It’s small, light, bears a quality name and there is a lot of plastic involved: welcome to the Yashica EZ Digital F521, a camera released in Japan yesterday with a price tag just around US$100 (click here to purchase).
Don’t let the big name “fool you” though, this is an inexpensive digital camera that has more in common with a cellular phone camera (with a different form factor of course) than state-of-the-art digital, just like toy cameras using 120 film don’t do so to achieve high quality medium format. For this reason, the F521 has already been dubbed “Digital Holga” even before its release.
Limitations and shortcomings in your equipment can be good for creativity and there are plenty of those present here. However, given the targeted audience and market segment it would be unfair to point them out as weaknesses on this quirky snapper. Shutter lag, dynamic range, limited configuration options and viewfinder accuracy (mainly parallax) to name just a few aspects. Nonetheless, there is enough potential to charm you anyway, if you like the idea of a toy camera. There does not seem an actual shutter rather than the exposures done by the sensor. Since the lens assembly is fixed onto the body from the front by several screws, there might be some hacking potential by replacing the lens with something else, if you are so inclined.
Please have a look at the brief video review containing further details and sample images with comments. More images can also be found on Flickr and a Flickr group dedicated to the F521 has also been set up.
An alternative, more detailed review can be found here.
The Yashica EZ Digital F521 is available to order in the Japan Exposures Web Shop, shipments are scheduled for next week.
Text and images by Michael G Dougan for Japan Exposures
Let me start by saying that I like folding cameras. In fact, I like them so much that between the 59 cameras I own, there are quite a few folders. When I got curious about film photography one of the first serious cameras I bought was an Agfa Super Isolette, then a Balda and a Certo Six and to round it off a Zeiss Super Ikonta. There is just something about these old mechanical cameras that I love.
So, when Fujifilm/Cosina Voigtländer announced the Bessa 667/GF670 Professional I wanted one badly. I’ve long preferred the square format but have recently been looking for a camera with a different aspect ratio and this camera satisfied my love of all things square while offering an alternative by being able to switch to 6×7 when desired.
We have the Fujifilm GF670 in black in stock for immediate shipping in the Japan Exposures Shop. Limited to 5000 cameras, BLACK Fujifilm version only available in Japan and equipped with the Fuji EBC (Electron Beam Coated) Fujinon lens.
Fujifilm GF670 Professional next to a Rolleiflex and Leica M6The long wait was agonizing, having first contacted Dirk about the camera back in February to have to wait, suffering multiple delays, until May to finally get my hands on it. I can say though I’m not disappointed at all with the camera and the wait was well worth it.
As advertised the camera weighs in at 1kg but in operation it feels quite a lot less. Though when the camera is folded up it certainly feels like a lump, just not a 1kg lump. Once the lens has been extended the impression is of a very light camera.
In operation I immediately felt very comfortable with this camera, to me it feels very like a Leica to use, the focus is smooth and the aperture ring is easily and quickly adjusted. The built in light meter also takes the guesswork out of the exposures as with the old folders.
Since acquiring the camera I’ve shot it exclusively in 6 by 7 format and I like the opportunities it gives for framing over a square format. The shutter is extremely quiet, quiet enough to use in covertly but carrying a camera like this does attract a lot of inquisitive looks and questions from people.
Vulcanizing {click to enlarge}Love-Kim Verlie {click to enlarge}The body on the right hand side has a very grippy rubber coating and grip on the front and back of the body. The left hand side is coated with the same rubber on the front of the body only but as I tend to cradle the underside of the body and lens standard with my left hand the grip is only of use for opening the camera. This way my thumb is in the perfect position to operate the focus and aperture rings. Focus and selection of aperture are achieved extremely quickly, this is a big plus for me as I try to quickly capture people before they have time to pose for the camera. The viewfinder is excellent, very bright with a nice contrasty rangefinder patch that allows you to achieve focus quickly.
I’m also extremely pleased with the camera’s image quality. I find it hard to say what it is but the images from the camera have a certain signature from the 80mm Fujinon EBC lens but maybe people more familiar with other Fuji lenses might say that is the signature of such lenses. It’s sharp, contrasty and the fuzzy bits just melt into the background beautifully.
You can see some samples of the type of photos I enjoy taking, which is out on the streets. I am living in the Philippines and it’s currently the monsoon season, which means it’s stinking hot and raining a lot! I was walking for less than an hour in the afternoon sun and the camera never felt heavy or a pain to carry. Here under these tropical conditions even a Leica can become irritating as you soon fatigue in the sun. The camera got extremely hot in the one hour I was out but the focus still had the same feeling of operation. With some my cameras they get a bit sloppy when they overheat, but this GF670 camera has been super smooth all the time, quick and easy to nail the focus, and the viewfinder’s clarity is excellent!
With the GF670 in my hands and several rolls of Neopan 120 in my pocket, it’s a perfect setup for me.
Life in a plastic chair {click to enlarge}Break Time {click to enlarge}Update 28 June 2009: More images below
Michael Dougan is a 40 years old Scotsman who has been living in the Philippines for over 6 years. He is married to a beautiful Filipina and father to a son. He is currently working on the scientific drillship Chikyu in Japan, but has been in the offshore oil and gas drilling industry for 20 years. He is heavily involved as one of the organizers of Rangefinder Filipinas, keeping the passion for film photography burning in the Philippines.
We have the Fujifilm GF670 in black in stock for immediate shipping in the Japan Exposures Shop. Limited to 5000 cameras, BLACK Fujifilm version only available in Japan and equipped with the Fuji EBC (Electron Beam Coated) Fujinon lens.
Text and images by Christoph Hammann for Japan Exposures
Germany is full of Christmas fairs this time of the year. They are to be found in every larger town and even in some villages. Visually, they are an assault of colored lights, vivid vendor‘s stalls and people mingling and socializing while sipping Glühwein (mulled wine) and nibbling Lebkuchen (gingerbread).
What better to represent this mood photographically than cross-developed color slide film? So I found myself visiting the Nordhausen Christmas fair on the first Advent Sunday with my Nikon S3, Nikkor-P.C 1:2 f= 8.5 cm lens on it and Fujifilm Provia 400X in it.
Back home, I developed the film as if it were a C41 color negative film. I used the Naniwa Color Kit N with exactly the same procedure as in my previous article. Cross-development is always kind of an experiment, and you get surprising results.
As I said, Glühwein is an important part of the German Christmas fair experience, this vendor was happily counting his revenues.
These fellows seem to have consumed a fair amount of the spiced red wine.
The tonality lends a dystopic mood to the cosy scene, colors are rendered a bit off, gradation is steep and saturation is way up for some colors and rather subdued for others.
These are the results if you choose to scan the cross-developed slide film as a color negative film. It looks that way, too, minus the orange mask.
But sometimes you chance upon a „negative“ that makes sense as it is. So then you can of course scan it as the slide film that it was before you mistreated it in C41 chemistry. This is what that looks like after some levels and curves in Vuescan:
Here, of course, we‘re no longer at the Christmas fair, this is the facade of Jenoptic, one company that split off the east german branch of Zeiss.
After some straightening in Photoshop, you get the instant Warhologram that is the image at the top.
This is what this picture would have looked like had I scanned it as a negative:
I think I like both ways of treating cross-processed slide film in post-processing. Each one has it’s own creative possibilities.
So, if your lab would scoff at you for such an unreasonable demand, why not try it yourself? Dunk the wrong kind of film into the Naniwa Color Kit N and see what you get. It’s easy and fun!
Merry Cross-mas!
Christoph Hammann is a fine art photographer from Waltershausen, Germany. He works with traditional film and silver halide papers as well as digital post-processing and alternative printing techniques. His website is “Mostly Black & White”.
Text and images by Christoph Hammann for Japan Exposures
When I took up a new project this fall, I decided to try my hand at developing color negative film. This is supposed to be difficult and prone to developing errors. In fact, though I had bought some Fuji Pro800 rollfilm and a Naniwa Colorkit N C-41 developing kit earlier, I held them back for just such fears. Then when the fall color got very intense this year, I couldn‘t go on photographing in black & white. The first two rolls of 120 film I dropped off at my local photo shop, getting a digi-evangelization in the process. They came back developed rather grainy and the test prints were off-color. Having them developed wasn‘t cheap either!
This I can do better, I thought.
Turns out I was right! Here‘s the material I used:
The temperature was kept constant at 30 °C with a Jobo Temperbox TBE2, essentially a heated water bath with a thermostat and receptables for bottles, graduated beakers and the developing drum. I collected some exposed rolls of Fuji Pro800 and proceeded to mix the solutions.
The Naniwa Colorkit N comes with concise, clear instructions in English in addition to Japanese, for which I was grateful…
The developer takes on an appealing pink color once mixed. The blix (short for bleach/fixer) on the other hand is of an ugly brownish cast and smells bad.
Ready to start developing. Times for all C41 process films seem to be the same regardless of ISO, as long as you expose them at their native ISO. So this is how those automatic minilabs work! The kit comes with tables for dev times for push development plus one or two stops, too.
Pouring back the developer and getting ready to blix it.
Watering at about 30 °C and for a defined time, this washes out some of the orange mask. My first two self-developed rolls of color negative film hanging to dry!
This works for sheet film, too. I used Fujifilm 160 NS 8×10 in film, the developing drum this time was an old Durst Codrum originally meant for the Cibachrome process.
It has ridges inside so the film comes into contact with the chemicals from both sides and takes 200 ml of solutions.
Getting it out of the drum without scratching the delicate, wet emulsion is best done with the drum filled with water to the top.
To end with, here are some results.
The shot at the top is the 8″x10″ nighttime shot, I was delighted that the film could render the different colors of lighting and had such a high latitude and subtle graduation of tones. Exposure time was 8 minutes at f/45.
This picture is from the fall colors project called „diffugium“. The Fuji Pro800 rollfilm proved to be quite fine-grained, the negatives were easy to scan and the pictures were versatile in post-processing in Photoshop.
For example, as this picture from the same roll of film (but from a different project) shows, it is easy to increase saturation and still keep good colors.
I will definitely be using these films and the Naniwa Colorkit N for current and future color projects.
Coming soon:Christoph will use the Naniwa Color Kit N to cross-process some slide film.
Christoph Hammann is a fine art photographer from Waltershausen, Germany. He works with traditional film and silver halide papers as well as digital post-processing and alternative printing techniques. His website is “Mostly Black & White”.
