7 posts tagged “powershovel”

Digital Harinezumi - You Are The Moon

Mar 16, 2009
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The Digital Harinezumi is Superheadz' first step to include digital photography into its analog adventure. Some may think it is a betrayal to its analog origin but hey, why not take the advantages of both worlds and explore more.

Digital Harinezumi

The beautiful almost piano finishing look of the digital counterpart is truly attractive under sunlight. Having the privilege to play with it for a week, I realized that this is again yet another camera from Superheadz which makes people around you wonder, after Blackbird Fly. It retains the cuteness of the original 110 film harinezumi but with a digital twist.

Digital Harinezumi

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There is an LCD screen on the back, 4 control buttons and 1 spring loaded switch to mimic film winding. It is almost like a camera used by spy, especially when you can switch the camera into macro mode and take very clear images of documents. Funny thing about it is that you don't get the LCD screen to work for you to preview before you take a photo, you just guess shooting. I'm sure this 'feature' is intentionally installed by Superheadz. The image is really high contrasted and color boosted, so you may get some strange analog effects for your benefit on one hand, but terribly red shift of color in low light condition on the other. One thing I don't like about it is that all photos you take will have the same 1st Jan 2009 00:00:00 date stamp, which means you can't organize photos by date automatically by photo archiving softwares. Oh and the price tag is enough to scare you off.

Digital Harinezumi 07-00-20

Another cool feature is that you can use it to make old movies. Intentionally mimicking 8mm film, you don't get sound out of the movies, in fact the resulting movies have a faint background noise which maybe intentionally included as a 'feature' as well. I had some fun with the movie feature last night and edited using iMovie to create this video you see above. Background music: You Are The Moon by The Hush Sound. To look at it at better resolution, check out the vimeo post of this movie here.

Blackbird Fly Modification - Film Border Masking Frame

Nov 9, 2008
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As I said, I had some failure of poor exposure of my second roll of redscale film on BBF. However, I found my masking frame mod quite successfully generated the effect I want.

Blackbird Fly Mod - masking frame

The problem with redscale film is that you have to at least double the exposure value to make a decent photo, especially in low light condition. However, the only way to do that in BBF is the B mode, which makes it difficult to create sharp image in most freestyle shooting. Anyway, if you use this combination (redscale film + BBF), make sure you shoot in full sunlight or use B mode with a tripod.

Blackbird Fly Mod - masking frame

Now back to the topic. I always like the film borders of peel apart polaroids, I wanted to introduce more of such element into my BBF 135mm photos. So I took apart a Polaroid 600 film, peeled apart all the white borders, washed the transparent film cover and scratched it a bit, leaving only some chemical deposits on the edges. Next I took a masking frame which came with the BBF, reverse it (so that I can have a full frame) and taped the Polaroid transparent film cover (with borders) to the masking frame.

Blackbird Fly Mod - masking frame

This created an instant film border frame for BBF! Now with this masking frame put onto the camera reverse, you get a full 35mm frame and you can actually play with a lot of different masking effects including this one. Say stick a tiny human figure onto the frame to create silhouette, print your illustrator or logo pattern onto a transparent plastic and make a new mask, etc etc.

Blackbird Fly Mod - masking frame

Installing the mask is no brainer, just pop it in! There can be more modifications on BBF, share with me if you have some.

Blackbird Fly Camera and Flash

Nov 2, 2008
3 comments

I had my last roll of redscale film on BBF failed nearly 100%, i.e. under-exposed. I guess either my colorsplash flash was not strong enough or I need to increase exposure time when redscale film is used. Or both.

Tasting BBF

So today I used Diana's flash with new battery, turned my B mode on and tried to over expose as much as possible. We'll see the result in a week's time. This photo was taken with iPhone, modified on iPhone using CameraBag, check out the Flickr pool of photos taken using the same method.

BBF Customization

Oct 14, 2008
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BBF through Lensbaby

If I have black scrap leather I would've made a leather strap for my BBF like my Diana Choco-mix. Anyway, thinking about how to customize my toy, I tried to put some scrap-booking corners on it but results vary. I'll probably keep my BBF black but somehow give it a personal touch.

Blackbird Fly - Photos Developed

Oct 1, 2008
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Just received last night two rolls of developed film taken by BBF. I love the finer control of focus and sprocket hole effect a lot.

NY South Side Sea Port

New York Taxi

4 comments

The dark corner effect is strong enough to create a nice gradient blue sky in sunny days, particularly when using e2c or x-processing film.

Swimming Pool 2008

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"Black Bird Fly" Arrives!

Sep 30, 2008
8 comments

Finally, this nice little 135 Twin Lens Reflex plastic camera created from scratch by Superheadz will arrive Hong Kong exclusively at city'super/LOGON in Oct/Nov!

BBF with flash

I knew about this from Superheadz since last year and they've been sending prototypes to selected photographers around the world for testing and testing and testing. In addition to their 110 cute cameras, this will make history in the world of toy camera. Drooling to play with it for a long time, finally I received a sample this August. Obviously Superheadz took tremendous effort to make it perfect before they are comfortable giving me a sample to try. I've seen Hiruma san on Tokyo's street talking on the phone in sweat with the manufacturer because of the flood in China back in July, which explains the delay in release.

During this launch, only 3 colors will appear in the market. Black, Orange and Blue. But I've seen other colors in their office back in July, red, brown and yellow. In addition, somewhere on Flickr I saw white too.

BBF in Powershovel's Office

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The most amazing things I like about BBF is built-in film counter (no more camera backs/adaptors), removable film masks to create sprocket holes effect and square photos, not to mention a hot shoe for flash. Instantly tons of things to play with just like Holga or even more. I'm so glad both LOMO and Superheadz are now deviating their paths further by doing things other than the most popular Holga, differentiating from each other instead of competing with fancy packaging and Holga accessories only. LOMO's new path is with Diana, while Superheadz with 110 cameras and BBF.

BBF in Powershovel's Office

The Plastic Lens' Artpunk already has several preview articles about BBF's features here, here and here. Thanks Artpunk!

The Plastic Lens' Review of BBF

I've created a "Black Bird Fly" camera and photos Flickr group so if you have photos taken by BBF or photos of your beloved BBF, please go there and share/discuss! I can't wait to see how my photos are developed, will soon share.

HOLGA 135 Released by PowerShovel.co.jp

Nov 25, 2007
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Two days ago I received PowerShovel's HOLGA 135 prototype, actual product is to be released earliest Nov 2007. Along side with this release, the web site is revamped to include an English version probably because of the increased exposure in Europe and particularly UK according to my contact from the company. PowerShovel's innovation didn't stop at Army Holga (a green color version of the traditional black one), 110 film cameras, 35mm Holga back and Polaroid back. They released new AGFA 135 positive and negative film, AGFA 110 film, 35mm Golden Half, etc etc. There will be several new ones coming to us in early 2008, including TOLNE JB (a project done with Tomy Takara. Limited edition of rubber coated and full-black painted camera, soft focus pictures through a plastic lens, includes 3 filters), HOLGA 135, HOLGA 135 pinhole, HOLGA 135 Tunnel Effect, HOLGA 120 pinhole, Blackbird Fly (which I'll have info below)..... phew!

HOLGA 135 Newly Arrived

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The HOLGA 135 camera looks a little bit dumber than the 120 version despite its smaller size, but there are several nice features inside: the brightness switch actually works, a shutter release allows cable release to be used, a hot shoe which works with LOMO's ringflash and colorsplash flash, a film counter on top of the camera.... Well yeah these are supposed to be defaults for a basic 35mm camera but we are talking about HOLGA here.

HOLGA 135 Newly Arrived

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I'm yet to discover whether the 135 version has any special effects like vignetting, blur, light leaks, etc. These are the very characteristics of the original HOLGA in addition to all the possible mods (such as sprocket hole effects) which makes the original HOLGA super fun to play with. It will be a tremendous disappointment if HOLGA 135 is actually just a typical 35mm film camera, I will be able to find out in a few days' time.

HOLGA 135 Newly Arrived

At least, double exposure is possible, simply click as many times as you want before winding the film. I will have to try out the HOLGA lens effect kit on the 135 version too. Stay tuned.

In Japan, the camera will be sold individually or in sets like the HOLGA 135 Deluxe Starter Set as seen below.

Holga135 Deluxe Starter Set

Finally, PowerShovel is working on a camera called "Blackbird Fly", which is the first 135mm, twin reflex lens toy camera in the world! It is able to shoot 135 in three different formats: normal pictures, squared pictures and pictures with sprocket holes effect. Details are not yet known and the following picture is the only one available and I'm yet to find any info on the net or from PowerShovel. Can't wait for the arrival of 2008!