Last week I met up with Isabel (Farbstich – Natur im Blick) and got this lovely Canonet 28 as a gift. Thanks again! It’s a fixed lens (40mm f2.8) rangefinder – a type of camera I’m increasingly interested in.
While focusing is different from a SLR, it’s still just a box that captures light. But I somehow really like the 40mm focus length. For years I mainly shot with a 50mm lens, then I had my “one year of 35mm f8+” project. Now the 40mm is nicely in the middle of it.
Maybe I’ll use it for the current photography workshop I’m attending…
Leipzig, Germany – November 2018
Shop Talk
Canonet 28 + Kentmere 400 / Developed in Ilfotec DD-X (1+4)
Scanned with Epson V550 / Edited in Lightroom
This month I had the chance to test the Fujifilm X100F (thanks Matthias!) during a short trip to egapark Erfurt (german website). It was overcast, rained a little bit, but we had fun trying out new cameras.
I didn’t have the camera long enough to write a full review, so I’ll just list some random thoughts and images. In the end I felt like it was just another metal box, that made images – not the over?-hyped camera I’ve read lots of articles and watched lots of youtube videos about. But I did want to shoot it more at the end of the trip, so who knows…
I liked the optical viewfinder with frame lines, I’m not quite sure about the electronic viewfinder – but I haven’t really used one so far. It’s nice you don’t have to go into the menu to change things – you can turn actual physical knobs on the camera itself. Battery life is a bit challenging.
Somehow I don’t think I shoot differently then with my current always-with-me camera: the Olympus XA2. Also with a fixed 35mm lens. If you want to compare the following shots with my usual analog output, you can take a loot at my instagram.
SHOP TALK
egapark / Erfurt, Germany / July 2018
Fujifilm X100F / Fujinon 23mm f2 / 24,3 MP APS-C X-Trans CMOS III Sensor
Post-processing in Adobe Lightroom.
During a district expedition this summer I visited Atelier Beissert. After our talk about art, photography and black tea, I discovered some old film cameras tucked away in a cabinet. Showing some (okay… a lot) of interest, Peter offered me two of them to try/buy. One was an EXA 1a equipped with a Carl Zeiss Jena f2,8/50mm lens.
Nearly 1 million EXA cameras were build between 1949 – 1990 in Dresden, Germany. They are fully mechanical, have no light meter and are build like a tank. Good for taking photos or hammering nails. Most of them (1a is one of them) use the “Exakta” mount.
Shooting experience
It took some time to shoot a full roll of film on *another* camera – I might have a collecting problem. Being able to use a waist level viewfinder gives you a whole new perspective and shooting experience. I really liked it. What I didn’t like was the max shutter time of 1/175 sec.
Now that the film is developed and scanned I have to say, damn that’s a good lens. Sadly the frame counter was physically broken off, so I had no idea how many images were left. In the end I didn’t buy the camera because of that, but I guess now I have to look for a better preserved one, or at least for a M42 mount version of that lens.
Black and white photography for the financially challenged
On a side note I think I settled on an ISO400 b/w film for “normal” day to day shooting: Rollei RPX 400. If you order 10 at a time over at Macodirect you pay 3,75 EUR per roll. I also looked into bulk loading film, but decided against it for the time being. I’d have to shoot a whole lot more, before the savings on film exceed the investment of a bulk film loader. But I’ll keep that option in mind.
The Sun Itself Shall Draw My Pictures 