Week 261 - Barclaycard SW-6

In most respects, this is just another ultra-basic plastic 35mm camera, but this one has the added feature of a close up setting, a little lever which shifts the focus of the lens to 0.6-1.2m. This particular example is branded by Barclaycard, and was presumably some kind of corporate freebie.

photo from week 260 - Canon Pellix

One unusual feature of the Pellix is the fact that the viewfinder doesn't go black during an exposure, as the mirror is semi-silvered and remains fixed. This meant that I could keep my subject in view while I waved the camera around with the shutter open, before firing a separate flash with a blue gel attached.

photo from week 260 - Canon Pellix

I didn't bother metering this one, simply used 1/30th second at full aperture, as I knew the film would need all the light I could comfortably hand hold.

photo from week 260 - Canon Pellix

This is a bit of a dull time of year, so I livened it up with a green/orange split filter that I picked up in a £1 rummage box in a camera shop.

Week 260 - Canon Pellix

I hadn't heard of the camera until I found it in a charity shop (complete with another lens and flashgun) for £10. At first I thought it was broken, as the mirror didn't move, but Google told me that this is a fixed, semi-transmitting mirror, to allow metering to take place near the film plane. The downside is that you loose light through the mirror, effectively reducing the aperture of the lens.

photo from week 259 - Rollei Nightbird Single Use Camera

This is a more typical redscale result, cropped square after scanning. The results from the Nightbird were mildly disappointing, I have used a stand alone roll of the film in my Vivitar Ultrawide and Slim in the past, but that was in autumn when there is more light around.

photo from week 259 - Rollei Nightbird Single Use Camera

There was just about enough light to produce an image using the available light from a window with the sun shining in.

photo from week 259 - Rollei Nightbird Single Use Camera

I had expected the results to be less grainy, given that this film is allegedly ISO800 and this was taken in bright sunlight, albeit close to the winter solstice. Redscale is always a bit hit and miss though.

Week 259 - Rollei Nightbird Single Use Camera

This is simply a bog-standard single use camera, but it is loaded with "Rollei Nightbird" redscale film, which claims to be rated at ISO800, meaning it can be used in less bright situations.

photo from week 258 - Yashica T4

The T4 is said to be popular with street photographers, not a genre I'm very comfortable with, so I used my shadow as a subject.

photo from week 258 - Yashica T4

Using a tripod and the self-timer to avoid camera shake (there is no cable release socket). The auto-focus coped reasonably well with the mirror, but a couple of other photos were out of focus.

photo from week 258 - Yashica T4

Week 258 - Yashica T4

This came from my dad's box of "junk" cameras, but it's actually quite a well specified model, they often sell for over £100 on eBay. This one is cosmetically a bit tired, but seems to work, I've loaded it with Agfa Vista ISO400 film.

photo from week 257 - Vermeer Anamorphic Pinhole

And this is a photo taken from inside the glass pavilion seen on the previous image.

photo from week 257 - Vermeer Anamorphic Pinhole

It's a steep learning curve (no pun intended) getting to know an anamorphic camera. Follow the link to Flickr to see a photo of the camera during this exposure. It might help understand what's going on, but it might not!

Week 257 - Vermeer Anamorphic Pinhole Camera

I've made several pinhole cameras in the past, including a 35mm anamorphic camera, but I decided that building a 120 version was beyond my skills, and I found this one on eBay for a very reasonable price. I'm using expired Fuji Velvia ISO50 film, as I have few rolls of this lying around, and I anticipate a steep learning curve when it comes to composition.

photo from week 256 - Yashica Microtec Zoom 90

No tripod this time, just resting the camera on a bridge while the longish automatic exposure took place.

photo from week 256 - Yashica Microtec Zoom 90

With a tripod and the self-timer setting, I was able to get a reasonably sharp image in this indoor setting.

photo from week 256 - Yashica Microtec Zoom 90

The camera has a macro setting, which only works when the lens is at the 90mm setting. These roses may have been a little too close for comfort.

Week 256 - Yashica Microtec Zoom 90

There are many variations on this category of fully automatic zoom lens cameras. I find that longer focal lengths, with their small apertures are very difficult to get sharp results with, and the 90mm maximum on this one is fairly manageable. It also has a switchable "panoramic" mask.

photo from week 255 - Mamiya 135 EE

Different coloured buoys, rendered in shades of grey.

photo from week 255 - Mamiya 135 EE

Although the camera doesn't have any slow speeds, it was able to cope with the relatively poor light in this indoor setting, and at least I didn't have to get the tripod out.

photo from week 255 - Mamiya 135 EE

This photo shows the reflections of an old church in the glass facade of a new public building. The film is Rollei Retro 400S.

Week 255 - Mamiya 135 EE

This was another charity shop find, I think it was £5. It's a solidaly built fully automatic rangefinder camera from the 1970s. As far as I can tell it's working, the automated programmed exposure has no manual settings, but the aperture and shutter speed combination the camera has chosen is displayed in the viewfinder.

photo from week 254 - Corfield Periflex

Another recurring subject matter, an angel in the local cemetery. This was shot at f11, so any focusing error may have been compensated for by the small aperture.

photo from week 254 - Corfield Periflex

The background is in focus here, but obviously I had attempted to focus on myself, not sure what went wrong!

photo from week 254 - Corfield Periflex

This isn't a very interesting picture, but I've uploaded it to show the effect of the ailing focal plane shutter, one edge of the frame is unexposed, then the image fades in from black as the shutter curtains pick up speed. It only seems to happen on the two fasted speeds, though nothing below 1/30th works anyway.

Week 254 - Corfield Periflex

Corfield made a number of variations of the Periflex camera, this is one of the later ones. Their unique feature is a periscope, which is lowered down in front of the focal plane shutter, and reflects a small portion of the view into an eyepiece, where it can be focused, before using the other eyepiece as a viewfinder.
The slower speeds no longer work on this onse, and I suspect the shutter curtains may not run at a steady rate, we shall see.

photo from week 253 - Vesna

The Vesna was made in the Soviet Union, and it was sheer coincidence that I found this hat in a charity shop for 50p in the week I was using it. In Cyrillic characters, the hat bears the name "Sevastopol", a port on the Black Sea.

photo from week 253 - Vesna

There was not much light, even next to the window, on this November afternoon. I used 1/30th second at f4.5 and guesstimated the focus, it could have been worse!

photo from week 253 - Vesna

Soviet era cameras never had much of a reputation for build quality or reliability, whether these overlapping frames and shredded sprocket holes are due to the design or simply lack of maintenance, I don't know. It was certainly quite difficult to wind the film on, I suspect it could do with some lubrication.

Week 253 - Vesna

This unusual Soviet era camera uses 35mm film, but takes 32mm x 24mm frames rather than the standard 36mm x 24mm. This example is in poor cosmetic condition, but appears to be working.
In keeping with its era, I've loaded it with some Rollei Retro 100 black and white film.

photo from week 252 - Eastar S2

Technically this was one of the better photos on the roll, the focusing ring problem did mean quite a lot of the mid-distance shots were out of focus. I was lucky with this one, using the closes focus distance and an aperture of f4, the lens seems pretty sharp.

photo from week 252 - Eastar S2

This was taken at the Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield, I placed the camera on the floor, set the focus to the closest setting, and used a one second exposure, though I can't remember what aperture I used, it was probably around f5.6

photo from week 252 - Eastar S2

It was apparent that the rangefinder is significantly "off" when compared with the focus scale on the lens, there appears to be some slippage of the focussing ring, so I only really felt confident at infinity and the closest setting, though using a small aperture where possible should help compensate for any focussing errors.
This horse chestnut tree is one of my regular local subjects.

Week 252 - Eastar S2

The Eastar S2 is a Chinese made 35mm film rangefinder camera produced from 1965 to 1990 by the Tianjin Camera Factory. It uses a coated Eastar f=50mm 1:2.8 lens and a viewfinder with coupled rangefinder and parallax-corrected bright frame. It has a leaf shutter with speeds from 1 sec. to 1/300 sec. and PC-type flash synchronization. It uses a cold shoe for holding strobes. The film counter rest on top of the film advance lever. Film rewinding is with a folding crank on top of the body. It has a self-timer and was delivered with a case.
From: http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Eastar_S2

photo from week 251 - Ricoh TF-200

Flags flying in the quasi-autonomous region of Ikea, near to the city of Eastwood (where D.H.Lawrence was born).

photo from week 251 - Ricoh TF-200

This old laundry was one of my regular subjects when I walk past. This is all that it left now.

photo from week 251 - Ricoh TF-200

Auto-focus often struggles with windows or mirrors, and this is a good example of that difficulty!

Week 251 - Ricoh TF-200

This was £2 in a charity shop, it has two focal lengths, 38mm and 65mm, there is auto-focus and full auto-exposure. It was in its original box, with a price label of £179.99 - a lot of money in the 1980s. Luckily it came with a battery, which would otherwise have cost several times what I paid for the camera. I've loaded it with a roll of Agfa Vista ISO400 from Poundland.

photo from week 250 - Kodak No.2 Brownie (Model E)

Another outdoor shot at the annual sculpture show at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. The piece in the foreground is called "Wingblade".

photo from week 250 - Kodak No.2 Brownie (Model E)

There is a "B" setting, but no cable release socket, so I opened the shutter with a piece of black card in front of the lens, before taking up my position for the 2 minute exposure. I used the smallest of the three stop in order to maximise depth of field as there is no way of focusing the lens. The subject movement during the long exposure is all too evident!

photo from week 250 - Kodak No.2 Brownie (Model E)

Although the film is still in date, it shows evidence of deterioration, with backing paper markings being visible, and some mottling, nevertheless the nonagenarian Brownie performed well.

Week 250 - Kodak No.2 Brownie (Model E)

The No.2 Brownie was introduced in 1903, and continued in production until 1931, the design evolved over the years, though it remained recognisably the same camera. This particular iteration was made between 1920 and 1924, making this camera at least 90 years old. According to one source, this was the first camera to take 120 film.

photos from week 249 - Nikon Nuvis 75

A quasi panoramic image made from two consecutive frames.

photo from week 249 - Nikon Nuvis 75

I was fairly confident that there was enough light for this to be a hand-holdable shutter speed. The auto-focus seems to have coped well with the mirror.

photo from week 249 - Nikon Nuvis 75

This was taken without flash, with the camera resting on a hand rail to steady it for a relatively slow shutter speed.

Week 249 - Nikon Nuvis 75

The Nuvis 75 uses the short-lived and now obsolete APS format. I think I paid about £2 for this one, and I really only bought it as it came with a couple of films which I intended to use in one of my more sophisticated APS cameras. Since I was given a supply of APS film earlier this year, I now feel able to use it in the more pedestrian APS models in my collection.

photo from week 248 - SupaSnaps Flicker

This is the closest I've come yet to a complete failure in my camera of the week project. The shutter was firing OK when I checked the camera prior to loading, by setting the shutter with the lever which is operated by the passing film perforation. While in use, I had my suspicions that the shutter wasn't firing, and I have no idea why it suddenly worked for just one of the 24 frames, a boring shot that was one of the last few to finish the film off before developing.
I quite like the pattern of all the blank frames, with the one little glimmer of hope from the week!

Week 248 - SupaSnaps Flicker

This was a promotional gift camera from SupaSnaps, it's an ultra-basic 110 model which doesn't even enclose the film cartridge in use. I'm not sure where it came from, it was in a box of junk cameras in my dad's garage.