How do you Develop?

This is the chosen camera for today. And man, it’s awesome. Mamiya 645 Pro TL with the 80 mm lens with the widest starting aperture in the medium format world. Bo’keh King!

There’s only one problem.

A Personal Collection

The self-confidently named “German Camera Museum” is located on the first floor of a primary school in Plech near Nuremberg.

It all started as an elderly gentleman’s sprawling camera collection who was given an ultimatum by his wife. Then there are always donations, as told by the young woman who looks after the museum, which is open every Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.. She offered me a private tour of the collection, as I was the only guest until 12:00 a.m..

So here are my impressions from the Deutsches Kameramuseum:

My Favorite Cameras, And Why

There’s a backside to it.

My name is Christoph, and I have GAS (gear acquisition syndrome), like many of you reading this ‘blog, I assume.

Now that this is out of the way, I’d like to present a list of my favorite cameras (135 film format and digital, I’m just starting into medium format film, so let’s leave that for later …). One or two photos of the cameras each and some reasons why I like them:

Leica Yoga

This is the way.

Or is this the way?

Anyway, we’re not going through this well-worn gate the next two days.

The Hunchback Of Wetzlar

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Oh, okay, they called it the “Hunchback of Solms” when it was produced in that Leica company headquarters in the late nineties, early naughties. But I got mine yesterday in Wetzlar in the Classic Store on the Leitz Park campus.

How I Scan My XPan Films

Cosmetics lesson on Ku’damm

Well, up to now it’s been only two rolls of Kodak Tri-X 400 out of the new, old XPan and you can see the results here and here. You may wonder how I scan them, how much of a bother it is and here is how:

B&W Panos

Only structure …

As I was getting impatient for pictures out of my new, old XPan …

Je vous ai apporté des bonbons

Marmelade skies

Cinestill 50D gives really funky candy colors if you let its halation effect come to the fore. Here are two series from a roll I just developed.

From a weekend in Wetzlar

Around my hometown

“Puis les bonbons c’est tellement bon
Bien que les fleurs soient plus présentables”

Jacques Brel, Les Bonbons

You Do Not Do That

Bye-bye, Leica MP, hello Leica M6 Going public

Over Pentecost, I’m in Wetzlar for a photo weekend. When I got there, it was time to hit the stores. There‘s two of them on the premises, one for new items, one for secondhand. In the first store, they didn‘t have my APO 35 or any other lens that I was interested in, so I went to the second.

The Living Daylights

Contre jour magnolia

Now, this Cinestill 50D film stock is something special. I just scanned through my first 35 mm roll of it, so here are some first impressions.