Thursday, January 31, 2013

The Value Of Old Film Camera


An old Leica, Rolleiflex cost a serious chunk of change. They take wonderful images in the proper hands. Today, I decided to send my old Minolta Autocord for fixing at the only place I know in Singapore that repairs old camera.

"This is in quite a bad shape."

What do you mean? It takes wonderful images... there's no fogging in the taking lens. The only problem is the shutter speed timing.

"Its exterior is in disrepair, frankly, it isn't worth much."

Well, I don't care about the peeling leatherette. Just fix the damn shutter and lub the focusing lever. If it looks beautiful and can't take an image, it is worthless to me.

I can't understand why people would value a camera based on the pedigree it comes from and not the images it renders. This Autocord with seikosha shutter might not be the best or the most valuable among its brethen, it gives me joy whenever I develop the film that was taken by it. I have no fear of knocking it around, adding dings and dents to its already rugged exterior. Had I bought a $1,500 rolleiflex, I would have let it sit at home. I have no doubts that many rolleiflex users shoots with their beloved cameras regularly---just don't diss my Autocord like that.

I bought the autocord because it has a beautiful taking lens and cheap. That's all I really care about. When its spirit decides to give, I'll put it up on display or throw it away.

Till then, I need the camera to be shooting like a soldier, not looking pretty.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Back to Film Developing

Since 2012 June, I have been shooting weddings almost every weekend and clearing edits on weekdays---last year's business slowed down quite a bit. I had to steer the business in another direction, which sounds a lot like excuses for not stepping into the darkroom. Well, I mixed some HC-110 and fired up the bathroom for some film developing again.

Arista Premium in HC-110
I will be making a trip to the darkroom starting from Feb.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

A Much Needed Day Out

A nice piece of blue sky in Singapore!
So the Mrs. wishes to go out on a 30 degree celsius day. The dog came along and totally disgraced herself by avoiding the Sun and hiding in our shadows.

The Mrs. and I haven't had a day out like this in months---shooting weddings can be pretty life-sucking in general---I still enjoy it, no matter what the big guns of commercial photography says. A great day for personal photography work, however, the females decided that there was too much insects, blood and sweat on a weekday like this. It gave me much joy to bust out the medium format Mamiya, just to make a family portrait of us three. The films are ziplocked away in the kitchen cabinet though, till the day that I can have some me time to develop them.

It felt wonderful to be in the Sun on a Monday afternoon---almost the whole stretch of beach to ourselves. I love working for myself, even though the money can be tight at times. Make more money, less time; or more time, less money.

I made my choice 3 years ago.

The dog drops her jaw after a 100 meters march
Dog hides in our shadows for some few degrees cooler while we fight the heat
The Mrs. and the dog