When I visited Kelham Island the other week I decided to follow the river downstream to where it skirts the edge of the town centre and shot a number of black and white photos on that leg of the walk. The photo in today’s post shows the scene just upstream from Lady’s Bridge (which you can see peeking into the shot at the lower right).
I received a new film camera in the mail today. An actual, bona-fide brand-new film camera to boot and, no, it’s not a Leica. Quite the opposite infact – it’s a RETO Ultrawide and Slim, which is a copy of the Vivitar Ultrawide & Slim. It’s a toy camera made almost completely out of plastic, including the lens, with the distinctive feature that the lens is a 22mm focal length, hence the “ultrawide” in the name. There have been a number of copies of the original Vivitar version, of which this is the latest.
I’ve not had chance to try it out yet, but the lens is supposedly quite sharp (although what that means in real terms, I’m unsure), but with a dropoff in quality to the edges of the frame, and with a vignette too. I’m a fan of my Holga and the images it produces, so thought this might be fun to try out. It cost me £30, which is probably more than it is worth (especially considering some other cameras I could buy for the same or less) but, well, I’ve spent money on worse things.
When I get around to shooting with it I’ll post some results and maybe a review.
Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 PE & & Ilford FP4+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10mins @ 20°
Taken on 15 January 2021
Steel City Snapper photography 