Thursday, January 12, 2006

Other Thoughts

I keep the red window on the back of the camera covered with black gaffers tape along with the seams of the back covered top and bottom with the same tape. I've noticed the lens has a sort of double vision affect in the lower right hand corner. Not sure what it's caused by at this point but it might be the shiny plastic either in front of or behind the glass lens. I will probably disect the camera down to the glass lens itself.

A couple of images had dark triangles on one edge. This is caused by the little useless swing arm that is supposed to offer night/day shooting being loose. I've taped up the slider button in the hopes this will keep it from moving when I don't want it to.

I have also found I sometimes rotate the camera portrait/landscape which is silly because It's a 6x6 square format. Old habits die hard.

Scanner Working

As you can see the scanner is working. Not too sure if I like the lens on the WOCA. I think I'll get a Holga and give it a try next.

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Holga Mods On My Mind

I just shot my second roll of film and dropped it off this evening to pick up in the morning and I've been thinking of the ultimate mods. Mods are something that every Holga user thinks of at some time or another too. My simple mods already completed are:

1. Flocked the interior with Ultra Flat Black paint.
2. Painted the exterior leather-like seaction a nice shiny blue.
3. Stuck a 46-52mm step up ring to the front of the lens.

But I've been thinking about the shutter a lot lately. It would be nice to have, say, the shutter from a Lubitel 166U behind the lens of the holga. It would solve so many issues. You would get Holga images but with known shutter speeds plus lots of options such as a real flash sync and B or maybe even T. Maybe put the three element lens and shutter from the Lubitel on the Holga. That would be interesting too.

The Holga shutter is odd. Not the unknown timing of the shutter but the shape of the opening. It's not round but sort of rectangular and off center? Which accounts for some of the unusually interesting images and the light fall off. Look at the image of the roofline of my apartment and notice the darkness around the image. I am pretty sure it's a product of the shape of the opening around the shutter.

Good News

Got a call from the repair center today just before I left for work. My scanner is ready to be picked up. The replaced the top unit. Boy was I surprised. I'll pick it up tomorrow and we'll see how it does.

Monday, January 09, 2006

Scanner Woes Continued

Got an answer back from Epson today instructing me to bring it in to a service center. So I dropped it off and now time will tell.

Sunday, January 08, 2006

Scanner Woes Part Two


Here's a non-Holga image scanned from a color negative. It should be a field of California Poppies with lots of greens and yellows. Instead it's some kind of bizare monstrosity.

Scanner Woes


I am really bummed. My Epson Perfection 4490 is not working. Scans are really screwed up as you can see in one of my Pbase galleries.

It's the second scanner, my first was replaced by Circuit City because it too had issues but not like this. Take a look.

I've emailed Epson Tech Support. I guess I'll probably be sending it back to Epson for repair soon.

I was going to go out and take pictures yesterday but this has kind of put a damper on the whole thing. Why go out and shoot if you can't take your negatives and scan them?