Death of my xPan
I’m currently on a cross Europe adventure, visiting 8 countries and hoping to take many great photographs. Then as I walk out onto Piazza San Marco in Venice, raise my xPan to my eye, press the shutter and….. Nothing. The mighty xPan was dead. I had a feeling something was wrong as on the last roll it started to make some horrible squeaking noises, but I convinced myself it was the new kind of film I was trying, or maybe the cold weather. Anyways, I’ve been mourning the loss ever since. I’ll send it in to Hasselblad for servicing when I get home, hopefully it is repairable.
In tribute to my xPan, here are some of my shots on Flickr
And here is my all time favorite shot taken last summer in Paris…
Paris Day Planner 2012 – Buy me!
With some of my many Paris photos, I’ve made a 2012 Daily Planner (Calendar). It features pictures taken with my xpan, voigtlander rangefinder, Holga, and Sony Nex 3. I wanted to stick with only film cameras, but the cover shot was just too good to omit.
There are 14 pictures including the cover, and the last 20 or so pages are lined for notes. It’s 5×8″ or “pocket book” sized and is available on Blurb for only $9.95 Click Here to see the book and purchase if you are interested.
Photo Friday
This week’s photo courtesy of Amsterdam…. Taken with my xpan on fuji pro 400H film, then converted to BW in Aperture. Speaking of Aperture, why does it take it about 5 minutes to convert 5 photos into web sized jpegs? In fact it takes forever to do just about anything that any of my older photo editing programs can do almost instantly… Apparently you get what you pay for as it is one of the cheaper ones out there… Sorry for the rant.
Photo of the Week
This week’s photo is from a trip to Berlin last November. I really liked the subway and train system and took many pictures. I was a bit disappointed that what I thought had been a colour roll was actually a black and white. Many of the shots just didn’t work in black and white, however this one, with it’s contrasty architecture, really lends itself well to it.
Taken with my Hasselblad xPan, 45mm lens, Kodak Tri-X, developed in D76.
Photo of the Week
Photo of the week, from a while back… Haven’t taken many pictures since moving back, I live in a bit of a cultural wasteland… But I digress. This picture was from Berlin, one of my favourite cities of Europe. Everything fell into place for me on this one, I saw the accordion player, the light turned red so he couldn’t cross and everyone lined up and waited while (unknowingly) I took their picture.
Taken with my Hasselblad xPan, 45mm lens, and likely Fuji Neopan 400, but I could be wrong on this one…
Photo of the Week
I took this picture on our last day of our 6 month stay in Paris. It’s a picture I’d been planning to take for a long time, in fact I have a similar one I did with my d70. The original was taken on a night time walk with my dad several years ago. He has a great eye for composition, and while the original was taken from the landing of the staircase, this one was taken from platform level. Many of the Metro stations in Paris are unique, and this one is definitely my favourite. I am still sad that I never went to the Arts et Metiers station, but we’ll be back sometime…
Taken with my Hasselblad xpan and Fuji Pro 400H film, handheld.
Photo of the Week
This week’s photo is from Potsdammer Platz in Berlin, Germany. It’s a truly amazing place with an incredible history. It used to be a sort of no man’s land between the old East and West Germany’s, but has since experienced some renewal. There are now many buildings, restaurants, etc, and it’s a very busy place during the day as well as at night.
This shot was taken with my Hasselblad Xpan using the 45mm lens and Fuji Pro 400H film. I had a bunch of shots from the same night and I really love how they all turned out so great.
Sprocket Rocket – Panoramics on the sort of cheap
I own a holga, I admit it. I didn’t buy it though. A friend had bought it, used it for almost a full roll, and decided it wasn’t for him. I’m never one to refuse a free camera, so home it came with me. I’ll also admit that I have enjoyed it from time to time, but it certainly hasn’t become my one and only camera. Mine has no light leaks and simply gives a soft shot with vignette, I don’t think I would like the ones that leak.
From the makers of holga comes the Sprocket Rocket, a new camera that takes panoramic film images and can even expose the entire film (hence the sprocket part of the name). I can’t help but think if this camera had been available during my xpan search, I might have bought it first to try and satisfy my panoramic urges without spending too much money. I guess in a way I’m glad I didn’t as I would have still bought the xpan and then had also wasted money on the above camera…
It shoots 35mm film, has a 30mm lens (zone focus), and has one shutter speed (as I said, same people who make the holga…). It does have two wind knobs which allows you to move the film forwards and backwards while shooting, enabling you to do cool overlap effects. I like the design and I think it’s a great way to get into panoramics, but I’m not sure if I’d spend the money on this one.
Photo of the Week
It’s been a while since I took this shot and it took me a little bit to figure out just where this had been… It was a field of poppies in Chantilly, France of course. We were there on a visit to the chateau (which I highly recommend, I liked it even more than Versailles, certainly nowhere near as crowded). It’s fall in Paris right now, and the leaves are turning and this summery scene was what I needed to see today…. Taken with my xpan, 45mm lens, expired Kodak E100.
Photo of the Week
This week’s photo is of course the Louvre in Paris. I went to a flickr meet up, hoping for some exciting photographic discussions. After about 20 minutes, I was thoroughly bored and decided I’d much rather spend my night taking pictures so I left with my xpan and gorilla pod and a roll of fp4 (not my first choice for night but it was in my bag and I was low of film). Took a bunch of shots through the left bank as well as a few around the Louvre. This was my favourite. I think it’ll look great blown up. As I said, taken with my xpan, 45mm lens and fp4. It was a multi-second exposure but I don’t know what, had the camera set to auto…
