Vacation
Going on a little trip down to the coast. Taking a few cameras with me. Just got an Olympus XA which is a lot like my Minox 35GT, also about the same size, but with rangefinder focusing. I’m excited about shooting and I’ve been stockpiling film for a little while. More excited about spending time by the ocean with my girlfriend and getting the hell out of town.
Somehow I found myself reading various speculations about when and if film is going to die….
WE’RE ALL GOING TO FUCKING DIE!
My camera collecting has gotten a little out of control but I’m finally pulling the reigns. I’ll be selling off a few of them to try to get things under control. On the one hand you can think of different cameras as brushes that you use for different situations but really, unless you are some kind of crazy technical painter, how many brushes do you need?
This is my most recent acquisition. The Yashica T4 Super D. It’s an Automatic point and shoot camera with a Zeiss lens. Sort of like a luxury compact car. I bought this one for a crazy amount of bread (200$). It appears that a certain fashion photographer, Terry Richardson, has boosted this cameras cult status to manic proportions. I still don’t really know much about him… I bought the camera before I even heard him associated with the T4. So, how does it actually feel and shoot? To be honest it’s just okay. The auto focus is sort of finicky, especially with objects less than 6ft away. Every time you turn it on it’s in auto flash mode and I have to remember to turn it off or it will flash when I don’t want it to. Compared to my cannon sure shot 2, which was a fraction of the cost and pretty damn reliable, the results were a little disappointing. Still I feel like if I figure out some of it’s quirks I can squeeze some great pictures out of it. I haven’t given up on it yet. But so far I can’t recommend it very strongly for 200$… the Yashica T2 goes for much less and also has a Zeiss lens. It’s much chunkier but probably a great camera for the cost.
A collection of tapes that were mostly recorded by my stepbrother Isaac. They were in my safe keeping for a few years and he asked for them back so I decided to take some nostalgic photos of them. I’ve converted many of them to mp3s and they still sound like muzak made by ADD aliens. I shot them with a Minolta Maxxum 5 that my dad gave me. I didn’t think I would like the maxxum at first because it feels so cheap and it has lots of motorized automatic features. Also my dad couldn’t get the film door opened before giving it to me and he broke a small piece of plastic that held it closed. After kicking it around for several months the plastic bit fell out and I super glued it into place. Problem solved. After going over the manual a couple of times and taking it on a walk I really enjoyed using it. In the end it has some really nice “pro” features in a light package.
I’ll upload some of the works of Isaac Sanz at a later date.
Space Helmet by Isaac Sanz and Tupak Nam
Some photos taken with my little Agat 18k. Pretty great little camera. The film was expired Kodak Gold 400 ISO. I carry this camera with me everywhere and load it with cheap film. It’s light, pretty simple to operate, and subtle. It looks like a plastic toy and the shutter is fairly quiet.
