My new TTV toy

Last week I acted on a tip that a local consignment store going out of business had some old cameras.

There was in fact a Polaroid model 150 roll film camera there. Unlike the other Polaroids I have, you can't get film for these older models anymore, but it was very clean and only $20 so I got it for a shelf piece.

Next to the 150 was a little Kodak Brownie camera for $15. Not in pristine condition by any means, but unlike the Brownie I've had for a while this one had a clear viewfinder with no lines.

That means TTV time baby!

That's "thought the viewfinder" for the uninitiated, wherein you use a modern digital camera to shoot through the waist level finder of a Brownie or some other such camera.

I know what you're thinking. It's sort of silly using the dirty viewfinder of a 50-year-old camera that wasn't even a good camera to start with in order to get low-fi pictures out of a $7,000 digital SLR set up.

If this boggles your mind, just think of the Brownie as a cheap but cumbersome filter that produces vintage looking pictures. It's sort of like the Hipstamatic app on my iPhone, but unlike the iPhone, I have all the motion-stopping shutter speeds and low light performance of that state of the art Canon Mark IV taking the pictures.

I took a little walk around downtown Gastonia the next day to play around with it. After adjusting to the reversed image in the viewfinder it was fun to use. I got these pictures a and a few odd looks from people on the street.

OKI 2011

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Here are some Hipstamatic photos from my recent week of vacation on Oak Island and surrounding areas, including Southport and Wilmington. 


My goal was to shoot all week with only the Hipstamatic app on my iPhone 4, but I caved on the penultimate day of the trip and took a few sunset pictures (this one and this one) with my "real" camera. I'm weak, I guess.

'Roid Week 2011

With my iPhone I can now take pictures and not only see them instantly, but share them instantly. In the studio the LCD screen on my digital camera (or a separate monitor) provides the instant preview a Polaroid back once did for my predecessors.


Fact is, Polaroids are obsolete for nearly all consumer and professional uses. That doesn't make them any less fun to use, though.


In the right conditions, these cameras can still take surprisingly good pictures, but qualities that would normally be seen as undesirable, like light leaks, faded colors, and lens flare, are part of the charm of shooting with vintage cameras.

For me, Polaroid cameras are toys. It's nice to leave behind the weight (figuratively and literally) of professional digital cameras and the need to make technically good images and just go with the flow. 


You might get something cool out of a Polaroid or you might not, but there's something fun abou pulling, waiting and finally peeling the film apart to see what you got.

In an ironic twist, the internet has helped spawn a new cult following for Polaroids on sites like Flickr. 


In 2006, one group on Flickr started 'Roid Week, a loosely organized, annual, five-day celebration of all things Polaroid. This year, over 1,400 people contributed nearly 4,000 polaroid images to the group.

These are a few of my shots from my wanderings around town during 'Roid Week 2011. I did break the rules a little by making it a seven-day affair starting on a Wednesday, but being a Polaroid enthusiast has never been about being a conformist.

Check out more of my Polaroid pics

Polaroid New Years

With no ill New Years Eve party to go to, I decided to make my own--with my Polaroid!

...and my Christmas tree.

I recently acquired a Polaroid Countdown M80 land camera, and it's popped the cork on all sorts of vintage instant print fun. A precission instrument it is not, but with a little imagination, serendipity and Polaroid magic cool things can happen.

Exposure control is limited to a little 'lighter / darker' dial on the lens, but in low light (a room with only a Cristmas tree on qualifies) the shutter speeds get pretty long.

And because this is a pack film camera where you pull out the film manually -- as opposed to the 600 type of Polaroid that growls and spits the thing out automatically -- you can easily do multiple exposures.

You can keep cocking the shutter and firing frames off to your heart's content before yanking the tab--how cool is that! You just keep cocking the shutter and firing away until you see fit to yank the tab and see what you got.

In all the excitement I kind of lost track of excttly how many exposures I made on each frame. I'd say some of these pics might have as many as 10-20 exposures. I turned out the lights and made exposures of my Christmas tree with a variety of techniques.

For some exposures I held the camera steady, for others I swirled it, twirled it, and swung it to make light trails. For some I held the camera right in front of a bulb and pulled it away quickly with the shutter open.

Some shots were in sharp focus while others were thrown completely out to get some nice big colorful blobs (bokeh if you're one of those people that uses the term).

I did some pictures with my 'real' camera too, but you can't get pictures like this with a digital camera. Sure, you can use Photoshop to make a composite from multiple exposures, but without the serendipitous magic of the instant print it just wouldn't be the same.

So long story short; I stayed up way past my bedtime playing around with this fun stuff on new years. Hope you like it!

If you like this, you might also enjoy this post and this post.

See more cool stuff on my Flickr.