Author Archives: stoatly

52 Cameras: Minolta 110 Zoom

Kodak VR 200 – Cliff’s in Albuquerque

Lomo Peacock X-Pro – Jem yawns while Goober stands guard

Lomo Peacock X-Pro – Bed hogs

Ilford XPS 200 – “Buff”, one of the strays in the neighborhood

52 Cameras: Apple QuickTake 200 Viewfinder Parallax

A YouTube viewer asked about the parallax error when using the clip-on optical viewfinder. I did a quick & dirty experiment to find out. Original Quicktake 200 post is here.

The 3 focus ranges are 9-13cm for close-up, 45-90cm for portrait, & 90cm-infinity for landscape. The manual says, “IMPORTANT Do not use the close-up focus when you use the viewfinder. It is not accurate.” I didn’t bother with the close up setting but the next worst parallax would be the nearest focus of the portrait setting. The manual also says, “Estimate the focal distance from the front surface of the LCD screen to the object being photographed.” The LCD is on the back so I guess they mean its surface.

I put this on the wall in the kitchen.

Sometimes, science is ugly.

I put the camera on a small tripod, and measured the distance to the wall so the LCD was 45cm away. I looked as straight through the viewfinder as I could and held still while M slid her finger along the ruler toward the center until I could see it. We repeated that for left, right, top, and bottom. The measurements are just relative to each other, not meaningful in themselves.

Left: 29cm, Right: 67cm, Top: 10cm, Bottom: 37cm

Next, I snapped a picture with the camera in the same place. Ignore the date & time – I didn’t set the camera’s clock.

I used composite out to the old TV instead of digging out the old laptop and Smartmedia floppy adapter.

The image captured these measurements.

Left: 28cm, Right: 60cm, Top: 13cm, Bottom: 38cm

I was a little off reading the ruler. This diagram shows the relationship of the viewfinder view and the sensor image.

Pretty wide angle and not too bad for a cheap plastic clip-on viewfinder.

Polaroid Mailers & Misc. Inserts

Not really manuals, but interesting (to me at least) as historical information.

I got Land Camera 210 information when I picked up another 250 at a thrift store.

Thorough. A manual to tell you where to find your manual.

That’s a lot of patents on one of the simpler Land cameras.

A lot of old Polaroids come with cases and paperwork. The mailers for getting copies of your prints are interesting. I lined these up in what I think is chronological order based on the prices. I scanned the whole thing for the oldest one. In typical Edwin Land fashion, it is logical and well laid out.

Fold the sides & bottom, insert prints, & seal.

Visa was still “BankAmericard” & Mastercard was still “Master Charge”.

I guessed this one is later because B&W prints are $0.05 more.

The tidy package when it’s all folded up.

This is another example of how much thought went into this little mailer. You can see the instructions on the inside right below where someone would lick to seal the package, “Reminder – Tear off California address if you live closer to Massachusetts”. Both parts of the flap are gummed to seal the envelope. I made a GIF but decided it’s annoying.

Keep the flap and the California address shows.

Tear off the flap and it exposes the Cambridge address.

I may have 1 and 2 transposed. The kids seem like an older ad and the 1st one has a “new product” the “11 X 14 Custom Gallery”. It also makes sense that PS181S-2 comes before PS181-X. Now I’ve convinced myself that the 1st one should be in the middle. Oh well, I’m not going to rearrange everything now.

Pretty sure this is the newest. It has an effective date, prices are higher, and…

Polaroid is no longer paying the postage.

The outside of the 1974 mailer. Groovy.

I have no idea if Edwin Land had anything to do with the copy order mailers but it seems like the kind of thing he would obsess over until it was perfect.

Have a GIF. It is annoying. Muahahahaha!

52 Cameras: Canon Al-1 QF

The viewfinder graphics are a screen grab from the amazing Photography in Malaysia site.

Glittery ‘O’.

Goober contemplates the snow.

Second roll – expired Kodak T-MAX 400.

Radio Flyer.

Hank.

April.

St. Valentine’s Day bouquet.

52 Cameras: #198 – Yashica FR II

Fujifilm Fujichrome Provia 100F.

One of M’s pots.

Old timers tell me they used to be able to skate on the pond.

Hogging the bed.

Deflating balloon. Not all of the colors did this.

52 Cameras: #197 – Canon Sure Shot Ace

The “Phound Photos” post for this camera: http://exit272.com/?p=4897

This is what I meant in the video. Down low = “Hey, whatcha got?”

Ristra at the Santa Fe Convention Center.

Sculpture at the Santa Fe Convention Center.

Poor Jem with his eyes blown out by the flash.

Trip MD – Playing With GIMP Filters On A Ruined Roll

Kind of a long post so scroll down or go back if you get bored.

I mentioned the failed 1st roll (Alaris 200 color print film) in the Olympus Trip MD post. My C-41 developer was too old so most of the negatives came out really bad. The scanner has to boost the gain to get something and it introduces a lot of noise. Once I saw them, I didn’t really take care of them and they got dust and scratches. I scanned them any way but results were not pretty. While another roll was scanning, I played with some GIMP filters to kill time.

Peach tree.

Peach tree – edge detect filter.

Peach tree – neon filter. I can’t remember if neon was added to edge.

Most of the filters can be tuned so the effects aren’t so drastic but I was messing with scans I didn’t really care about any way.

Our friend’s horse. I seem to have gotten my shadow in a lot of these too.

Our friend’s horse – “old photo” filter.

Grass & Flower.

Grass & Flower – cropped to the grass.

These filtered versions of the grass aren’t really identifiable, but they came out kind of cool.

Grass – “circuit” filter.

Grass – “lava” filter.

Mean turkey and a rooster – a lousy image without the dev problem.

Mean turkey and a rooster – edge filter.

Propane tank, apple tree, & truck.

Propane tank, apple tree, & truck – “graphic pen” filter.

Dragon kite.

Dragon kite – cropped & neon filter.

And the best for last.

Trinity is not happy.

Trinity is not happy – cropped & neon filter.

Trinity is not happy – cropped & “little planet” filter.

GIMP has gotten really good. I can’t find the Photoshop Elements 8 installer I got with the Canon Scanner. I re-bought PSE (version 15) since Adobe doesn’t have installers going back that far, even if you have your serial number. I think it was installed on a drive I wiped without freeing up the license so I don’t know if it’s doable even if I find the disc. PSE 15 kind of sucks compared to the older version. I just have GIMP 2.10 on the laptop. The workflow is different but it easily rivals PSE now and maybe full Photoshop. I hate the software as a service model so even if I thought PS “Creative Cloud” was worth the extra money, I probably wouldn’t get it.

52 Cameras: #196 – Chinon SLR

Winter orange.

Storm blowing over the Truchas peaks.

52 Cameras: #195 – Olympus Trip MD

The site with the lens construction info:
http://www.optiksammlung.de/Olympus/TripMD.html

The manual is under Manuals & Ephemera.

I’ll do a separate post about the failed 1st roll. I ended up having some fun with it.

Jem – gray and orange always go together.

A new (to us) stray in the neighborhood. King Tux. Those are some honkin’ toe beans.

Central Ave. in Albuquerque.

Old firetrucks and wreckers.

I couldn’t decide so here’s a cropped version too.

In the above two images, I like the barbed wire and fence receding into the distance in the first one. I also like the focus on the vehicles in the second one.