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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I’ve got a new toy!

New Guitar (& my old one)

Well, it’s not a toy as such. For the frankly ridiculous sum of £21.60, I’ve got a short-scale electric guitar (plus a 5watt amp). It’s designed for children, really, but since the fretboard is roughly the same size as a ‘proper’ guitar, adults can use it too. Since it is a hell of a lot shorter than a normal guitar, it needs to be tuned considerably higher to maintain string tension, which is why I wanted it – chords that would be almost impossible to play on a normal guitar are pretty easy on this thing. I’m also thinking of going for an alternative tuning, so I can overdub chords over ‘normal’ chords and because of the different chord voicings and the higher notes and so on, it should sound quite nice. Slide-style guitar sounds pretty good on this, too, another reason to go for a different tuning. Ok, also it is very portable. If I ever need a guitar to be.