This morning I visited Dean Jones to pick up my Razzle camera. It is a Polaroid Land camera converted to take 4x5" sheet film.
The day started out not too good as the front tyre on my motorcycle was flat, luckily I got up at 0530 to do some work and noted the flat as I was packing the bike, took about 45 minutes to repair.
Eventually I met Dean at the camera shop he works at, when he's not manufacturing specialised cameras and odds and bobs, that is. A brief explanation about some features and he handed it to me.
Hopefully I have attached a picture taken with the shop web camera, which for an electronic camera, is remarkably old. I'm pictured with Dean, the good looking one is me.
One of the features I didn't expect was the ability to lock a grafmatic back into the camera, allowing me to easily pull and push the slider and septum box without fear of it coming out of the camera. Another small accessory I didn't expect, was a roll film holder. Running a standard DDS with the spring loaded nuts, the back can effortlessly run a DDS in and out as per any normal view camera.
Eventually I wended my way home late this afternoon and cajoled my 87 year old neighbour as a test subject, I shot 4 sheets and with the exception of one, all are razor sharp on the negs I have just developed. The exception is where I moved the camera as I pressed the cable release. I took two others of houses in the street, both of these are tack sharp as well, to make up the six exposures in the grafmatic.
As I had this camera made specifically to take hand held portraits, this was an important test. I am pretty much over the moon, at the moment.
With the extremely low light only one week away from the winter equinox, I was a bit pressed with FP4+ but managed 1/125 at f8. I think I'll head up two stops in film very quickly for hand held outdoor work, but will use FP4+ for indoors with flash and in bright summer light.
The film is hanging up drying, I will print on Sunday morning and hopefully be able to upload one or two.
For the technical boffins I have my camera fitted with a Fujinon-W f6.3/150 mounted, in a Seiko shutter. The camera folds perfectly, with the lens having no problems missing the front folding cover.
The day has ended perfectly, after an interesting start. :rolleyes:
"One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid,
and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision"
It's important to support people like Dean who are offering realistically priced converted Polaroid cameras, rather than over-hyped, grossly over-priced alternatives.
A photojounralist, and friend of mine, Chris Usher, has used these cameras for a portrait project he's been doing of Hurricane Katrina victims who have relocated throughout the country... a diaspora project of sorts. Anyway, it's great to see a successful photographer still shoot big film, especially with such cool cameras.
Tim, I agree with the lens, I have another which is permanently attached to my folded Shen Hao wooden folder. Neat, small and quite cheap. It was experience with my first Fujinon-W f6.3/150, that made my decision of what lens to put on my converted Polaroid camera.
I found out a couple of other things whilst having lunch today. The camera has a hot shoe, with which I connected a small $5.00 Sunpak auto 140 flash. So fill flash for dark subjects, will be very doable.
The lens standard is able to give swing, both ways and be locked, this is something I doubt I'll ever use, but at least it's there when I need it, if I remember I have it that is.
I can use a tripod in both landscape and portrait modes, Dean has manufactured an extended knob for the landscape mode version, whilst the original portrait tripod socket is in the folding lid. On Deans home page main picture, you can see this. Mine is the 900 version which is the brown one on his page. Note the fabricated cable release holder, this is one of Dean's mods. It works perfectly, one holds the camera with the left hand, aided by the camera strap, you push the cable release with your left thumb.
I have included two pictures of my neighbour, who was just leaving for a trip to the shop when I nabbed him. One is a full frame contact print, you may not be able to see this but there is vignetting visible around three sides. This particular shot was an acid test for close focusing, I was about 1.1 metres away, I think the bellows being squashed a bit, may be causing this. It isn't anything I'll be worrying about as I always shoot with a view to print. The fourth side of this sheet (L/H), where there is no vignetting, contains the slight intrusion of the grafmatic film numbering thingy, which on this particular grafmatic, doesn't work, everything else does though and it doesn't leak any light, which is even better.
The second picture is a cropped print of the whole sheet, which I converted to portrait mode. This print was a severe test of my ability to handhold a reasonably heavy camera. It weighs 2.4 kg with a fully loaded grafmatic and a small flash attached, according to the kitchen scales. The fact I was able to get so close, focus on his left cheek outline, trip the shutter and get a quite sharp picture at f8 which is 1/2 a stop from wide open and not really what the lens is designed for, has made me quite enthusiastic about this camera.
The funny thing about this camera, is that I scoured the world looking for a reasonable 4x5 hand held camera, but found possibly the best value for money and quality camera, 45 minutes ride from home.
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