1st Belair Photos

I’ve been putting off shooting with the Belair, as I’m missing a couple of pieces. The viewfinder I have is for the wide-angle lens (this camera would originally have had two lenses, each with matching finder). I’m also missing the attachment to shoot 12×6 negatives*, I’m stuck with 9×6 and 6×6, which is disappointing; I like a good panoramic photograph. This means that the framing is a bit hit and miss, as I’m not sure how a 90mm lens and 58mm finder work together…

Lomography help desk are working on finding me replacements for these pieces, which is decent of them as I’m not even the original owner of the camera. I thought it would be a bit cheeky to ask for the wide-angle lens too, although I’d have liked to shoot with one, if only to see if they are as ‘soft’ as everyone says. (I’ve shot a bit with Lomography’s Sprocket Rocket camera, and that’s a bit soft, but in a good way.)

Since the Belair is auto exposure, I can shoot slide film with the expectation of it coming out ok. Slide doesn’t really have any latitude, not compared to negative film which you can under or over expose a fair bit before ruining your photographs. Although, some shots have come out with very white skies, so it’s not a perfect system.

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There’s a bit of lens flare on a couple of them, but I’ve located a lens hood for it for next time.

 

 

 

*The Belair takes medium format (‘120’) film, which is quite a bit larger than 35mm, with a corresponding increase in resolution. Although nowhere near as large as some large format film, where sometimes the negatives are 10″x 8″ or bigger.

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Random Camera Bits

Random Camera Bits

I saw some random camera bits on eBay the other week, bidding starting at £10.  It wasn’t completely obvious what some of the things were, but some of them looked useful – the small lens hoods looked like they’d fit my Voigtlander Vito B cameras.  There were a few filters in there too, and a rangefinder, surely some of these would be useful. So I put a bid in.

 

No-one else bid, so I won the lot.  Some of the stuff is useful, some not…

• Small lens hoods: both 30mm and I need 32mm! No use to me at all!
• White shutter release cable: not bad at all, that’ll get used
• Black shutter release cable: broken, not repairable
• Monocular: Seems to work fine. Do I need one? Not really.
• Rangefinder: Numbers are almost too faint to read, but it works.
• Light Meter: Works ok I think, although it’s designed for old, slow film types
• Leather-covered box: Catch works, no key, but great condition (except strap has perished)
• Filter Glass 31mm: I can use these with filter holder
• 42mm Filter: Or is it a lens? Not sure what it does, fits 3 of my cameras
• Close-up Filter: Can use with 2 cameras (or anything accepting Series VI)
• Small film Spool tin: No use for film, but tin could be handy
• Filter Pouch: Ok, I could use this. Probably won’t.
• Small Metal Thing: It has small thread and large thread, no idea what this is!
• Filter Box: A disappointingly empty filter box. Am using it to store a filter.
• Drawstring bag for telephoto lens: If I ever buy a tele lens…

The weird thing with the numbers on it and an eye piece is a kind of exposure meter, which as it has almost no moving parts, is still in working order. The numbers on the rangefinder are almost too faint to read, but it works.

The small black lens hood unscrews to fit the filter glass, I’d never seen one like that before. So I bought one that fit my cameras and now I can use the filters, and there is less to mess about with when taking photos as filter and hood are one piece.

It was a bit risky buying a collection like this, which is obviously the seller having a bit of a clear out…

 

Multiple Bridge

Multiple Bridge

I’ve recently bought a Diana Mini, a Lomography camera which is plastic and very very small. It takes either 24mm x 24mm square photos or half-frame photos. It is also very handy for taking multiple exposure shots with, as the shutter is mostly independent of the film winder.

Diana Mini, Agfa Vista Plus 200.

(there are more of my photos on my photo blog thing at mostlytrees.wordpress.com)

Pinhole Photography (early attempts)

One of my more recent camera purchases has a neat feature: you can take the lens off and use it as a pinhole camera. Photos taken like this have a dreamy look to them, or sometimes surreal.  These are my first shots to be developed (apart from 2 on a previous roll that didn’t come out that well).

Flooded Park #1

These were taken in the Quarry Park in Shrewsbury, where the river Severn has burst its banks.

Flooded Park #2

I get confused sometimes which shots were pinhole and which were normal, as I can change from shot to shot with this camera. Generally the focus on shots taken with the lens look sharper, but I can’t always tell…

Cute Baby Photos

No, I haven’t had a baby – it’s a camera.  A Voigtländer Baby Bessa 66*. You might be thinking it’s looking a bit corroded, that’s because it was made in 1938, and has been stored badly. The insides look pristine, though.

Top view

It is otherwise in fairly good nick – the bellows are still light-tight, the shutter still works (although all speeds work at 1/150 second), and the lens is in fairly good condition with no scratches. The aperture looks really good.  The viewfinder has no glass or lens in it, just holes in two pieces of metal – it is meant to be like that. That’s how they did things before the war.

It had a roll of film in it when I got it, only 7 of the shots had been taken, but I’m not paying to get that developed (B&W medium format film is about £10 to get developed, that’s without printing!). I’m keeping it carefully until the day I finally get around to developing my own negatives, then this can be a test roll!

Front View

I’ve already shot a roll of film with it – B&W – which I hope will be back by the end of the week. If it comes out ok, I’ll post some pictures. Or I might post them anyway.

*The 66 refers to the size of the negative – 6cm square. They also made a 46 which was 4.5cm x 6cm.

2nd Roll from the Recesky TLR

Just got the 2nd roll shot with the Recesky TLR (the plastic camera)*.  I almost buggered up the whole thing unloading the film in the photo shop, as it was I exposed the first 4 shots and they were ruined (and looking at what was left of them, I don’t think it was much of a loss).  The others came out ok, though.

Abbey Church window

Blossom

Tower, Town Walls

Multi – Blossom

Abbey Ruin

Bird on a Wire

Tower, Multi-Exp

Footbridge Triple-Exposure

Willow, Multi-Exp

Footbridge

Willow

Abbey Ruins

As soon as the river gets this flooding thing out of its system, I’ll have a few more interesting things to be snapping. And hopefully the sun will come out a bit, too.

*The Recesky is a copy of the Gakkenflex camera, with a couple of very slight differences to maybe keep the legal types away.

The Longest Day

Photos of sunsets can be a bit of a cliche, but I like this one.

This was taken on June 21st, the longest day, just before 10pm. A few minutes later, the glow was gone.