A Broken Camera During Lockdown

At the start of 2020 I started a personal project of shooting a roll of film each month and then I had the audacity of saying in a blog post 'how hard can it be?' well let me tell you it's definitely not easy!

If I counted up how many times over the years I've used the word 'time' in my blogs then I would use up a lot of it doing so. I'm really like a stuck record when it comes to time. Who thinks there should be a world decision to add, let's say, 6 more hours to the day? Tada! more time!

But seriously it's now the end of July and I'm only now writing about March's roll.

I've got rolls from May to scan and digitise.

And I'm not even working that much because of the...we all know what happened in 2020...but I never seem to be able to put fingers to keyboard to blog or especially film to scanner.

But now I have! It's 6.35am, Florence is crawling around the living room and Charlie is still asleep, let's blog!

March on the film front looked like this; A roll of Konica Centuria ISO 200 in my Canon T70 SLR camera fitted with a 50mm f1.8.

The camera; Canon T70, was made from 1984 (the year before my birth) and is a chunky piece of plastic with some electronic automation, which was pretty new back in 1984. Focusing was an all manual affair.
I shot a few rolls with my copy about 10 years ago when I was crazy into buying and shooting film cameras and ever since it's been waiting it's turn to be brought out of retirement again.

March 2020 was it's time but not for long.........it broke 11 frames in to the roll!
Damn!
It still works but the battery compartment hatch has crumbled and no longer closes and stays shut, not good for a camera that relies on electronics to work!

Early on in the month I thought I'd pick up on my long lost passion of scouting for vintage cameras and on day 1 I picked up a Canon EOS50e for £7.
Now this was meant to be, seriously, the day before I was looking at this camera on the net thinking that this would be good for some experiments and the next day day there's one sitting waiting in a charity shop.

So why did I want one?

Because this camera, like it's big brothers of the era had what was called 'Eye Control AF'.

What this means is that the camera has a sensor in the viewfinder that can see where your eye is looking and will choose 1 (out of 3) of the focus points for you to focus on your chosen subject.

Does that make sense?

Basically, with a pinch of salt, the camera will focus on the thing that you are looking at.

Come on that's cool!!!

So when the T70 bit the dust, I cleaned up the, new to me, 50e and put it into work.

Right that's enough camera talk, now let me bore you with chat about the film but I'll be quick.
I've got a good amount of expired film.
When film goes past it's expiration date it looses it's sensitivity and you have to account for this with your exposures; give it more light.

They say that film loses a stop of light for every decade past it's use by.

And this is where I made a proper face palm moment. My roll of Konica Centuria was UB 02/2002, basically 2 decades out of date.
For some reason in a rush of excitement to get shooting I shot this roll at ISO 100, the roll started off as ISO 200 and this has resulted in a dark set of exposures.......it should have been ISO 50.

When I was unloading the finished roll and looked at the UB to record it for this blog I asked myself 'why did you shoot it at ISO 100???'

Oh such a proper film photographer problem!

Oh well, in the future I promise to use my brain.

Ok let's talk photos.

Dark, under exposed photos!

I'm always trying to shoot a few frames of my day job on film just to compare the shots with my 'proper' digital work.

Lisa & Lucy met me in the woods for a social distanced pre wedding shoot.

I loved using the T70 for these shots, it has a bright viewfinder and manual focusing was easy.

 

Just remember that I screwed up the sensitivity calculations, so these shot's should have been much brighter.

Babies, toddlers and tired tired parents.

The good thing about the EOS 50e is that I can use my new modern decent lenses and flashes.

For a family snapshot!

When we visited Hunstanton I found that the EOS 50e has a common problem; batteries.

It seems that some batteries are a little smaller than others and therefore can move around a little inside the camera and loose connection, making the camera not work.

Don't worry though, a piece of folded paper to the rescue.

 The expressions!

 Charlie is a sod for stepping in front of the camera just at the moment of 'click'

I wanted to shoot some portraits using my studio lights and so what better way to finish off the roll.

And there we have it, another month, a broken camera and loads of dark photos.

Another successful month!

An afternoon in Sunny Hunny with Laura, probably the best afternoon ive had in Sunny Hunny since....well i really don't know when!

We decided to go to the beach on Sunday, it was gone dinner time when we jumped in the ol' mk2 and went for a drive to Hunstanton.

I don't know why its called Sunny Hunny other than because it rhymes, you know I only live the other side of the wash from it and I could see it on a clear day if walking on the river bank in Sutton Bridge or if down the Marsh at Gedney Drove End, so its safe to say both places pretty much share similar weather and they don't call this Sunny Sutton Bridge!

Or at least I don't think they do?

Maybe Im going to start a trend here?

As normal ive always got a camera with me just in case there are any opportunities to grab some shots. Im glad I did as there's some I really like from this day.

Here, ill mention ive made another mistake, somehow I managed to change some settings on my 5D and I really don't remember ever playing with it so who knows how that happened. I usually shoot raw, however my camera was set to JPEG!!!!!!!!! OMG!!!!!!!!! WORLD ENDER!!!!

Not really that big a deal but it did annoy me when I found out.

First thing we did was park at Tesco and I am so glad I did because look at this bad boy.....plus I didn't know Lisa lived in Hunstanton

 

We then went for a walk along the beach front, there were quite a few people around at 1pm but the amount soon dropped away as it got colder in the afternoon. We played some Bowlingo in an arcade, which was a laugh considering I don't think much to bowling.



 I don't really know why Laura bowls like this, but as long she's having fun its ok.

 Its me, my beard and thumb.

 I wonder what people say to this?

Must try harder

We then played some games in the arcade which was empty apart from us and the guy who gives you change, I felt like a VIP.

We left the arcade and walked passed a bungalow that looked in real state however the home was still in use....otherwise I would of given myself a guided tour.

 

Beached for winter.

 

We walked along the front again, this time there were a lot less people.

 

 

The afternoon was finished off with a full belly in Cod'licious, great name for a chip shop.

However this made me laugh.

 

Video's 50p, come on it isn't 1987.

 

I love black and white and a nice vignette in the corners.

 

Tune in next time.

 

Remember it's sunny Sutton Bridge