Sprocket Rocket launches... 2nd roll

Film : Lomography Xpro Chrome 100
Date Taken : June 2011

Even under strong sunlight, the pictures turned out to be quite dark and only few pictures were presentable. This did not happen when I used the same film with th Lomo LC-A. I love the intense vignettes though. After looking at the 2nd roll of slides taken with the Sprocket Rocket, my conclusion is that this panoramic camera can produce cool images with strong vignettes only under very bright lighting conditions. You might need to use films with faster speed, else don't bother to bring her out when the sky is cloudy or you'll be greatly disappointed.

Sprocket Rocket launches... 1st roll

Film : Kodak Ektachrome 160T
Date Taken : June 2011

This is a double-experiement for me... the first time I'm shooting with the Sprocket Rocket and the first time I'm trying out the 160T slides. There is a pronounced blue tint across all the images, giving them a gloomy vintage touch even though the pictures were all taken on a bright sunny morning.

Check out how wide the lens of the sprocket rocket can reach too! Together with the sprockets, every picture becomes unique and extraordinary!

Lomo LC-A... 7th roll

Film : Lomography Xpro Chrome 100
Date Taken : May 2011

I simply love to take my LC-A with me on trips that I can't afford to experiment with other lomo cameras. It always produces great pictures with any film with it's superb lighting sensors. The admission tickets to the Universal Studios Singapore is almost S$70 per adult, hence I can't afford to risk any pictures due to cloudy or low lighting conditions. I didn't finish the entire roll as I was more preoccupied snapping away with the DSLR.

About the Golden Half Black Mountains

It came in a shiny plastic box, stating that you can take twice the amount of ordinary 35mm pictures (48 on a 24 roll, 72 on a 36 roll). I love this cost-saving idea that dates way back to the Olympus Pen F series. The odd thing about half-frame is that while holding the camera landscape, you’re actually taking a portrait picture, and vice versa.

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Features

Half-format 35mm Camera with Excellent Optics.

The Golden Half is a plastic half-size format 35mm camera, which yields 72 photos from a 36 exposure roll. Great for this penny pinching times! This original Superheadz design features a plastic body with a fantastic lens, three apertures, and a hot shoe for flash. All this means that The Golden Half is one sweet little camera with big creative possibilities.

Size : Golden Half 8 x 8 x 5.4 cm

Lomo LC-A... 6th roll

Film : Lomography Xpro Chrome 100
Date Taken : March 2011

This is the first time I experimented with the Xpro Chrome slides. No wonder it's called the "show stopper" of all slides, the cross processing truly intensifies hues and makes the colours more vibrant and vivid.

The 55mm Diana F+ Wide & Close-Up Lens

Another lens to add on to the Diana collection... my birthday gift! :)

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Diana F+ 55mm Wide Lens – Homage to the Minitar 1
Does this Wide-angle perspective look a little familiar? It should! The focal length is roughly equivalent to a 34mm lens on a standard 35mm camera. Which is very close to the perspective of our very own Minitar 1 lens – the shining jewel of every Lomo LC-A+ camera. The overall effect is a pleasing wider-than-normal view with that same classic Diana F+ vignetting, selective focus, and dazzling color saturation that all we all adore. A plastic accessory viewfinder is included to preview your shots.

Diana F+ Close-Up Lens – Sheer Magic at 15cm away

Our Diana F+ Detective agency has issued an global memo. Everything located at exactly 15cm away from the all-new Diana F+ Close-Up Lens must be urgently identified and photographed. That means fresh flowers, small noses, license plates, green eyes, chocolate bonbons, analog knobs, dog tails, clock hands, and so on. Luckily, the Close-Up Lens slides directly onto your 55m Wide Lens, allowing for lighting-fast-extreme-close-up shots whenever the situation arises. Images are dripping with color and shallow depth of field: meaning that a tiny bit of foreground is in focus against a soft and creamy blurred background.

About the Ikimono Buchineko

I came across the Ikimono cameras again at Peek! last week. This is the camera that got me started into all these lo-fi photography! I thought I should just get one of these "endangered species" as a keepsake since it's just for a few dollars. My favourite animal is the cat... Of course, I chose the Buchineko among the rest of the cute little cameras! *meow*

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The sweet little Ikimono 110 cameras are the bestselling mini cameras in the world. The Ikimono uses 110 film and feature illustrations of little creatures, called ikimono in Japanese, by Mika Sasaki. The plastic Ikimono snaps over a 110 film cartridge to make a tiny camera that fits in your palm or pocket. Easy to use with a simple advance knob and a one click shutter, the resulting photos have a unique retro look. 110 film was first introduced and made popular in the 1970s. Tiny, cute, collectible, and fun, the Ikimono 110 camera series has sold like crazy in Japan.

Lomo LC-A... 5th roll

Film : Lomography Color Negative 400
Date Taken : March 2011

What I like about this film is its vibrant red-yellow-green-blue colors, great dynamic range (no worries about over or under exposure), and it's cheap! The thing about this film that is different from other negatives is the grains are quite coarse and obvious, even in properly exposed photos.

About the Sprocket Rocket

The Sprocket Rocket is the first analogue camera to be fitted with a reverse gear, allowing you to rewind and remix your photos! Travel back in time with our ultra-convenient dual scrolling knobs. Feel like overlaying a brand new moment on top of that beautiful shot you took last week? The Sprocket Rocket can make it happen! Dance, dart and flutter between frames to your heart's content. As if this wasn't enough, it's also fitted with a super wide-angle lens enabling you to open up your world and snap those breathtaking panoramas. Don't be fooled by its small and compact shape, the Rocket can fit more in a single frame than you ever thought was possible!

Features

• Uses all kinds of 35mm film (color negatives, slide, black & white, redscale)
• Super-wide angle lens captures entire width of film including sprocket holes!
• Scrolling knobs allow easy multiple exposures
• B-setting mode for nighttime/long-exposures
• Zone focusing
• Hotshoe for flash and standard tripod screw
• Lens : 30mm
• Camera Type : Point & Shoot
• Film Type : 35mm

The Nikon Series E 75–150mm f/3.5 Lens

I came across someone selling this lens on ClubSNAP Photography Forum and did some research on it. It seemed like this particular Series E lens has earned a "legendary" reputation for its sharpness. I managed to successfully bid for one on eBay for a reasonable S$150 (after shipping from US), and its condition is considered quite a good buy for an approximately 30-year-old lens.

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The E 75–150mm f/3.5 was released in Japan in May 1980. Nikon Series E lenses are interchangeable lenses that were developed to complement the Nikon EM, which was affectionately known as the "Little Nikon" in Japan. Keen to establish the EM Series, Nikon used a different brand name for the lenses in order to differentiate them from the Nikkor brand. Ultimately, a total of 8 Series E lenses were manufactured. There were 5 fixed-focal-length lenses and 3 zoom lenses:

1. E 28mm f/2.8 (not released in Japan)
2. E 35mm f/2.5
3. E 50mm f/1.8 (not released in Japan)
4. E 100mm f/2.8
5. E 135mm f/2.8 (not released in Japan)
6. E 36–72mm f/3.5
7. E 75–150mm f/3.5
8. E 70–210mm f/4

Nikon succeeded in making the Series E lenses light in weight, so as to match the compact and lightweight EM, by making the barrels of the fixed–focal–length lenses out of engineering plastic. The company also attempted to make the lenses substantially cheaper than existing Nikkor lenses by streamlining production, e.g. by minimizing the number of points at which adjustment was required. There was absolutely no compromise on design, however, and one of the concepts behind the series was that the lenses would preserve the same quality as existing Nikkor lenses. They would exhibit the same Nikkor performance and would be compact and lightweight, yet reasonably priced. The user would see only advantages.

In addition, as can be understood from the standard way in which the smallest stop setting for the aperture ring is indicated in orange, the Series E lens family comprises AI–S–type lenses* that are interchangeable with AI-S Nikkor lenses, aside from the fact that the structure of a Series E lens does not allow a meter coupling shoe to be fitted to it.

Although the Series E is no longer in production, the elemental development that was geared towards the Series E (such as the use of engineering plastic and cost reductions by means of improved productivity) later became indispensable to the technological development of subsequent Nikkor lenses. These technologies represented the foundations for subsequent development of the Nikkor line. Thus, although this lens does not bear the Nikkor name, it is one that a photographer will want to keep handy, even in the digital era.

Although the E 75–150mm f/3.5 was manufactured as a popular lens for use with the Nikon EM, the finished lens was, in fact, sufficiently well-executed as to find favour with the experts. With a x2 zoom range covering a 75–150mm portrait area, the clarity of f/3.5, and an unchanged F-stop setting during zooming, the lens proved easy to use with cameras such as the F2 and F3, as well as with the EM, and was visually well-suited to them. It was also outstanding in terms of performance. The lens’s modest zoom ratio means that it images cleanly throughout its zoom range, from full wide-angle to full telephoto. Zoom lenses are often praised as being on a par with fixed-focal-length lenses, but this lens probably really is as good as a fixed-focal-length lens.