Kickstarter: The Lomo'Instant Square Camera

Yet another Kickstarter for film photography? Yes, it is for the Lomo'Instant Square. A folding camera that shoots Fuji's new square format Instax instant film. Fuji introduced the iconic format film earlier this year along with a camera to expose it. The Fuji camera is really a digital camera that can print on Instax square film. The Fuji edition camera allows changing the brightness of the image and applying various filters before optionally printing the shot.

Before anything else, there is one thing to know about the Lomo'Instant at time of printing this article, and that is the Kickstarter offer has a special 35% discount available for backers in the first 24 hours of the offer. If you can get your pledge in before 0959 UTC (5:59am EDT), August 30th, you can choose one of the Early Bird discounted rewards that includes the phrase "Save 35%...". And yes, the Kickstarter is fully funded as of writing.

The Lomography offer includes a camera with a glass lens for sharp pictures, a folding design with a bellows, full flash control, a IR remote shutter control, automatic exposure, shutter times from 1/250 to 30 seconds and an optional portrait lens with a range of 0.5m to 0.8m (about 20" to 31") and many other goodies.

Lomography bills itself as the Lomographic Society International, "a globally-active organization dedicated to experimental, creative and analogue photography." They have had 7 Kickstarters to date. As with any Kickstarter, there is risk and product may not be delivered. That said, they offer delivery to just about anywhere in the world, with multiple delivery hubs, so that there will be no customs fees for the lucky backers in areas covered by a hub.

Disclosure: your blogger is a backer of this project at time of writing. Nothing like an offer with a deadline to loosen up the wallet - a well-known marketing tool.

Sample Graph of Reciprocity Failure for Ilford Films

As previously posted on Ag+ Process, the paper on reciprocity failure for Ilford films contains formulas for computing exposure times for long exposures. The longer the exposure, the less likely a given film will perform according to its box speed. For those with a hand calculator or calculator on a phone that has a y^x key, the computation is easy and just requires looking up a constant.

However, for those who prefer graphs, Ag+ Process has prepared a sample graph from the Ilford data for the first 30 seconds of measured (e.g. with a light meter) exposure time. It is possible to see that for a graph with longer times, reading the computed (Tc) times for shorter exposures becomes harder. Other factors can come into play as well for longer exposures.

To use the graph, find the curve for your film (they are colour coded and all but two films are labelled), then find the time along the horizontal axis (labelled Tm) from your exposure meter. Trace up vertically to the point on the curve for your film exactly above that time, then trace horizontally to the vertical axis (Tc). That is the time for the corrected exposure.

Here is the graph, click for full size:

Random News From August 2017

Film Ferrania

Film Ferrania has announced final shipping fo P30, their first attempt at commercial silver halide film. The black and white film inspired by Ferrania B&W movie film is high in silver content and gives a rich tonality. They plan to start selling P30 in their shop soon. With much more work to do at the factory, hopefully they can get to producing E6 colour slide film eventually.

Intrepid Camera 8x10 Kickstarter

Inptrepid Cameras has declared that their first 8x10 camera has just been assembled. At a svelte 295x295x75mm and 2.15kg, the camera is even lighter and smaller than announced on Kickstarter.

Kodak teams with Girl Skateboards

Kodak has teamed up with Girl Skateboards to produce skateboard decks and clothing with classic film branding from Kodak. “Girl videos have always been partially shot on film. The 20 plus years of our archived photos are all shot on film,” said Sam Smyth, Girl Skateboards. Check it out, lots of great shots featuring these boards and clothing.

Ilford Publishes Reciprocity Failure Table

Ilford published a document on reciprocity failure for Ilford films. The short, one page document gives instructions for calculating exposure times where the metered exposure is over one second. With a scientific handheld calculator, calculator app on your computer (in scientific mode) or a calculator app on your phone (when held horizontally), the y^x key can be used with the time factor in the document to calculate a compensated time. Due to contrast in the scene, development time may need to be reduced (pulled) due to different light levels present. Other factors may come into play affecting the exposure, so some experimentation may still be needed.
To see how Ilford's table works, consider Ilford Delta 3200 in a scene which requires 8 seconds of exposure time. The compensation factor at time of writing for this film is 1.33. So, on the calculator enter 8 (the time), press y^x, then enter 1.33 (the factor for Delta 32000) and finally press =. The result in this case is 15.889 seconds. Round this to 16 seconds and use for the exposure time.
Substitute the time from your exposure meter and the appropriate factor for the film you are using for your situation.

Minolta Maxxum Film Cameras and Lenses

One j.d. katz created a timeline of Minolta A-mount film cameras, from the original Maxxum 7000 produced in 1985 through to the Maxxum 50 and 70 produced up to 2006. The same A-mount is used on modern Sony Alpha series dSLRs. An adapter, the LA-EA4 may be used to adapt A-mount lenses to Sony's mirrorless cameras, which use the E-mount.

The Maxxum 7 and Maxxum 9 were flagship cameras in the Minolta stable. The Maxxum 7 had the most features of any of the series, and all features were accessible by dials or a single button push. The back on the camera has an LCD panel that displays exposure information. The display will rotate 90 degrees with the orientation of the camera, keeping the text horizontal.

The Maxxum line of cameras were marketed as Dynax cameras in Europe and as Alphas in Asia. The modern Sony Alpha name is inherited from Minolta; Sony acquired Minolta in mid-2006. Originally, the Maxxum mark had a crossed-XX much like Exxon's logo. Exxon won in a lawsuit against Minolta, so Minolta had to stop using the crossed-XX mark. Lenses so marked are rare and desired by collectors. There is no difference in quality between a given lens with the crossed-XX the equivalent one without.

Another eBay writer has a short article on Minolta lens bargains. These are overperforming lenses for the price. The list also includes some of the top performing lenses, with top prices to match, such as the Minolta 35mm f/1.4, a $1400 lens in its day. Recommended, of course, is the 50mm f/1.4, which still goes for a pretty penny today.

Wikipedia has much information on the A-mount system and this humble blog has more resources for the A-mount enthusiast.