Polaroid DS-34 GelCam

This is the latest weird and wonderful addition to my camera collection - a Polaroid/Fotodyne DS-34 GelCam, apparently used to record Gel Electrophoresis.

It's a pretty interesting camera. It takes regular Polaroid/Fuji packfilm (FP-100, FP-3000 etc.). The rollers and stuff were pretty disgusting when I opened it up, but it was nothing a quick wash down couldn't sort out. It has a Tominon 105mm f/4.5 lens on the front with a Copal shutter. Shutter speeds range from 1/125 to 1sec and bulb, and apertures from f/4.5 to f/32. The shutter is actuated by a cable release - the pistol-grip handle on the bottom of the camera has its own cable release built in, but the handle can be removed for mounting the camera to a tripod, and the cable release replaced with a regular bog-standard model. There's also a PC flash terminal with x-sync, which works.

Because it's a rigid body with a large format style leaf shutter, it's basically a fixed macro camera. Focus distance is somewhere in the region of about 30cm. Because it was designed to be mounted to scientific equipment using a fixed lens hood type thing, there's no way of telling whether or not you're in focus. I work out the correct camera-to-subject distance by using a shoelace that I calibrated to the correct distance and marked with a pen.

There's no viewfinder either. You may notice the three bits of gaffer tape on the top - I stuck them on to roughly indicate the angle of view. Not ideal, but it'll do for now I suppose!

The best part of it all? It only cost me about £12 :-)

I'll write a more full and detailed post on the camera once I've got to know my way around it a bit better.

Fandan

You may have noticed it's been quite a while since I last posted a blog entry. This is very bad of me, and a bad habit I seem to get into from time to time - just plain forgetting to keep things up to date.

Since my last post in November, I've undertaken a pretty big step with my photography. I'm now studying towards a BA in Fine Art Photography at Glasgow School of Art, and it's great. I'm now about three quarters of the way through the first year of the course, and actually amazed how time has flown by, seems like no time at all since I first appeared there.

Before I arrived at the Art School, I wasn't really sure what the hell to expect. I'd not managed to go on any of the open days because I'd been in New Zealand, and my only experience of the school had been a few visits to the degree shows. My last experience of any formal art education had been in my standard grade art class at high school, back in 2001 or thereabouts, and even at that I wasn't very great.

Anyway, in spite of the nerves beforehand, I've been managing to cope pretty well so far I reckon. The stuff along the lines of theory and history were what I was most worried about, but thankfully the essays have been pretty short for that, and I don't mind presentations too much.

The general working environment has been quite interesting to get used to as well. Having come from a very task-based environment as an engineer, it's been a bit weird getting used to the more free-flowing way of working in a studio with a pretty open timetable. I have to say, I definitely enjoy the freedom, but it does sometimes make it pretty tricky trying to force yourself to get work done when things are quiet.

The people are good, and a lot easier to get on with than I had expected. Admittedly, there are very few (if any) people who share my taste for a spot of Slayer, but it's nice to be surrounded by lots of people with lots of interesting ideas and different viewpoints. I don't see myself putting on the skinny jeans and buying dubstep records just yet, but being one of those art school fandans isn't quite so bad after all...