UPDATE: The 600 sonar doesn't work. shit. anyone wanna buy a broken camera?

FIVE new cameras came in the mail today. I ordered them a week apart,  but the fact that they all showed up on the same day sort of put into perspective the ridiculous volume at which I am purchasing these things... ha.

Anyway... the two in the left of this shot I couldn't resist. They're 600 series; Cool Cam and Construction Cam, respectively. I love the color, and they were cheap, last minute purchases, with combined shipping (no desperate justification here).

The center one's a repeat of a camera I already have. You can see it in the clusterfuck photo in the last post... a Sonar (Autofocus) SX-70; the other of which was actually used to snap this photo. I love these things because they fold flat for safer, easier transportation. I'm still scouring the globe for an original (non-autofocus) model, they're pretty rare and exceedingly expensive these days.

The last camera's a Sun 600 Autofocus, of which I also already have one. It came as a batch deal with the SX-70 and a Highlander Model 80, which is unusable, but handsome;  not sure what I'll do with it.

Check all my internet-worthy photos from this summer (some posted here, some not) on my Facebook page. Cameras used include; Sun 600, SX-70 Sonar, 250 Land Camera, EE100 Special, 330 Land Camera and J66.

Got a bunch of new cameras over the past month, and new film. I've been experimenting like crazy. I got a bunch of new packfilm cameras, a 100, a couple of 3-somethings and a couple of 4-somethings. I get em at yard sales, antique stores mostly now, relying less and less on eBay for cameras since most people on there know that they're worth something. There are only a few numbers that are incredibly different, and I didn't get any of them, so I don't bother learning the names. They all function relatively similar. 

Another new oddball I got was the Big Swinger. This thing is like the cheaper version of the hundred-series packfilms. It's got a rigid plastic body and a fixed focus and only shoots B & W film, which is a bit more expensive. One benefit of shooting with the Big Swinger is that it has a built in flash! It takes the same bulbs as the J66, which I got a month or so ago, and is the oldest camera in my collection (photos in post coming soon).

I also got a ton of Impossible PX-70 film and have been shooting with it like a madman. I discovered you can shoot PX-70 film with 600-series cameras (of which I now have 3 or 4). This is a good idea because the 600's have built in flashes (saving on expensive, discontinued flash bars and bulbs).

So, last month I ordered another 10-pack of old batch film from Impossible and I just cracked into them this past week. So many bad photos! I must have gotten super lucky with my first purchase, because I had only one or two that failed to fully coat. In this batch it's been pretty much every-other film. These are some of the examples, though some in this batch are better and some are worse. This really serves to illustrate the gamble that is buying expired film. It's still really fun, though, so I don't plan on stopping anytime soon. I've got some 600-size old batch stuff coming in soon for use with my recent yard-sale-find 600's. Plus I got a new EE100Special, it's like the old 250 Land Camera except updated with neat 90's features like a plastic body, easier folding and a port for flash CUBES! Excited to get started with those.

Until next time.

So we went down to Boston last weekend to visit some friends and I brought along a lil OneStep Rainbow SX-70 to document the event. The photo on the left is your standard indoor, close-range photo with the flashbar flash in full effect; standard stuff. I was kind of getting tired of the effect the flash had on the exposure (a little close to over, every time!), so I tried something new. The shots to the right of it are indoor, long exposure action shots and I really like how they came out. As it is recommended by the manufacturer of the film, the Impossible Project,I usually shoot with the electric eye set to the darkest setting, since this PX-70 film is more light sensitive than the original SX-70 film by Polaroid. Since it was not incredibly light in the room, I turned it the electric eye closer to the light end, which decreases the shutter speed (exposing the film longer). This is why the film appears blurry, why it's red, I have no idea; but I like it.

I just rigged up a new battery pack in the old 250, for which Fuji is still making film. She's a little clunky but takes some very fine photos. It's a much different style than the solid Sx-70 Onesteps. Photo quality is nicer, too. No easily available flash options will make it a little tougher to take indoor or low-light shots of any kind. I'm thinking the next move may be acquisition of a tripod for stillness during long'ish exposures in low light.