Life In Ful-Vue: October 2019

Wednesday, 30 October 2019

Don't underestimate that plastic lens...

Now I must admit, I didn't expect amazing results from the Fulvueflex Synchroflash. When you read about it online it seems history has judged it a bit of a poor decision on Ensign's part, not really consistent with their brand. Right enough it's the only Ful-Vue camera to have a plastic lens and feels cheap to the touch. It's significantly lighter than the others.

However, when I developed the roll of film I shot on this camera I saw this:

The film was Kodak Ektar 100, professional grade film that excels at taking landscapes. Loading film of this calibre into essentially a toy camera felt a bit wrong at the time, but I was clearly too quick to judge the Fulvueflex because, well, look! The picture is gorgeous.

Here are some more of the roll:

So there you go. The Fulvueflex demonstrating that it isn't fancy expensive kit that takes great photos. It also performed very respectably at my wedding last month, so I'm no longer hesitant about grabbing this camera as I leave the house. In fact, on a recent trip to Bristol, this was my go to box camera as I was flying and mindful of my weight limit. I look forward to seeing the results.

Saturday, 19 October 2019

Box Cameras and Wedding Snaps

Captured on the Kodak Brownie Cresta III, Fuji Pro 400H

A few weeks ago my partner and I got married in a beautiful ceremony at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh. Instead of the usual photo-booth option for the wedding guests, we decided we'd share our passion for vintage cameras and set up a box camera station, where guests could use box cameras to take snapshots of the day. It went down a storm. The novelty of shooting film again would certainly have been a memorable part of the day, and the best part was uploading the images a few weeks later for all to see their handy work.

It was impossible to predict beforehand what sort of weather and lighting conditions we'd have, so we just went for ISO 400, one of the more versatile films that can handle most conditions. We had a mix of Fuji Pro 400H and Lomography 400, and both performed well.

Garden snaps, captured on the Kodak Brownie Cresta III, Fuji Pro 400H

Most of the wedding guests hadn't shot a film camera for a very long time, and for many a waist level viewfinder was totally new territory. For the most part the pictures came out well. There were one or two instances where people forgot to wind on, resulting in some interesting double and triple exposures. Nevertheless, we have some lovely snapshots to remember the day. The cameras used were:
Ful-Vues model 1, 1.5, 2, and Fulvueflex Synchroflash, Kodak Brownie Cresta III, Ilford Envoy, and an Agfa Clack.

Here are some of the results.