Category Archives: photography
The Cold Road of Rails
I’ve been tuning my own caffenol film developer recipe to give me a particular style I’ve wanted to develop. I am SO pleased with this roll. It is GORGEOUS! It is what I want!
Photos from my new vintage Kodak Target Six-20
I shot this with my vintage Kodak Target Six-20 box camera while relaxing in Gettysburg on my trip to the U.S.
I shot it on TriX 400 then pulled development one stop since it was almost certainly overexposed considering the camera’s singular fixed shutter speed of about 1/50th. I’m pretty happy with the results and love the look of vintage, uncorrected, simple lenses.
My growing collection of vintage cameras …
This is another new acquisition from my recent trip to the United States. Vintage cameras are grossly over priced in Japan and non-Japanese ones are a rarity, so I hunt when abroad. This was sitting the cluttered back room of a huge antique shop.
This is a Kodak Brownie Target Six-20 from somewhere between 1946-1952 (based on rivets instead of screws on the faceplate I’d estimate this to have been made closer to the 1950′s). It’s in working condition and fair cosmetic condition. I bought it to shoot and experiment with, but I am really loving it so I think I am going to search for a excellent condition one as a collectable. I like the art deco styling of cameras from this period.
Like my Ansco Shure Shot that I posted about previously, this camera is held waist level and you look through a lens to an angled mirror which shows you the field of view. You hold the camera upright for portrait or turn it on it’s side for landscape orientation. It has a fixed shutter speed of about 1/50th and B mode and a selectable aperture of F/11 or F/16. Shutter mode and aperture are selected by pulling out metal tabs on the side and top of the face plate. The lens is actually behind the shutter which is behind a protective glass window (that is not the lens you are seeing in the front!)
This camera takes the extinct 620 film, but that’s easy enough to deal with by either trimming 120 film spools or re-spooling 120 onto vintage 620 spools (I’ve bought several and this camera even had one inside it.)
I find this camera to be fun and charming to use. It’s 6cmx9cm negatives are nice and large. In it’s day it was typical to do contact prints from these large negatives as your primary source of prints. Contact printing is easy enough, I may try this myself when I get some free time.
New toy
This is my new toy – an Ansco Shur Shot from somewhere between the late 1930′s and the 1940′s (Ansco’s from this time aren’t marked well.) Ansco changed names and ownership several times winding up as the more well known Agfa.
It shows it’s age but is in overall good condition and works. You hold the camera at waste level and look down through the magnifying lens on top which has an angled mirror under it which shows you what is in front of the camera. You turn the camera on it’s side for landscape or upright for 6×9 portrait orientation. It’s at both an awkward and charming design it shares with the Kodak Brownie box cameras of it’s era. It has a rotary shutter in front of the single element meniscus lens and a single shutter speed and a single aperture. The shutter seems to work perfectly. I shot a role of Fuji Acros 100 and have it hanging up and drying as I write this!
I love old cameras for the history they have seen and experienced. I’ll wipe of superficial dirt, but I am going to use this camera as-is and not try to "restore" it. The marks and rust are proof it’s it’s age and durability.
Mourning the passing of a great film ._. RIP Fuji Neopan Presto 400 120
I went to Yodobashi Camera in Hakata the other weekend after visiting a beautiful Buddhist temple and shooting some photos with my vintage Ricohflex TLR. I was deeply saddened when I went to buy some Fujifilm Neopan Presto 400 120-format and was told that it was discontinued!
WTF is Fujifilm thinking! Presto 400 was an amazing film that was pretty popular among film shooters. It had nice grain, nice accutance, nice contrast, was flexible (could easily be pushed and pulled), plus the film base and coatings were WONDERFUL making it go onto spools easily and dry flat compared to the sticky and curly nature of Kodak Tri-X (another film that I use.) I am so sad that I haven’t been shooting more film recently and didn’t know that it was discontinued (so I didn’t have a chance to stock up.) I only have 2 or 3 rolls laying around of this ;-(
This photo was on the afore mentioned film. This photo is very subtle and if you don’t have a well calibrated monitor, you may think it is a bit dark (I assure you it isn’t.)
How to improve your photography in 5 minutes
This is the first in a series if videos that I want to make on how to take better pictures. This is aimed at anyone who just points and clicks their camera, but is dissatisfied with the results. I avoid jargon and long technical explanations and just tell you what you can do to make your photos look better.
Please watch and if you enjoy it subscribe or leave a comment over on my youtube channel please 
From my 1955 Ricohflex
The other week I posted about an amazing find at a flea market - a great condition 1955 Ricohflex camera for only 4,000 yen! I shot some photos with it and I LOVE it! It has that old-time look to it. Only half of the lens elements are coated, so it can offer decent clarity, but at the same time it seems a bit weak on contrast and has some little distortion and vignetting towards the edges. These are vintage characteristics that I love.
The camera is difficult to use with limited shutter speeds and a rather dim focus screen that offers double images on bright scene elements (some kind of internal reflection), and no filter threads or mounts. But that is why I love vintage cameras. It puts responsibility for getting a nice photo squarely into my hands with no electronics or motors or light meters making any decisions for me. It is PURELY mechanical and up to my skills.
I shot the following photos without a light meter – I just made my best guess. I shot on Tri-X which itself offers a more classic film look than some of the more modern engineered films.
This is one of the two schools that I teach at. It is an agricultural school which has many greenhouses and fields (not in view) where students learn to cultivate plants. Students also learn about landscaping and food preparation. It is set towards the edge of my town and has a nice view of the hills just to the North.
Great find at a Japanese flea market!
I’m sorry I haven’t posted for SOOOOOOOOO long. I’ve been keeping quite busy and doing well. I’ve traveled a bit and done some photography, but was taking a bit of a rest after shooting quite a bit over the last year. I have been exploring other forms of art which I will post about sometime in the future when I’m able to produce some work that I’m satisfied with!
Today my girlfriend and I went to a flea market in the nearby city of Fukuoka. There are many flea markets and antique shops around my hometown in South-central Pennsylvania and I used to go with my mom and grandma often as a child, so I really enjoy them.
This was my first one in Japan and it was quite a bit like ones back home in the US. Many old everyday items, quite a few pieces of junk, but a few gems here and there.
In general prices in Japan are bad and inflated compared to what I am used to in the United States. This is especially true for anything considered unusual, special, or "foreign." Used cameras also go for much higher prices than you see in the U.S., despite an apparent healthy (and arguably higher) demand for them in the U.S. (as evidenced by large numbers of people on on-line forums who use film vintage cameras.) At the flea market I was seeing really horrible condition, beat up, and broken vintage cameras with prices of around 6,000 yen (around $60). Mediocre condition working low-middle end TLRs were easily 10,000-15,000 yen (around $100-$150).
So I was quite surprised when I found this OUTSTANDING condition 1954 Ricohflex Model VII for 4,000 yen ($40)!!!!! It is in outstanding shape. The shutter fires crisply, the aperture opens and closes smoothly, the lenses are clear, and the focus moves smoothly and easily through the entire range. I don’t think this guy had any clue what he had. While it seems that this camera would probably sell for ~$60 in the U.S., I would totally expect it to have a 15,000 yen ($150) price tag in Japan given what I have witnessed. I probably would have paid 2x what I did for it too.
July 22, 2009 Solar Eclipse in Asia
Today there was a much publicized solar eclipse. Because the moon was at the close part of it’s approach and appears slightly larger than the sun, this was a longer than usual eclipse. The area of Kyushu (Southern Japan) where I live didn’t get a full eclipse, but we got about 90%.
It was cloudy, but the clouds broke up until past midway through the eclipse giving me plenty of time to enjoy it and take photos. The clouds actually augmented my photos. I used a piece of 120 Neopan 400 film fully exposed to light in the room, then developed so that it turned black as a viewing filter for observing the eclipse. The silver of B&W film blocks the harmful UV rays. BE AWARE HOWEVER that cromagenic B&W film (the kind that the local mini-lab can process in their color developer system) won’t protect you if you tried to use it to look at the sun!
The eclipse began at around 9:40am. These two photos were taken though my home-made filter. 
The sun was an extremely clean, sharp, crescent when photographed without any filters. I used spot metering with manual adjustments and a very high shutter speed and aperture to take these photos.
Sayonara Michael … ;_;
You were one of the most original, creative, unique entertainers that this world has ever or will ever see.
Sadly the more amazing you are in this world the more shit people give you. People can criticize your looks and call you a molester (even though you were found innocent and you must be extra skeptical of accusers who stand to gain a LOT with their accusations.) But none of that can overshadow the fact that Michael gave more to this world than almost anyone. I grew up with him, and even now that I live on the other side of this planet I still sing his songs along side Japanese people at karaoke who know him just as well as I do.
It’s ironic that just this past Monday my 7th graders watched a video about the making of "We Are the World" a project that Michael played a significant role in.
I will definitely do a lesson about Michael Jackson to ensure that my students, who grew up after his era, understand his great contributions and don’t just see the distorted images that the media loved to paint.
I’ll miss you man … お疲れさまでした。さようならポップの王様。
William Milberry
