Fotoshimaz

Oh yes, what a camera, the Canon Photura. Came out in June of 1990, and was priced at around $250 according to jollinger.com's review of the camera. Looks like a video camera when you hold it up and use it (or a rocket according to Canon's literature). I'm sure that's what other people are thinking when I take pictures with this camera, that I'm taking video. I got it at Savers (a thrift store) for about $7. Strangely enough, they had two of these cameras on the shelf for sale. The other one had a different name, I think it was Epoca, but other than the name difference, it was the same camera. It's basically a point and shoot film camera, a lens with a camera built around it. It has a nice zoom, some different flash modes, self timer, and a tripod mount. The zoom lever on this camera is iffy, and sometimes doesn't engage, which is very frustrating. It's like the camera isn't even on. It's lightweight, but bulky, mostly a giant piece of...

So this little camera is fun to shoot. Unfortunately it uses zone focus, which isn't the most accurate, but can still produce good results. It was manufactured in 1980, so I'm thinking this camera has seen some use. The only real issue I had with the camera was that the film advance would work 50% of the time. So I got lots of double exposures. I would have to try and wind, it would fail, I would shoot a picture (with the lens covered), then I would have success with the advance working most of the time. So not a reliable camera, guessing the gears are slipping, but still very usable. And you have to admit, it looks pretty cool. Chinon Bellami Here are some images that I shot and developed in monobath, then scanned with my Epson V600. I like the images, but others not included here had lots of dust and dried water spots, I need a better wetting agent, and maybe I should prewet before developing, but most say that's not necessary. I am starting to believe that it is...

I bought this camera on Ebay, I think, for about $40. It's a great camera, bright viewfinder, wide aperture, and metal construction. You can find these everywhere online, it doesn't take much to find one in great condition. According to Ken Rockwell, Yashica made 8 million of these in its lifetime. So I think finding one shouldn't be too difficult. Sharp coated lens with a wide aperture. I had my film developed at the darkroom.com, and they did a great job. Just realize that your images will come out much better if done by them, because I noticed they added extra sharpening in their scans. When I scanned the same negatives, I didn't get the same sharpness. But I could reproduce their results by applying some sharpening. And I had to do a curves adjustment in Photoshop. So regardless, the images did come out very nice, I just tweaked them a little in Photoshop, and they came out similar to the images you see here. Merchant Square Antiques, in Chandler, Arizon...