#Canon Rangefinder

[ultralowoxygen]

New York Nights [Film] by Dan Gaken Via Flickr: Kodak Portra 800 shot on a Canon P with LTM 50mm f/1.4

[tokyo-camera-style]

Nezu Shrine, Tokyo

Canon P with 35mm f2 lens

Hasselblad 2000 FC/M with Planar 80mm f2.8

[davetada]

Jesrill

West Hollywood, CA

[alwayslookingneverseeing]

Fall walks

[mikes81vw]

One of my babies

[neilkesterson]

The "Do I have to pose again" Pose by Neil Kesterson Via Flickr: Testing the Canolite D flash that is designed for the Canonet. Bubblewrap over the front softens the direct light somewhat. With normal-toned subjects, the exposure is perfect. WIth white or black subjects, like my cats or dog, it's either over or under lit, but fixable. Canon Canonet 28, Canolite D, Fompan 400, Caffenol stand

[urbanadventureleague]

Canon Canonet QL17 G-III: Believe the hype?

Astute readers may have noticed that my collection of traditionally styled fixed-lens rangefinders shrank from 2 to 0 a couple months ago–first, the Minolta Hi-Matic 7s departed the stable when I realized I had outgrown its chonky charms, then the Olympus 35RD decided to develop Sticky Shutter Syndrome again, and I was leery about repairing it. At that point I thought that I might be done with…

[vintagesnapuk]

Article About Releasing The Wizardry Of The Canon GIII Camera

Many photographers have a soft spot in their hearts for film photography, and the Canon GIII camera makes sure that such moments are captured in their most natural state. Its rangefinder mechanism offers perfect focusing, making it simple for photographers to take astonishingly crisp pictures. Images created with the Canon GIII's outstanding optics and the distinct appearance and feel of film photography have a timeless character that cannot be matched by images created using digital cameras. For more details visit the site.

[compatriot-james]

So I just got this thing.

Has some issues.

One can be worked around, the other can be fixed.

Looking forward to using it, but just in case does anyone know of someone in the U.S. that does old camera repair?

[gars-weaponeer]

The Hunted Batch (Ch. 1)

Summary: What if Hunter's inhibitor's chip activated instead of Crosshair's?

Word count: 3,540

Characters: Hunter, Crosshair, Wrecker, Tech, Echo and Omega.

Tags & Warnings: Canon divergent, No romantic relationships, Inhibitor chips, Angst with a happy ending. (If I miss one please notify me)

You can also read it on AO3:

“Hey Kid, you ready for this? We move fast.” “Good, that’s the only way I know.”

It all seemed good at first. A mission like many others they had had all up to that point. Droids did not stand a chance against their combined tactics, after all they were “The Clone force 99”, one of the best special forces the GAR had to spare. 

Now they were running through the snow of Kaller, chasing after the remaining separatist forces alongside a young Padawan named Caleb Dume. The cold of the winter could still be felt as they ran, even with their armors on, but neither Crosshair nor his companions seemed to care about it. The promise of the war ending soon had everyone filled with a rush of energy, there would be time to rest later. For now they pushed forward, ready to successfully finish another mission. 

However the sound of distant blasters behind them caught Crosshair’s attention. Were they being attacked from behind? His Squad stopped dead in their tracks as they saw the padawan rush back towards the trenches they just left. The heat of a battle had lifted a soft cloud of mist that prevented Crosshair from seeing clearly what was going on, but the light of a blue lightsaber deflecting blaster fire was recognizable. 

General Billaba, the Jedi in charge of this front, was in danger. 

Hunter and Crossair exchanged looks for a second before rushing back towards the battle, ready to assist their allies against a surprise droid attack. 

As they ran, Crosshair lowered his rangefinder to get a better view of the enemy and start his attack from afar, after all he was the sharpshooter of the squad, however what he saw shocked him to his core and froze him in place.

Those were not droids attacking General Billaba, those were clones. 

Confusion took over Crosshair at the fight he was witnessing, it was so bizarre, so unthinkable that he did not know how to react.

Before he could relay this information to his brothers, a blood curdling scream tore through the air, a sinking realization  settled heavily on Crosshair’s gut. They were too late. 

Hunter stopped when he saw the young Padawan running back towards them, tears streaming down his eyes. Were the regs going to attack him too?

“What happened?” Hunter asked, just as freaked out as he felt out of the confusion of the situation. He didn’t see what Crosshair had seen, how could he? Hunter did not possess his enhanced eyesight. 

“Stay away from me!” Commander Caleb swung his lightsaber at them, forcing the team of clones to keep their distance before he took off into the woods.

The squad stood frozen for a couple of seconds as they tried to process what had just happened. Just moments ago everything was fine and now an eerie sensation of peril took over the scene before them.

“Wha- What just happened?”  Echo’s shocked voice brought Crosshair back to reality, as he blinked to see his fellow teammate.

“The com channel is repeating one directive: “Execute order 66''.'' Tech said, his eyes glued on his data pad, as if trying to translate a phrase that was spoken in another, unrecognizable language. 

Those words however caused a strange stir inside Crosshair, a dreadful sensation of something important he should know but had been long forgotten. It didn’t matter how much he tried to “remember” it just didn’t make sense to him. He had never heard that order before. 

Was it a reg thing?

As he looked over at his brothers he could tell they were all as confused as he was, even Echo, who knew more of the “Reg manuals” than they did. 

Whenever there was doubt, the squad would always turn to Hunter. 

He had a natural skill for rational thinking and staying calm even in the most daring situations, which he used to guide his team towards victory or safety countless times. This would not be different, Crosshair thought.

At that moment, Hunter had his eyes glued to the forest, barely taking them away from the path the Padawan had left behind. 

‘He is probably worried about the kid’ Crosshair thought to himself, after all Hunter always had a soft spot for children. One that proved annoying for the sniper.

“Echo, Tech, talk to the Reg Captain, see what proceeds.” Hunter began telling his orders, directing his companions to move back to the trenches. 

“Crosshair, you and I will track down the Padawan and bring him back.”  Crosshair nodded in agreement.

“Wrecker, you contact me if anyone else tries to follow us.” Hunter told the tallest of his brothers before he began to run into the forest, giving Crosshair a signal to follow him close behind. 

They trotted down hill, knees deep into the snow, but keeping a determined pace. 

Crosshair and Hunter didn’t always see eye to eye, but there was not denying that the sniper trusted Hunter with his life. 

Crosshair had to admit that he admired and envied just how easily Hunter could stay calm in the worst of situations. Knowing that the sergeant was staying cool and composed  gave him a sense of security.  Everything will be fine as long as Hunter can lead us.

They ran through the thick evergreen branches, barely feeling the cold in the air as they kept their chase. 

Hunter would stop for a few seconds to read some tracks and check the air for signals of the kid before continuing down a path. He was focused like a hound chasing a target. 

Crosshair took the opportunity to find a large boulder, perfect for a perch and got in position, climbing to high ground with quick graceful moves. He scoped the area carefully, getting a better view of the terrain. 

His and Hunter’s abilities complimented each other perfectly for this kind of operations, with his keen eyesight catching the slightest details on the horizon, and hunter’s senses scanning for trails, there were very few things that could hide from them. 

Crosshair was about to move down from the boulder when Hunter’s voice was heard from his spot below.

“He is close…” Hunter whispered, raising a fist, signaling Crosshair to stop in his place. 

As he looked around at the trees, Crosshair noticed Caleb perched on one of the high branches, huddled with his robes in an attempt to camouflage himself and pass unnoticed. Sadly said disguise could not fool the sharpshooter’s eye. 

“There he is.” Crosshair pointed to Hunter with a slight gesture of his head, lowering his rifle and waiting for the sergeant to make the next move. 

Hunter has always been the face and voice of the group, being the only member of the batch that actually had decent social skills, along with natural charisma and good looks. He was skilled in making up for their antics with just his words, and people seemed to like Hunter better than they liked the loud Wrecker, the Introvert Tech or the broody Crosshair.

So it was no brainer that Crosshair would step aside so Hunter could try and calm the kid down. After all, that’s what Hunter was good at. He would walk up to the kid, speaking softly and calmly, asking him to come back down so they can take him safely back to camp.

Crosshair even moved his rifle’s barrel upwards to seem as less threatening as possible.

However, he did not expect what happened next.

Hunter doesn’t move from his place, he doesn’t get closer to the kid, he doesn’t even try to talk. Instead he draws his blaster from its holster and shoots at the kid. The blaster fire passing right next to Crosshair’s shoulder, startling him.

Caleb reflects the blast away with his lightsaber and runs away jumping through the treetops, getting lost in the snow for a moment. 

But Crosshair was not caring about that now, instead he was staring at Hunter in shock. 

“What are you doing?!” Crosshair asked the sergeant with a hiss as he leaped down the boulder, marching closer to Hunter.

“We need to finish the mission.” Hunter said sternly, hostling the gun back in place and starting to move back into tracking the kid when Crosshair grabbed him by the shoulder, forcing Hunter to look at him.

“What mission? This was not in our report to begin with!”  He was trying to read Hunter’s expression through the visor of his mask, but it was nearly impossible.  “Shouldn’t we stand down until we know what’s going on?”

Crosshair has never been fond of children, he had always found them annoying and a nuisance. And he had always had a problem with authority, finding Jedi to be pretentious, only a handful being able to gain his respect. But killing Caleb? A Jedi Commander? Let alone a Kid!? That was way out of line, especially for Hunter and it made Crosshair suspicious. 

Before he could respond, however, Hunter began to clutch his head, as if a sudden migraine had taken over him, bending over slightly, facing the white snowy floor of the forest.

“Good soldiers follow orders…” he whispered eerily. 

“What was that?” Crosshair leaned a bit closer to see if he could catch what Hunter was saying, but Hunter did not repeat his strange whisper. 

The comlink activates again with a beep and Wrecker’s voice could be heard.

“Hunter, you’ve got Regs inbound.” 

This seemed to snap Hunter out of his trance, as he stood up back straight and talked back into his comlink.

“Copy that.” He relies before looking at Crosshair as if nothing had happened. “Come on, let's keep moving.” He urges, running after the trail of fallen snow the kid left behind. 

Crosshair cannot help but stare at Hunter’s back as he runs, a sinking feeling of dread taking over his chest and the pit of his stomach. Something was wrong, very wrong.

Regardless, he follows the sergeant in the chase. 

“Hunter, we got a situation.” Tech’s voice cracked through the comlink.

“Talk to me Tech.” Hunter demanded as he kept running, seemingly undeterred as he searched around for the kid. 

“It appears the Regs have been ordered to execute all the Jedi, they are saying they committed treason.” Tech says, shocking Crosshair to the core. 

“Right, that explains a lot.” Hunter said coldly, prompting Crosshair to snap slightly at his words.

“How does that explain anything?”

He was beyond confused. The clones suddenly turning on the Jedi made no sense, it almost felt like a trap, a separatist ploy. How could Hunter just accept the situation with no skepticism? The Bad Batch had always been a rebellious group compared to the more disciplined soldiers of the GAR, they had broken many rules, among other things. They never just charged into battle in a straight line, following instructions to the T. Their success came from their ability to improvise and think outside the box. 

Every problem had a solution, they just needed to find it. Unofficial motto. So why was Hunter just accepting this as if nothing weird was going on?

It appeared Crosshair was not the only one feeling confusion over Hunter’s words as Tech stuttered a bit before continuing. 

“I… suggest you get back here.”

“Not until I’ve found the kid.” Hunter says firmly, determinedly, and terrifyingly cold as he shut the transmission with Tech and looked around. He was a soldier on a mission and it was well known of their squad that they did not stop until the mission was completed. 

However, the idea that the mission was hunting down a kid sent shivers down Crosshair’s spine.

As Crosshair scans the area he notices the kid again, perched on a tree branch once more, and he freezes.

He should tell Hunter, but he hesitates, this did not feel right with him but he also did not know how to proceed.

Before he can react, however, Hunter’s senses catch on to the Kid’s rapid breathing and he quickly turns around, drawing his blaster and shooting towards him. The branch Caleb is perched on snaps and he falls down into the snow below.

There is a moment of silence as the mist caused by the stirring of the snow settles and Caleb turns on his lightsaber, glaring at both clones before rushing towards them. Ready to fight for his life like a cornered animal. 

Hunter immediately reacts, trying to shoot back at the kid as he gets closer and closer with each hurried step. 

Crosshair freezes as he stares at the scene unfolding in front of him. What should he do? Should he shoot the kid or try to stop Hunter? His hands fumble with the safety of his rifle, his eyes darting from the gun in his hands to the battle. 

He can almost see it in slow motion, reading each movement before it happens, and it is then that he sees how Caleb lifts his lightsaber, ready to strike Hunter down. Crosshair can almost see it cutting his brother in half and a panicked “no!” slips out of his lips as he points his rifle at the padawan. 

This seemed to make Caleb react, as in the last second he contorted his body to kick Hunter in the chest, sending him tumbling towards a tree and making him hit his head, knocking him out cold. 

Caleb then turns towards Crosshair, glare blazing hot as the saber in his hands. Ready to lunge at him, however, Crosshair has his rifle pointed at him, waiting for him to make the first move. One false movement and it could be the end of either of them both.

“I do not want to hurt you…” Crosshair growls, ‘but I will if I must.’ He thinks.

Caleb doesn’t take his chances, instead he runs away back into the forest. 

Crosshair hesitates for a second, looking at Hunter carefully. The sergeant is still breathing, but still out cold, Crosshair instead decides to rush after the kid, following his tracks right towards a Waterfall. 

He can notice how Caleb moves anxiously in his place, looking around, desperate to find a way out when he senses the presence of the sharpshooter behind him, immediately drawing his lightsaber to confront Crosshair.

“Stay back!” Caleb was frantic, waving his lightsaber erratically, trying to keep Crosshair away.

The clone stopped and stayed still. He needed to make sure the kid was ok. 

He slowly raised his hands and dropped his rifle to the side. 

“Listen, I’m trying to help kid.” He says, his voice sounded more like a growl to which Crosshair mentally kicked himself. 

“No! You killed her! you traitors killed her!” There were tears streaming down the kid’s cheeks, and he backed away. 

Crosshair knew that if he did not do anything the kid wouldn't stand a chance on his own. He could be many things, but he was not a heartless man. He had to try and do something, even if he had no idea of what. What would Hunter do?

“The regs did” Crosshair tried, really tried, to soften his voice. But he was not made for that. “I’m not like them.”

Caleb seems to doubt for a second, but he is still looking around frantically. 

“I…I can help you get out of here alive.” Crosshair offers in a hurry. 

Frankly, Crosshair had no idea how he would do that. Planning was not his forte, but he trusted, partially,  he could figure something out quickly before Hunter came to or before the regs found him. 

The kid seems to calm down at his words and for a second Crosshair feels relief. He managed to convince the kid. However the damned voices of the regs in the distance caught both their attention. Caleb was not going to get himself captured, he glares at Crosshair for a moment before he takes the chance and jumps across the ravine.

Crosshair almost dreads he won’t make it. but the force has allowed Caleb to land safely on the other side. Once there, Caleb does not waste time running into the forest until he is lost from Crosshair’s sight. 

The sniper sighs, maybe it was for the best. The regs would not be able to chase him like this. However there was one clone who still might.

Crosshair took a piece of thick wood from the snowy forest floor along with his rifle and threw his target up into the air before the ravine, aiming at it and shooting.

It made a sound that he knew Hunter would recognize. The sound of a bullet hitting “something”.

He could not do much to help the kid now, but he hoped to at least fool Hunter enough to lose his trail.

Crosshair can hear footsteps running towards him, just a pair, which tells him that his brother has returned. So he keeps his eyesight on the misty falls below, begging to the force that Hunter won’t be able to see the footprints on the other side of the ledge. 

When Hunter reaches Crosshair he immediately kneels to inspect the tracks at his feet.

Would he notice the kid jumped? Of course he would, this was Hunter...

But would he notice his trick?

“Where is the Jedi?” He almost growls, like a dog anxious to catch its prey. 

“He tried to jump” Crosshair said, keeping his sight down “... So I shot him mid air, He fell into the waterfall.”

Without looking at Hunter, Crosshair turns on his heels and marches away. 

He can feel that Hunter is not convinced. He can tell that his brother is probably trying to regain his trail. But he also knows Hunter won’t be able to sniff out the trail in the mist of the waterfall.

The trip back home to Kamino was long, however Crosshair spent most of the time napping. 

It wasn’t unusual for him to nap as the Marauder cruised through hyperspace; The inside of the ship, surrounded by his brothers, was one of the two places Crosshair felt the safest and where he could sleep soundly, truly rest, without feeling on edge. 

“We are coming up on Kamino.” Tech’s voice  brought him out of his slumber, slowly waking him up. Crosshair  sighed and stretched slightly in his chair. He could hear his brothers talking in the cockpit, something about how long they had been away from home. 

However what caught Crosshair’s attention was the eerie feeling of being watched. 

Hunter had been staring at him, his eyes unreadable under his helmet.  Crosshair could not tell if he had just now laid his eyes on him or if Hunter had been staring at him for a longer time while he slept. 

Still Cross tries to remain calm as he just growled back at Hunter. “What now?” He asked, acting annoyed at Hunter’s stare. 

“Are you sure you shot the padawan dead Crosshair?” Hunter asked, his tone cold under the helmet, causing an involuntary shiver to run down Crosshair’s back.

“I never miss my shots Hunter”  He reminded him, trying to sound as convinced as he would usually be. 

“Well, I could’ve sworn I still heard his heartbeat at the ridge.” Hunter says, keeping his stare on crosshair, reading his expressions. Crosshair thanked the maker that he knew how to keep his own heartbeat stable, or else Hunter would know he was lying. 

“When you don’t shoot the heart, it usually still beats until you bleed out. Besides, if the shot didn’t kill him the fall did, or the rapids." Crosshair said. “Either case, the kid is dead.” He lies, standing up and walking towards the rest, feeling safer by their side as Hunter’s glare was still burning at the nape of his neck.

Hunter didn’t chase after him, but the dreadful feeling that something was wrong kept eating at Crosshair’s mind. 

Hunter was not acting as his usual self, he was angry and aggressive and for once Crosshair was not sure what caused his attitude to change. Usually when he got upset it was because of something they had done or something that had gone wrong during the mission. He was 90% sure he and his brothers didn’t do anything wrong this time so he ruled that one out. 

Was Hunter upset that they couldn’t save the jedi general? No, if that was the case he wouldn’t have tried to kill the kid. 

Did he think the kid had done it?

Crosshair remembered that only he saw the regs attacking the Jedi master, maybe Hunter had the wrong idea of what happened? Then again, Caleb had run back when they started hearing the blasters, Hunter must have noticed that too.

As he kept replaying the events of the mission in his head, he felt more and more confused.

It almost felt like someone or something had replaced Hunter and the Regs all of the sudden.

He remembered that one time they had a mission involving clawdites and a shiver ran down his spine. What if--

No, it couldn’t have happened, Hunter never left his side before he started to act weird, so Crosshair could rule out that he was actually replaced.

But then… Why was everyone acting so strange all of the sudden?

If you enjoyed it, please consider linking/re-blogging my work!

ᴰᶦᵛᶦᵈᵉʳ ᵇʸ @stars-n-spice

[ultralowoxygen]

2024-06-08_03-59-31 by madeincanon

[elementoftheeye]

All the way back from 2007. my wife asked me the other day... my birthday... is there anything you have not done or anything that you would change in the past... THAT is a bit of a loaded question. The quick answer was, I really don't know. Of course what comes out of my mouth and what goes through my brain and heart are generally different. If it weren't that way I would be locked up on some island somewhere... or most likely not of this earth anymore. I will stick with this question in the realm of photography: I have no regrets about how I started in photography... I was young, had taken some art classes as a child and seemed to have an eye of it. In my teenage years, I remember everyone making fun of my dad for cutting off tops of heads with his snapshots of family. Probably around age 15 I found my dads camera. A 35mm Petri35 rangefinder. I never saw him use it but I grabbed it and loaded some color film. No idea what I was doing and teaching myself along the way... Badly I might add... I created a bit of friendship and respect with the camera. I loved aligning the images in the view finder, the smell of the back of the camera, and the heft of the camera... the light click of the shutter. Those memories are vivid to me. I took pictures of my friends and their cars, trees and flowers... then the next stage of life was the Army. I have a Pentax K1000 and a zoom lens. More photos of friends and maneuvers in the field. Travel photos, I was stationed in Oklahoma, California, Germany & Pennsylvania. Binders of 35mm negatives and color slides... to be destroyed by me through my ex wife... That is a regret ( I should have taken those binders and all of my gear. ) Jump ahead to a new life, a new 35mm Pentax ZX30. It was a good camera but felt like plastic, lightweight and cheap... Digital was in full swing by then and I got a Canon 20D... and my first trip out west to shoot with professional models... probably my next regret can 10-15 years later when I stopped shooting with models. I became a little bitter that I was not able to afford the fees. I was shooting with friends and we were splitting the fees, but I still wasn't happy. I felt self conscious when working closely with even friends... I soon just stopped making up bullshit excuses... and now I pull up old photos like this and relive my happiness if only for a few minutes. I tried to get back to shooting models maybe 5 years ago, and my experience was less than good. The model was rude, rude in front of another photographer and model. I just walked away... never got back on the proverbial bike again. That's a lot to unpack... one of the things I did as a photographer was print images for my models... this is Savannah Costello, I had sent her 5 large mounted prints from our shoot. She messaged me when she got her 1st house and thanked me because she had our photos to hang on her walls... Maybe another regret in this digital world is how many photos live on an old hard drive or only in digital realms...

[6ft2lesbian]

Think fast!

1, 2, 4, 5, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14

It's Molniya! Thank you! I've been wanting to do this for a while!

Are there any in-sys friend groups that wouldn't happen in canon, but make sense to you?

It's me and Clockwork. Where we're from, we'd be on opposite sides of a war.

2. What source do you have the most fictives from?

It's a tie between Project Guardmaid (a story that Katja is writing) (where I'm from!) and Mobile Suit Gundam. I guess all of us are OCs.

4. Who has the coolest name in your opinion?

To be honest, I think it might be me. It's a mispronunciation of the Russian word for lightning, but I like it a lot. A close second is Rust. Very charming, very simple.

5. What's your favorite thing about your source?

Probably the magic. It's a blessing and a curse. You can do so much.

9. What's a quote or lyric that reminds you of yourself?

To be honest, I could give you a rather intense answer, or I could give you an equally intense answer with a fair helping of introspection. I'm giving you both.

One is from Unjust Depths. I'm no pilot, but something about it really speaks to me.

"Interred in a tomb of steel, the rangefinders and cameras became her eyes. And the guns were the only hands she had, and shooting was the only touch she had left."

Another is from a clicker game called ALTER EGO. One of the characters analyzes you based on how you tell a story(I believe that's how it went), and the last part of her read on us resonated with me very well. I'll post the whole analysis because it also painfully accurate, but I'll highlight the part I'm talking about.

"Deny stable values / Pure Self-Denial.

You must truly hate yourself. With the ability for deep self-analysis, it's so easy to find things to loathe about yourself. You're very pure and connected to your own inquisitive nature. You've never forgotten what it is to be a child, and you tend to thoroughly investigate whatever catches your fancy. You're both incredibly pure, and awfully dangerous. Never fear. There's a place for you here."

11. Who's your best friend in-sys? Would your sources be friends, do you think?

It's Clockwork. Again, we'd be killing each other in an always-war. But once it ended... maybe. Probably. It took me a long time to see automatons as people, but I got there. Earlier than most of my kind, really. Most automatons are more human than any of us ever were. I remember dancing with someone like her post-war, in an underwater manufacturing plant turned university. Huge ballroom, glass ceiling just 30 feet below the surface at low tide. It was beautiful, the way the waves twisted the sunlight down upon us. I traded partners with some officer and this blank-faced automaton girl took my hand. Her voice was lilty and robotic, which was... very strange, considering that most every other automaton I've ever met spoke just like any human would. Great dancer. I think we danced 3 separate times that night. I don't remember much else. Was that her? Probably not.

I've gotten way off topic. I felt like sharing.

12. Do you miss anyone from your source?

Laika, my... lover? She was so cocky and it drove me insane. Gaia's most charming vehicle mechanic. I hope she's doing okay. I hope our daughter is doing okay.

13. What do you look like in the head? How does that compare to your source? The body?

I look almost the same, lithe and toned. Shoulder length silver hair(It's kind of swoopy!) and dull red eyes. Although I dress a lot more informally up here than I did where I'm from. No uniforms. Skinny jeans and long sleeve shirts mostly. Turtlenecks too. Sometimes I wear a plate carrier. Occasionally. Body armor is like a bulletproof hug. It's comforting.

14. What's your favorite song?

Psycho Dreams - Kill Eva

[doggiewoggiez]

One of my favorite cameras in my collection is this counterfeit Canon I got at a Goodwill a few months back. There's a number of these cameras on the market under various names, usually close-but-not-illegal names like Canomatic or Olympia or some shit but mine says straight up CANON on it with the stylized text and everything.

(above: example of the same camera under the Canomatic name)

These things are made by the Ouyama Corporation in Taiwan, and needless to say they are a load of cheap dogshit. The lens looks removable, even has a button for it, but the button is fake and the lens doesn't come off. In fact, the large lens itself is fake, there's a tiny glass lens in the base of the lens. To distract from the all-plastic construction there are heavy lead weights inside to give it a professional feel. The flash it comes with is weighted too but if it wasn't it'd actually be a really solid flash. The camera takes AA batteries which is weird.

A couple observations:

Shoots 35mm even though some other branding markets them as digital cameras.

Rather than auto-rewinding the film at the end of the roll, you have to manually turn the dial (which on a real SLR would be for shutter speed) to a rewind option and press the shutter button.

The aperture is a square which I hear results in weird triangular bokeh.

Has an adjustable aperture and at least some light sensing capabilities, as if you cover the light sensor or it's dark and you don't have the flash on it actually switches to bulb mode, though without anywhere to attach a shutter release cable to, it's not very useful.

For some reason there's two viewfinders, a second lens top-down one like a TLR would have, and a rangefinder on the left. The top-down view, I assume, tries to replicate the focus of the lens, since it's blurry until about five feet out.

The timer does work but it counts down with this insanely loud annoying beeping like a smoke alarm.

There is no ISO setting and no pins to detect ISO from your film roll (I use plastic self-rolled cassettes anyway so it doesn't matter).

You CAN in fact actually take pictures with it. It is despite everything a real camera.

(Photos from this JCH article by Joe Aguirre, 2012)

There's not much info on these cameras but there's a Camera Wiki page and an article on Japan Camera Hunter about various forms of this thing if you want to know more. I'm excited to shoot a roll on this and see if anything at all turns out!

[lewiswhatshisname]

#111

An early photo from Patreon.

My Ricoh is my most fiddly camera for me to shoot on.  For a start, it's fully manual, and I'm half blind, so I have intense difficulty getting it in clear focus.  Most of my film cameras are so old, the lenses are fixed focal length and aperture.  A couple can change the aperture by sliding a plate in and out between two or three options, but you still can't really zoom or change the focus at all.  This benefits me, because without autofocus, I'm kind of left just stumbling about in the dark.

But my Ricoh has so many tiny little problems that it does not matter at all.  The shutter sticks a little bit, the light metering is all wonky and doesn't work all that well, and the light leak ranges from non-existent to tremendous from shot to shot.  My inability to see through the rangefinder hardly matters at all when the camera is actively working against me half the time.  It's not so broken that it's unusable, but it's just broken enough that it produces photos on the same quality of all my other wonky old antique cameras that also have minds of their own.  When I want sharp quality, I use the Canon with its autofocus and its light meter that can use the ISO I've set to determine the shutter speed.  When I want to be surprised, I use film.

And even though my Ricoh weighs as much as a house, and has probably the most problems of any of my cameras, it's definitely my favourite film camera to take out when I go on adventures.

Prints now available on Redbubble!

[phvrvohxo]

i'm so good at photography

it was 2010 when all i had was a dream to own my very first dslr, i made some money from graphic design commissions and bought one, it was a nikon d3100... weeks before i got it i was watching youtube videos on iso, shutter speed & aperture so that i'd be able to shoot manual mode when i got it... you would have thought i was shooting for years the way i was getting all my exposures and compositions right... i got a job at beaches (sandals) as a resort photographer where i did photoshoots in the evenings and roved the beaches and waterparks by day taking pictures of kids... all those images i took, hundreds of thousands that helped to hone my skills, there aren't many shooters like me with the experience that i have... when 2012 came around i left sandals and started working on cruise ships, during the training in miami i said that i wanted to document my travels on film so i made an eBay account and bought a yashica, that's how i started shooting on 35mm... during my contract i didn't really like the yashica because i thought i wasn't getting any good shot or if they were in focus because it was a rangefinder so i bought my first slr, a canon ae1 program... this is when i started to shoot like it was my last day on earth, loved that camera so much.. i had it with me in europe, Australia, south america, alaska and hawaii.. all that time i was still shooting digital on the side so i got a nikon 610 which was my first full frame digital camera and a 85mm to go with it, that was such a nice combo... i left cruise ships in 2015, there was no way to develop my film rolls in jamaica so i decided to start developing from home.. after about 2 years i decided i would just shoot exclusively on film and that has helped me to develop my skills so much... i learned stuff like sunny 16 & the zone system, now i hardly use light meters in the day or even in the night.. i've come such a far way and i am so grateful for that you don't even know, all i do is shoot everyday even if it's one photo or a selfie, i just hope that all this time spent on my craft isn't wasted and i will start selling prints for thousands of dollars and get to go on assignments around the world...