#nonssl660

[jeffdwoodward]

Doll Parts

Tattoos photographed on Instax film and scattered on a table.

[juliankai]

Nons SL660 + Lensbaby

I’ve been playing around with the Nons SL660 Instax Square camera combined with my old Lensbaby lens lately and really enjoying it so I thought I’d write a little post about why....

If you follow me on Instagram (@juliankaifilm) or here you’ll know I’m really loving the Nons SL660 camera. I’ve been wanting a full manual Instax camera for a long time and Nons have done a great job with the SL660 and the fact that it has interchangeable lens’ is the icing on the cake (see earlier post for more on the Nons)

I bought the Lensbaby a long time ago and only ever really played with it a few times on my digital camera. It was a bit of fun but of limited use as i don’t tend to shoot digital for my more ‘artistic creative’ work.

The Lensbaby allows you to tilt the lens thereby controlling and manipulating the Depth of Field in creative and unusual ways. 

For me this comes into it’s own when shooting instant film but Ive never had an instant camera (apart from my lovely Polaroid 600SE) that had interchangeable lens’... until Nons came along.

What I used to love about using ‘Impossible Project’ film back in the day was that you never really knew what you’d get as they strived to get the chemistry etc. right. It’s slowly got better and better and they stuff they produced as ‘Polaroid Originals’ and now ‘Polaroid’ is pretty good (tho I’ve not shot any for a while since my SX70s are both broken).

But I loved the artistic photos you’d get from the imperfections. If I wanted perfectly sharp images with accurate colour I’d shoot digital! 

Instax can also be too ‘good’ so adding the Lensbaby really helps create that lomo Holga imperfect feel to the photographs. 

These phone ‘scans’ don’t the photos justice (especially with those dust spots!) 

Was hoping to post a few more photos but Tumblr say NO for some reason! So I’ll post them separately here and over on my Insta.

Looking forward to trying this combo with colour film. 

[juliankai]

Nons SL660 (Part 3 of 3) As a portrait photographer the ability to get a nice shallow depth of field (with my 50mm 1.8) is an exciting prospect and something that is just not possible with other Fuji/Instax cameras however this is more of a challenge if shooting outside on a sunny day. The camera has a max shutter speed of 1/250th and with Instax being an 800iso you’re going to really need to stop down that Aperture in order to get a good exposure. I’m sure there is some understandable technical reason the shutter speed can’t be higher, even 1/500 would be so much more useful. Nons? ND filters are, of course, the answer but with the SL660 light sensor being above the lens, and therefore not affected by any ND on the lens I’d have to do a bit of figuring out/math to get the right settings. The other side of this of course means this camera should be great for indoor and low or atmospheric lighting conditions. I need to do more tests but that is going to be great news as traditionally instant cameras are not great in creative lighting conditions. One thing to get used to (and Nons do warn you of this) is that what you see through the viewfinder isn’t what you get! You are seeing a more cropped in view so your composition will be a fair bit wider than you think. I would never have cut of my subject’s foot in that photo like that!!! I thought I was cropping in tighter, probably closer to the knee and would have composed my shot with much less empty space above her head. By the time I took the photo of Zara on the steps I’d got used to the viewfinder crop and framed accordingly. So that is something to remember and get used to. So far, and I’ve not even shot a whole pack of film yet, I am really enjoying the Nons SL660 and looking forward to using it a lot more. It’ll certainly be my ‘go to’ Instax camera. #nonsSL660 #analoguephotography #instantphotography #believeinfilm #retrophotography #instax #instaxsquare #hitchincreative @nons.camera @instaxhq https://www.instagram.com/p/Ch14uLZrHa4/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[juliankai]

Nons SL660 (Post 2 of 3) The Nons SL660 is a chunky full manual SLR with EF mount. Being a Nikon shooter I have the EF to F mount adapter and have my Nikon 50mm 1.8. You need a lens that allows you to adjust aperture from the lens like in the good old days. The camera feels solidly built and has a lovely real wood side grip which is a nice touch. It has a built in usb rechargeable battery which makes keeping it powered so much simpler & convenient but concerns me as to what happens when the battery fails as I’ve had experience of these built in batteries doing that in the past!! Straight away the cameras life is limited. I’ve only just begun to play around with this camera so I’m sure I’ll have more to say when I’m much more familiar with it, but so far I love it (after the worrying first shot which just came out totally overexposed. Not sure what happened there). The ability to decide for myself what I want the camera to expose on means I can control the photo creatively. There is a built in light meter but I tended to use my light meter app on my phone (or I’ll use my Sekonic L-358 in the future) for more exact results. #nonsSL660 #analoguephotography #instantphotography #believeinfilm #retrophotography #instax #instaxsquare #hitchincreative @nons.camera @instaxhq https://www.instagram.com/p/Ch14XRKrEU5/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[juliankai]

Nons SL660 (Post 1 of 2) My dream of having a full manual instant film camera has been with me ever since it became too expensive to buy the discontinued film for my beloved Polaroid 600SE With Instax film being readily available and relatively affordable I’ve enjoyed using a number of cameras by Fuji, Lomography & Mint but always felt frustrated at the lack of manual control. If you want to make creative interesting photographs YOU need to chose the exposure not the camera choose it. Then a company called Nons created a camera called the SL42, a fully manual SLR with interchangeable lenses that used Instax Mini instant film. Wow! This camera looked like just the thing for me… apart from one thing… I’m not a massive fan of instax mini film for anything other than fun little snap shots! Instax Square film is that much bigger and so much nicer and closer to that wonderful classic Polaroid photo only a bit smaller. If Nons bring out a version of this camera that shoots Instax Square then I’m all over it…. and they did 😀 Cont….. #nonsSL660 #analoguephotography #instantphotography #believeinfilm #retrophotography #instax #instaxsquare @nons.camera @instaxhq #hitchincreative https://www.instagram.com/p/Ch13rrNrkBG/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=