Getting Soaked and Lovin' It
Rainy adventures with the Minolta Weathermatic and other updates...
This morning I ventured out of my hermit cave here in Cardiff to enjoy the benefits of getting absolutely soaking wet…
Hang on, benefits?
You can’t possibly mean that, what good does getting soaked do for you?
So it’s Saturday and most days when it rains this much, I stay inside. But recently I’ve been walking a lot more, getting out a lot more and it’s done wonders for the mind and body. So I didn’t want to hide away today from the weather.
I wanted to embrace it.
And I also had the perfect camera combination to take out with me.
The Minolta Weathermatic 110 camera and the GoPro Hero 7 Black.
As you do, I was browsing ebay for film photography deals a while back. And I found this Weathermatic 110 camera plus 8 rolls of film that was on bid at 13 gbp. I offered 15 and the seller accepted! Maybe they wanted rid of it but worked out for me!
I was 100% expecting the camera to be broken but hey at least I’d get some 110 film out of it for my Premiere Mini 110 camera. I’ve been wanting to do a 110 video for such a long time now!
When it showed up on my doorstep, I was surprised everything seemed to be in order.
But now for the real test. The weather test! Well, and the film test too of course.
I loaded up a roll of Lomography’s Orca black and white 110 film, kitted myself up with the most waterproof jacket I have complete with hat to cover my glasses and strode out into the elements without an umbrella.
An umbrella would have complicated things as I was aiming to vlog as well! Usually I avoid this type of situation vlogging because with my phone or camera, I worry about them getting wet and ruined or broken.
BUT today I fired up the GoPro :)
It felt really good.
Hardly anyone was out on the streets and if they were, they had hoods drawn or umbrellas up and were rushing from cover to cover.
I’m realizing that while telling you this story which I’ll share tomorrow, I won’t have any results to show you yet because I need to send the film off to the lab! Not to worry, I’ll share with you some other images from a recent festival I have for a video that won’t come out just yet.
Anyways, while everyone was rushing around me to get out of the rain, I meandered along, staying dry underneath my coat and cap while snapping with the Minolta Weathermatic and filming on the GoPro.
Both soaking wet, both still operational. So far, so good.
My last test for the camera was to submerge it completely. I did this is the Taff River in Bute Park while also submerging the GoPro to capture the action. How fun!
It was almost as if the rain was no object. I became comfortable in the weather and actually started enjoyed the walk and vlog.
This of course sparked a lot of thoughts and reflections about why I usually stay indoors and avoid the weather when I could be getting out which is much healthier. Maybe I use the rain as an excuse to stay inside because its cozier, easier, and a tad lazier. I’m also talking about using the rain as an excuse to stay inside all day and not go out at all, not just for a portion.
If the camera survives and the film roll comes out okay, I’d love to take it out a lot more. What a relief not to be worried if the camera is getting wet and hiding everything under an umbrella! How liberating to go out in just a jacket and a cap and enjoy a nice walk!
So, that was my Saturday morning. How was yours? What have you been up to? What have you been shooting?
Youtube Updates
I’ve gone a bit up and down with Youtube at the moment, but I have started editing a lot of my videos on my phone, which makes things so much easier. I can import videos from cameras onto my phone with the help of an extra Micro SD card I’ve slotted in there. Androids are amazing for this capability. It’s given me an extra 128GB of space on my phone.
Using the free version of Capcut has also been a breeze.
In one of my substacks before, I talked about trying cut down on Youtube because of how much time it takes to make a video, about 10-15 hours. With editing on my phone now, it’s been an easier and quicker process. It’s also been more fun!
Here are a couple of recent videos I’ve released:
Other Recent Film Adventures
Making Prints!
I’ve been printing!
I finally got myself together to have a print session in the flat. After struggling for the first couple hours, the process became easier and I ended up with one print that I really love. It was a process of familiarizing myself all over again with the equipment.
So now, I’m excited to have more of these sessions and create more prints!
It’s an off-screen hands-on process and I am looking to add more of this into my time and decrease the screen time as much as possible.
Here’s the end result (please ignore the accidently folded matte, I’m getting a replacement)!
A Very Welsh Festival
A short while ago, I brought the Canon Rebel K2 to Cardiff’s annual welsh only festival called TAFWYL. No idea what anyone was saying but it was still enjoyable. There was music, food, people, etc. The usual festival stuff!
I shot two rolls of film, one from This Is How I Roll which was respooled Kodak XX and one CatLabs 320 X Pro film! I’ve made a video about the Double XX film so will save that for later, but here are some of the CatLabs images!
This roll came out MUCH better than my first roll of CatLabs that I shot in a Bessa L about a year or so ago. It was absolutely ruined.
But these came out nice and I’m really loving the film!
I processed this roll in Bellini D96 developer and scanned them using the Pixl Latr and my Fujifilm X-H1. Something different this time though, I imported the RAW files onto my phone and converted using Lightroom mobile Premium (I downloaded the free trial and have subsequently deleted it).
They still came out nice! But I begrudge paying any money to Adobe so I will have to figure out a free solution to converting them on the Android. Maybe if I scan them as JPEG files but then they might be harder to convert and edit. Hmmm….any suggestions are welcome!
Well, that’s all for today! Let me know what you have been up to recently?
Cheers,
Molly