Hello!
regular readers might be familiar with my vegetable cooler. It used to house mealworms
in spring-time. New season, new purpose!
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| ready to go with a decent film stock at hand |
About one and a half years ago, I sat at the legendary Café Jelinek in Vienna, chatting with a friend, after-work, talking about this and that, Rome and fashion and suddenly I came up with the idea of buying a pre-loved Nikon F4. The legend! Out of reach – moneywise – in my teenage years. See, I still know the name, having admired the famous camera only from the distance. Instead I teamed up with a Yashica FX-7, which turned out to be a reliable tool, it's still in use
The friend – a professional photographyer – disagreed: "Why buy a 35mm camera? F4? You should try medium format, that might be something for you"
It did not take long and I came home with this camera in my hands:
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| Yashica Mat 124-G |
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| Binocular system |
3 reasons why I favoured this camera over others:
1. no mirror
I look through an additional lens - the binocular system. No mirror means, there is no flipping, no shaking, when the mirror moves. The binocular Yashica Mat allows slow speed, handheld - 1/30, 1/15 - no problem
2. light weight
The complete camera weighs less than a Hasselblad body. Trying various cameras, I noticed several reasons, why the Hasselblad is not for me. Mainly because my hands are too small. A friend, she is a photographer, gave me one advice: hold it and see how it feels. If it does not feel right in your hands, it's not right for you, no matter how phantastic the specs are.
3. built-in light meter
The light meter is nice. In the long run I teamed up with a hand held light meter. The camera needs a exotic battery, mercury free, which has a shorter life span, compared to the original mercury batteries in the 1970's. Ever 3-4 months approx. 9 EUR.
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| Ordinary sky, seen on a digital camera display |
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| The ordinary sky suddenly becomes special |
6 months later a friend de-cluttered his closets, mainly camera gear. He knew about of my renewed passion for analogue photography ...
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| Canon AE-1: Love! |
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| I had no idea what a difference the gear makes until I started shooting with the Canon AE-1 |
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| Canon AE-1 and Viviar 70mm-150mm lens |
The 70-150mm and I did not team up very well at the beginning. The 150mm zoom did not suffice for my needs when I wanted to capture details on facades etc. It did not make any sense, until ... well, until I heard read about 80mm & portrait!!
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| Our youngest family member is a Labradoodle: Luna |
Both cameras – the Yashica Mat and the Canon AE-1 fit in this backbag:
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| KATA backbag |
KATA was a legend. Was – because unfortuantely, KATA is no longer. Manfrotto bought KATA a few years ago. From what I've heard, the original KATA knowhow* and KATA design became part of the Manfrotto pro-line.
Ok. Now you have read a lot about my cameras. And what about black and white?
To be continued!
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| The follow-up posting will lead us straight to the dark room |
* two Isreali guys, both experienced with weapons founded KATA. Their bags provided maximum protection for (all kinds of) gear.
