uh
so i want to talk to you about my first camera that made me money which coincidentally was also
my first camera and before we get to that i need to explain the the context of this it was 2010 i
was doing my master's in physiology in cardiff and i was getting a bit bored of science so i i went
and did a photo shoot and i photographed mukfly who were a band at the time i did it for magazine
cover for a friend of mine who was double booked what made some horrific mistake and i borrowed a
camera from my housemate and i got my friend then who had the job to settle the lights up
set the camera up and all i had to do was point and click and it went swimmingly well considering
um but then sometimes ignorance is bliss and i didn't know what i didn't know and that
was probably quite calming for me i was like great i clicked the button it all looks good
they did some wicked photoshop and then the image went to some small magazines somewhere
but that's by the buyer i got hooked on it straight away so i did some research being a
scientist postgraduate i did a bit of research and i discovered that sensor size is king
and at the time the 5d mark 1 was the camera to get but it was three and a half thousand pounds
and i had about 400 pounds so that wasn't an option so what i ended up buying was a bronica sri
eqs let me find our way there etrs there we go so this this is this is her um she's currently
rocking a 3d printed wine looks like i lost it i've got a prism viewfinder it's a 645 medium
format film back i've got a 75 millimeter lens with an extension tube because i like to get close
and then this cable hanging off it's obviously not a tether cable because it's film it's a pc
sync cable so i can fire my flashes let me just pull this part of it so this is the
camera i bought and the reason i bought it was i couldn't afford full frame but i could afford
medium formats that's the sensor size that silver bit there that is how big the bit of film is and
i thought that if i could shoot the film develop it myself and then scan it in at the university
by sneaking into the photography area i'd get better image quality which i did now this whole
camera is great it's modular so the back comes off and you can at one point i had like six of these
and i'd have them loaded with various different films if i was out shooting i could change the
film stock i had or the iso whatever it may be uh the prism comes off the tops this is the
the bit you view through it's basically a poor man's hassle blood
um i guess it's the best way to describe it or maybe even a poor man's vermeer not even a
which is a poor man's hustle blood and then the lens comes off the front it's a very simple system
it has a leaf shutter so you can synchronize flash at all of the shutter speeds which go to a
whopping 500 and all the way down to eight seconds it has an aperture ring on here and that's it
the light meter has never worked i got it for 200 pounds and they threw in five rolls
of hp4 by ilford and it's a pretty basic bit of kit but i love it and one of the things
i've started recently is using this camera to do some personal work and the reason is this
i work as a photographer which is great it is my hobby but my work is very stressful and
the the numbers involved in it and the figures involved and the money involvement are very big
which adds its own pressure and weight and even when i'm doing personal work it needs to be on
brand so i don't ever get to go i'm going to go and photograph my cat because i don't have the
time to do that but i'm now making the time so once a week i'm going to the dark room with my
camera and i'm going to be shooting one roll of film each week developing it printing it maybe
scanning it if it's color unless i can get around to printing color and just sort of trying to find
that enjoyment and just exploring photography again and if you want to see more of this and
if you want me to talk you through it and show some maybe behind the scenes and bits of it and
let me know in the comments below i'm not sure if it's of interest or not but i thought
i'd share it with you on this platform anywhere because i don't really have anywhere else to
share it with with it being film and all but anyway that is my first camera and for the 200
pounds i spent on it i probably made 10 grand i was shooting headshots portraits and this was
before film was cool film had only just died out the canon 5d original was like the camera which
made the masses move to digital because suddenly you could get full frame at a affordable price
um but i couldn't afford it and i've always used like community dart creams i couldn't use one
called lester lo-fi which is based in leicester the city i am and it's every wednesday i think
it's like six till nine on a wednesday evening so that that's where i tend to be on my wednesdays
um yeah it's been a great camera i've had it you know for 12 years before that i've made the 80s
i'm guessing it is cheap it's affordable the image quality is amazing i have shot magazine covers i
have shot editorials i've i shot a billboard on it i think it was either on that or on a
mia 6'7 but i shot a billboard on one of them in like very recent years before i moved into
food and i was doing portraits and work with musicians and brands like that and fashion work
um and it's been a great camera and i would thoroughly recommend if you find that you need
that little bit more escapism in your photography because it has become a profession that this is a
great way to go about it because it slows you down you have to wait you have to be patient
even from like shooting in the day having no idea if my lighting was right my exposure was right
getting out to the dark room the evening developing the color film then having to
wait for the following day to be in the studio to then be able to scan it in and see what i've got
and i find that quite enjoyable rather than the instant shoot view it in capture one get sign off
move on and it's a very different pace of life it's a very different way of working and i'm
thoroughly enjoying it i also think it's making my lighting better because i was doing like a
i had like five lights out last week and i was lighting it purely with a light meter and using
this weird scale that we use which i can go into detail if you want in another video but
it really helped me i managed to light it and it came out exactly how i wanted it to
despite not being able to see what it would look like until i developed the film anyway that's my
first camera what was yours what did you get first what was the first camera you got and
why did you buy it let me know in the comments below cause i'd love to see see you later bye