BECOMING ADDICTED TO POINT AND SHOOTS
SEPTEMBER 20 2022
In my 25th blog post, this one: link I shared a bunch of point and shoot shots and talked a little bit about having fun with point and shoots. As well as my terrible habit of buying more cameras than I need. Anyway, here I am to talk about another unnecessary camera that I bought and share some of the photos that I took with it.
The camera was a Pentax PC35AF that I found at a yard sale for $6 and I had a love hate relationship with it ever since.
The reason I loved the camera was because it was so cheap and sometimes it created images with really cool light leaks or unintentional blur.
The reason I hated the camera was because the shutter was sticky so I would press the shutter button and then after 5 or so seconds the shutter would actually fire. From what I could tell the meter and shutter speeds were accurate, but it was incredibly inconvenient to have to take the picture before I actually wanted the picture.
There was one shot, the one below, where I clicked the shutter as the skier was skiing down to a jump and I completely missed them in the air. You can actually see them at the bottom of the jump, they’re that tiny little spec.
And here’s an example of a photo that got messed up because of the blur. This could have been my fault but it happened on a few shots and I think it was because I was still pressing the button trying to get it to take the photo when it finally went off.
So why did I even like this camera? I could have just sold it and made some money and not have to deal with the slow shutter. Well, the main reason I kept it was that sometimes it would just make pictures that I fell in LOVE with. Below are some of my favorites. It’s hard to explain why this particular camera could capture scenes that I loved so much more then some of my cameras, but it just did.
However, this came at a cost. I would only get like 4 to 8 decent pictures out of a roll and then if I was lucky, I would get 1 or 2 that I loved. But it wasn’t something I could control. I think it was the camera doing it’s magic and messing up a little bit and capturing beautiful on its own accord.
This was fine for a while, and I happily put numerous rolls of film through that camera. It was always fun to see what it would come out with... how it would interpret a moment because God knows it wouldn’t listen to me when I pressed the shutter.
However, I brought it on a trip with me and due to some unfortunate circumstances, it was my only “reliable” camera. I’ll talk about that trip in a different post and share some of the photos that were taken with the PC35AF in it because it did do a really good job. But having to rely on that camera was tough and the entire time I knew I had better point and shoots back home. The Pentax itself was kind of like a specialty camera that could pull out some really amazing shots but couldn’t be counted on, so when I got back I ended up selling it because it was too specific of a camera to justify keeping.
Here are some teasers from that trip. Like I said the PC35AF did a really good job.
But it was a love hate relationship so the camera had to go. Now how does this all tie in to the title of the post.... gettinig addicted to point and shoots. I would say the PC35AF was the tipping point. It was the first camera I owned where the cameras character really slapped me in the face. It was eye opening in a way... every camera could have it's own unique characteristics or flaws and some might suit me better than others, so, the only valid solution to this discovery was to become addicted to buying point and shoots. But don't worry, I'll make sure to write about all of them :)