Saturday, 11 February 2012

photo from week 110 - Minolta 110 Zoom SLR

access control by pho-Tony
access control, a photo by pho-Tony on Flickr.

This was taken with the Mark II version of the Minolta. The film is a couple of decades past its use by date, and this probably accounts fo the grain in the shadows.

photo from week 110 - Minolta 110 Zoom SLR

This is the Mark I version, I also took a picture with the Mark II, but that was one of the 20% of the frames that were blank, I already knew both cameras were unreliable, so this was not really a surprise.

Friday, 10 February 2012

Week 111 - Olympus Quickmatic

Olympus Quickmatic by pho-Tony
Olympus Quickmatic, a photo by pho-Tony on Flickr.
The 126 cartridge format is now well and truly obsolete, none has been made for some time, and they can only be found on the second hand market. I've loaded this camera with a "Meteor" brnad colour negative film, I can't remember where it came from, and it isn't even in it's sealed wrapper, but it seems to be unused. It is quite possible that I won't get any pictures from it!

Sunday, 5 February 2012

photo from week 109 - Baby Ikonta

Eye Witness Works by pho-Tony
Eye Witness Works, a photo by pho-Tony on Flickr.

One of the surviving old industrial buildings in Sheffield looks out over the derelict site that one hosted another old manufacturing site. Appropriately, it is the "Eye Witness Works".

photo from week 109 - Baby Ikonta

I decided to use an old tripod that goes with the era of the camera, but this backfired on me, as the tripod is not a stable of some of the more modern and bulky models, and I managed to jog the camera part way through the 4 second exposure.

photo from week 109 - Baby Ikonta

Art Deco House by pho-Tony
Art Deco House, a photo by pho-Tony on Flickr.
This house dates from around the same time as the camera. I seemed to have problems keeping the camera level this week, not sure if it was user error or some problem with the alignment of the simple viewfinder. This one is fairly level compared with some of the others.

Thursday, 2 February 2012

Week 110 - Minolta 110 Zoom SLR

Minolta 110 Zoom (Mark I) by pho-Tony
Minolta 110 Zoom (Mark I), a photo by pho-Tony on Flickr.
In week 110, I am using a 110 camera, or to be precise 2 cameras with the same name. The Minolta 110 Zoom is one of the rare 110 SLRs (the only other one I am aware of is the Pentax Auto 110). There were 2 models of the Minolta, the Mark I is horizontally arranged, rather like a bulkier version of the common Kodak Pocket Instamatic cameras, while the Mark II takes the form of a conventional 35mm SLR camera, though it is much larger than the Pentax version. I have one of each, neither of them is fully functional, my Mark I seems to work OK, but there is a several second lag betwen pressing the shutter release and the shutter actually firing, though when it does, it covers the full range of speeds. My Mark II fires only at one shutter speed, which I think is around 1/125th second, the aperture is fully manually controlable, so the camera is quite usable albeit in a limited range of lighting conditions. I have put a cartridge in the Mark II, and plan to transfer it to the Mark I midweek.