Wednesday, January 22, 2014

First Few Shots From the Rolleicord/Rolleikin Portrait Machine

About a week ago, I posted about how I installed a Rolleikin kit (converting it from 2 1/4 X 2 1/4 square medium format images to 35mm portrait orientation) in my Rolleicord TLR camera.
 
(Click Here) to read about my Rolleicord and Rolleikin.
 
Dying to test it out, I loaded up a roll of drugstore 200 speed color print film and made my daughter sit through a few portraits by our kitchen window. It turns out that I should have shot 400, as the light was rather low that day, and so every image was taken at the same exposure settings - f4 and 1/30 second. That's a pretty low shutter speed for handheld images, and several of my shots showed motion blur. However, I think you'll see that this is a promising start for the newly-converted camera.
 
 
It is also pretty challenging to focus in low light, looking down into the Rolleicord hood. But, I think most of my focus problems were related to motion, not simply missing the focus point.
 
As I mentioned in my previous post, one of the really fun things about the Rollei (and other) TLRs is adding a closeup lens (filter-style, to the front of the fixed taking lens) for closer portraits. Here are a few I got after adding the Rolleinar 1 (closeup lens) to my Rolleicord/Rolleikin.
Portraits - Rolleicord/Rolleikin/Rolleinar, by Reed A. George
 
So, clearly I have more work to do to perfect my own shooting with this camera. But, I'm pretty pleased with the results from ten minutes shooting at marginal exposure settings. I am convinced the camera's up to the challenge.
 
DMC-365.blogspot.com
 
 

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