wish I'd started using this years ago, so many wasted shots! It's great to have a holga again too.

Forking cheap lens wrench

Take a fork, file down the points, bend to fit whichever lens your working on and you're away. Two minutes to make, twenty quid saved. At least until it slips and scratches some glass...

handy exposure calculator

Forget those pricey Gossen Lumix or weston Master, these DIY exposure calculators are brilliant http://www.squit.co.uk/photo/exposurecalc.html . One in the camera bag, one in the wallet, sorted!

Gakkenflex

First roll, kodak E200.

500 Photographers

This is a truly awesome photoblog. Props


http://500photographers.blogspot.com/

Holga, Lakes, 2006

Lakes, October 2006.
Holga, Expired Fuji Neopan 400 CN

Polaroid hack - First shots

Some shot's from the Polaroid 104/Kodak folder hack.

Pros

• Great colours
• Much sharper than photos from the 104
• Shallower DOF

Cons

• Very hard to frame shots! I need to make/buy/convert some kind of view finder...

But I'm generally pretty pleased with this so far. I need to get some more film and test it out in daylight.

Polaroid hack - poorman's 180

So... this is the back from a Polaroid 104, with the bellows pulled out and and old Kodak 620 folder, with the film door removed and the back cut and ground to make it fit in the Polaroid back.

Why? Manual control of the settings, a sharper lens and a bigger aperture. Plus the 104 wasn't getting used after I picked up a 320.

Does it work - hell yes. Shots to follow.

Gamma ray photography

This is brilliant idea http://gizmodo.com/5429082/gray-matter-diy-x+ray-photos

The dogs bollocks

Quiet literally

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chihlin0625/4440890522/

diptych

Ilford FP4, rainy day.

RIP Mark Linkous

This was going to be a blog about cheap and dirty photography, but the sad news of Mark Linkous's death is more on my mind right now. A real great songwriter, who will be greatly missed. Rest in peace.