Lens-Artists Challenge #326: This Made Me Smile

This week it was the turn of Ann-Christine (Leya) from To See a World in a Grain of Sand … to host the Lens-Artists Challenge, and she chose as her theme, ‘This Made Me Smile‘. In her post she says, ‘So much in this world is rather tough right now, … don’t we all need a smile? Let’s share something that made us smile, … and make the world smile with us!’ 

Well naturally this was a bit of a head-scratcher for me since my images are rarely funny or cute. We don’t have any pets and the kid is all grown up so most of my ‘fun’ images are strange out of focus abstracts, or blurred ICM landscapes. So I thought I would introduce you to one of my favourite pastimes: taking funtographs. What? You might say, don’t you mean photographs? No, definitely funtographs, with emphasis on the fun.

Back in 1998, Nintendo released the Gameboy camera to accompany its hand held gaming console, the Gameboy. The Gameboy Camera is a monochrome camera that records four shades of grey to produce super low resolution funtographs (as Gameboy photographs are known). In today’s terms the Gameboy camera has a whopping 0.014MP.

The Gameboy camera is actually a full spectrum device — the sensor has no infrared cut filter to stop wavelengths outside the visible spectrum from showing on the image — so in full sunlight trees and vegetation come out a strange white (‘strange’ if you’re not familiar with how infrared images look). Indoors, or at night, you don’t have so many issues and images look normal, but during the day using an infrared cut filter stops these extra infrared wavelengths reaching the sensor and the images look much more natural.

Although getting good results from the Gameboy camera can be quite hit-and-miss, it can produce some lovely monochrome funtographs. But with a little work it can also produce some striking trichromes too, and even digital aerochromes using infrared filters. Making infrared trichromes — digital aerochromes that emulate the look of the defunct film Kodak Aerochrome film — is one of my favourite pastimes, and I attempt this with all new cameras, often with mixed success. 

I’ve been the proud owner of a Gameboy console and the Gameboy Camera since January 2023, and it’s my favourite camera of all time. I managed to get my hands on one for the Shitty Camera Challenge #1990sCameraChallenge, and since I’ve had one it’s been hard to put down. I’m also convinced that the Gameboy was the factor that tipped the scales into my becoming Shitty Camera Challenge Champion for the 1990s Camera Challenge, probably the single most important achievement of my whole life. 😉

I hope these few examples of Gameboy funtographs brought a smile to your face, and the next time you are shopping around for a new digital camera perhaps the Gameboy might fit the bill? Themes for the Lens-Artists Challenge are posted each Saturday at 12:00 noon EST (which is 4pm, GMT) and anyone who wants to take part can post their images during the week. If you want to know more about the Challenge, details can be found here, and entries can be found on the WordPress reader using the tag ‘Lens-Artists’.

If you are on Mastodon, you can now follow this blog directly. Just go to Mastodon and follow the ‘Snapshot’ WordPress account at @keithdevereux.wordpress.com. All new posts will be automatically updated to your timeline.

#1990sCameraChallenge #2Bit #Aerochrome #Challenge #Digicam #Funtography #Gameboy #Infrared #LensArtists #Nintendo #PixelArt #Trichrome #LensArtists #Smile

'Verschachtelt / Verknotet / Verbunden' #FotoVorschlag

Performance

📷 Canon EOS 300
🎞 Fomapan 400
⚗️ HC-110 (B)

Szene aus der Show "Der Goldene Faden" im #Phantasialand

#ShootFilmBeNice #BelieveInFilm #FilmIsNotDead #1990sCameraChallenge #ThemePark #acrobatics #AerialStraps
@FotoVorschlag

Last year, Stephen Dowling of Kosmo Photo asked a group of camera bloggers to write about three cameras they discovered in 2022 and what each one meant to them. Well, I gatecrashed this party and came up with the three cameras that I had most enjoyed using during the year: The dainty little Ikkosha Start 35k with its homemade 35mm Bolta spools, the self-converted full-spectrum Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ8, and the Kodak ‘Handle’, which I successfully adapted to work with Instax Square film.

This year I found myself experimenting with lots of different cameras and techniques, both film and digital, and there were some real favourites among them. For the first time I also took part in some annual ‘challenges’ besides my favourite, the Shitty Camera Challenge. So without further ado, let’s get going.

The Agfa Clack

My first favourite camera this year is the Agfa Clack, possibly the nicest ‘box’ camera I have ever used. At the end of 2022 I decided that I would participate in the Frugal Film Project. This is a one-film/one-camera challenge devised and established by Sherry Christensen a few years ago. The idea is to use the cheapest film you can find and a camera that costs less than 75€ and shoot one roll of film each month for the calendar year. It can be any subject or any theme and each month the images are posted to social media.

I chose a camera that I had wanted for a long time, the Agfa Clack, which cost 29€ from the Kamerastore website. The Clack is as simple as a camera can be. Made between 1954—1965 it features a single shutter speed of about 1/30s and two apertures of f/11 and f/14. It takes 120 film and produces eight 6×9 cm images on a curved film plane. My film of choice was Fomapan Retro 100, a black and white negative film made in the Czech Republic. With a box speed of 100 ISO but a purported latitude of between 50—400 ISO, I thought this would be ideal for the Agfa Clack. With its 1/30s shutter speed I could set it at f/11 and use filters and still get decently exposed images.

It was great fun, travelling around and taking photos with the Agfa Clack, but throughout the year I was plagued with ‘fat’ rolls, when the film roll and paper backing doesn’t wrap tightly around the take-up spool. I thought that this might be the fault of the film stock, so I tried a different film stock … and got a fat roll. I had one further idea, that the mechanism wasn’t holding the film tightly, and invested 10€ in another Agfa Clack with a broken wind-on knob. Unfortunately the spring in the new camera wasn’t compatible and that idea was unsuccessful.

I also found out that the Agfa Clack is great for lens flipping. It has a single meniscus lens that can be dismounted, turned over and replaced to give a stunning blur effect around the outside of the image, the Deakiniser effect named after the film cinematographer Roger Deakin, who developed the technique. Even though I was still getting fat rolls, I was reluctant to use my original Clack so I found a third camera online, also for 10€ but with a fungus-ridden lens, took it apart, cleaned it and flipped the lens.

This was excellent, the ‘Deakinized’ images were coming out lovely, but I was still suffering with ‘fat’ rolls with this ‘new’ Clack so perhaps it’s something to do with modern 120 film stock. Who knows? Eventually, I found a piece of firm sponge in the local supermarket and glued this underneath the take-up spool. So far this simple hack seems to have cured the fat roll issue.

I tried several techniques with the Agfa Clack and the Frugal Film Project throughout the year; regular black and white photography, trichromes, and even the Vortoscope, a triangle of mirrors clamped together, and it was a wonderful experience. Next year I hope to take part in the Frugal Film Project 2024, and who know, perhaps that camera will appear in this list next year.

The Samsung Digimax U-CA3

As anyone who I follow or who follows me on social media will know, I am a sucker for early noughties digicams. Like most journeys with my resurgent interest in all things photography it started with a Kamerastore Outlet Box, when I picked up a range of digicams for just a few Euros, including my full-spectrum Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ8 that featured in this list last year.

I also discovered the existence of ‘generic’ cameras that crop up on the CEX website quite regularly. Normally these are low resolution (nowadays) cameras from reputable brands like Nikon, Olympus and Canon (one of my favourite generic cameras was a beautiful condition Canon Powershot G5 for 2-3€) but you don’t actually know what you will receive until the package drops through the letterbox.

So I was a little underwhelmed when I opened one package to find a Samsung Digimax U-CA3. It was the middle of a Shitty Camera Challenge when I spotted a ‘generic’ 3MP camera which I thought would be ideal to convert to full-spectrum, and for 1€ (plus 2,50€ for delivery) it was cheap enough that if I screwed up I could just bin it without feeling too bad. I pressed ‘comprar’ (buy) and added it to my basket. A few days later a well packed jiffy bag arrived in the post containing a Samsung Digimax U-CA3, the charger and some cables.

Upon charging the camera I realised that it used a Memory Stick Pro Duo (the shorter version of the Sony memory stick) for storing image files. This wasn’t really an issue as it worked quite happily with the Memory stick from the PlayStation Portable, but I wanted a dedicated card for the Samsung. A few days later I had a fully working Samsung Digimax.

Of course, the first thing I wanted to do was to check out its infrared sensitivity. So I attached it to a mini tripod, grabbed my little wallet of filters and went across the road to photograph my favourite tree (actually two trees) and abandoned well on a patch of scrubland. After taking several photographs, with and without filters, the digital aerochromes were spectacular with beautiful pastel red vegetation and natural looking buildings and skies. I was amazed, and although my intention was to make this camera full-spectrum, after such amazing results I decided to leave it as it was.

I’ve been out with the Samsung Digimax U-CA3 several times, and each time it’s produced some wonderful digital aerochromes, like this one of the Ponte Pedonal de Ligação Baixa de Santo António in Aveiro, which is a wonderful metal structure surrounded by trees that I knew would look spectacular as a digital aerochrome.

The Nintendo Gameboy

I don’t think anything needs to be said about the Gameboy … but I’m going to anyway. I’ve been the proud owner of a Gameboy console and the Gameboy Camera since January 2023, and it’s my favourite camera of all time. I managed to get my hands on one for the Shitty Camera Challenge, and since I’ve had one it’s been hard to put down. I’m also convinced that the Gameboy was the factor that tipped the scales into my becoming Shitty Camera Challenge Champion for the #1990sCameraChallenge, probably the single most important achievement of my whole life. 😉

The Gameboy Camera is a 0.0.014MP monochrome camera that records four shades of grey to produce super low resolution funtographs (as Gameboy photographs are known). Using the Gameboy camera looks simple enough, but in truth one needs to master a few steps to produce really nice images. The Gameboy camera is actually a full spectrum device — the sensor has no infrared cut filter to stop wavelengths outside the visible spectrum from showing on the image — so in full sunlight using an infrared cut filter will make trees and the sky look natural.

Although getting good results can be still quite hit-and-miss, the Gameboy can produce some lovely monochrome funtographs. But with a little work it can also produce some striking trichromes too, and even digital aerochromes in infrared. Making infrared trichromes, digital aerochromes, emulating the look of the defunct film Kodak Aerochrome, is one of my favourite pastimes, and I attempt this with all new cameras, often with mixed success. The first Gameboy trichromes/aerochromes were really awful, but with a little practise they’ve started to come out quite nicely.

If I could I would use the Gameboy all of the time, but I’m trying loads of other things so I forcibly cut myself off from it for a while — I went cold turkey. One of the things I’m working on at the moment is to get a c.1925 Kodak 1A Autographic Jr back up and running, which is certainly a work in progress, and I’ve also just invested in a similar period 9×12 large format camera that I hope I can use with Instax Wide film. That might even become my camera of choice for the 2024 Frugal Film Project. So there’s certainly a lot going on and I hope the 2024 entry of this series will be quite different (though with more Gameboy funtographs).

If you are reading this and fancy entering your own three cameras, please go ahead, and if you could add a link to this post, that would be awesome. If you fancy reading more top three cameras from this year then they can be found at the links below:

Stephen Dowling, Kosmo Foto: Three Cameras of 2023

Jim Graves, My Journey onto Photography: My Top Three Cameras of 2023

Shawn Granton, The Urban Adventure League: My top three film cameras for 2023: Recency bias, the Honeymoon period, and plateauing

Have a good year and see you in 2025.

https://keithdevereux.wordpress.com/2023/12/27/three-cameras-from-2023-my-favourite-experiences-this-year/

#1990sCameraChallenge #2Bit #Aerochrome #AgfaClack #Digicam #FrugalFilmProject #Funtography #Gameboy #Infrared #Nintendo #PixelArt #Retro #Shittycamerachallenge #Trichrome #Vintage

I awoke this morning to see a beautiful orange glow coming through the window. I took the opportunity to grab a few #ShittyCameraChallenge compliant digicams and headed upstairs to record the pre-sunrise cloudscapes.

The first camera I picked was the Samsung D60, a 5MP digicam from 2005. This was previously to black and white mode and without my glasses I couldn’t figure out how to change the profile to colour so I took a series of cloudscapes to make a panorama.

Next up, also from 2005, was the HP Photosmart R817. I’ve had this camera for a while and I really like its infrared sensitivity but I haven’t really used it in ‘normal’ mode. Again, without my glasses I couldn’t figure out how to switch off the flash, but the first exposure came out nicely, even with flash, so I continued. 

The final camera ‘out of the bag’ was the Canon Powershot G5, one of my favourite early digital cameras. This one was already set to manual mode, so it was easy to adjust the exposure to get the colours I was looking for. 

This was a great little exercise, and I was really happy with how the different cameras responded to the low light. Oddly enough, exactly one year earlier for another #ShittyCameraChallenge, this time the #1990sCameraChallenge, I was also making sunrise panoramas. That time, though it was with an early consumer digital camera, the Sony Mavica. All of the panoramas were made with the smartphone app, Bimostich.

If you are on Mastodon, you can now follow this blog directly. Just go to Mastodon and follow my WordPress account at @[email protected]. All new posts will be automatically updated to your timeline on Mastodon.

https://keithdevereux.wordpress.com/2023/12/03/a-shittycamerachallenge-sunrise-03-december-2023/

#1990sCameraChallenge #Cloud #Cloudscape #Dawn #Dramatic #Landscape #Shittycamerachallenge #Sky #Sunrise

I’ve been the proud owner of a Gameboy console and the Gameboy Camera since January 2023, when I managed to get my hands on one for the Shitty Camera Challenge #1990sCameraChallenge. It’s been a combination that has been on my wish list for a long time, and since I’ve had one it’s been hard to put down. Launched in 1989, the Gameboy console went through several incarnations before the release of the Gameboy Color and the Gameboy Pocket in the late 1990s. In 1998, Nintento released the Gameboy Camera, a 128×128 pixel CMOS sensor that can store 128×112 grayscale digital images.

The Gameboy camera (released as the Gameboy Pocket Camera in Japan) is quite simply a monochrome camera that records four shades of grey to produce super low resolution images. The camera consists of an elongated game cartridge that slips into the back of the Gameboy console. At the top of the cartridge is a ball-shaped rotatable camera that contains a 0.014 megapixel sensor. Once loaded, a live image appears on the screen and the funtograph (as Gameboy photographs are known) is saved with the push of a button. As well as taking funtographs the Gameboy can review, edit, and even print images with the optional Gameboy Printer, a small thermal device that can print out postage stamp sized funtographs.

Using the Gameboy camera looks simple enough, but in truth one needs to master a few steps to produce really nice images. The Gameboy camera is actually a full spectrum device — unlike regular cameras the sensor has no infrared cut filter to stop wavelengths outside the visible spectrum from showing on the image — so in full sunlight leaves and vegetation will show up as white. The camera is really intended to be used indoors, or in overcast weather outside, when infrared wavelengths are less prone to affect the look of the final image.

Outside on sunny days, using an infrared cut filter which cuts out most infrared wavelengths, will make trees and the sky look more natural. The camera is also sensitive to stray light, so I use a lens hood to minimise the chance of light affecting the image quality. That said, the head of the Camera, which houses the lens assembly and sensor, is not impermeable to sunlight and images can look quite ‘flat’ if taken with the camera in the sun. But if the camera is kept in shade the final image is much more contrasty.

Although getting good results can be still quite hit-and-miss, the Gameboy can produce some lovely monochrome funtographs. But with a little work it can also produce some striking colour images too, and even colour images in infrared. But how can you do this, one might ask? How can you make a colour image from a camera that only takes photographs (sorry, funtographs) in black and white? The answer is to use colour filters to make a ‘trichrome’. The trichrome technique has been around almost since the dawn of photography and uses red, green, and blue colour filters to produce three near-identical black and white images. When these images are combined in a photo editor like PhotoShop or GIMP, the result is a colour image.

Making a trichrome image with film has been a popular technique with black and white photographers for a long time, and the first recorded use of the Gameboy for making colour funtographs was by David Friedmann, known as Ironic Sans, in 2001. His experiments covered most of the techniques needed for making colour funtographs even then, and the technique has remained practically the same ever since. Below I have summarised my technique for producing colour funtographs with the Nintendo Gameboy.

What you will need: Obviously a Gameboy console and Gameboy Camera;

• three colour filters, red, green, and blue. Photographic filters are the best if you can get hold of them, but excellent results have also been obtained with simple coloured gels;
• a tripod and something to keep the Gameboy secure. I have a JOBY GripTight 360 Phone Mount, which grips the Gameboy securely and is perfect for making trichromes when attached to a tripod;
• a means of downloading images from the Gameboy Camera to a computer or mobile phone. Most Gameboy funtographers should have this facility already, but I use a device called the GB Operator, which saves images as PNG files and is perfect;
• a photo editing program such as PhotoShop or similar. I use GIMP, which is a powerful graphics program and is actually free.

There are also a couple of items that can help get slightly better quality colour images from your Gameboy: An infrared cut filter; a filter that allows only visible light frequencies to reach the camera sensor, a lens hood — which will help minimise stray light affecting the sensor, and hence the final image — and an infrared filter. This is mainly for making infrared trichromes, or digital aerochromes, which is a fun technique.

To make a ‘regular’ colour trichrome with the Gameboy first find your subject. This can be anything, of course, but is always best where the subject has plenty of colour. I have found that brightly coloured subjects always give the best results. Subjects with light or pastel shades are sometimes difficult to resolve. Mount the Gameboy on the tripod and ensure it is secure. Also, if you can keep the Gameboy in the shade while maintaining the subject in sunlight your final trichrome will have more ‘punch’. I have found buildings and trees very helpful, but in the worst case a good wide brimmed hat will help. You will be holding the filters over the lens and you’ll need to keep it as steady as possible.

If you have an infrared cut filter, take one image with the cut filter. Hold the filter over the lens and wait for a few seconds for the camera to stabilise, then take a funtograph.

Join the cut filter to the red filter and hold the combination over the lens. Wait for the camera to stabilise and then take a second funtograph. Repeat this procedure with the green and blue filters. Finally, if you have one take an image with the infrared filter. You won’t need to use the IR cut filter this time, if you do you won’t see anything.

Your next step is to download the images from the Gameboy Camera to the computer. There are several methods of doing this, and I have a fabulous little device called the GB Operator. Once the funtograph files are saved to the computer (the GB Operator saves them as .png files) open them in the photo editor. You will now have to combine the three images as layers to produce the colour trichrome image.

Although I understand you can layer them in any order I normally layer them as red on top, green in the middle, and blue at the bottom. Select the blue layer image and adjust the levels as follows: Leave the blue channel at 100% and move the red and green channels to zero. Select the green layer image and copy the image. Past this as a new layer into the blue image and adjust the red and blue channel to zero. Leave the green channel at 100%. Change the blending mode of this layer to addition. This will reveal details of the layer underneath and, if necessary, you can adjust the position of the green layer so that it is perfectly overlaid on the blue layer. Finally, select the red layer image and copy this into the blue and green composite image as a new layer. Change the blue and green channels to zero, and the red channel to 100%, and the blending mode to addition. You might need to move the red layer to align the image again, but by now you should be able to see a nice coloured trichrome image.

You can also copy the different images taken with each colour filter into the red (red filter image), green (green filter image) and blue (blue filter image) channels in a new image file. This should automatically create a colour trichrome without any need for layers and blending modes. Although I have heard this works well in PhotoShop, I have never managed to get it working with GIMP. Perhaps it’s just me.

To export the image, for use on social media for example, first save the image in the photo editor format (PSD for PhotoShop or XCF for GIMP). Now you will need to enlarge the image so select the ‘scale’ function and resize the image to a useable size. For social media I use a long edge size of 1200 pixels. When scaling the image, to preserve the square pixel shape select ‘nearest neighbour’ (in PhotoShop) or ‘none’ (in GIMP photo editor). Once the image is scaled you can save or export it as a PNG or JPG file format.

To make an infrared trichrome, you can use the same procedure as used to make a colour trichrome. However, in this instance use an infrared image in the red layer, the red filter image in the green layer and the green filter image in the blue layer. Again the blending mode of the red and green layers should be set to addition. If you are using the channel method copy the infrared image into the red channel, the red filter image into the green channel and the green filter image into the blue channel.

All being well this should give you all the information required to make really nice trichromes from your Gameboy camera, and the technique can equally be used to make trichromes and aerochromes with film and digital cameras.

https://keithdevereux.wordpress.com/2023/10/16/the-joy-of-trichromes-with-the-nintendo-gameboy/

#1990sCameraChallenge

Day 90 (cont’d), Shitty Camera Challenge: Orangutan, Philadelphia zoo, Philadelphia 2023

Nikon d1 (1999). Definitely cheating a little on the “shitty” part of the challenge with a pro grade camera, even if it is a 24 year old digital camera you can buy for ~20 on eBay! But <3 mp and super noisy sensor is still a little tough to nail. 😅

#ShittyCameraChallenge #1990sCameraChallenge
#Orangutan