ANTIQUE INTERIOR SHUTTERS

Some time ago, I shot a whole roll using my Mamiya C330 and Mamiya-Sekor 55mm wide-angle lens. Due to a shutter fault (ie, it wasn't opening at all at the time*) the pictures on the entire roll and half of the following roll (until I switched lenses) all turned out identical. Here's an example.

In this particular one, I find it interesting how this spurious feature has had an equalising effect on the different subject matter. The occlusion of any original information about the photograph at the point of taking causes a complete lack of metadata. What we know about a photograph - the extra information outside of the photograph (such as the photographer, the time, the place) - can affect our perception of the photograph itself.

Here, we have a total occlusion of intra information, within the photograph, which in turn prevents us from forming distinct perceptions regarding the way I originally shot these photographs. Even I've completely forgotten what the original subjects were, and when and where they were taken. Thus, I'm finding it quite difficult to sort out which ones are the good ones and which ones aren't quite so good, such is the strong effect of the information occlusion on my perception of the photographs.

* since fixed by dismantling and catching the things that go sproing across the room before they indeed did.

My first roll of film through my Yashica Electro 35 GSN

This Friday my gsn arrived in the mail. I purchased it off ebay in so called "minty" condition. It took me about 10 seconds to see that the seals were crumbling and the range finder was out of vertical alignment.

About an hours work to replace the seals, stupid me blocked the film counter into permanent reset no big deal as I don't usually bother with film counters and it is a easy fix. Took another 1/2 hour or so to make a battery holder out of a spring and 2 o-rings. Today I loaded it with iso100 film shot a roll on the way to Shoppers Drugmart where I got it developed and scanned in one hour for $3 Canadian.

This is one of the better shots:

Electro Toronto

My findings:

Good:

Very good light meter and shutter even in low light.
Lens good colour and details
Bright view finder with parallax correction

Bad:

Lens flare if any where near the sun maybe a hood will help but much worse then any of my other lens.

Ugly:

Shutter release with all those switches is a bit rough and under and over lights come on at different points maybe the pod needs a replacement. But it does act repeatably so I can get use to it.

Worse range finder I own, yellow spot is dim and hard to see in bright light. I currently own a 1953 Zeiss Ikon Contax IIIa and a 1956 Argus C44.