Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
When it comes to cool projects with vintage cameras, Markus Hofstätter is one of the names that immediately come to mind. Many of his portraits were shot on his faithful old Century No.2 camera. However, its bellow started to leak light, and Markus decided it was time to make an effort and repair it.
So, he got to work and restored the 100-year-old beauty. He filmed the whole process and the end result, and if I may say – the ol’ gal looks even better now with its brand new bellow.
It always makes me smile to see a new camera from Jollylook. We’ve featured a couple of their other cameras in the past including the original Jollylook in 2017 as well as the smarter Jollylook Auto in 2020. Now, the Ukrainian company has relocated to Slovakia and is announcing their newest camera, the Jollylook Pinhole – a DIY pinhole camera kit you can build yourself that also takes Fuji Instax film.
Jollylook founder, Evgeniy Ivanic says about the project that “the Jollylook Pinhole DIY kit brings back the pleasure of the process of building a camera and taking a photograph”. As with past Jollylook cameras, the Jollylook Pinhole comes with a vintage-inspired design but incorporates modern Fuji Instax film for as instant an analogue process as you can get.
Restoring an old camera and giving it a new life is something truly special. Especially if it’s a heritage, and it’s almost a century old. Max from Analog Insights inherited an 85-year-old Leica, and it looked like it was beyond repair. But a friend helped him bring it to life and take some neat shots with it as if it were new. In this video, Max shares the story of his new old camera, as well as some photos that he took with it.
If you love film photography and vintage camera and lenses, this might be a place you’ll want to visit once we start traveling again. David Chan is a Hong Kong photographer who collects vintage camera gear. He has spent the past 60 years collecting vintage gear, and he owns a little shop where you’ll find tons of iconic cameras.
Those old folding film cameras are great. I’ve used a bunch of them over the years, and love when I get the chance to take my Agfa Isolette out the door to shoot off a few rolls. But that folding camera form factor seems to be making something of a comeback, but with a bit of an update.
The Jollylook Auto is styled on those old folding cameras but uses Fuji Instax “Instant film”, has a variable aperture, and even has a built-in flash. As with their previous camera, the Jollylook Auto is being launched through Kickstarter and has hit over two-thirds of its goal in just the first couple of hours.
Fans of vintage gear are always happy when they find an old film camera in flawless condition. But what about finding hundreds of them? There’s a stash of brand new Soviet cameras in a Kazakh warehouse, and photographer Andrey Khludeyev told a story about it.
If you enjoy vintage camera ads, here’s one that’s perfect for “the most wonderful time of the year.” In this video, you’ll see how Kodak promoted its products back in 1959. And if you’re still not in the holiday mood, this ad might just bring you closer to being there.
Us at DIYP love repurposing old and broken stuff. After all, that’s what DIY is all about. Photographer Fabian Oefner repurposes old cameras in a unique and artistic way, and I absolutely love it. In his project CutUp, he uses resin and a good ol’ saw to turn vintage cameras into amazing, trippy sculptures.
In the past couple of years, we’ve heard of many photographers switching from DSLR to mirrorless. Some of them have gone the other way around, and yet some have changed from MFT to mirrorless. They all have their reasons for these decisions, but switching systems isn’t a trend that came with mirrorless cameras. The “godfather of sports photography” Don Morley changed systems a couple of times in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. In 1976, he ended up using Canon and he told the story about why he made the final switch.
From vintage golden rings to lifelike animals, hidden cameras come in many interesting shapes, sizes and purposes. But in a recently sold collection of Russian spy cameras at Aston’s Auctioneers in the UK, one of them caught my eye. It’s a spy camera disguised as – a camera. Sometimes works best to hide things in the most obvious places, and this is a perfect example.
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