Micael Widell Newsletter #16: Instant Photography Special!
Captain's log
This newsletter is a few days late. Sorry. I do not always manage to get it out on the 1st of the month, even though that is my goal.
July was mostly vacation for me. I still worked though, but only on my photography and youtube stuff, not on my part time job as a software developer.
I found lots of jumping spiders and photographed them, which was awesome because one of my goals this year was to find jumping spiders (never ever saw one earlier, or at least I didn't take notice). I got to play around with the legendary Laowa 24mm probe lens. I got to test the very affordable but pretty great Meike 85mm macro lens. I made a philosophical video. I made a video on how to stop creative block and find new inspiration. I also obsessed a lot over instant film photography, which you can read about below. Furthermore, I just took some time here and there to relax deeply and read a book or two. A pretty good July.
/Micael
Instant photography
I tried film photography last summer, and I found it very enjoyable. However, I kind of quit doing it after a while since there is so much work to develop and scan a roll of film, and if you let someone else do it it is just so expensive. I simply couldn't justify the overhead in work and cost – it took the fun out of analog photography for me.
Instax film has gone down in price in recent years, and now it is pretty cheap per photo, no matter if you pick the mini, square or wide format. And cheap instant film doesn't just take down the cost per photo considerably, it also takes away all the work and waiting! So I have been looking for a good instant camera.
I think it is pretty mindblowing, that out of all the official cameras from Fujifilm and Polaroid, none of them have fully manual exposure controls. I get that the primary target group is people who don't want manual controls, but they could have just made one model to cater to photo enthusiasts.
Furthermore, all have pretty bad automatic programs, that together with the extremely low dynamic range of the film often make the photos look washed out or overexposed. Added to that, you mostly have to use zone focusing and guess a lot. I want more creative control. The only camera on the market that comes close to what I want is the MINT RF70. But it seems the lens isn't super sharp at the wider apertures. And with a rangefinder you will not always get the photo you see in the viewfinder, which kind of bothers me a bit. I want to be able to do macro photography with it ;)
After lots and lots of googling and reading, I found that there are some people who sell Instax Square backs for the Mamiya RB67, a medium format film SLR. 120 film is 6 cm wide, which conveniently is exactly as wide as an Instax Square photo. This means that 120 film cameras with interchangeable backs make for very good subjects to shoot Instax Square film.
I purchased a RB67 from Japan on eBay, and an Instax Square back for it as well (from the seller zhozhengzh-0). Today I have been playing around with this kit for the first time, and boy has it been fun!
The instax film presents a challenge, as it has so low dynamic range. The RB67 has no light meter either in the standard version (you can get a viewfinder with a meter though). And the camera is big, bulky and heavy – around 2.7 kg including lens and film back. But these challenges are pretty fun, and when you do get a good result, the feeling is so rewarding!
I created a brand new instagram account where you can follow my instax adventures.
The Instax back I purchased is made out of a Instax Square SQ6 camera with the front sawed off and with some 3D printed parts. It is very well made and I can recommend this seller. So far I have been shooting around 40 frames with it and it has been working solidly.
My Published Videos since the last newsletter
- Laowa 24mm Probe Macro Lens Review
- 10 Tips on How To Stop Creative Block and Find New Inspiration
- Jumping Spider Macro Photography: My 3 Best Tips
- Who Will Remember You in 100 Years?
- Meike 85mm 1.5x Macro Lens Review + Sample Photos
Goodbye for now
Thank you for reading this far, and see you in a month! Feel free to follow me on YouTube, Instagram and 500px in the meantime. And also feel free to tell your friends about this newsletter, and to reply to it if you have feedback or comments :)
/Micael