cocopunk

When I was 10 years old I took a reusable plastic 35mm camera with me to what we called “6th Grade Camp” — a week-long excursion into the woods with fellow classmates to a classic Camp Crystal Lake-style campground — and when I returned from that harrowing experience, my entire roll of film was blank.

It was blank because I didn’t realize that I had to keep the camera closed while shooting the roll of film. And when I received prints of 24 blank images, I thought, oh yeah, that’s how it works. The light makes the pictures. I enjoyed clicking the various buttons on the camera, including the button that popped the back open to load and unload the film, and the realization when I received the blank photos was instant. I felt gobsmacked, like the stupidest 10 year old alive. “I don’t know what happened!” I said, lying.

By the way, I also chose not to take a pillow with me to camp, simply because I didn’t want to lug a pillow around like Linus dragging his blanky. It sounded ridiculous and I was a civilized child. But literally everyone else, all the other children, brought a pillow. Instead, I just rolled up some clothes under my head like a depression-era hobo or a destitute scamp in a Charlie Chaplin film. That was a mistake, the first of many regrets. Ruining my film was the second regret.

This childhood story is just to ease you into a mundane list of facts about cameras. I like cameras. If nothing else, looking through a lens gives you a way to interact with the world when you don’t otherwise know how.

In college I took a film class and used a Nikon FM — or something like that, a 70s-era Nikon SLR. It was the platonic ideal of a 35mm film SLR camera; completely manual focus and exposure with an easy-to-read light meter, and if you forgo the light meter, it doesn’t even need batteries. But I was just borrowing it and I’ve since longed for that sweet, sweet shutter click. Thus acquiring a working film SLR has been on my to-do list for the past twenty years.

Last year I bought a Konica Autoreflex T3 on eBay for $40 upon the sudden realization that there are brands other than Nikon and Canon — brands that have with much lower demand. (A working Nikon with a lens might cost $150 or so.) And the Konica works! Mostly.

First of all, the light meter requires mercury batteries that are no longer made; you can only find modern approximations with a slightly different voltage. This means that you’re never really sure if it’s giving the correct exposure reading. In practice, a ballpark reading is good enough for daylight, but still annoying.

Secondly, I can’t get the damn thing to focus at low f-stops. What looks perfect to my eye through the lens invariably is off when I get the film back. I really like split prism focusing, which this doesn’t have.

Also the camera weighs two pounds which isn’t great (although I am strong and mighty).

So I did the most logical thing about bought nearly identical but slightly newer Konica. Only $10! Because it was not guaranteed to work and didn’t come with a lens. This model is mostly plastic and a little more compact:

But it works! Mostly. It has the same battery problem but the modern replacements seem to be working fine. The bigger issue is that the shutter keeps getting jammed every few times you try to use it. Nonetheless I got an entire roll of exposures, though some of the photos were of my feet because I couldn’t tell if the shutter was working or not. But it mostly works! And this model does have that split focusing thing.

That’s where I’m at today. Not to mention all the digital cameras I’ve used over the years, or my Lomography fish-eye camera, or my 8mm Brownie, the most useless of all. I’m also fascinated by half-frame cameras that can take 72 small photos on a single roll, but it could take me weeks to get through 72 photos. That gratification might be too delayed.

As for the why question — why use antiquated technology that requires more work — I don’t know, buddy. I ain’t Freud, I’m just trying to fill the void.