Tag Archives: digital

Duaflex TtV Experiment

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Well, I seem to have lots of time on my hands so I thought I would try some of the things in this book I received as a Christmas present.

The first project I decided to try was this one…

Seeing as I have a few box cameras and the one specifically mentioned in the article, it seemed the best place to start. Taking photos through the viewfinder with a digital camera. And that is what TtV means, Through The Viewfinder. I had also read about the process on this blog.

First though, I needed to clean the viewfinder of my Duaflex. I could find instructions online for other versions of the Duaflex, but not the one I had. So I just looked for the screws and undid them until I had access. After I had finished I found this tutorial. I wish I had found it first as I didn’t know how to remove the front plate though managed to get access to the mirror anyway. Sorry no photos of that, I forgot.

Then I used some random cardboard I had in the house. At first I tried my Sony a37 to take the photos, but it was tricky to focus as the auto focusing would not work. I put it in manual focus mode and moved the camera up and down the tube until focus was achieved. In the end I gave up and switched to my phone camera. That focused without issue.

The resulting photos were reversed, I could digitally correct that, but I wasn’t bother by it.

Here are some of the results I got from the Sony a37, of course I am restricted to my house and garden.

And here are some results from my phone camera, a Huawei P20 pro.

Well, that was a nice use of the day. I much prefer the black and white ones I originally got from this camera, on film. But it has been an interesting experiment, I don’t think I will repeat it.

I will try a few more ideas from the book, though you might get tired of photos from my garden 🙂

Fake X-Pan

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One film camera that will probably never appear on this blog is the Hasselblad Xpan. Though I love the shots I have seen taken with it, I cannot even attempt to justify the expensive. Then I saw this video…

…and thought, ” Gosh I love his videos”…and then, “Why not try something similar?”

Though I didn’t have the same fancy camera he had, I did have a spare Panasonic DMC-FS11 that I got for £1 because there was a bump on the front and the screen had pixel damage. And it had a film grain mode. So I taped off the screen as suggested and took it for a walk around my local area…which is the complete opposite to the area he walked around. So really, my trial was nothing like his apart from the tape.

The tape did really help, of course the final photos were the full image and I had to crop them down to the 3:1 ish ratio of the original X-Pan. Here are a few of the full crop versions.

Then I chose 24 of the ones I shot and cropped them. I measured the pixels on the long side and divided that by three to get the ratio I wanted. When you use Preview on Mac the crop gives you a live readout of the pixels which helped enormously.

Here are the fake-pan versions. Yes all 24 🙂

I do like the results, though why do film modes always choose to represent an expired film from 1980, just look at that grain. Film would definitely look better, sharper. I think I will print one of the silver birch photos to see what it would look like. This did not inspire me to buy a real x-pan, not even if I win the lottery tomorrow.

And all that because it wasn’t raining and I didn’t get a job today. Have to fill my time somehow 🙂

Macro Photographic Organization Storm

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Yesterday…and today..the UK was in the throes of Storm Dennis. As the area I live in, well, most of the UK…was under a yellow storm warning…Scratch all that. Yesterday there was a storm and I decided to stay in and hunt through my photo equipment boxes to make a list of what I had.

Basically, I wanted to know what lenses I had for what mounts. I was looking for a Minolta 100-300mm which I thought I might have. Despite the storm, spring is on the way and I will be going out birding and wanted a lens to fit the Sony a37 I have. That camera is my, take out and don’t mind if it gets destroyed camera. Rather than my, holy crap please don’t break, camera. I know lots of people take their best, most expensive camera everywhere. I am not one of those people. If I am going to drop a camera in mud or bash it against a rock by mistake, it can be the one I got for £100 and can afford to replace. I doubt I will ever be in a position to take a photo of a bird where I absolutely need a Nikon D750 to improve it. And I certainly can’t afford a super zoom lens for it. Anyway…I didn’t have one. I left it in Japan, bugger. You are enjoying this post aren’t ya 🙂

Here is are some photos of bird I took to make yourself feel better.

So what was in the box? Or boxes, I took the time to organise them better too. Now one box is for flash stuff and filters, one box is for lenses and adapters. AND in that box I found two Nikon reversing rings. well, I actually I found two ringy type things that I had no idea what they were. The packages said AT 58mm and AT 52mm. So I did a google search…and voila reversing rings, cool!!! and they would fit my Nikon, double cool!!!

…and now labeled

Well, might as well give them a whirl.

To use it, I put the camera in manual mode and focused by moving the camera backwards and forwards. With the lens on in reverse, you have no control of the auto focus or the aperture adjustment. Luckily, there is a handy lever on the side of the lens.

You can use that to adjust the aperture, pushing it will open it wider. The effects are visible through the viewfinder immediately. You can also use an old type lens with a built in aperture selector. I have found with this type of photography, you need as much light as possible.

The last time I tried macro photography I used a film camera and a bellows attachment. It was tricky to get the exposure right. I much prefer digital for this type of activity. It is cheaper and you don’t have to wait to see if you got it right. Once attached I wandered around my house and then, during a break in the rain, I went outside. I didn’t take many photos as I was just trying it out, but I am really looking forward to trying it in spring…or if there is ever some snow/ice.

Here are the results.

As with all macro photography, there is a very shallow depth of field. You can see two photos of long leaves that I took on rapid shutter, the difference in focusing points was caused by my slight camera movement..really slight. I might try a tripod setup in the future and try some focus stacking. I haven’t done that before either.

So what else was in the boxes?? At least 3 lenses that I have no body to attach them too…that drives me crazy. One of them I can’t even tell what it would fit, nothing I own right now.