Mo Stuff!

I was a bit non-plussed while reading the Photokina reports this year at the strange things that were being introduced. Some of them seemed a little odd as marketing choices. Now I have had a chance to see one of them in the shop and I am somewhat reconciled.

The Sofort camera from Leica seemed a strange departure for a company that had always been known for extremely professional and extremely expensive cameras and lenses. It was, after all, an instant camera with some sort of connection to the Japanese Fujifilm Instax line. If the designers were not the same people, they at least did lunch together. Sushi and sauerbraten?

The actual camera in the shop is really rather nice, and the colour decision for the blue and brown panels is delightful. Very Germanic in a high fashion way. The operation would appear to be pretty near that of the Instax line and the resultant print very much so. Note that Leica are wisely not re-branding the film packets.

What they are doing is providing some fun accessories with the basic system...designed around the storage and display of the instant prints. As there are no accessories to add to the basic camera and it works away undisturbed, you get to spend your extra money downstream with the picture albums.

None of it, from camera and film to albums and display frames, is break-the-bank prices. You can afford to give or get one as a gift this year and have a lot of fun with it.

Instant Leica....never thought you'd say that, did you? Wonder what old HCB would have thought of it all...

An Instant Night Out - At the Leica Club

I went to the Leica Club at Shoot Photography this week and was greatly entertained...

The entertainment included good things to eat and drink, of course, and a chance to see some of the newest Leica cameras and lenses...and the chance to try out a novelty; the Leica SOFORT.

We've mentioned it here in the column before but this was the first time to get it into action... I was chosen as first experimenter...and I discovered that there is more to the SOFORT than meets the eye.

To start with, the name. SOFORT is rendered as " immediately " in the Google translator. Immediately turns out to be about 5 minutes...but " fünf Minuten " does not look quite so well rendered in the font that Leica uses for their cameras. In any case the camera does eject the newly-shot picture immediately and you just have to wait the 5 minutes for the full picture to develop.

To be fair, what is happening under the pure white outer case of the Fujifilm Instax film that you are holding in your hand has been described as a silent tornado of chemical reaction, so we really should be respectful of both the Fujifilm people and Dr. Edwin Land.

Okay, back to using the SOFORT. Point it and shoot and it delivers a good on-camera flash result. As the flash is situated on one side of the lens there will be a bias as to where it goes - remember this when you position people near reflectors. No.3 in the composite shot shows that I should have reversed my position to get away from the wall

The interesting thing that Connor McGill, the Leica Area Manager, pointed out is that the flash can be altered separate from the exposure of the shutter. This was tried by Don with a no-flash shot of the drinks tub to see what the dynamic range of the result can be. See No.4 in the composite shot. Pretty good.

The other thing that was evident was that the Fujifilm Instax film that this is loaded with has a very good skin-tone response. Even under the quizzical white balance of the Shoot premises there was a good colour to it.

Of course the SOFORT is intended as a fun camera - you will get a lot of that out of it in shooting give-away shots at events. And you will make more useful contacts and more friends doing so than just banging away with a standard digital camera and then taking the results home. People like having you take their picture when they can take that picture away themselves.

Part of the fun with this is selfies. Now I am not the sort of person who stands in front of famous buildings or objects to have a selfie - if I see something and take a good picture of it I think it evidence enough that I was there. And there are a lot of places in the world that I do not want to have evidence about...but there are those who like to take them.

To this end, Leica have put a small mirror on the front of the SOFORT to help you compose the result. It is just large enough to encompass two maniacs, as the No.1 picture in the composite will prove. Maybe a Godzilla or and Eiffel Tower in the middle...I'll leave the aesthetics up to you. The point is you can get a selfie in 5 minutes that is as good as any digital one. and you need not do it on a stick.

One thing, though, note that N0.1 and N0.2 on the composite are both upright pictures. But one was taken facing back - one facing out. The pictures both look good, but they are orientated 180º to each other on the paper. You'll need to remember this if you are intending to put the result into a special Leica album for display.

Thanks to CE and Connor for a good entertaining night and to Don and Mark for being good-humoured models.

See more about the Leica SOFORT here

A reminder that CE's 12 days of Christmas sale is happening right now! Day 5 is 25% off Fstop, Ona, Lowepro, Pelican and Think Tank bags. See the full list here. 

The Effect Of Colour

We all know the theories of colour as it is used in flat art work - warm colours advance, cool colours recede. Purple indicates distance in landscapes. Pink is reserved for Mme. Pompadour and Jayne Mansfield. Yellow is the colour of insanity, etc. etc. Whole semesters at Art School are given up to trying to define terms like "Puce" or "Taupe".

For that matter, some of the best brains in the country are kidnapped each year and chained to desks in advertising agencies where they are compelled to invent new names for spray paint colours. "Boogalicious Burgundy" and "Semipalatinsk Sludge " were two that won awards.

Colour is used to sell cameras...even when the absence of it is the only thing on offer. First it was generations of photographers who saved all their pennies for colour slide film...and watched the colour slide right off it as time went on - and then it was digital shooters who paid extraordinary amounts of money to buy cameras that could only shoot in black and white. I'll bet a few of them have since spent their evenings hand colouring in the files from the black and white camera...

The Fujifilm company has had a distinct advantage with their penetration of the instant-camera market; most of their offerings have been budget targeted and have been moulded in various plastics. They have been able to incorporate colours right into the basic body. Colour experimentation is certainly possible - thus our two star cameras today:

The Pink Surprise. Those of you who have seen Peppa Pig on television cartoons may well be struck by the resemblance of the camera to her. The Japanese makers might find this an awkward comparison, but Japan loves animé and kid's cartoon characters anyway so they won't mind selling cameras on this basis.

The Grape. This is one of the richest colours in the Fujifilm Instax range. It suggests luxury and imperial splendour, inasfar as a plastic camera can be either imperial or splendid. It has all the basic Instax features of 10-pack film loading, automatic exposure, adjustable focusing, and in-built flash. It pumps out colourful and sharp little hand-sized instant prints. And you can be darn sure that you are the only person in the firing line at the international press conference for Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clinton with a deep purple camera.

See the Instax Mini 8 in store at 230 Stirling St or online.

Resistance Is Futile - Surrender To The Fujifilm Selfie Machine

If thou hast a duck face, prepare to make it - the Fujifilm Instax Mini 70 Selfie
Machine is upon us and no restroom in the land is safe. There will be selfies everywhere.

Not that there aren't right now, but this little camera makes them differently - It is easy to hold, easy to line up, and easy to make a permanent record for whoever is with you at the time.

The concept of the instant picture is as old as I am, and I'm starting to turn brown in patches and faded at the edges. But you need not worry - the Fujifilm instant film in the Instax Mini packs is full-coloured and self-sealing. It will develop right in your hand in 90 seconds and remain pretty near the same for ever after.

The Instax Mini 70 pushes out credit-card size photos from 10-sheet packs. While all the chemistry is sealed inside the packs themselves, the camera draws power for flash and processing from 2 of the CR 2 lithium batteries in the handle. Don't worry - you get a couple to start you out with the kit and you can head in to Camera Electronic to re-stock once you've used them all. Once you drop in the film pack and batteries and press the "on" button the lens scootches itself out the front and you are set.

Now you can peer through the bright little viewfinder and take regular pictures easily, but you also get the option of a self mode - press the appropriate button on the back, turn the camera round, and locate the view in the little mirror on the right of the lens. Press the shutter button and there you go.

The great part about this is Fujifilm actually tried it themselves and then made the shape and grip on f the camera so that you can do this selfie business without breaking your wrist.

For the less vain, there is also a macro setting that will go down to 30 cm from the subject. You need to take parallax into account when framing it but Fujifilm explain how to do this in the instruction book.

I'm impressed with how cute the darned thing is - there are various colours, but I gravitated to the yellow as it matches the colour of my eyes.

Click here to see Instax Mini 70 and film packs online

Vale FP-100C

Trolling through the internet this weekend I found a DP Review post saying that the Fujifilm company will discontinue their packs of FP 100C instant film. These are the packs with 10 exposures inside that fit into the Hasselblad, Rollei, Polaroid, and other holders - the 100 series size. They got rid of their production of of the 4 x 5 packs a couple of years ago.

I am saddened, but with no involvement in the HB or 4 x 5 world at present, I cannot say that I will be injured by it. Those people who still take preliminary exposures with their Hasselblad film cameras or proof out other things on other cameras will be stranded eventually. The small newsagents and others who use the Polaroid four-lens cameras to take passport photographs will be hardest hit.

Mind you, they were hard hit even when supplies were readily available - the business of getting a picture with a chemical instant print that satisfies the computer whizz kids of the airport passport controls - and the grey sleeveless minds of the DFAT - was proving pretty fraught. The chart of do's and don'ts was based upon making a robot image of real people and failed badly most of the  time. I watch the same job being done in post offices with something that looks like it a Sony specialised system and wonder if the results even come up to the old Polaroid shots.

Well, if you need the FP-100c there will likely be some floating about at the end of production, and as it keeps pretty well, you would be advised to get it while you can. It is unlikely to be reproduced in any usable form in Holland.

Talk to the sales staff at CE and see if there is a schedule for end of supply. And if you need a passport photo remember that the shop has a dedicated little digital system and printer that can turn out a pretty reasonable product to satisfy the unreasonable ideas of DFAT.

Note: This in no way affects the Fujifilm Instax cameras or the film for that. That's a different system entirely, and by the reports we see, is going like Gangbusters for Fujifilm.

For all Fujifilm Cameras available to order and in store please visit our website.

More Fun Than A MiG

More fun and a lot easier to park.

Lomo have just sent us some of their new Lomography instant cameras. They run under the term LOMO'INSTANT - with one of those floating apostrophes that so maddens teachers of English. In this case the makers should be forgiven because the product is actually quite nice.

It is an instant film camera that takes the Fujifilm INSTAX cartridge and spits out paper prints that develop in 90 seconds outside the camera. You'll need Fujifilm INSTAX film for it as the kit has no film pack in there - you'll also need to get some AAA batteries if you plan on shooting directly on Christmas morning.

The black example you see in the pictue is the camera on its own - it has a wide-angle lens built in - the equivalent of a 27mm focal length. There seem to be two focusing ranges for it - 1 metre to infinity and a closeup position of 40 to 90 cm. This is selected by a lever on the right hand side of the lens standard.

The shutter has a tie-in with an light meter inside the camera but you can command it to do multiple exposures if needed. You can also do unlimited long exposures - we used to call it Bulb but that was a long time ago when there were bulbs. For all we know there might be bulbs right now in Krasnogorsk...

Anyway, it is an ambitious little 27mm - f:1.8. To aid that ambition there is an on-board electronic flash tube and I note that the makers have pressed into the body of the camera the following little note:

flash on - always good, day & night

The comma is impressed there as well...There is a separate on position for the flash that treats of night and long exposures.

For those who wish to push out the Volga boat a bit, there is a kit with three additional lenses; a 170º fisheye attachment, a portrait attachment that brings the focal length to 35mm equivalent, and a close-up lens that will let you down to 10-15 cm from the subject. They are simple lenses and it's not rocket science but they probably have other people to do that...

For extra fun there are coloured gel filters, shooting technique cards, and the instruction manual. It really would make a cheerful present under the Christmas tree and anyone who receives one will be sure to drive the rest of the family nuts at Christmas lunch - leaving the dedicated Camera Electronic photographic shopper in peace to enjoy the turkey and brandy pudding.

You gotta think ahead.

I Remember Those!

And well I do. Large. Heavy. Complex. Precise. The do-all camera for advertising studio work and art copying in the film era.

We're talking about a Mamiya RB67 here - a big single lens reflex set up with a close-up bellows, synchronised lenses, instant film back and roll-film holders - as well as sheet film holders with dark slides. All in pristine condition - legacy of a quasi-government agency that quasi-didn't use it. So all the juicy goodness is still fresh inside.

Mamiya's have good lenses and are not too hard to use. Not as intuitive as a Hasselblad, but still do-able. And the internal bellows extension makes it - makes it the camera system for close-ups. As long as you do not see yourself scaling Bluff Knoll with it slung over your  sagging shoulders, you should be fine.

Come see it and think up a good use for it.

In Their PRYME - The Regnard Brothers Feature In An Instant

Pryme magazine is a publication that concentrates its focus upon instant photography - the sort of thing that Polaroid, Fujifilm, and briefly...Kodak...were responsible for. One of their recent issues feature two of our favourite Mauritians - Ian And Erick Regnard.

The article revolves around work that Ian and Erick did in the Pacific with a a camera that Camera Electronic helped them to construct. It started out as a 4 x 5 Linhof and gained a waterproof housing and instant film back. It also gained a great deal of weight to help it sink...

The article is fascinating - I never realised how many magazine covers that Tungsten have been credited with. Here's the link to read it - you might even be inspired to subscribe to the magazine.

Read the article here

The images are gorgeous and unusual.

Note - no models, sting rays, or Regnards were harmed in the filming of the series...