To date, I have put three rolls of film through my Mamiya C220, with differing results. I’ve used a long expired roll of Kodak (1999), a black and white LOMO film, Earl Grey I think it was and a LOMO colour film, all ISO 400.
Here is an example from the expired film:
This was taken outside Jephson Gardens in Leamington Spa on a fairly overcast day. The colours are, well, a bit odd really, which is to be expected from a film 14 years out of date that hasn’t been stored particularly well, the sky in particular, it was very white but has turned out a sort of woodchip wallpaper painted with magnolia emulsion colour.
A second example from this film is of a canal, taken from the A423 approaching Southam from Banbury:
Again, the sky isn’t right, it has an almost apocalyptic feel about it I think. I would have been much happier with this if I hadn’t caught the barrier in the bottom right, it wasn’t in the viewfinder, so that’s something I learned from taking this particular image.
The next image was taken at Southam Church. I was quite pleased with this one, especially as I was using my Canon Digital SLR as well and took a lot with it, only to find that my memory card wasn’t in the camera, it was at home sticking out of the side of my laptop!
On this one of the church I did manage to frame everything a little better and was becoming a more used to allowing for the difference between what was in the viewfinder and what was actually going on to the film.
My next film through the camera was black and white and I once again found myself at a church, this time in Birdingbury, Warwickshire. The sun was going down and I thought I’d try and see what I could get with my back to the church itself, looking back towards the entrance:
The focusing is out, but I don’t mind that too much as it is in keeping with the light coming through the trees I think.
Here is the actual church, I was hoping for a bit more definition on the shadows from the trees if I’m honest about it, and a bit more contrast, but I could fix that digitally if I really wanted to.
The third film was the fresh colour Lomo film. The following is a picture of my Dad, looking rather stern, which he really isn’t, but he was caught unawares when I took the picture. I was concentrating on framing Dad rather than anything else, which is why the house appears to have fallen over, but I don’t mind that, odd angles are sometimes interesting.
The next is the Bandstand in Leamington Spa, I would probably straighten this one up a bit but all these images are straight out of the camera and show where I need to work on certain things to get better composition, exposure, focusing etc. I’m quite happy to highlight my own shortcomings!
I do enjoy this camera very much, particularly as it is entirely manual. I also really love cocking the shutter rather than having it done for me when I wind the film on, I don’t know quite why I take such pleasure in it, I just do, Also, the ground glass viewfinder is nice and bright, really quite lovely to behold.
I still have a lot to learn to get the best that I can out of the camera, but it has quickly become one of my favourites.
