ASAHI PENTAX K1000 TWO PLANTS

This is just a short post to let you know I am still around and working on the blog! Its been a few weeks since my last post and I just wanted to share an older photo I took back in college that never saw the light of day. I don’t know why I never developed it in the darkroom back then, but I have grown to love this image for its simplicity, repeating shapes, and contrast. I think it would be a nice photo to hang on a wall some day! This was taken with my Pentax K1000 using Kodak Professional 400Tmax black and white film, which I developed in the darkroom!

AKIRA 2000N BEGINNING OF SPRING

Okay, these are the last four images from my trip to the Bloedel Reserve! Spring has just begun and you can start to see all of the little blossoms on the trees and the grass getting greener and greener by the minute! Also there were a bunch of geese just hanging out below the trees on the fourth photo. I will definitely be returning to the reserve to take more photos during summer and will be taking a different camera to test out. There are so many different places to walk and see that I will have no problem finding something new to photograph.

For this shoot I used the Akira 2000N loaded with Kodak Max, ISO400, Kodacolor print film (35mm) that expired on August of 2001. I am really loving the washed out effect from the expired film on the top two images. It sort of gives them a milky appearance that is really unusual and helps to create a look of visual depth. I will admit that I had to crop the first two images because the viewfinder on this camera is whack. To see an example of the issues I had with the viewfinder on the Akira 2000N see this post. If you are interested in seeing more photos taken at the Bloedel Reserve using the Akira 2000N visit my two other posts Lurking in the Shadows and Foliage by the Pond.

AKIRA 2000N LURKING IN THE SHADOWS

I often find myself very attracted to shadows created by trees. The way that the light spots in the deep shade is just really beautiful to me. I also love when a shadow from a tree juts across the landscape and really creates interest and depth in the photo. I feel that these images really capture the spirit of the Northwest as you often find yourself enclosed in the shadows of the foliage.

For these shots I used the Akira 2000N loaded with Kodak Max, ISO400, Kodacolor print film (35mm) that expired on August of 2001. I was very delighted to see that there actually was quite a bit of detail in the shadow areas of the photos! To see a few more photos and learn more about the specs of this camera please visit my other post The Foliage by the Pond.

AKIRA 2000N THE FOLIAGE BY THE POND

These are a few of the photos taken with the Akira 2000N plastic camera. Using this camera is really easy because it is literally point and shoot once you choose the aperture you need according to the weather you are shooting in. There is no focusing on this camera and due to its plastic lens, the photos come out with a very soft focus. Very dreamy and creamy is the way I like to describe it where there are no harsh edges and everything sort of looks like a well rendered pastel drawing! This is an effect that a digital camera just cannot create! Most of these were shot at an f16 or f11. If you would like to learn more about shooting with the Akira 2000N, please visit my previous post for some more info and helpful hints.

For this shoot I used a roll of film that I found at a thrift store for $0.50. It was in its original box, but who knows what kind of life it had before I purchased it! It was a roll of Kodak Max, ISO400, Kodacolor print film (35mm) that expired on August of 2001. It produced really wonderful blue and green colors!

These photos were all taken at the Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island, WA. It is really an amazing place to go and walk around and take some really great photos!

Something I noticed when shooting into the sunlight (see fourth image above) it that it creates a blue hazy/ghosting effect that you can see along the top of the tree where the sunlight was shining through. I don’t know for a fact that this was the cameras doing, but it could have also been an effect of using expired film.

SHOOTING WITH THE AKIRA 2000N 35mm CAMERA

I received this camera from my mom who found it at a yard sale for something like $1. I tried to find some information about the Akira, but I was having a hard time even finding examples of photos that people had taken using the camera. Clearly the Akira 2000N camera is not too popular?!

The whole camera is made from plastic, body, lens and all and uses 35mm film! It is very lightweight and feels like you are holding nothing in yours hands, although it is quite a large camera for what it does! It does have a place to attach a flash, a tripod, and/or a cable release, which seems a little crazy to me! There are 4 apertures for this camera: F6.3, F8, F11, and F16. Each of these are also clearly marked with a little weather symbol so it helps you guess the exposure if you are just learning. For example the F6.3 has a little cloud icon which is what you would set it to for complete cloud cover situations, while the F16 has a sun icon and is for full sunlight. The shutter speed on this camera is preset and there is no way to change it. Since the Akira 2000N 50mm lens is plastic, the photos come out pretty soft looking, but give you that nice lomography look. The Akira 2000N would be a great alternative to a Diana or Holga camera!

This camera is definitally not an SLR camera! While I knew this going in, usually you only have to worry about parallax error, not necessarily the viewfinder completely lying to you! Hah! I shot a full roll of film and got it developed on the same day. When the images came back I was really surprised to see that the way I had composed my shots in the viewfinder is not how they turned out on the actual photo! Everything looked zoomed out, so the camera captured more of the surroundings than the viewfinder led me to believe! Here is an example below: the top image is what I saw through the viewfinder window and the bottom is what the camera actually captured. Pretty big difference right!

So just keep in mind when shooting with the Akira 2000N, that when looking through the viewfinder everything looks larger and is more zoomed in that what will actually appear on the photo. You will definitely be capturing a lot more of your surrounds than you are bargaining for! Other than that, the camera is pretty straightforward to use and is comparable to shooting with most toy cameras on the market for a much better price! I will be posting more shots from the Akira very soon, so stay tuned!