I’m half dead when I’m typing this at around 1am. Forgive me if what you are reading here doesn’t make any sense to you. I only found time to do these a couple of hours ago after Fitzand went to bed. It is usually late at night that I have time on my own to do my own stuffs. Why? Let’s just say I have some very ‘capable’ people in my life. Hahaha. Forget it. I’ve no time to get pissed now. Just like I try avoid people who bore me nowdays … I’ll try avoid getting mad at people who won’t give in to change. Period.
Take a look at these …
Do they look any cool? You can stop reading now if you think they are crap. Hahaha. These are actually test shots from something I just ‘made’. I’m too weak to try get better test shots … so these will have to do for the moment.
Ever heard of Through The Viewfinder photography? It’s usually called TTV for short. As the name suggests … TTV is the type of photography where you actually take a photograph of what you see through the viewfinder of another camera (let’s call it Cam2). Some of othe more common Cam2 used for TTV are like the Kodak Duaflex and the Ensign Ful-vue … most probably because they have a convex glass as a viewfinder.
Camerapedia’s definition of TTV …
TTV is the abbreviation for “through the viewfinder photography”. It’s a widespread idea to revive old photographic optics without needing film. Therefore a digital camera is focused onto the viewfinder ocular of an old box camera with a big bright viewfinder. Thus images can be made which give an idea of how once our forefathers have seen the World through the viewfinders of their cameras.
Here’s how I made my TTV ‘lens’ …
Bought this Ful-vue camera recently at a pretty good price (after bargaining!). It’s in pretty good condition and even the shutter seems to work. I’m sure the shutter speed ain’t accurate at all, considering the age of this cam but since I ain’t gonna load film in it … it doesn’t matter.
Here’s what we are supposed to photograph … the image on the viewfinder.
While it may sound simple … photographing what’s on the viewfinder … there are some other ‘problems’. By photographing the image on the viewfinder, you are bound to get all sorts of reflections on that piece of glass (aka viewfinder). We won’t want that to happen. Right? So I started hunting around for some long-ish box at home but was only able to find this cool looking cylinder thingie that used to contain a bottle of yummy booze. Hehehe. The booze is long gone though.
What I wanted to do was to ‘mount’ the camera at the base of the cylinder (or any long-ish box) … making sure there are no reflection or stray light on the viewfinder when I point the camera from the other end of the cylinder/box.
As usual … no proper tools … I used a pen knife and cut hole somewhere near the base of the cylinder. I roughly estimated the size … making sure the camera can be shoved in and the viewing lens is not obstructed.
Push … push … shove … shove … and the camera is in! You might notice the viewing lens (the one on top) seems to be partially blocked … but since the image on the viewfinder ain’t blocked at all … I was too lazy to fix it.
This image below shows how it looks like inside the cylinder. Can you see the image on the viewfinder? Oh yeah! That’s what I needed! I taped up the sides of the viewfinder to minimize any reflections from those other shiny parts on the camera later.
More tapes used to cover up those exposed areas beside the Ful-vue camera.
Found this unused old draw-string bag and it was awesome! It now not only allows me to safely ‘poke’ my lens from the top of the cylinder … but I’ll also be able to ‘tighten’ the top so that no stray light can get in!
Tada! It’s that simple and it’s really fun. Hope I can find time to go take some more test shots with this freaky cam tomorrow. I’m sure people will be staring when they see this mad guy with a weird camera. Argh! Just hope the cops won’t come running after me.
Okay … now tell me … do you understand (at least a bit) of what on earth I was typing above? Hahahaha! I’ve to go sleep now … or else I’ll proabably drop dead.
* Sorry if there are 10 times more spelling/grammar mistakes than usual in this entry
Good night … 🙂