Another new toy!!

Another new toy!!
Originally uploaded by borealnz

My BBF camera finally arrived yesterday along with the photos I took when I was trialing it back in June (I wrote about it Here). It was wonderful to relive the week I had the camera through the photos I took. There are plenty of boring ones but there are some that I like -a surprisingly sharp one of a fence post is one of my favourites -I say surprisingly sharp because estimating distances for focus isn't one of my strong points. I now know that landscapes with a large amount of sky don't really work and that simple graphic subjects are the best. Considering I hadn't been a film camera user for several years I am surprised at how well the photos turned out.

The camera came in a clear plastic dome and I see from the instruction booklet it's referred to as a "birdcage" and you have to "set the camera free" before you can use it.
I can't wait to get the camera loaded with film so I can try it out the different masking options, it's so much fun to use!

The BBF page at Superheadz has more information on the camera and their gallery features a few of the photos I took.

BBF Camera

About a month or so ago, I was approached by the nice people at Powershovel a Japanese crowd who develop and sell toy cameras, and asked to try out a new camera they are developing. Of course I said yes! The camera, known as the BBF is a twin lens plastic camera that takes 35mm film. I had the camera for a week and in that time had to take 5 rolls of film, then both camera and film were sent back to Japan. If the photos are any good they will be used for promotion of the camera which is to be released in about August. Using the camera was a learning experience for me, it's ages since I used a film camera and especially one with so few controls. First of all I put a trial film through to try and figure out what worked and what didn't, then it was onto the real stuff. I can tell you that taking 5 x 36 exposure films in a week isn't easy, especially when it's winter!
The camera has two exposure settings, sunny and cloudy, about 5 focus settings ranging from .8 of a metre to infinity. Photos can be taken in bulb mode or normal, there's a hotshoe for flash and there's a mask thing that you can put inside that gives you square photos (I didn't have one of these).
Anyway I really enjoyed using the camera and am looking forward to September when I get my photos back (and can find out what rubbishy shots I've taken) and they are also sending me a camera of my own!

Here is one of the trial shots I took with the camera, some fennel growing in our garden -cross processed using photoshop. Using this camera inspired me to get my own real TLR so as a result I am now the proud owner of Lubitel, but more on that at a later date :-)