My camerabag @ Japan Camera Hunter - part 2.

YEAH, once again Japan Camera Hunter shows one of  my camerabags!!! The first time it was the bag 1023 and you can see it here. Now my bag is number 1292!

It maybe a dreary autumn morning here, but this bag certainly brightens things up. What is it with you lot and knives though? Check out that Kodak though…very cool.

A few months ago I returned to Germany and therefore the very Brazilian and colourful bag had to give way to a more discreet bag. I travel a lot in Germany by bus and train and because of this I wanted a lightwight, simple, but reliable setup to shoot street and outdoor portraits. The simple army bag contains a classic street setup with a Leica III, a 35mm and a 50mm lens, but also a tiny Kodak pocket camera.

As you can see, I became more discrete. But I hope, that my pictures shot with both cameras won’t be discrete, but great and significant. Okay, let’s see if I really have talent ;)

Here the content of my bag:

_ Leica III

_ Summar 2/50mm

_ Leitz SBOOI Viewfinder

_ Jupiter 12 2.8/35mm

_ KMZ Turret Finder

_ Agfa Photo APX 100 + 400

_ Agfa Germany Portrait 160 + Vista 400

_Kodak pocket Instamatic 100

_Fuji Superia 200 (expired 2006)

_Swiss Army pocket knife + bag

_Lamy pen

_Little DIY bag made by my girlfriend

_Miltec army shoulder bag

Thanks for sharing your bag with us again, Fabricio. I have not seen anyone shoot an Instamatic ages.

 

Out Of My Pocket...

stylish with Snoopy camera bag!!! :)

My first steps in photography were with two pocket cameras, a simple Agfa 2008 sensor "ritsch-ratsch" and an even simpler Time-Life-Mini back in the 80s.

"little wild hog", germany, 1986/87

But as I grew up, I ceased with photography for many years and just started with it again in the early 2000s, first with a Sony Mavica, than with a Polaroid 635CL and an Actionsampler. In 2005 I bought my first own SLR, a Zenit ET and then it took his way till today.
With this new phase I also reactivated my old Agfa pocket camera and the Agfa 4008 sensor pocket camera of my sister. Unfortunately I lost in the years my tiny Time-Life pocket camera, but perhaps one day I'll find on of these at a flea market.
In 2006, you could still find pocket films in photo stores and Germany also in drugstores in Germany. First I bought one Fuji Superia 200 at a photo store for more than 10 Euro, more expensive than 35mm and 120 films, but okay to use a pocket camera once more, it was worth to pay an exorbitant price. Some weeks later the German drugstore chain Schlecker sold the same Fuji pocket films for one Euro the piece.The only drawback was that the films expired in the same year. I bought ten of these pocket films.

I used the two pocket cameras for street photography:

"we stood and drove as we saw that we were in a megacity",germany, 2005

"perplexed", germany, 2005/2009

In the same year I found at flea market an Agfa 4000 flash pocket for 3 Euro with still a film inside, it was an exposed Porst film and I brought it to the photo store to develop it. Some days later and 14 Euro poorer, I really had 24 pictures in the hand, but as I looked at them, it was a little shock, okay it was predictable, all the 24 pictures were:

"24 times purple", germany, 2006

As I moved to Brazil in 2007, I took also the rest of the pocket films with me. I think it were still six or seven. I shot two or three films there, but I had bad luck with the wrong exposure.
In 2011 I also gave my little niece my Agfa pocket camera to make some pics:

thats me by Ella :)

Until this year I had still two of these pocket films and decided to take them with me back to Germany. I let most of my photographic stuff at the house of my mum in Brazil, therefore I had to buy another pocket camera in Germany, but this was much more cheaper than to take my pocket cameras with me.
In June I found a Kodak pocket camera at a flea market for 2 Euro and what a surprise still with an old Agfa film in it and still some unexposed frames to shoot!

"der kran", germany, 2015

Some weeks later I bought a Voigtländer Vitoret 110 EL at the Mimapi Altertümchen in Cologne for 3 Euro. I loaded it with one of the two last Fuji pocket films I still had. The film was exactly nine years expired, so the results were very funny, like this picture which I made of my girlfriend:

in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne

The last pocket film I loaded in the Kodak camera and here are the last pictures which I made with pocket cameras. The location is the Rheinauhafen in Cologne:

 my ultimative last pocket picture

the pocket style is going on...

...now with pictures which I shot with the luxurious Voigtländer Vitoret 110 EL, which I bought at the Mimapi Altertümchen in Cologne for 3 Euro. As film I've used an, since August 2006, expired Fuji Superia 200 film.
The pictures became very surreal!

Kodak, I miss you...

In June I bought at a flea market a Kodak pocket Instamatic 100 in which still was an old certainly expired Agfa Vista 200. From the 24 frames on it, just eight were allready shot. Of course I shot the rest and here are the results...

 I love the trashiiiie pocket style!

This year I was at the KAMUNA and among other museums I visited the wonderful ZKM where was also a table with things for free. There I found this Kodak EK 8 instant camera. The next day I put new batteries into it and voilà it works and surprise there was still a film with three sheets in it, but I think they were too expired...

We love Kodak!

The LOCOstgraphy style part2 - new old stuff...

I'm back in Germany since May and I just took my Praktica LTL3 with Helios 44M-4 2/58mm, the Revuenon Special 2.8/135mm, the Tron flash, the Polaroid SX-70 Sonar, the Leitz Elmarit-R 2.8/35mm, a M42-EOS and a LeicaR-EOS adapter (both from quenoX), the digital EOS stuff, some 35mm- and pocket-films and my two Lowepro bags (Nova 5 AW and Orion Trekker II) with me from Brazil.

In the last days I just bought some new old stuff here in Germany and, of course, I did it in the real locostgraphy style (see part1 here)!  Like at the Durlacher Kruschtlmarkt flea market in Karlsruhe Durlach, the Oxfam store and the Mimapi Altertümchen, both in the wonderful Südstadt of Köln, where my beautiful girl friend lives, and at the two social secondhand stores the Kashka and the Déjà-vu, both in Karlsruhe.
The wonderful fact to buy old photo equipment at flea markets and thrift stores in Germany is, that you can buy good stuff, which already works, for a good and fair price! I also was at a well known photo store in Köln to buy a wonderful Zeiss Ikon Contaflex for a relatively high price, but it didn't work and the dealer was very astonished that I even want to use it. Of course I didn't buy the Contaflex, because I don't want an expensive dust catcher! ;)

I just bought some cool SLRs:
_ Revue ML (a labeled Praktica MTL5)
_ Revueflex 3000 SL (a labeled Chinon CX)
_ Praktica Super TL
_ Revue X4-M (a labeled Mamiya ZE-X)

Black Bone III + Black Bone II

But my main focus at the moment is to buy M42 prime lenses, which I can adapt at the digital EOS. Therefore I bought the following lenses:
_ Chinon 2.8/28mm
_ Schacht Edixa-Travenar-A 2.8/50mm
_ Steinheil Auto-Cassaron 2.8/50mm (@ Praktica Super TL)
_ Revuenon Auto MC 1.8/50mm (a labeled Pentacon / Meyer Optik Görlitz, @ Revue ML)
_ Revuenon 1.7/55mm (a labeled Chinon, @ Revueflex 3000 SL)
_ Schacht Edixa-Travenar-R 2.8/85mm
_ Revuenon Special 2.8/135mm
_ Rexatar 5.6/300mm
_ 2x Revue Auto Tele Converter 2x

Then I also bought three other cool cameras:
_ Olympus µ[mju:]
_ Minolta AL-F
_ Kodak pocket instamatic 100

Further I bought some other stuff:
_ Revuenon 3.5/135mm (a labeled Enna München, with M39 Zenit screw mount)
_ Auto Revuenon MCF 1.4/50mm (a labeled Mamiya Sekor-EF 1.4/50mm lens) + Auto Revuenon MCE 4.5/80-205mm (a labeled Osawa lens) both with Mamiya ZE bayonet and which came with the Revue X4-M
_ Metz Mecablitz 30B3 flash
_ Revue Tron C30S flash
_ Lowepro Nova 1
_ Holiday 80s style photo bag

Totally I've paid 193 Euro for all this new old stuff!

And at the end of the post two pictures taken with the EOS Rebel XSi (450D) and the Chinon 2.8/28mm with crop factor it's a 44.8mm (the 1st picture) and the Revue 1.8/50mm with crop factor it's a 80mm (the 2nd picture):

Locostgraphy.

What means Locostgraphy?

I didn't create this term, but I've read it at the yahoo group Praktica Users Group Worldwide as they had a conversation about this post of my blog.
I was very happy that these guys have found my blog and I decided to join this group.

Now I don't want to repeat their explanation about the term Locostgraphy, but my point of view.

In 2005 as I started to photograph, I've got only a little compact digital camera with 5 Megapixel, which was a wonderful camera and I made wonderful pictures with it. But I wanted more, I wanted a more sophisticated camera, but my pocket book was very low.

So I went to flea markets and the first camera I've bought was a Zenit ET by Belomo with the Helios 44M-7 2/58mm lens for 15 Euro and a Revuenon Special 2.8/135mm lens for 10 Euro.
The Zenit was, as for many other people, my first SLR and I thought: Wow the camera rocks!

But I wanted more and bought many old cameras at flea markets.
A time ago I made a statistic about my equipment, for example "How many times I've used each camera?" and so on. And of course I've calculated how much I've invested in my cameras. I've bought up to that point 40 analog cameras and paid for them in total 479.49 Euro.


It's nearly 12 Euro for each camera, for the little compact digital camera with 5 Megapixel I paid 199 Euro, more than ten times than for a used analog camera.

Yes this is an explanation for the term Locostgraphy, because the expenses for the cameras were low.

But of course Locostgraphy is more than this. Namely, in relation to today, the technology of these old cameras can be low, but not necessarily. For their time they were up to date, but with the revolution of the digital cameras, these old analog cameras became old stuff, what explains the relatively low prices today.

Today you can buy a Pro-SLR from the 90s, what is almost the same as a modern Pro-DSLR, but of course with film, for little money. But is an old Pro-SLR a part of Locostgraphy?

In 2009 I've bought a Leica R4 with a Elmarit 2.8/35mm for 1300 Reais, approximate 540 Euro. For a Leica a low price and in comparison to a new Pro-DSLR it's a ridiculous amount, but remember I paid for 40 cameras 479.49 Euro.

Yes, at least now there is the question: Can (old/used) analog cameras compete with (new) digital cameras? The old battle Analog vs. Digital! Read my view to this battle here!

Today you can buy used analog cameras, but also new analog cameras, for example the Lomography stuff, these cameras are just lo-tech, but no lo-cost. Therefore you can make with these cameras Lotechgraphy with lo-tech effects, but for a high price.

Another part of Locostgraphy is the DIY-section. Of course DIY is always a lo-tech solution, but in comparison to the Lomography style, really lo-cost.

If you build DIY-lenses, for example DIY-macro lenses, you can easily create very cool effects, which are just as great as the Lomography effects, or better.


Another question is: Are digital cameras a part of Locostgraphy?

Yes of course! The first digital cameras, for example the Sony Mavica series, are now a part of Locostgraphy. The picture quality is almost the same, or even poorer, as by cheap and simple analog cameras, like the pocket- or instamatic-cameras. And the most important, the cameras are thrown at one on ebay and flea markets. I paid 5 Euro at a flea market for a 2Megapixel Canon PowerShot A200. I love this camera and use it very often.

The conclusion is, that Locostgraphy not necessarily means lo-tech, but that you get for little money a lot of camera! See here 5 combinations of the Locostgraphy style!

Finally, a wonderful quote by Man Ray:

"Two or three lights [for greater speed in working], any lens on a light-tight box [no progress has been made in cameras since their invention], and a bottle of developer, are sufficient for the realization of the most convincing image."