Well, not quite “instant”, but pretty damn close.
I didn’t know this (maybe you did), but Polaroid used to make 35mm film that you could process at home without messy chemicals, in a matter of minutes. The system seems to of had some popularity at one stage, but like other Polaroid products, the profit margin must of been pretty small and the product was phased out.Several types of film instant film were made (all slide film) in both colour and black & white.

The system is based around a hand operated Autoprocessor. Into this you place your film and its matching processing unit (single use-comes with each roll of film). You then complete a series of winding actions and hey presto, you’re film is developed in about 2 minutes.
I saw a processing unit and 6 rolls of film going for less than $5 the other day, so thought I’d give it a go. The only thing is, the film had expired in 1984! I was more curious to see if anything would come out at all, and have a bit of fun.

I did get results, but as you’ll see, its pretty rough and insanely contrasty, but surpringly ok for film that coule be over 25 years old! I have a few rolls left, so might shoot them deliberately to bring the most out of the unique aesthetic. I’m kind of thinking of the movie “Metropolis”

Here are some shots from my first roll in the little Pen EF i just got.
Tried out some diptychs as it fits them on a regular single frame. Some obviously worked better than others, but it was still alot of fun. I’m quite surprised how well it metered and how sharp the lens is (when its actually in focus ofcourse).
Tri-x400 in Rodinal 1+50

Here are a few random shots from Roppongi Tower in Tokyo.

Here are a few more random snapshots from Italy this time.
Wish i had more than 2 clips for drying negatives at the moment. It’ll take ages to get through my developing backlog..

I’m in the process of finally creating a proper photo gallery for my website with separate albums/galleries etc. That’s where i’ll start to put proper sets up, and put some more effort into projects i’ve started but never finished. I’m playing around with a couple different types of gallery software, but im not 100% keen on any yet. If anyone has some suggestion feel free to email me or post up here, it’d be very much appreciated.

Ok, this set of shots are just randoms from my most recent trip. I’m posting them up pretty roughly for the time being and will save the proper finished products for my new gallery when it comes to life.
Here are a few from Germany and Switzerland…

A couple friends and i were talking about how we haven’t really taken any photos lately. It’s Just been hard finding time with so much other stuff on at the moment. So we challenged ourselves to take atleast one photo today, of anything at all. We were all going to work so couldn’t really dedicate too much time to it. I ended up almost finishing a roll of film, but wont be able to develop and scan it before our “deadline”, so here are a couple sunset pictures taken from the car. There were some amazing colours in the sunset, so i waited until the sun went behind a cloud and shot a couple of pics with my digital p&s Fuji F10. They’re nothing amazing, but i think they turned out ok considering the limitations of the camera, the time i had, and the fact i was trying to drive at the same time =/ . Atleast i completed the challenge, i’ll see if the others have though :p
I just did a resize and cropped out soem of the bottom on the second shot, no other processing.

Well i just bought another film camera. This one was purchased for the pricey sum of 1 cent
Yep, one cent, with a flash and a bag too. And when i won the auction the guy asked “So do you want to come and pick it up? Or should i post it?” um…
I couldnt find a 1 cent piece so it was posted
I took some quick pictures of it you can see below. I also managed to find a lens cover for it that was in the bag of accessories i bought a week or so ago, so that was a nice surprise too.
The camera has a great little multi coated 4 element D.Zuiko 40mm f2.8 lens that i’ve seen produce some brilliant results. It doesnt use any batteries but has a solar-powered selenium light meter with an automatic mode and two shutter speeds (1/200 in auto mode and 1/40 for flash sync). Everything works perfectly on it, but i need to replace a light seal as the camera is pretty old. I think its one of the earlier models, they were made from 1967- 1984. Quite a long time.
I’ve already put a roll of film in it with the dodgey light seals just for fun. I wonder if any will turn out.

yeah, it needs a clean too..

just heaps busy…
Between all of my assignments, work, friends coming from and going overseas, plus all the Christmas rush, i havent had much time to post anything up here for a while. I’m still taking photos which is great, but havent got most of them developed yet. Its a bit frustrating, as the curiosity is killing me. Damn i wish there was a decent film developer that was local, so i didnt have to travel half way across the city. Next week hopefully i’ll be getting 3 more rolls developed. Fingers crossed they turn out ok =/
Oh, one thing thats been pretty cool is a nice little eBay purchase i made the other week.
I scored a mixed bag of Olympus goodness for next to nothing. I didnt know exactly what was in it until i got it home, but i was plesantly surprised. From the (really dodgey)pictures below you can see the bag and all of these accesories that came with it. The cool part is that most are genuine Olympus too and all are in top condition. I’m pretty happy as i’ll be putting most of it to use.