On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 2:40 PM, Don Guthrie <[email protected]> wrote: >> The old Balda Baldix was cleaned and serviced; I'd picked it up a few >> weeks back. Finally loaded a roll of film and took it out on Saturday >> morning ... >> >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/gdgphoto/8266575646/lightbox > > I consider myself fairly well read on photography new & old but w/o Google I > have never heard of the Balda Baldix. I liked the look of the photo and I > assume you got the results you sought. > > If you will indulge my curious nature, what specifically did this camera > bring to this scene.
Thanks for commenting, Don! Balda made quite a lot of nice, compact cameras once upon a time, but that time was now quite long ago. I first heard of their cameras about a decade and a half ago from a good friend who enjoyed them. Well, first off the very compact nature of the camera when folded makes it a pleasure to slip in my jacket pocket or a small bag when I go for a walk. Combine that with a natural, wide-normal field of view and the kind of focus zone control you can only get with a big negative format (6x6cm in this case), and the "softly sharp" qualities of the Baltar three-element lens. It's simply a pleasantly unsophisticated camera to shoot with at a leisurely pace, and I like the rendering that this lens and 6x6 film produces. It's never going to compete on the nanoparticle resolution scale of modern cameras and lenses ... ;-) ... but I'm moving away from that aesthetic vogue in recent times. In this exposure, I was shooting in the bright, heavily overcast morning light, which spread soft flare across the frame. I set the focus and aperture to slightly blur infinity by 'shorting' the hyperfocal a little bit, looking for the geometry and flare to meld together into a cool, winter morning feel with that sinuous path drawing you towards the light. I've got a few more shots from this roll (about 7 out of 12 exposures seem worth a second glance, maybe one or two more will make the cut for posting) ... I like this pace in photography. 12 exposures a week, whether I need them or not. ;-) -- Godfrey godfreydigiorgi.posterous.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
