Oh boy folks, this is a strange one, in which yer Sheephouse discovers his brain is wired in a very strange way.
I know what you're thinking (and probably have been thinking for a while).
You're thinking:
"Ee's never content, not 'im.
That geezer has more sense than money, or should that be the other way around.
'Ee's a Nutter!"
And why would I be thinking that you're thinking that?
Well . . I've been spending again.
Y'see, during some mad, drunken, lockdown thinking, I thought I'd take up something I had always wanted to do (and was I the only one? Erm NO!)
The thinking was:
Why not learn to Play The Banjo?
Bonkers I know, blame it on Flatt & Scruggs And The Foggy Mountain Boys and The Beverley Hillbillies, but once the seed was planted I could not get over it.
Anyway, I sourced one (a lovely Deering Picking Earl if you want to know) and a new case too (which, when it arrived slightly damaged [the case, not the banjo] I was told to "just throw away". I didn't - I repaired it and it was fine).
However, try as I might (and even though I got not bad at it) I just couldn't get used to the difference in size between a guitar neck and a banjo neck - my hand hurt all the time and something had to give.
Seeing as I have played guitar since 1974, it had to be the banjo - which was a great shame really.
The story has a happy end though - it is in a new, happy home playing Grunge/Bluegrass, so all is right with the world.
Anyway, the money that had been tied up in that chunk of wood, skin and weird resonaterey stuff, has now been sunk into lots more film; a B60 Polariser; an A16 back for the Hasselblad; AND on a whim, a prism finder for the 'Blad too.
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| Kong Or Godzilla - You Decide |
After some extensive reading on prisms (oh the sheer excitement!) it was either a NC2 or a PM.
I watched and waited as usual, but nothing decent was around, until, one day, I discovered a PM45 - the final iteration of the Hasselblad unmetered prism (with those seemingly important these days [go figure] two blue stripes.)
"Oooooh!" I thought, and it was within the budget, so I bought it.
Now if you Google these you'll see there are sellers wanting over £500 for one.
This is utter madness.
Mine was considerably less than that, and that is probably their worth.
They're beautifully made, certainly, but £500????!!!!
I dunno, the world has gone to pot - everyone is so greedy, and in the case of accessories, deranged.
Anyway, it arrived.
Perfect condition, great optics and, when properly focussed on an Acute Matte, a surprisingly bright and cohesive image.
And the "Right" way around too.
The only problem was,
NOTHING LOOKED RIGHT!
It is true.
Not a sausage.
I think decades of viewing square bɘƨɿɘvɘɿ images (as has been the case with Rollie, Mamiya, Minolta, Hasselblad [and don't forget a long time immersed in the reversed, upside down oblong of 5x4]) has wired my brain to view the world in that orientation.
Obviously this is not the case with general living, only when using a camera.
Crickey - I'd be up a creek if that were so.
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| The Gates Of Delerium |
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| Not What It Actually Looks Like Simply Because The Rubber Bit Got In The Way This Is Heavily Cropped, But The Right Way Round |
Thinking about it weirdly (as usual) it probably defines why I never felt quite at home with the Pentax 67 or the Koni-Omega (right way prism view and rangefinder respectively) and, if truth be told, I still find life hard using a 35mm camera.
The latter I find quite a strange thing to say too, because I cut my teeth on an Olympus OM10 and a Pentax K1000, before gearing up to the back-to-front big boys with the Mamiya C330F.
Obviously after all this time, my M2 and F's are second nature to use, but I have had a nagging thing at the back of my mind for a while, about giving up 35mm altogether and I am wondering whether the polarised viewpoint I have just encountered with the Hasselblad, has maybe been brewing for years.
I don't actually know.
All I do know is that it feels uncomfortable viewing the right-way-round world through the PM45 and yet switching back to the wrong-way-round WLF feels like putting on an old pair of house-trousers that I'll never throw out.
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| Sanity Is Restored |
It's a weird one isn't it.
Maybe you feel the same way, maybe you don't.
It is probably just me.
I think that being forced to view a reversed image makes one concentrate more on the image. If I remember rightly Ansel (or one of the Pantheon Of Analogue Gods) wrote something, somewhere, about the meditative effect of viewing a ground glass.
I think there is definitely something to it, and no matter what, me and those trousers have come a long way together.
Before re-reviewing this post I got the whole set-up out again and did more comparisons; things felt better this time, but not intuitive or comfortable, and I am also wondering whether the new sheer hulk of the 500C/M with the PM45 is contributing to my feelings.
It has turned something already quite big, yet strangely svelte, into something more akin to a bucket of concrete.
This being said the view is impressively bright, and like old bud Bruce at the Online Darkroom has said (with regard to his Rollei SL66) a prism on a MF camera is probably something more suited to tripod handling.
He's probably right.
I think I'll stick with the day-to-day, off-kilter world of composition with a reversed image, AND the lovely element of surprise when you view your newly developed negatives with what (to that point) had been in your mind's eye as totally reversed.
I need to do more work . . . or get out more.
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| More Sanity Restored |
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| Personally I'd Go With Godzilla, I Was Never A Kong Fan |
And that as they say, is that.
A nice quick one today.
No proper photographs posted because I haven't actually taken any since February - I dunno, I find it hard to justify 'self' time when I've got nearly 60 square metres of wall space to decorate, plus the woodwork.
Madness.
Till next time, take care and watch out for The Atomic Breath.
H xxx
