Self portrait

I've been bitten by the photography bug. More to the point, the film photography bug. I didn't bring a film camera to Estonia, but there are a lot of old cameras in the markets and "antiik" shops. 60's and older cameras have a nice heft to them.

After reading a lot of good reviews of the Soviet copies of Leica cameras I decided to try one myself. I bought a FED 3 (with a bad shutter), and then immediately went out and found a FED 2, which I really like. I've had a manual Praktica SLR since the early 80's, so aperture, f-stop and manual focusing are nothing new. Rangefinders are new, but no big problem.

Lack of an internal light metering system take some getting used to. I ended up with an old selenium based Soviet light meter. It seems to work, unlike some old ones, but I don't have a lot of confidence in it. I carry my digital Lumix as a light meter too. I probably look strange, with my modern digital camera to check the light, then double checking with a light meter, then finally shooting with an early 60's rangefinder. But I am enjoying the deliberate pace of shooting on film.

Photography

One thing about being away from the routine is I have a chance to do some things I don't get to do so much at home. Lately I have been experimenting with photography. It turns out that after WWII, some of the spoils of war the USSR got were German camera and optical factories. Leica was and is one of the most respected names in cameras. The Soviets copied the early Leica's and then actually improved on them. They produced millions of them. Now, a classic Leica rangefinder might cost $800 or more. A similar (very similar, pretty much the same in terms of performance) FED can be had for $30 at an antique store, or maybe $10 at a flea market. The advantage at the antique store is you can sort through 20 or 30 cameras in one place, and they seem to be cleaner than the ones in the market.

Now that I have this great camera, with wonderful optics, the first thing I did was remove the lens and make a pinhole for it. I used a metal candy box about 2.5 inches square, and a bit of aluminum can for the actual pinhole. I've worked my way down to a hole about 0.25 mm in diameter. The pinhole replaces the lens. It's not as clear of course, but it's f157, so the depth of field is almost infinite, and it shoots photos with a certain quality you can't get with a lens.

So here's one example: St. Catharine's walk in Tallinn, f-157, 6 second exposure.