Dead Fish

Dead fish at The Mine's shopping mall canal. 

Kuala Lumpur, December 2012.

I recently got my Yashica Mat-124G repaired, as it was having some really serious lens flare problems. I always knew that the Yashica can produce some truly outstanding images, but it frustrates me that my camera hasn't been able to deliver its capabilities. So when I was down at Hobart last weekend, I asked my friend Karl to take out the lens assembly and give it a good clean, and now the lens is as good as new! Thus it is only responsible for me to bring this beauty out to shoot and fully reach its potential, after it has been crippled from many long years of fogged lens and poor image quality resulting from it.

My shoot today reminded me of the peculiarities of operating a TLR, for instance the left-right inverted viewfinder and position of the shutter speed & aperture knobs. Keep in mind that I was shooting at a rocky coast during sunset (which means I'm time-restricted and had to rush a little), and shooting alongside my Bronica too. I must confess that I haven't been using my cameras enough to be familiar with them. During my shoot today, there was this transient moment when my mind went completely blank and I was stunned. It happened when I switched from the Bronica to my Yashica, I wanted to check the settings, framing and focus and change them, but my mind just went blank and didn't know where to continue or what to do next. It probably lasted for a good 2, 3 seconds, which my mind snapped back and told me settings on top of viewing lens, changed via the two knobs between the lenses; frame with the groundglass on top and focus with your left hand.

Well, guess that I really have to set myself to spend time with only one camera for an extensive period of time before getting myself familiar with other cameras...





Thanks for reading.



Film | Dead Fish
Nikon FA, Fujifilm Superia 200