Direct positive photo paper is not typically the domain of 120 medium format film cameras. For those you usually use ... well ... film. But the folks at Galaxy Photography are changing the game with Galaxy Hyper Speed 120: rolls of direct positive photosensitive paper for medium format cameras.
"Fortuitous Layers" is a project by photographer Adam Allegro, who used an old Kodak Reflex II from 1948 to shoot random double exposures of San Francisco.
This monster, pictured here next to a Minox, yields 6 x 17 centimeter slides or negatives on 120 film, 4 images on a roll which you can blow up to insane dimensions.
It all started in my photo club, where someone showed 1 meter big prints from Scotland. These landscapes were so incredibly detailed and rich they totally overwhelmed me, they hit me like lightning. They were taken with a Linhof 6×17 panoramic camera.
Inspired by Steve McCurry’s “The Last Roll of Kodachrome,” four Tokyo-based photographers took to the streets with only a single roll of 120 film and a Hasselblad to capture what it would be like to shoot the very last roll of film in existence.
Ray Panduro knows most everything there is to know about pinhole cameras. As his previous design shows, he’s a determined artist who can get the job done using fairly standard material and a healthy dose of elbow grease.
Today, he adds another masterpiece to his creative pinhole lineup, a Pinholga that is a recreation of the iconic Diana F medium format point-and-shoot.
Lomography has officially announced the LC-A 120, a 120 film model of its successful 35mm LC-A+ and LC-Wide cameras. Small and automatic, Lomography has officially deemed this little guy, "the world's smallest fully-automatic 120 film camera."
Queue up Queen's Another One Bites the Dust, because it's time to mourn the loss of two more analog films. Despite talk that certain segments of the analog market are doing well, specific types of film that are having a hard time selling continue to kick the bucket.
The most recent of these are Fujifilm's Neopan 400 PRESTO 35mm black-and-white and Fujicolor PRO 400 120 color film.
"Do-it-yourself" can mean a lot of things, but for camera dweebs, it's usually entailed some degree of scavenging and recycling parts from factory-made cameras. Grad student and specialty camera builder Kevin Kadooka understands the ease and accessibility of the practice but doesn't think it's sustainable -- eventually we'll run out of old cameras to cannibalize.
Photographer Michel Jones has one of the most unique photography-related tattoos we've seen yet. While most photography enthusiasts who get inked may choose designs that are easily recognizable by the general public (e.g. cameras, lenses, photos), Jones went with a design that is enigmatic to most people and even foreign to many photographers. His tattoo is based on the backing paper that comes with 120 film.
In the Star Wars universe, Lightsabers are hand-built as part of their wielders' training, and each one is as unique as the person who made it. Photographer Matt Abelson seems to have the same idea about cameras: he builds high-quality one-of-a-kind pinhole cameras based on his own designs.
The Hyperscope (shown above) is one of his creations. It's a cylindrical can camera that takes medium-format roll film, and is crafted out of chunks of aluminum.
Just because a camera has bellows doesn't mean it's vintage. Just announced today, the new Lomography Belair X 6-12 has bellows as well. It's a portable medium-format camera that shoots auto-exposed photographs on 6x12 film -- the world's first camera to do so.
One of the latest entrants in the at-home film scanning game is the Plustek OpticFilm 120. Just announced a few months ago and made available for pre-orders earlier this month, the OpticFilm 120 is a professional caliber scanner that can digitize both 35mm and 120mm medium format film. With a price tag of $2,000, it's not exactly wallet-friendly for the average film shooter, but is quite affordable when compared to other medium-format pro-grade scanners on the market.
If you've been wondering about the image quality of the scanner (and whether or not it stacks up well against your local photo lab), Plustek has released a few full-resolution untouched scans.
Update: We’re hearing that Walmart is no longer offering medium format film development. Want to try your hand at …