Film
Peter remember... you must remember... you have to stay at least 5 feet away from your subject to get focus. I kept telling myself this since the focus is set on the camera. This camera produces very colorful images from the cheap film. I am actually pretty happy. I am pretty sure the meter on this one is working as it should. This camera is a step down from "Harvey", my other Pen. It lacks selectable focus areas but besides that it appears to be the exact same.
This little camera sure looks odd but it made me smile every time I took a picture. I always get excited when I use old products with such simple but brilliant features. For example this camera auto advances to the next frame simple yes but it does it with no batteries. The camera has a built in spring winder. I hope to do a video for each of the cameras some time in the future showing them off.
After I figured out how to take a photo with the camera it was easy from there on out. I got them developed and scanned at CVS. The lady there had no idea what a half frame camera was but seemed to get it after an explanation. Compared to the Ritz scans from the other day these ones are much much better. They have barely any defects or dirt on the film.
The problem thus far with half frame is that its very hard to get the 2 images that I take to be scanned together. So for this roll I had to duplicate and crop to match the images with the proper halves. I have a feeling the meter may not be working so well on this camera but here are the images.
No memories isn't the normal memories... its actually the cheap of the cheap film at a 99cent store... I was so excited to shoot with the pen but I didn't want to run an expensive roll of film through it first nor did I want to pay more to have my normal film place process the film.
A few things to say about the camera and the film. I paid almost zero attention to the focus ring while shooting these which will show with a lot of out of focus images. A few other contributing factors to its ugliness is the fact that I was trapped at a mall during all of the shooting as well as having ritz developing / scanning the images. I will have to call ritz later and see if they charged me extra for the amount of dust and scratches on my film...
When winding the film I forgot to unlock it (I don't like reading manuals) and I ripped through several film threads. All the images were shot in twos. twos meaning two of the same thing at different angles. you will see that due to the ripping they are all mixed up. I also did not include the images that were so bad (under/over exposed). When 2 images of different exposure are scanned together only one of them can be truly exposed properly.
So what do we got overall as a recap? 99 cent film, $13 camera from ebay, stranded at a mall, and having a mediocre lab scan the images. SO with this in mind please take a look at the images.
If you read this far I will buy you a sandwich.
I feel brave for posting these images... because they are all absolute garbage. Now that I know there are no light leaks and the camera functions as it should I will shoot a good roll ASAP :) If you are still a fan of me after this that means you are a real friend or my mother.
As always much love for your support and views :)
While driving fast on the dirt back road to Salvation Mountain I loaded a single roll of Reala 100 into the film back. I had about 15 minutes of sunlight left and I was rushing to get the last shots of the day. Most of the shots are 1/60th or lower but all on a tripod. I didn't expect much of this roll roll because after I loaded it I knew I should have loaded the ISO 400 film instead... whatever.
I didn't have enough time to finish the roll there nor did I just want to waste it so I finished it off at Cabrillo National Monument here in San Diego.
Just before this photo I was in a gas station when the power went out. At the moment I assumed it was because of the heat but then I later learned that all of San Diego was down as well. I had half of a tank of gas so I headed down the east side of the Salton Sea. From that point on everyone I encountered had power so I didn't have a problem for the rest of the night. I decided to travel the one day San Diego had a black out.
^The building above was swarming with bees and birds. I walked up to the front and realized that I was approaching a large bees next... I slowly walked back as they started to surround me. I took the far detour around the back and when I was inside damn birds kept on flying out and scaring me. I always assume sounds are bums with knives.
