Let me preface by saying, I’m not in the habit of long
discourses about equipment. I prefer my photographic adventures to be about
connection, experience and creativity, not the gear. My philosophy, which is
far from unique, is that the equipment truly doesn’t matter. A camera is a tool
and an astonishing one at that, but also it’s a means to an end. Still,
sometimes the machinery is so odd, verging on wacky, and one’s relationship to
it is a bit skewed and has implications that go beyond mere tech; therefore it
deserves some verbiage to be spilled.
When I worked full time in the non-profit world, the jobs
quickly became very dull, boring and routine. I needed an outlet. I daydreamed
often about photography and finding the perfect camera for capturing the urban
landscape. I wanted to find the ideal antique roll film instrument that would
get me the kind of photos I yearned to make. Much like the Sunday painter who
accumulates a complete set of the most expensive oil paints or pastels that barely
get touched, I amassed cameras. I did manage to pluck some solid images, but
mostly I gathered a lot of gear. The majority were barely tried and then sadly
sat, fallow. The bottom line was the problem was not the equipment, but my
life. The grind was sucking me dry.
Over the last few years, I’ve weeded down. I made the
decision that I don’t want to be a camera collector. Instead, since about 2010,
I’ve shot thousands of photos and spent countless hours in the urban landscape
rather than sitting around thinking about what kind of camera to use. A lot of
the gear I accumulated ended up having mechanical issues as well, so not only
do I have a lot of unused cameras, a lot of them are indisposed and need pricey
repairs. So, part of thinning things out has been getting a few fixed, deciding
which I’ll never use, selling some off or finding homes for others, and running
a few tests.
Ironically, the cameras that ended up being the best for the
urban maw, turned out to be the neither antique nor unusual. I’ve done a ton of shooting with a Panasonic
Lumix, a micro 4/3 system digital that has an electronic viewfinder. I equipped
it with a better non-kit Olympus medium range zoom lens.
I also use a Nikon F100 35mm, alsosporting a wide angle to near- telephoto lens.
The agility, durability, and versatility of these two image capturers far
outweigh any drawbacks that might be generated by the relatively smaller
formats. Recently, too, I’ve taken to
carrying a disposable camera—no focus, no exposure adjustment, no anything! You
just see, advance the film and click! Admittedly, the focus is not always that
great, you get over and under exposure and grain, but surprisingly, I’ve gotten
a number of memorable shots.
Despite a methodology that seems to be working for me, I
figured it might be fun to have at least one really decent antique that I could
use. I chose a German camera with an uncoated f 2.8, 75mm Xenar lens that was
made about 1935. Named a Welta Weltur,
it takes still-available 120 film and produces sixteen 4.5 x 6 cm shots per
roll. What makes the Weltur so unusual
is it’s a compact folding camera that has a small coupled, in-finder split
image focusing system that is linked to the moving front standard. The whole
lens and shutter assembly moves in and out. The theory is that you move all the
lens elements, not just the front optic; therefore the image quality improves.
The way the Welta engineers were able to integrate a system like this into such
a small package boarders on the ingenious.
When I first got this contraption, I had Carol Miller at
Flutot’s Camera clean the Compur shutter and I had run a roll of Tri-X through
it. Inspecting the negatives, I realized they were probably badly done by the
commercial lab, poorly scanned, and I had never really put the camera through
any kind of real tests. So, this weekend I made some images using Efke 100, a
modern film made in Croatia
that many say has the qualities of old fashioned film stock. Additionally, I
developed the negatives myself, something I hope to do more of in the coming
year, but that’s for another entry!
Deploying the camera is slow. This is the kind of tool made
for capturing big vistas that don’t move very much or taking photos of friends
and loved ones where you have their cooperation. One winds the film from one red window
located on the back of the camera to the next, located higher up, carefully
aligning the numbers printed on the film’s backing paper. The negatives are
spaced closely and accuracy is important.
To shoot, you unfold the camera, point it towards you to set the speed
and aperture (I just guessed), then flip it around, frame, focus, and carefully
push the shutter plunger so as to minimize shake. The in-the-viewfinder
rangefinder is accurate, but it is a bit pernickety and it often takes a few
tries to make sure the two images are, in fact, aligned. Also, the viewfinder
is fairly dim and the framing is not parallax corrected.
I have to admit a strange feeling of disorientation using
this camera. I really didn’t know what to shoot—what kind of things would work
well with its character and I also found it very much got in the way of my
working style, which has changed radically over the last few years. I couldn’t
really pre-visualize what I was going to get. Some of the accidents were
fortuitous. Maybe that is true appeal.
Tech: Efke 100 film, HC110 developer diluted 1:49 at 68F for
8.5 minutes with 2 agitations every 30 sec, scanned on Epson V500 using no
special hardware or software, spotting and adjustments in Photoshop.
The photos can be seen here:
