How could you not respond to advertising like this?

Placing this camera near a Lacombe compendium does not raise its classiness one single bitThis is not to say that I didn't like the camera, after all, compared to the Nikon, a used matchbox with a hole punched in it would have been an improvement. However, it just didn't 'feel' like I was taking pictures, the AF was nice, dog slow, but nice. The auto exposure was accurate enough that I slowly stopped shooting manual or even aperture priority, and due to the fact that the built in power winder was a little too strong, I couldn't use the B+W film I got from school as it was manually loaded onto re-usable spools, which the Canon would tear to shreds. As such, I slowly stopped shooting, the combination of having to pay for film and not having to do as much work to get the shot meant the fun was gone. Added to that, I had discovered a new found interest, video editing. With my interest consumed by the moving image, my Canon got used less and less, until in a pre-cursor to my eBay obsession I discovered a Bolex H-16 film camera that I simply had to own. And so, I sold the Canon.

I would not own another SLR for another 10 years.

At least I had better dress sense, even if I didn't have better camera sense

My Nikon EM - sans motor winder, shot with my newly repaired Voigtlander 35mm f1.2It didn't take me long to discover that there was a reason why this particular Nikon was the cheapest available, in what can only be a marketing move, the EM does not have the ability to set the shutter speed, that's right, you can buy a Nikon SLR that you CANNOT dial in a shutter speed. In a move that was, I'm sure, aimed at stupid, dumb brand conscious pricks like my young self who only looked at the word Nikon and no further, the FS has a form of bastardised aperture priority, you set the aperture and hope the shutter speed is in the range that you need to get the shot. Coming from my Yashica which, with its manual only approach, this lack of control was stunningly painful. A sad example of getting what you thought you wanted, only to find, what you originally had was much better! Oh and the motorwinder, lets forget for the moment that as I was paying for all the film and processing out of my pocket  and thus not really in the position to burn of multiple frames in quick succession (I would often forgo buying my favorite film, Ektar, due to it costing more than the lowly Ilford), the motorwinder was all well and good whilst shooting, but it didn't exactly allow you to shoot unnoticed, the sound of my Nikon with motowinder shooting I believe was actually responsible for several broken windows, a car crash and the LA Earthquake, to say this thing is loud is an understatement of epic proportions, the equivalent of stating that Justin Bieber is the most annoying and dangerous toxin our planet as we know it has ever had to face!

Did it work, yes, did I enjoy shooting with it, no. Using it was the equivalent of going to a stripclub and standing with your back to the stage, all the elements were there but it just wasn't satisfying. Suffice to say I didn't keep it very long.

From the balcony of my room, took 5 goes to get this shot sharp

Totally ungraded, vignette is 100% in camera

The first version of this I actually left the lens cap on (we had just finished dinner!)

Not bad for a camera jammed onto a guard rail

Took about 3 goes to get the right exposure

The setting sun just as we landed

Work trips tend to do funny things to you, we were a week in at this stage!

Now I wish I could claim that I learnt from my previous experiences, and so researched the topic and carefully chose my next camera based on budget and features, but the reality is my father was traveling for business, back in the day when shopping on Hong Kong was like traveling to another world, where you could buy things that were not available anywhere else and for a quarter the price. And thus the Yashica FX-3 arrived. Basically as far as I can tell my father, tasked with bringing back a 'professional' camera for his son, walked into the camera store and picked the cheapest SLR possible. Ironically this resulted in him purchasing quite possibly the best camera I have owned, that is before I discovered Leica. You see the Yashica, whilst not a Nikon or Canon was an incredibly well built and functional camera, no bells, no whistles, there is literally nothing about this camera that is cutting edge or innovative, and it is for this exact reason that it just works. For the money you get a manual focus 35mm SLR, with basic metering, a simple set of three LED's in the viewfinder let you know if you exposure is over (RED ARROW , under (another RED ARROW) or if it is correct, GREEN DOT (ironically a system that my Leica M6 also offers, although without the amazing GREEN), you get no aperture or shutter priority, no motor winder and even the film speed is set manually. The result, a camera that is quite possibly the best camera for a budding photographer to learn his chops. Very quickly I learnt the necessity of choosing the right speed film depending on the situation, my ability to guess the rough exposure of a scene was never better (in fact even now I struggle) and even though the build quality was a little plasticy and nowhere near a Nikon or say a Leica, the camera put up with a fair amount of abuse, never missing a beat.

*When talking this photo with my Leica M8 and a Voightlander 35 f1.1 I noticed the bokeh seemed a little weird, then I loocked at the lens, the aperture bladed were all messed up, it seems one or two had fallen out of alignment and were in a bad way :( Oh well, could be worse, could be the M8) Off to Camera Repair.

He never did tell us that 'crazy'story of how he wound up on Television!

Strangely enough there are more than a few cameras available on eBay, this is made even stranger by the fact that they are completely and utterly useless, Kodak stopped making the film years ago and there is no way you can even make your own film as you can with other formats. That being said, I decided, if I was going to re-purchase this camera I was going to do it right, so after a lot of searching I ended up buying a splendid example of a camera from a man in Minnesota USA, in its original box with full manuals.

My Kodak Disc 4000 with one of the 'discs' of film from Grade 6 Camp

When the camera arrived it was like I was immediately transported back to grade 6 camp, a time where not only did I have to make a single roll of film last an entire week (that's 2 photos a day for the mathematically challenged) but I also I landed my first girlfriend, Tamy Doig, it was a pretty short relationship, punctuated with such memorable moments such as the time I bought her a box of chocolates only to find she was lactose intolerant. I will never forget those crazy two weeks, or the Kodak Disc Camera System for that matter. Sadly the Kodak, much like our relationship, didn't last as long as one would hope, a classmate with slippery fingers dropped it a few months later, as it hit the desk it let out a blinding flash and never worked again.

Notice how all the photos are 'simulated', even the ad guys couldn't get a good photo out of the camera 

And so I found myself on a shoot recently, stupidly ahead of schedule, sitting in an office with my producer, stuck in the middle of nowhere at a mine site, with absolutely nothing to do until our next setup could be organized. This is a very dangerous situation, because when I get bored I tend to get on eBay, and that can never end well. My producer meanwhile was happy browsing Country Road online and so was in no mood to talk me out of spending more money on camera gear that I probably didn't need.  As I found myself randomly browsing through the cameras listed for sale I came upon a Yashica FX-3, the first SLR I ever owned. Showing it to my Producer I explained how this was really the camera that started my fascination with photography, which had eventually, through a very circuitous route led to me sitting at a mine site in central Australia with a Canon 5D MkII and a case full of lenses, shooting HD video. The discussion eventually turned to me listing what camera came next, and next after that, each purchase being funded by the sale of the previous camera.

As I stared nostalgically at the Yashica I found myself bidding on it, really out of boredom than anything else. Funnily enough, I won the bid (there aren't that many people who want an aging SLR camera that isn't a collectable Leica, or Nikon). As the package arrived at the office a few weeks later, the younger members of our office who I have been steadily 'edumacating' on the wonders of film were introduced to the classic that was the Yashica FX-3. When I originally bought the Yashica, it took months to save enough for half the camera, my parents chipping in the rest. When it was time for me to upgrade to a 'real' SLR, a Nikon, saying goodbye to the Yashica was actually quite tough, later moving up to a Canon EOS 1000 was even harder, my Nikon had served me well. Then as my interest in film making took over, my interest in still photography wained, and so I sold everything to buy a Bolex H-16 film camera. Fast forward to today, not only do I have access to just about every L series lens available, multiple 5D's, a 7D that sits in my cupboard slowly gathering dust as I put all my attention into my growing addiction known as Leica cameras, but I also recently had a massive change in life circumstances, the result being not only do I have a lot of spare space in my book shelves but noticeably more disposable income and the need to decorate my house with 'my' style.  It was then that I suddenly had an epiphany,  I could re-purchase every camera I have ever owned, not only would it be a lot of fun chasing down the exact models and acquiring them, but once I did have them I could 're-purpose' the empty bookshelves as a sort of 'Museum of Cameras owned by Me' . Over the next few weeks I will chronicle my sad collection of misfits, the first being the Hanimex 35DL, so without further ado, I give you 'The Museum of Me'.

Hanimex 35DL:

The Hanimex 35 DL modelled by Jonesy

This was in fact the last camera purchased in my quest to  replace all my once owned cameras, for the simple reason that I was 12 when I bought this camera, I saved up for it for weeks, staring at it at the local K-Mart every week, dreaming of the day I would own this wonder. I mean, most normal instamatic cameras had one lens, this marvel had TWO, that has to be twice as good right.  Now here's the problem, that was a LONG time ago, not only could I not remember the model, I couldn't even remember the make. Now seeing as this camera is far from what you would call collectable, it's not like  I could Google collectable camera with two lenses, I did try that, and all I ended up with was hundreds of Twin Lens Yashica MAT's and Rollei's. As such the search for this camera was left on the back burner, with the occasional Google, resulting in me not getting very far. That was until one night I was telling my therapist about my little pet project, and he launched into telling me about how he had the Hanimex CLIX, and did I remember that camera.

Its funny, unlike these days, where every cellphone has a camera, the old instamatic 35mm and 120 film cameras seem to have imbedded themselves in peoples psyches, with just about everyone I speak to having amazingly strong memories of times in their lives and the camera they used to capture those moments, even if the photos themselves no longer exist. As luck would have it, the word Hanimex rang a bell, and a few days later, while waiting for a render to complete, I Googled Hanimex Dual Lens Camera, and lo and behold absolutely nothing came up. Fast forward a few more weeks, and again, whilst waiting for a computer to do something, I googled varied combinations of Hanimex Twin and Lens. And out of nowhere I chance upon a website for a woman who sells, what I can only describe as 'the cameras that collecting forgot'. It's as if her one criteria for a camera she offers for sale is that nobody in their right mind would want it. And there I found, not one, but two Hanimex 35DL's, one in the colour I had purchased, a very fetching Purple, and another in a sort of poo brown. One was fully functional the other the flash was faulty. Looking at the price for these two beauties and I swallowed hard, with both coming to a grand total of $25 ($10 for the faulty one and $15 for the working one) with my credit card laughing maniacally after being abused so much recently by my Leica purchases, I decided that I would purchase BOTH, thus cornering the market on collecting the fabulous Hanimex 35DL. And so several weeks later both beauties arrived. And what can I say, the twin lens feature of this camera whilst technically offering the user a wide lens and then a tele lens, is not perhaps as useful as I managed to remember. You see, framing up with the wide lens selected and then deciding to switch over to the tele lens with the simple twist of the lens to get closer to the subject could be replicated and the equivalent effect achieved by moving about 1 foot closer to the subject. Not so much like going from a 35mm lens to an 85 mm, more like using an 28 to 70mm zoom lens, and sneezing thus causing the lens to slightly zoom in. Then of course there is the complex built in exposure metering, which consists of a LED light that lights up if you need to turn the flash on, which is probably quite often as the speeds of film available from the switch on the back consist of not one but three speeds, yes thats right, not only can you use 100 ISO, but 200 AND 400 ISO. And so, much like viewing a film from your youth again after many years, you start to see the flaws and wires holding up the spaceships, or in this case, the fact that I was well and truly duped, TWIN LENS HOOEY!!!!

.

First a little back story, I have been travelling a lot for work lately, now before you tell me to stop complaining about being sent around the world business class to film in some of the most remote countries possible and being paid to do it, let me point out, that, while on the face of it it is pretty good, after a while, flying into Heathrow at 7 am, filming till 2 pm, having a few hours off then flying out again the next morning, loses its charm. So after all that travel I decided I needed a little break, and yes, I do see the irony of flying overseas for a break after just complaining about being away from home, but I never said I wasn't a complicated person.

Shooting in the Atacma Desert in Chile

So, long story short, I agreed to go on holiday to Bali with a friend, as I was travelling during the whole booking process, I basically knew nothing, other than it was in Bali, for a week in August. After travelling and filming on DSLR's for the better part of three months, I knew I wanted to put the 5D in its case and not look at it for a while, so I made the decision to only shoot film during my holiday. So, whilst my friend planned what shoes she was going to take, I planned what cameras and lenses to take. I only wanted to take the one bag, but as it was my Billingham which in the finest of Dr Who British traditions, is like a Tardis, I was able to fit my Leica M6 a 35mm and 50mm lens, a Leica CL with a Russian 50mm lens, a Mamiya RB 67 Pro S and finally my M8 (purely as backup), oh and about 20 rolls of film, an even split of Ektar 120 and 35, some Tri X 200, a couple of rolls of 400 VC colour 120 film and a bunch of old out of date Rollei B&W 100 film I had bought because I liked the box they came in.

Strapped into a seat on a private jet, my Billingham now refuses to travel any other way!

Now, when I film for work, if I am in a country I don't know, or don't speak the language, we always organise a 'fixer' basically a local who knows the secrets, will take you round, make sure your safe and basically 'fix' any problems that come along. I decided that as I didn't really know Bali, and wanted to actively avoid other Australians while I was there I got my father who has lived in Indonesia for over 15 years to organise one for a couple of days for me, that along with a driver and a 4WD means I don't have to worry about getting caught doing 'tourist' things.

The closest I got to a tourist spot, a guard at one of the beaches

As I was picked up by my fixer and driver for the first days shooting, I could see he was confused, I was not the normal Aussie, for one thing I wasn't staying in Kuta, the second thing was I wasn't wearing a BinTang Beer T-Shirt and I kept telling him to avoid any spots that were at all touristy. Eventually after having him suggest just about every tourist spot I had been told about in the last few days, I stopped him and said 'TAKE ME SOMEWHERE YOU WOULD NEVER TAKE AN AUSTRALIAN' after a short little chat in Balinese with the driver who didn't speak English, he finally said that they had an idea. He then proceeded to try and scare me off, the conversation went a little like this, 

Wayan: 'It's a good three hours drive away !'
Me: 'Plenty of photo opportunities on a long drive' 

Wayan: 'Oh and it's located next to an active Volcano'
Me: 'Always was fascinated with Volcano's, how active, will we see lava?'

Wayan: 'There will be a hour long boat trip'
Me: 'Don't mind a ferry ride'

So off we went. It was perhaps only when after three hours of driving north, then another 30  minutes or so winding down the side of a mountain to a rather large inland lake created in the valley of an ancient, non active volcano that I started to faintly question my whole 'no tourist traps' policy. When we pulled up to the dock and rather than drive onto a ferry, we were handed life jackets and ushered to a small craft that I hesitate to call a boat, by the captain, who had a total of two teeth and may very well have been alive when the Titanic went down, my faith was further shaken. By the time the craft was filled with petrol from a gas-can by a man with a lit cigarette hanging from his mouth I was pretty sure in the words of Gob Bluth 'I had made a terrible mistake'

I can see some Occ Health and Safety Issues here

As we sped towards the small village that we had spent so much time travelling too Wayan finally started to tell me about where we were going. Long story short, 90% of Balinese are Hindu, this particular group of Balinese however had never really taken the whole Hindu thing totally on board, more specifically the whole 'cremate the dead' part of the religion. They had decided to hedge their bets, and so kept a bit of their old gods and added it to the new gods, more specifically, the pretty much DIDN'T bury their dead, but they didn't cremate them either! As I stared off to the cloud covered mountains that bordered the entire lake, it occurred to me that my life has really changed in the last year, for a variety of reasons, a year ago, I would NEVER have been in the situation I found myself in, if I was to go on a holiday, it would have been to the same country, the same state, time and time again, nothing changing, nothing new. Change is good and never settle.

My first frame with the Mamiya, Kodak 400 VC

The story goes like this, according to their folk lore apparently this village had the sweetest smelling tree in all the world, the village elders were so worried the world would come and steal their amazing tree, that they wanted to cover the smell, and so they setup their cemetery next too the tree and to cover the scent of the tree, rather than bury the dead, they would leave them out, the smell of the dead would mask the scent of the tree. Then when Hindu came along they melded the two, the number 11 apparently being a very important number in Hindu belief, they would leave out the 9 most recent bodies, protected either side by two more skulls, thus equally 11. Then, every time a member of the tribe passed away, the would take the oldest skeleton, discard the bones (as they are not considered sacred) and they would place the skull on a large platform, and place the freshly deceased body down to make up the numbers. Something they continue to this day. Apparently most people don't really want to visit a cemetery, especially when the dead are laying in plain view ! And so what follows is a photographic record of what I saw, as a stepped VERY GINGERLY around discarded femurs etc! (and yes, the village was totally comfortable with me taking photos, they saw it as a way of remembering the dead, and were all too happy for me and in fact anybody who wants to visit)

 The most recent burial, about 3 years ago

One of the two skulls either side to make up the number 11

Skulls stored in a bowl to hold offerings from relatives, friends etc.

Rollei Retro 100 35mm (old stock)

 More Rollei Retro (performed pretty well for bargain film)

 Shooting with the Mamiya for the first time was an interesting experience, it wasn't until I got home and had all my negs developed and I scanned them in that I was able to see what worked and what didn't (not like digitals instant gratification) I'll be honest, I didn't get nearly as many great shots as I had hoped, but keeping in mind this was the first time I had shot with such a large camera, and the first time I had been using the Kodak 400 VC film, I consider myself lucky to get 1 good frame per 10 shot roll. Straight away though I noticed a few things,

1) I have been spoilt by Leica M series cameras, their light weight, stupidly fast lenses and lack of mirror means I have gotten used to being able to shoot at shutter speeds that make other cameras weep, I regularly shoot at 1/30th of a second and get sharp images as long as I am steady. With the Mamiya hand-held, pretty much anything beloew 1/125th is not worth shooting.

M6, Ektar 100, 1/30th at f1.1

2) I could have dearly used a couple of film backs for the camera (which I promptly bought as soon as I got home), as I had loaded 100 Ektar into the camera thinking that my favourite film of all time is perfect for such an amazing opportunity, only problem being, there wasn't a lot of light under the trees, as such many of my Mamiya shots were shot at shutter speeds that I know no are literally impossible to shoot hand-held, a few interchangeable backs and I would have been able to throw on some 400 VC in a second.

3) When there is a lot of light, or when I have a tripod (which I will always bring with me if using the Mamiya now) 100 Ektar is without a doubt the most amazing film ever produced, the images from it still amaze me, I know black and white is all the rage, but if you haven't shot with this film in either 35mm or 120, you haven't shot film.

Handheld, Ektar 100, the scanner was the limitation on this frame, not the film

4) the new 400 VC (Vivid Colour) from Kodak is ok, but not my favourite, I think I will continue to hunt for a good fast colour film to use with the Mamiya.

Not bad, but it would have been better on Ektar

So after the cemetery, I decided to get a bit of a feel for the people, so first things first Wayan took me to a small cafe (and I use the term cafe VERY loosely) that served kopi luwak (just google), apart from the fact that this coffee is indeed amazingly good and noticeably different than regular Balinese coffee, the view from this little cafe was without a doubt the best view of any cafe I have ever been too.

Not too bad a view whilst having a coffee, Ektar 100, Mamiya RB 67

Hand roasting the coffee beans before grinding, all the Balinese were happy to have their photos taken

Then on two a place known as the Elephant Temple. Interestingly, as I had recently been to a cemetery I was not supposed to actually touch the 'holy' water, didn't stop me from taking quite a few photos. Interestingly I noticed that as I was walking around, a Japanese tourist carrying a 5D with a VERY large lens, seemed to be following me, eventually I twigged that every time I stopped and took a photo and then moved on, he would, without fail, stop and take the same photo, then continue to follow me. It made me laugh, here was a guy with arguably the most popular DSLR available, chasing a guy around shooting with a camera no longer made on a technology that is supposed to be almost dead!

Buried for hundreds of years, the Elephant Temple was used for meditation by Hindu Monks. Ektar 100, Leica M6

 Accidental Tilt Shift style shot

The Temples local handyman / cleaner, deaf as a post and didnt speak a word of English. 

When then moved on to Ubud, apparently I member of the Royal Family had passed away some months before, and the funeral (quite a big affair) was due to happen in a few weeks. This required that a giant Dragon and Bull be made, one to be used to transport the body to the area for cremation and the other to actually hold the body as it was cremated. Now when I say giant, I mean several stories tall, and they were all to be hand carried (by quite a few people) to the area for the cremation ceremony. We were lucky enough to enter the Royal Palace where the Royal Family was receiving guests just before the gates were closed and no more visitors were allowed in.

 M6 in very low light, nothing can beat it

 Sometimes turning around and shooting the opposite direction to the action leads to an interesting shot

 I just love this shot, especially because I know how little light there was, and that even at 1/15th I got a great shot

Not the smallest funeral casket I have seen...actually, it is!

The Balinese seem to be a very happy bunch, even their funeral ceremonies are quite colourful and somewhat happy. The M6 was a joy to use here, with very little light as it was later afternoon, overcast and we were somewhat indoors, I was able to shoot at 1/30th with Ektar and get reliably sharp shots.

 And then finally, a collection of just some random shots, from the street of Bali etc. 

On a VERY small boat to a cemetary

Cemetary in Terunyan

Prepping our boat, this guy was carrying the gas can.....whilst smoking!

Part of the burial procession for a member of the Balinese Royal Family

Giant Bull to be used to cremate the body of a member of the Royal Family