The mighty Ektar and my super wide heliar.

The building is pretty cool, the holes in the roof give the space a kind of “Tucson patio,” feel.

Look at that patio in Tucson! There is a nifty conveyor belt that would bring the wood up to a big saw to cut it and limbs.

Other side of the conveyor belt.

Big rad empty space, perfect for a patio in Tucson.

Fun!

Big empty space. fun.

This was rural urban exploration at its best. We saw cops flirting with each other while watching us and then we ate crazy amounts of fried food a diner. Oh yeah we are pro.com.

In college I had a rule, “No analog media allowed in the home unless its use is purely to be ironic.” So no VHS but Betamax was ok.

That is funny considering I have given up all of my digital cameras except for my iphone and have gone back to using film. Oh the joys of analog photography. This is a nifty film made in Italy by a company named Ferrania. 10 years ago I would have considered it bad film and thrown it away. Now, I would say that it is a film that has “character,” and I embrace the grain and off colors.

Fuji Astia

I don’t like Hanover, but there I like to stand under the arches of Memorial Field and use the architecture and light to test my new cameras. This is my Voigtlander Heliar 15mm Super Wide and some 200 speed Ferrania produced film. The best image i’ve ever gotten from this space is actually from my lomo but I’m pretty happy with the results of my Heliar 15. I should have used faster film on the cloudy day to get more from the arch. I will be producing some comparison images soon.

Buy your own heliar 15.

The first thing you will notice when you look through the viewfinder of your Heliar 15 is just wide the lens is.

This sample image is from one of my first rolls taken with my Heliar 15mm in the back seat of a Chevrolet Malibu. In this tight space you can see my sister and her husband in the frame. Win! Images like this remind me of why I bought this lens. Ilford hp4+ film in HC-1100 developer.

What Do You Do With A Super Wide?

I like using my heliar super wide in tight spaces and with big vistas. What I find wonderful and frustrating is that you can get extremely low and extremely close with a super wide angle lens and most everything will be in focus. That can also mean squatting and putting your body in uncomfortable positions.

In this image, I’m standing on the beach at sundown maybe a foot above the sand. The rock in the left of the frame is at most three feet tall. The pink thing on the right is either my knee or my finger. With a lens this wide you have to be careful to keep body parts out of the frame.

Note how the stones and all the way to island in the distance are relatively sharp.

The Heliar Ambiance

If you are the type person who values technical achievements in photography, then the heliar 15 is going to be a challenge for you. The Heliar has a tendency to vignette when wide open and that can be frustrating but also lots of fun.

It was -10 with windchill when I took this picture and my fingers were frozen to my camera. I absolutely love the vignetting on this image because it works. You can’t see my feet but the snowbank I’m standing on is in the frame.

Random CV Heliar Stuff

• I bought the newer version that is Leica M mount and couples with the rangefinder.
• In theory you should focus the lens but I’ve never had anything ever out of focus.
• I bought the 15mm Voigtlander viewfinder to use with it but sometimes I shoot without it.
• Now that I have it, everyone wants me to shoot their condo.

Where Can You Buy Your Own Super Wide Heliar 15

• I bought my from photovillage in nyc.
• You can also get them one cameraquest.
• Ebay also has quite a few available in screwmount and M mount.

From the continuing fomapan adventures.

The handmade nature of my frankstein analog-digital images is apparant in the artifacts. Especially when my mistakes invoke the spirits.

Fomapan 400 @200 HC-1100 and some beautiful mistake.

My lens is so wide it is easy to accidentally shoot body parts.

I told myself that I had to do something I wouldn’t normally do.

I wouldn’t normally walk around Barre, VT. I don’t like it there and it doesn’t make me feel comfortable. I feel that in order to make Montpelier the town that it is, the state of Vermont forced everyone slightly undesirable to move to Barre. Yet in many ways, Barre is the nicer town. It has a great local foods store LACE, a real camera store and a big cool statue. More on the big cool statue.

Parking. The tip is that when you approach the outlet mall, you either turn immediately around and go home OR you park in the back.

Voigtlander Bessa R3M 50 Heliar Classic

I ordered a bunch of Fomapan from freeystyle to re-teach myself how to develop black+white film. I took it with me on a visit to my friend Kougie’s house and to visit my favorite paper mill. Except for this roll, I think I ruined them all but I had fun.

Fomapan Update!

I thought that I had ruined my fomapan but it turns out that fomapan 400 is notoriously slow and needs to be shot at 200. After rescanning the fomapan I got better results and from now I shoot it at 200.

I developed my Fomapan in Kodak HC110 with constant agitation and I believe it helps fix some of the issue with the film being rated lower than 400 speed.