Take The Wide View, Comrade

Whether your photographic dreams lie on the steppes of the Ukraine or the steps of Odessa, you will welcome this chance to own a part of Soviet photographic history. The FT-2 is one of the most ingenious things to come out of Russia that doesn't explode.

It is a metal-bodied 35mm panoramic camera that operates on strict socialist principles. ie. it works, but only after you study the propaganda for an hour and even then you are never sure if someone is looking over your shoulder. Occasionally users will disappear and none of the neighbours can say where they have gone. It has a red spirit level, and if that isn't Soviet, I don't know what is. I presume that is water in there - if it was actual spirits they would have drained it by now...

Okay, seriously, this takes 35mm film into its own especial cassettes - of which there is one on board - so you will need ebay up another one before you attempt to load it in a darkroom. Once it is fueled*, you close the front latches and start to wind on with the knob - watching the counter at the right side as it revolves. Quite what the mathematics of this are I do not know so practice with a dud film will be needed.

The two semaphore levers on the top control the three shutter speeds. It is a revolving lens with a fixed f:5 aperture so you calculate your exposure by looking at the light and following Party instructions. The level is fantastic - big and red. I am surprised it is not star-shaped. I would have done it that way...

Does it work? Presumably so - with the sort of reliability of a sickle or a hammer. Nothing much to go wrong with it.

Call in and embrace the New Era of Panoramas.

* Fuelling Soviet machinery can be exciting. Google up Nedelin and see what I mean...

Cameras In The Trenches - The Next Four Years

We are just about to see the centenary of the First World War. From August of this year to November of 2018 we are going to get periodic reminders of the events of the twentieth century - spaced out as manufacturers, film producers, and politicians cash in on the thing. I have a number of predictions for the photographic side of it.

1. There will be an ANZAC camera - in fact several of them.

 Someone will package up a film disposable with images of ANZAC cove and an Australian...and possibly New Zealand... flag printed on the cardboard outer sleeve. it is likely that the RSL will sell them from street stalls at the appropriate time of the year - it is absolutely certain that they will appear on eBay from Hong Kong.

There will also be a commemorative waterproof camera produced by either Nikon, Canon, Panasonic, or Olympus with some sort of ANZAC marketing. Perfect for capturing pictures at dawn on a beach.

There will be a professional ANZAC video camera developed by the ABC. It will be issued to film crews covering various commemoration ceremonies. The most interesting feature of the device will be the incorporation of the "reptile-recognition" button. Whenever this is pressed the camera will automatically focus upon a state or federal politician with a sombre expression on their face. It will hold this focus until the politician's rating in the Gallup poll rises by 2%.

2. The Leica company will re-issue a re-issue of the Leica O camera with a digital sensor inside. It will not function, but this is not viewed as a problem - indeed it can't be vied at all - the entire production run will be sent directly from Wetzlar to Hong Kong and will disappear into the interior of China.

3. The Reica company of Guang Zhao will issue a re-issue of a re-issue of a camera that looks really very much like a...Oh...whatever was I thinking?

4. Kodak will invent a new film format, then cancel it, then go broke again.

5. The Ilford company will issue anti-Zeppelin film for use in 35mm cameras. We will stock it here at Camera Electornic and can confidently predict that the city will not be attacked by Zeppelins. We do our bit for Australia.

6. LOMO will make something out of plastic that exposes film through a plastic lens. It will resemble a camera. It will be packaged in 115 layers of propaganda and cost as much as a small digital camera. It will be themed upon WW1. In 2017 it will be repackaged as a revolutionary product. It will be manufactured in China.

7. ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT will be re-filmed with aliens and pirates. It will star Angelina Jolie in the role that originally used Ernest Borgnine.
Will Smith may star as the Kaiser if contractual arrangements work out. If the Japanese buy into the financing there will be Hello Kitty in a stahlhelm with a Mauser rifle as a sniper.

8. The Department of Maintenance will take take the opportunity of changing and cleaning the carpets in Parliament House in Canberra during April 2015. All the federal politicians, advisers, secretaries, and ABC camera operators will be fact-finding and commemorating in Turkey during this month and it will give time to let the carpet glue smell dissipate. A large mat will be put out the front door to get the beach sand off when they came back...

9. Camera club presentations nights will feature military and naval subjects. The local re-enactors will be seen from every angle. Someone will fall over on parade and appear on the front page of the local paper.

10. Four good movies will be made of the conflict - one will involve airplanes and will be filmed by Peter Jackson. One will be of trench warfare and will be filmed in Yugoslavia.
If it is paid for by the French they will show more people sitting around eating than fighting. The American film industry will craft something around Belleau Wood.
The Swedes will make something gritty and depressed and the Germans will help them do it but it will pale into insignificance with the spectacular that the Russians will make in 2017 to celebrate being revolting. The theme of the 2017 Russian film will be " We were right - really we were. Honest to Putin, we were."

Put on your tin hats and look for a better 'ole...

'Ol Uncle Dick

Move Boldly Forward To View Of Ultimate Victory

The Central Committee of Camera Electronic issues the directive that you will move boldly forward to view of ultimate victory. This directive will be followed by all right-thinking photographers.

The mass of collective artistic workers will purchase Lomo Holga and Diana cameras to implement the correct decision. Agents travelling to assignments overseas will be required to use the Canon G1x and G15 cameras.The intelligentsia will purchase the Fuji X series cameras according to their means and use them according to their needs. The Leica cameras will be reserved for the fearless leaders of the movement. Any deviation from this directive will be subject to correction.

Revanchist running dogs and imperialist oppressors of the masses will try to decry this decision, pointing out that many other cameras are not mentioned in the 5-year plan. This transparent lie of the agents of capitalist hegemony tries to disguise the fact that the the cameras do not have viewfinders. They require the masses of workers and peasants to stare at LCD screens in the bright sunlight and fail to see the glorious landscape of photographic future. We say boldly that this is not to be tolerated - view finding is a basic right of man according to the Directive of the Third Committee Congress.

We boldly urge the photographers of Perth to stand firm and uphold the banner of correct behaviour!

Belaire - More Than Just A Chevrolet Coupe

 

I am so glad that the Russian camera industry has progressed past the days of stolen Contax factories and orphans producing bad Leica copies out of soft aluminium. I did enjoy the slightly guilty feeling of owning a Kiev or a Fed because it originated from the Evil Empire, but I quickly got over this when I tried to operate them. The sound of the aluminium gears rasping together and the ever-changing light leaks were too much in the end.

Of course, someone will point out that the Diana and the Holga are hardly any better in an operational sense. True, but as they are made of plastic they break much faster and can thus be disposed of earlier in the piece. It is like the unpleasant filling in a railway sandwich - the less of it and the faster swallowed the better.

The new Belaire X 6-12 seems to be a change for the better, however. It shows a degree of enthusiasm and innovation that has not been seen before. Granted that a great deal of it is plastic, the execution is very well done ( well, it is made in China and they are always good at execu...umm...moving right along...). There are two lenses with it, 58mm and 90mm. The camera shoots up to 6 x 9 so we are talking about a useful wide angle there. Of course like all 120 cameras you can choose to advance your frames so as to yield 6 x 6 images  - at this point I will leave you to work out your own mathematics about what the lenses do. Suffice it to say they have two apertures - f:8 and f:16. They focus down to a metre.

There is an in-built meter cell beside the lens and you can dial in most popular film ISO's. When you press down the shutter tab it will take an aperture-priority shot.

Cool thing on the top plate of the camera is a slot for one of two viewfinders - these are surprisingly clean and clear. Actually work.

Well, it won't replace the Leica MP, or the Linhof Master Technika, but someone will go out there and do something with it and for once it will probably be successful. I do dread the day when a student realises that they can advance the film in overlapping increments and will make one long transparency with the entire story of the battleship POTEMKIN on it mixed in with zombies and Grumpy Cat. Because they will bring it to us and ask us to print it for them...

We Say " Da " For To See The Camera Of Revolution! Here Is Now!

Comrades! Rise up in your thousands and stream into Camera Electronic today to see the newest recruit to the Film Revolution. Down with Boring Digital - Lomo has new cameras to lead proletariat  trend setters to fields of glory!

See first the Mighty Lubitel. Twin lenses of power - to view it is with the top one and to take picture it is with the bottom one and you may. Days of classic twin-lens reflex are not dead and is much film for this camera - we have black and white 120 and also colour negative and colour positive film 120. your creativity is not oppressed by forces of darkness!

Here too is the most unique camera in the Lomo range - and with Loma that is saying a very great deal. The new Belaire camera is 120 film for medium format 6 x6 and up to 6 x 9 format. TO pull it out you must and attach one of two lenses that are included. A 90mm lens and viewfinder for inconsiderable views and a 50mm lens and viewfinder to see the world. This is a camera of history as you will see it looking at older pictures of Plaubel Makina, but it is new and they have not stolen the Plaubel factory.

And lasting is the chance to be your own constructor with Konstructor - a kit to make an entire 35mm film camera SLR yourself. Every part is inside contained and instructions so that you can spend 1-2 hours producing the fine instrument. To decorate this are stickers also provided that your camera should be different from mine.

Now are these cameras here and you should be here as well to see them - we will show them gladly and as they are not of great expense you may take them home. No dacha should be without one.