Fond of the Fed.

All the way back in my first post (this one) I mentioned my cousins Fed 5, and how it sparked my love for film photography and further strengthened my love for photography. Well this year I had my go at shooting with it, and it was a exciting experience.

I had a lot more control over my photos with it than with the Smena 8M. The Fed 5 brought me additional features that made it easier to get great looking photos. Such features are a light meter (which wasn't working well do to the age of the camera), a good focusing ring which showed if the photos are focused through the view finder. Also a much better depth of field regulator and an excellent way of finding out what shutter speed to set based on light and the depth of field. Unlike the Smena, the Fed also shows how many shots you have left on your film quiet accurately, this was extremely useful. There were downsides to this camera as well, for example the weight of it. It is much bigger than the Smena, and the body of it is made from metal whereas the Smena is made mainly from plastic. Another downside is the difficulty of taking double exposures. I love making multiple exposures in one photo and having to rewind the film to get a double exposure takes a long time and that doesn't guarantee that it will be aligned. I suppose you have to make sacrifices for better quality.

Unfortunately I do not have photos of my Fed 5 at the moment and I cannot take any because I'm in London and I didn't bring it with me. I suggest you look it up online if you want read more about it. My camera is quiet battered with dents on the lens and paint scraping off. I'm considering re-painting it and giving it a personal touch.

Shooting with it was so great, I was confident that all of my shots were in focus, I couldn't guarantee that when shooting with the Smena. These photos were taken in Ireland, printed and then scanned. 

The Fed 5 captures beautiful bokeh as seen in this image.

 I will be taking black & white and colour photos with the Smena 8M during my time in London, hopefully I will have something posted soon.

Why you should try double exposure photography.

Double (or triple) exposures can be exciting and unexpected, but you don't see them very often. This style of photography is often forgotten by amateur photographers, and that's a shame because it's very fun to do. Especially on film.

Since I don't have a decent DSLR right now I had no choice but to do it with my toy-like Smena 8M, it's a soviet film camera, you can read my impressions of it here. One of the reasons why the Smena 8M is so liked by many, is it's ability to take double exposures. But this time I decided to do it differently. I didn't take two shots at once, instead I wanted it to be more wild and random. 

What I did was use a roll of film twice. Shot all 24 shots with it once, and then reloaded it and used it again. This gives you completely unexpected results. I went around the city of Vilnius taking pictures all day, I was walking until my legs and feet were in pain. Honestly I think I walk so much I don't even notice until I can't move anymore, photography is going to make me immobile one day.

Vilnius is such a beautiful city, my favorite. Even though I wouldn't say it's a very multicultural city, it gets a lot of tourists. So many that I heard English and other languages as much as Lithuanian on the streets yesterday. The contrast between the super modern central business district and the old town is so interesting, you could even mix them up as two different cities, that's why I love to shoot here.

So I bought the film, shot 24 different photos and then reloaded it carefully and shot another 24. The pictures obviously didn't line up properly, but I warned the shopkeeper in the photo lab when making the photos so he wouldn't have gotten confused. Next day I had the photos. Honestly they could be better but I will post them here.

You can see how my photos aligned the second time, , one photo a full one and it's double exposed by a half, and a second half of 2 photos. Some of them you can't even see because the original was either too light or too dark. It was definitely an interesting experiment and I love the photos that I got.

These three are from different shoots, double and triple exposure shots that I made by taking two pictures in a row, one on top of the other. Clouds double expose really really nicely, and they are probably my favourite thing to double expose. I did try to stay away from taking pictures of clouds when I was taking pictures yesterday though.

I do believe that double exposure photography is underrated and ignored by many so I would love to get people interested in this style, and hopefully after looking at my photos you will try it yourself!