TLR 35mm Camera Kit - €14ish

TPD

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/twin-lens-reflex-35mm-tlr-camera-diy-assembly-kit-58243

Not sure how popular this type of gear is, but it looks pretty decent for the price, compared to a Diana my sister bought a few years ago for €50+.

A Holga 35mm TLR is €50 on lomography.com at the minute.
Someone on the DX forum mentions that gakken tlr camera, which this seems to be / be a copy of. It sells for about double the price on other websites.

I've ordered one anyway, might be a bit of fun when it arrives in a few months :P

Oh, assembly required :pac:

Effects

Looks similar to the blackbird that they sell. By they I mean lomo. My sister got me one for xmas in 2009 and I still haven't finished a roll of film in it. Might have to do that. €14 quid seems pretty good value even if it doesn't last long.

DaireQuinlan

Yeah It's a knockoff of the GakkenFlex camera that came with the japanese Gakken kit magazines. It's actually better than the (not LOMO, superheadz) blackbird fly in that you can focus with it, the blackbird fly is fixed focus. Also quite a bit less expensive (as in, about 10x if you pick this up).

Definately worth a punt if you're interested. I've gotten some nice shots from the original gakkenflex ...

Ghost Train

Cheers, remember the talk about these before, just bought one

Monty Burnz

You can get a nice Ikoflex with a Zeiss Tessar lens or a Yashica TLR on the 'Bay for €50 which can deliver cracking results, but it can be a bit of a lucky dip of course...

artyeva

with this one can you remove the mask and expose over the sprocket holes, like the BB fly i wonder?

DaireQuinlan

artyeva wrote: »

with this one can you remove the mask and expose over the sprocket holes, like the BB fly i wonder?

Not with the gekkenflex anyhow, the mechanics of this one might be a little different, it's wider than the gakkenflex for a start. You can jimmy up a mask and shoot square if you want though.

Arciphel

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

... the blackbird fly is fixed focus.

No it is manual focus, it's just the Viewfinder lens that is fixed focus. You set your focus by estimating the distance to your subject. Think it lets you set from 0.3 metres to slightly past infinity on the focus scale.

gloobag

I did a search for photos taken with this camera on Flickr, as I wouldn't mind messing about with film, but wasn't at all impressed with what I saw.

They seem to be extremely soft throughout the image, not like DaireQuinlan's photos above which look quite cool. Maybe it was the photographers more than the actual camera, but I could not find one image that didn't look like it was completely out of focus. Is this the way it's supposed to be or what???

DaireQuinlan

Do a flickr tag search for 'Recesky' for (I think) this version of it. Tag search for gakken or gakkenflex will get you shots from the original. Not -too- much difference between them from what I can see. I tended to take my shots without the removable aperture disk as well, so 'wide open' , or somewhere between f/8 and about f/5.6 or so I roughly worked out. With the disk in it's about f/11 or so. It's certainly -possible- to take reasonably sharp images with it, at least in the centre of the frame. It's just a simple one element plastic meniscus lens though so it deteriorates pretty rapidly toward the edges of the frame.

artyeva

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

Not with the gekkenflex anyhow, the mechanics of this one might be a little different, it's wider than the gakkenflex for a start. You can jimmy up a mask and shoot square if you want though.

aw pity. i might wait till mr artyeva leaves the credit card unattented and splash out on a 'sprocket rocket' so.

TPD

My TLR hasn't arrived yet, it's in dublin at the minute. Another diy film camera has come onto dealextreme though, this one is a stereoscopic 3d 135 format film camera, which can also do panoramic shots.

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/pinhole-3d-twin-lens-reflex-tlr-film-camera-diy-assembly-kit-65009

In case anyone's interested.

Edit: From searching about, it seems this is a pinhole camera, without lenses. Dealextreme must have their info wrong.

DaireQuinlan

TPD wrote: »

My TLR hasn't arrived yet, it's in dublin at the minute. Another diy film camera has come onto dealextreme though, this one is a stereoscopic 3d 135mm film camera, which can also do panoramic shots.

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/pinhole-3d-twin-lens-reflex-tlr-film-camera-diy-assembly-kit-65009

In case anyone's interested.

If it's anything like the Gakken 3d camera then it's a pinhole camera, no lenses. Flickr set here ...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ren-on/sets/72157626145959494/

Quality probably isn't the best. 35mm isn't really big enough a format for pinhole. If you're interested in something similar there's a Holga stereo pinhole camera that takes 120 (6x6cm) that would probably produce pretty nice results.

-edit- Woops, TPD beat me to the punch there.

Ghost Train

TPD wrote: »

My TLR hasn't arrived yet, it's in dublin at the minute. Another diy film camera has come onto dealextreme though, this one is a stereoscopic 3d 135 format film camera, which can also do panoramic shots.

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/pinhole-3d-twin-lens-reflex-tlr-film-camera-diy-assembly-kit-65009

In case anyone's interested.

Edit: From searching about, it seems this is a pinhole camera, without lenses. Dealextreme must have their info wrong.

Got a letter revenue today saying customs & excise is holding the package, they want to see paypal receipt, shouldn't be charged anything given the price but hopefully will be released soon

Another diy camera, nothing too exciting
http://cgi.ebay.ie/Lomo-Holga-DIY-Plamodel-28mm-Wide-135-Camera-Model-Kit-/280587342444?pt=UK_Photography_Film_Cameras_ET&hash=item41544f126c
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gvelasco/sets/72157622323365809/with/3950900851/

Ghost Train

Received it today, ordered it on the 10th of march

TPD

Mine says 'sent to customs' on the order tracking thing. Lucky they didn't send the €30 torch to customs, it arrived in Dublin on the same day.

TPD

Received and put it together today. Had some trouble with the shutter mechanism, a couple of screw holes were meant to be indented, but weren't. Had to dremel those. Also the shutter lever on the front had to be put on backwards, wouldn't work the usual way. And, I've one gear left over, guessing I'll have to go back and put that in somewhere.

Ghost Train

Got mine together too, think i did it right. Frame counter thing doesn't work well though. Hard to keep steady when releasing shutter, haven taken a few shots so should find out soon if it worked ok

Looking at this video my shutters not working right

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRvQZpymfRM

TPD

My shutter seems to work, but the frame counter is pretty useless. I've been guessing how far to turn each time. Using a roll of film my sister had lying around, expired in 2006. Should be interesting.

aidanic

I have yet to open the box that arrived on Thursday! Anyway, some additional links for help

http://www.feelingnegative.com/camerabag/gakkenflex-the-review

http://www.flickr.com/photos/agricola/sets/72157623186558154/with/4273591722/

Ghost Train

here's two of the first photos I took, not the sharpest looking, still haven't figured out how to get the shutter working the way it should... sort of sticking

aidanic

aidanic wrote: »

I have yet to open the box that arrived on Thursday! Anyway, some additional links for help

Eventually started to make up the camera last week with my nephew.

Wow! The DX camera is a cheap knock off of the cheap knock off (Recesky) of the original Gakkenflex.

The 'A' part of the sutter release is very weak, and I had to strengthen it quite a bit. Focus, as Ghost Train shows, is pretty crap - I have yet to burn up a roll in it. There are a couple of screws missing, which don't help, although I did get the shutter to work OK. The frame counter is not working at all.

I'll see if I can post a few "build photos", and some results later this week.

Monty Burnz

Sorry to butt in again, but if you are after a decent TLR, brilliant cameras like the YashicaMat are ten a penny on Ebay. Good enough for professional use, and tough.

Of course, if it's just about the fun of sticking together a camera and getting interesting results then it's a whole other thing.