A friend of mine had a look at my pictures on Flickr and the first feedback I got was "from these photos I can tell you're really tall". True, in Japan I am taller than the average. I've been shooting the 35mm focal length almost exclusively for the past two years and slowly I am finding out what works and what doesn't.
I noticed that it's just wide enough to cause problems if you don't hold it parallel to what you're shooting. Considering that I started kneeling a lot when taking shots to avoid the "shoulder height" point of view in my shots. Interestingly my friend still noticed that a lot of my shots are taken from too high up.
The easy way to force me to shoot lower would be to use TLR or a Hasselblad. I don't want to have too much gear and especially I don't want to start shooting medium format film regularly due to the increased cost in developing and scanning, not to mention the film itself. So I did some research and found the Blackbird Fly toy camera. Obviously no comparison to a Rolleiflex or Mamiya but good enough to test it out and see if I like it. I managed to get one on Yahoo Auction here in Japan for around 5000 yen. It takes 35mm film and shoots normal 35mm 2x3 frames but vertically. If you leave the mask out it also exposes the sprocket holes.
Toy cameras can be a lot of fun. You don't know what you will get and people don't take you seriously on the street. Most people don't even know that the thing is a camera. I really enjoyed shooting it, but the mirror image in the finder takes some time to get used to. Also focusing with this camera is a pure guessing game. If I would have to guess the focal length I'd say it's around 35mm. The lens is made out of plastic and flares like crazy. There are no light leaks but you really have to avoid shooting into the sun with this thing. Other than that it's a lot of fun. This time I ran through a roll of Superia. Next time I'll try some Tri-X and slide film and see how that works.
Major flare. Just keep the sun behind you at all times.
