Playing with a Film Camera

While I am still recovering from COVID and a secondary infection, I pulled out one of my film cameras.  This is my Mint TL70 TLR Instax camera.

I have sort of lost all track of time but I think I've been in quarantine for three weeks now.  I should be at the end of my quarantine period though as long as I test negative for COVID this evening.  I already went through the Paxlovid treatment and I am just finishing up my antibiotic for my secondary infection.  

I'm feeling a bit better than I have been feeling, finally, but I am still quite fatigued.  Actually, I'm quite exhausted by mid-morning.  I'm still seeing signs in my nasal mucus showing that my body is in overdrive fighting this infection but the mucus volume is significantly smaller now which is good.  I've been fever-free for a few days now which is good because I had a fever coming and going for a long, long time.  My joints are pretty painful.  My spinal injuries are quite lousy as well but that might be mostly due to not doing any physical therapy for the past three weeks.  Once I get back into my daily physical therapy, I expect to get some relief from the spinal pain.  Unfortunately, this may also make my painful joints worse.  It will be a fine balancing act.

So, in the meantime as I sit on the couch, I've pulled one of my film cameras off the shelf to refresh my memory on how to shoot with film using this style of camera.  This is a twin lens reflex camera that is quite close to medium format using Fuji Instax Mini instant film.  If it were using Fuji Instax Square format, it would be almost identical to traditional 6x6 medium format.  This "mini" instant film format is slightly smaller.  Well...  now that I think about it...  the long side of the mini film is indeed around medium format size at 62mm.  It is just that the Instax Mini film is shorter on one side, at 46mm, so it is a bit cropped in that direction just like the 645 format is a bit cropped on one side (60mm x 45mm).  

This is a pretty nice camera.  I just wish that I had more of a chance to shoot with it.  I picked up this camera sometime during the pandemic but, with the pandemic over the past four years, we haven't ventured from the house more than rarely so I haven't had an opportunity to shoot much with any of my cameras.  I'd like to run a few more rolls of film through this camera though...

Focusing this camera is quite different than focusing today's cameras even when you focus today's cameras manually.  The top of the camera opens up to reveal a large fresnel focusing screen so you look down into the camera to frame your composition and focus (see photo below).  There is a small focusing knob on the side of the camera.  The view is backwards which takes a bit of getting used to but adapting to that is pretty easy and happens quickly.  There is even a magnifying loupe inside the top that can be used when necessary so you can more easily see the finer details as you focus.  

In the photo below, I am focusing on a stack of books.  The green light is indicating that the light and exposure is good.  That being said, this exposure metering is a bit "coarse" and even rudimentary compared to today's cameras so sometimes prints can be slightly dark while other times prints can be slightly bright or over-exposed.

Like virtually all film cameras, particularly film cameras from the twin lens reflex era (60-100 years ago), these are meant to be used to capture static scenes.  It is not a type of camera to use for children on the move or any type of action.  

This little diversion was a little bit fun but I hope to get back to writing more about our trip to Manhattan soon.  It was on that trip that I contracted COVID again so I'm still harboring some really bad feelings about that trip and about the prospect of future travel in general.  I'll get back to those photos and videos very soon though.