New Old Camera....O-Matic

 On my last trip out to finish up the roll of film in the Vivitar I broke the film rewind thingy. Since that particular thingy is also the release for the camera back, that film is stuck inside the camera until I can noodle something out. But that unfortunate circumstance was just the kick in the butt I needed to finally pull the trigger on another camera I’d been stalking on eBay, so all’s well that ends well.

Last week I took delivery of a Petri 7S, a rangefinder 35mm camera made in Japan in the 1960s. It looks like mine came from the earlier end of that run, so I’m thinking somewhere from 1963-1967. It’s not the artifact that the folding Brownie is, but it’s still older than me and I suppose that qualifies it as an antique. 

The Petri company was apparently a pretty big deal in its time, competing strongly with Canon and Nikon for the consumer camera market. It specialized in rangefinders, so between the consumer interest moving to SLRs and Petri’s lack of mass production capacity, by 1977 the company went out of business. But the cameras it did produce were really pretty nice. 

I was excited to try a rangefinder, and this one has a gimmick I couldn’t pass up, Green-o-Matic. In a rangefinder camera, there’s no mirror and you don’t look through the lens when looking in the viewfinder. Instead, there are two viewfinders and to focus you line both images from the viewfinders up until they overlap into one. In this camera, one viewfinder has a green tint making it easier to see both images and focus correctly, hence Green-o-Matic. I’m a sucker for any “o-matic”. 

The other feature that drew me to this particular camera was the light meter. Most cameras of this age had light meters powered by batteries, and the batteries they were made for are now illegal due to the environmental hazards posed by their ingredients. There are work arounds, but that seemed like a hassle. This camera has a light-powered light meter. The meter is selenium which I guess is kind of like a solar panel? I don’t completely understand the science, but the upshot is that the camera doesn’t need a battery and after 50 years the light meter works and seems to be accurate. And the meter sensor itself is a ring around the lens that ends up inside any filter you attach, so no manual adjustment for the filter is required. And as an added bonus, it takes the same filter size as the brand new 35mm Macro lens I bought for the Eos-R. 

That shiny bit around the lens is the self-powered light meter. Pretty genius for the 60’s

Aside from the two sort of gimmicky (but highly awesome and useful) features, the camera is pretty standard for its time. It has a shutter speed range from 1 second to 1/500th of a second plus a bulb setting. The Petri 7S came with one of two lenses and mine is the higher end with a 42mm lens that opens up to f1.8, which is pretty cool. 

There’s a cold shoe that holds a flash and the camera can sync with it. Also, it has a timer that I’m not certain works

The camera came earlier than the seller promised, so I’ve been sitting on it waiting for film since Sunday. Today the film will arrive, so I’m looking forward to putting this thing through its paces this weekend. And I have a plan for a little project this fall. More on that later :-)

Zen and the Art of Photography

Getting the April issues of Southport and Leland Magazines finished and to the press last weekend kicked my butt. Deadline week always takes a lot out of me because it means wearing all the hats I wear all at the same time. Getting editorial straight, making sure all the advertising is in and correct, laying it all out in InDesign and getting that package to the printer uses all of my available brain power. Adding the time-sensitive nature to that, it all needs to be finished by a hard and fast deadline hour, puts me in mental state that is not easy to just drop out of once all the work is accomplished. 

I tried taking a break last Saturday by taking the cameras out with Lisa and shooting some photos in Leland. We had a blast, but knowing all I had to do and being really in the middle of all the deadline pressure led to me not thinking my way through what I was doing and so making mistakes. I double exposed, I forgot to change the focus, and I messed up the rinse time of the developing of that roll. Using that old folding Brownie requires close attention to do it correctly. 

This past Tuesday was my official “day off” for the month. It was the day after the magazines were sent to the press and the day before they are dropped off for me to deliver. I always try to use that day each month as a re-charge day and not do much if any magazine work. The April issues I had just finished were good ones, full of good content and lots of ads, but they took a lot of last minute work to bring off. I was pretty frazzled and my brain was still running a mile a minute. I needed to unwind. 

Lisa recommended I “go somewhere” and suggested Calabash, just to get a change of scenery. That was a great idea and I decided to go bit farther south and visit the Vereen Memorial Gardens in Little River, South Carolina. I figured the flowers would be out and there is an angel statue there that I really wanted to capture with the Brownie. 

The plan worked. I took both the Brownie and the EOS-R with a new 35mm lens I’d just bought. It was amusing to me to carry around two ends of the technology spectrum like that. The EOS-R was for fun and the Brownie was for therapy, to force me to slow down. 

Using the Brownie is different. Its limitations force you to think both differently and more. With a max of six frames, choosing a subject isn’t impulsive like it is with a digital camera. I had a couple shots I really wanted: the angel and something waterfront Calabash. I wasn’t confident of finding the beginning of the film so I took an image I wasn’t dying for as the first. Just a shot through a fallen tree looking out over a saltwater marsh. It came out ok, but also shows that I wasn’t fully invested. It’s just ok.

I put the Brownie up and took a walk with the EOS-R that was just the kind of relaxing I needed. It was warm but not hot, breezy but not windy and sunny but full of big puffy clouds. I got some cool photos but I’ll write about that later. 

Then it was off to get the shot I drove there for. The angel is part of a memorial to the Vereen family after which the gardens are named. It sits just off the road in a clearing. This day the sun was coming in and out from behind the clouds and when it was out, it shone right on the angel. I concentrated on doing everything right. I paced off the distance for focus. I checked the exposure with my app and set what I though would be right. I took my time fussing with the viewfinder to frame the angel well. Then I just stood there and waited for the sun. There were no cars driving by and no other people. It was just me and the wind and the angel and the old camera. When the sun came out and hit the angel’s face just right I tripped the shutter and repeated the process for another angle just to cover myself. I figured this was worth two of my six frames. 

My second angle. I like it, but like the one at the top of the blog better

The entire process probably took 20 minutes. It was exactly what I needed. Slow, meticulous, step-by-step and entirely without deadline. I had slowed down and found my calm, and my happy. 

Then a dude with a leaf blower rolled up so I moved on. Off to Calabash.

On the waterfront I found the shrimp boat I had planned to shoot, but then I had a change of plan. There were big pelicans on the pilings by the boat. I’m a sucker for a pelican on a piling and these were very chill pelicans who didn’t mind me being there in the least. So I was able to go back to my slow, methodical routine. I was excited by the birds and didn’t want them to fly off, but forced myself to just trust they’d stay and not rush at all. It worked out well and my pelican buddies remained perfect models. 

I’m thankful for the outlet photography gives me, and I’m particularly thankful for having discovered this old camera that forces me to slow down and fully engage in the process. I feel like it is more than just relaxing, I think it makes me a better photographer. Even using a modern DSLR, it is never a bad thing to slow down and think. And it’s good for the soul as well.