Fabrice on Film

A lot of the cameras I use from the 70s to 90s have fluorescent paint in the number or markings on the lenses. I decided to use neon paints to make numbers easier to read on some old lenses, or simply upgrading their looks. 1- I used Ikea Mala paints because they're cheap and come in 5 colors that will react to black light (pink, orange, purple, green and yellow) for less than $10 and have a needle point bottle. But you can also use any acrylic paints. 2-Daub paint on the numbers or letters you wish to paint after putting some tape to cover other areas, avoid making bubbles 3-Scrape excess paint with a piece of cardboard (like a business card, which is flexible). Wipe the other areas either immediately with fingers or qtip or wait for it to be dried to chip it off   4-The painted glyphs will now be more legible under low light and pop out under black light. Here, the orange paint I used very closely matches the one that was the manufacturer used on the zone focusing markings: Yo...

  Browsing the eBay listings, I came upon a medium format foldable camera for which I saw great potential... for being upgraded. Indeed, it seems that every single Medium Format camera of the brand "Zenobia" that I came across have all more or less suffered a similar fate: the leather coverings are chipping and falling off (a similar fate is found on Semi Leotax models and maybe some others).  But what a fantastic opportunity to replace the dying material with brand new clothes! Zenobia before Restoration pt 1 After cleaning the camera, the idea crossed my mind to simply use it as such... but I quickly discarded the idea, as the camera's body was very sharp and very cold... Something strange was discovered when peeling off the old "skin": the makers had used a piece of Japanese newspaper between the leather and the metal of the camera's back. Or maybe this was a way for people during the war to exchange super secret messages? But since the camera was bui...

I was planning on trying a format I have never tried before, the Disc format.  But the Disc camera I have... let's just say it looked a little lame. Not only that, but everyone I talked with except a few experimenters and risk-takers was being critical of my project to shoot Disc format...  Of course, when you see what the cameras look like, I can understand that the gear doesn't appeal to most. So I planned to give it a new look, a look none of these usually boring cameras had ever had before. To make it a little more "wow", a little sexier to use and to be seen with. By luck, I had just ordered some sample iridescent adhesive sticker samplers that I thought would do well and were the right size. I went through the process described in my previous post about the Kodamatic, carefully measuring the protrusions of the camera's body, tracing cutting lines with the AxiDraw V3 and cutting them up with either a cutter and a ruler, hole punchers and an Olfa rotary cutter...

 When I obtained the old Kodak camera, built around 1920-30, in 2020, roughly a hundred years later give or take, it wasn't in great shape. (I'm saying "obtained" because I didn't buy it knowingly, I bought a camera lot and it happened to come with it). The leather cover was very worn, and the outside as well as the inside of the camera was really dirty and grimy. I had no idea how to proceed, but I knew it was possible, so the thought that I could try and replace the leather covers of the camera to give it a new look, a new life, and possibly feel rewarded by the experience started to appear at the back of my head. I had bought replacement leather covers for my cameras before, from a store that sells precut leather stickers, but I had never been able to remove the old leathers (the timer screw on the Pentax ME super just won't come off), and I felt pretty stressed out thinking I might destroy one of my favorite SLRs. But here, the camera had no emotional or f...

I picked up this Kodamatic Nº2 at a flea market for $10, because it looked great and because the shutter fired, but little did I know what challenges it would bring. The bellows had holes in it. The front lens focused at different distances than the ones marked. And it shot 616, a long-lost format. "Challenge accepted" said a little voice inside my head... I tediously sprayed the bellows with black sealant for two months. I measured the focus and corrected the distance markings using a laser rangefinder. Oh, and I designed and 3D printed adapters to fit 120 film inside it. Turns out the hard work paid off: the photos are simply beautiful! Largest negatives I've ever shot (61x108mm).