Monday Column: The Right Tool for a Hill Walking Hike

This Friday my brother, I and our uncle will go hiking in the beautiful Slovenian Julian Alps. More accurate: We want to get to the highest mountain in Slovenia. This is Mt.  Triglav, 2,864 metres (9,396 ft) high. It’s a two day hike, first day up, sleeping in the Kredarica hut and the next day down. It’s a 2200 meters (7,218.2 ft) rise and then descent.

First mountain hut "Triglav temple" at opening 1871

source:http://www.gore-ljudje.net/novosti/52045/

Now, I’m a photographer. So I want to take a photographic camera with me on the hike. But it’s will not be an photographic excursion, As a contributor to this blog, would be inappropriate to take with me a digital camera (I admit I will be using a small P&S for snapshots... I’m guilty). So my dilemma is which camera to take with me to the hike? Why dilemma? Take your best camera you own or camera that you could give you the best performance, or the camera you prefer the most and enjoy shooting with? Hm... Probably the best camera, none the less of its simplicity, is my Russian large format camera FKD 18x24 cm or 7x9.5 in, with its wooden tripod. It would require a Sherpa to take it to the mountain top, but they are scarce in those mountains (satire alert!). Probably the second best quality would give me (loan from my friend) Kowa 66. This is a medium format 6x6 cm camera. Here is no need for help from Himalayas but it is large and heavy and bulky. Remember the rise? Much lighter and also with enough quality would be my Canon EOS 100 and some lenses. Lightweight would be with 24 2.8 and 50 1.8 lenses. But is also too much bulk, and I already explained in the last column what’s for me analogue shooting. I have only a small backpack and must take with me all necessary for two day trip and this season in mountains has already fell first snow... 

  Secovlje Saltpans shot with Agfa Isola 1

The most lightweight option would be my Agfa Isola 1 and Altix-n. First is a medium format P&S from late fifties and early sixties. It weight’s only 300 g. Problem is that the number of exposures is limited to only 12. And it has only one shutter speed (1/30 s) and only two aperture values: cloudy f11 and sunny f16, and quality of the lens is in the lomographic territory (I like it). The other option is a 35 mm fully manual “guess the distance rangefinder” with nice 50 mm f2.9 lens. But it lacks the mf look and it’s heavier.  

 Secovlje Saltpans shot with Altix-n

I must decide by myself but I want to hear your opinion. What do you think about my options and what would you bring to that kind of hiking from your arsenal?

Portfolio of the Week: Marc von Martial

Dear Readers,

This week we feature another German photographer from Bonn, Marc von Martial. Marc is a freelance graphic designer by profession. He, as many others, started with digital equipment (not counting the snapshots from the film era), but got »infected« soon with analog, starting with lomography, when he fell in love with the images made with a Holga. Now, he primarily shoots on film, and he also develops all the films by himself. He likes to experiment with film very much, including expired film. His main focus is on people/portrait photography, some landscape, and also some street photography. He is working on a few photographic series, developing them over time. He describes himself  mainly as a medium-format-and-polaroid kind of guy, since he mostly uses his beloved Pentacon Six TL, with the CZJ 80/2.8 and 180/2.8 lenses (the same lenses he uses also on his DSLR, by his own words better lenses than Canon L series lenses!) and the Polaroid Land 350 and SX-70 Alpha cameras. He also makes great use of various Holgas, yet he also has other cameras in his arsenal, among them a Hasselblad 500CM, various 35mm cameras, and some other plasti/toy cameras. Please, take also a look at his bio just below his photos. I think Marc makes a very good argumented description why film rules for him, even though he is tech junkie otherwise. Marc's work can be found on Flickr, Marc's blog and his webpage. Enjoy his work!

Silver regards

Mitja

 All photos copyright: Marc von Martial

The LomoWall rises in London

In honor to the upcoming Olympic Games in London, over 15,000 participants-lomographers (from 32 countries) contributed 30,000 photos, rigorously made only with Lomo cameras. Those photos have been made into a mosaic, a 65-meter long wall. The LomoWall will be on display from 13 July 2012 to 6 January 2013 at the Museum of London.

The LomoWall. Image by twitter user @votredemoiselle.

The LomoWall is a very good example of a joint effort of the analog community. I think it also proves one of the main aims of the analog community-connecting people (sorry Nokia). The link to the original article is here.

Random Quote

"In my experience I've learnt that they make an ordinary scene interesting and an interesting scene ordinary", Tim Hixson on plastic cameras. More about here.

Portfolio of the Week: Martina Woll

Dear Readers,

This week we feature a German photographer, Martina Woll. Martina is an autodidact photographer from Saarbrücken. She works in 35 mm (Canon EOS 3, Minolta SR-T 101, Yashica Electro 35GTN and others) and 6x6 (Mamiya C330S), as well as with Fuji Instax and Holga cameras, with available light as her primary lighting source. Her preferred films are Kodak Tri-X 400 and Agfa APX 100. She develops BW films by herself, usually with Caffenol-C. Her photographic work and interests range widely, very widely; from portraits to still life, to a variety of vehicles, vessels (aircrafts), and other subjects. She also loves the imperfections film has to offer: lightleaks, fluff, blur etc. Most of her inspiration comes from the web, since there is a great deal of talented photographers' work to be seen online, as she states. And she's right! Thus, she has no rigid or exemplar rules about. She has already been featured in a number of publications, including Playboy USA. Besides her portfolio, I personally like very much her Smoking series of photos.

Untitled 13. Copyright: Martina Woll

Untitled 18. Copyright: Martina Woll

Untitled 7. Copyright: Martina Woll

Untitled 64. Copyright: Martina Woll

Untitled 33. Copyright: Martina Woll

Untitled 6. Copyright: Martina Woll

Untitled 31. Copyright: Martina Woll

Untitled 99. Copyright: Martina Woll

Untitled 100. Copyright: Martina Woll

Kell. Copyright: Martina Woll

 

Martina's work can be seen on her website, her photostream on Flickr and Facebook. Enjoy the photos!

silver regards

Mitja

The "RolleiHolga"

No, it's not the newest Lomo camera or a hybrid camera I made by myself (I would never profanate a Rollei and even don't own a Holga)! But it happens even to best ones (cameras, to be clear) to be sometimes a bit off. So it happened even to my beloved Rollei SLR, actually to its film back. The film leading/retaining spring clips (which are supposed to hold the film flat, very flat) were not doing their job properly, as it turned out later. On the contrary, the film was so unflat, out of focal plane, the image sharpness was on a par with a Holga. Hence, the name RolleiHolga! It happened on a Sunday trip. And to make things even worse, I forgot to take the right lens hood for the wide 50 mm lens. Being a nice, but also a naive and technocolic guy I am, I was sure shooting at f/8-11 would not produce noticeable vignetting. Wrong! The wrong lens hood added another »Holga-feature« to the shots! 

Two shots made with the "RolleiHolga" from Motovun

Under normal circumstances, I would not show these shots to anybody, but I thought it would be nice to share this happy accident in this case. And luckily, the problem was solved in a breeze by my trusty camera mechanic. By the way, these are panorama shots of the river Mirna valley, taken from the tiny little town of Motovun, located in central Istria. If you have a chance, go for a visit there. It is a picturesque town, with galleries and local taverns serving good Istrian cuisine. But the town is most famous for its film festival, which is going to be soon! And don't forget to take your camera with you!

silver regards

Mitja

"In the Prairies, Film Photography Rises"

I just found this nice contribution on the Lomography site . I think it's not just yet-another-good-news for the analog community, in terms of our "survival" or just some lifestyle stuff. This story clearly shows analogue photography is not only a goal by itself, it's also a pleasant means for people to stay connected. Luckily, there are many other similar stories like this one. These stories need to be shared. Photos of their gathering can be found here.

Mitja