Sometimes, a single shot on a roll of film does not fit into any narrative but turns out exactly as I wanted it to. Welcome to “One Shot.”
Frames from a visit to the Miniature Wonderland in Hamburg. Part 2 of 2.
Frames from a visit to the Miniature Wonderland in Hamburg. Part 1 of 2.
Hawk Hill is one of the vista points near the Nike missile site north of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge. I shot these images on a vacation day before the business part of my trip to San Francisco started. When I was packing for the trip, I felt like using my two adapted Leica R lenses and decided to take the Nikon F6 with me, too. I thought it would be fun to use the manual focus glass with the added security of the focus confirmation on the F6, but for some reason I did not enjoy it as much as I expected. I still ended up with some decent shots during the trip, starting with the 9 frames shown in this post.
It’s a cautionary tale about a little point-and-shoot that was too good to be true. On my journey to the perfect everyday companion, I stumbled on the Konica Big mini series of point-and-shoot cameras. I found a copy in Good Nick at a decent price, but without any guarantee that it will work. It turned out that it did work. Thus, I stuck a roll of Kentmere Pan 100 in the film compartment and went out to shoot some test frames. The developed negatives were a bit thin, most likely caused by underexposure. Not great, but something that could be compensated for. Unfortunately, I never got a chance to deal with that issue. Soon after, the camera died with the lens extended, and a sad whirr from some gears grinding, struggling to extend the already extended lens. Sometimes you gamble and lose.
From my internet research, I learned that the Ricoh GR1 and its variants are highly popular with street photographers from the analog community. They are expensive and fragile, often with failing LCDs, but still completely useable. The lens is supposed to be sharp, the autofocus reasonable and exposure metering spot on most of the time. Features like pre-setting the focus to a certain distance (I think around 2 meters) and overriding the ISO of the film that is used are major advantages for anyone who likes to take shots quickly and discretely or needs the added flexibility to over- or underexpose their shots. I never held a GR1 in my hands, but after some time I concluded that I wanted one in a decent state and for a reasonable price. And not long after, I welcomed the Ricoh GR10 into my growing collection. Not the GR1, or the GR1s, or the GR1v. The GR10. The little sibling that lacks some features, but ticks all the boxes for me. For anyone who wonders: Those boxes are “compact and light so that I can carry it with me at all times” and “sharp lens, good exposure metering and autofocus, so that I can use the camera without thinking about the gear”. The images in the blog post are from the first test roll I took on my weekday commute and while walking around Munich. I tried to take the camera through its paces and even tried to shoot from the hip, as evidenced by the image right below this text.
Final frames from a vacation to Sirmione at Lago di Garda. These frames are from a roll of Lomo 800 rated at EI3200 and then push processed by 2 stops. I got the roll gifted by one of my dear colleagues and thought I would try something more interesting with it. To my surprise, rated at EI3200, Lomo 800 is less grainy than expected. I shot the second half (followed by a roll of ReflxLab 500T) in the Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg, which will be the topic of another post.
Lago di Garda as seen standing at the shore in Sirmione. These are the second 10 of 20 frames that I thought would be passable enough to show in this blog.
Lago di Garda as seen standing at the shore in Sirmione. These are the first 10 of 20 frames that I thought would be passable enough to show in this blog.
Situated at the northern tip of the peninsula of Sirmione, the Grotto di Catullo are the ruins of a large mansion that initially was mistaken for a series of caves. Today these ruins are part of a museum and visitors can stroll through what is left of the mansion and the expansive garden.
