5 frames of Delivering the Post with a Canon Prima Mini – by Tobias Eriksson

When the pandemic hit I was in the midst of my first winter working as a postman/mailman/brevbärare/whatever-your-preference. For the first four months, I sat on my bottom, all day, every day, driving like a madman.

Well, not entirely. The madman part is true but I had 90 minutes of not-driving in the morning to sort the mail and load the flimsy boxes full of letters and piles of parcels (of cat litter!?) into the boot. And I sat for almost ten minutes in the not-moving car for lunch at around 1:30 pm. For your information, working hours were 7:30 AM to 4:00-ish PM. No longer the early bird work of yore. At least here in Sweden.

Prima Picture-taking

Once in a while, when I needed to lower my heart-rate, I picked up the camera that most days accompanied me, to take a picture. These five frames were made with a Canon Prima Mini automatic compact which sports a 32mm lens. I am not a sucker for the picture-taking capabilities of the camera but it was good enough for the task. When I want a sharp compact I bring my Olympus XA instead, no doubt.

As you can see in the top photo I added a filter ring to the front of the camera. The first roll was a b&w, and I wanted to use my blue and red filters. Actually most of the time I used the screw-on lens hood. To fasten the ring I used a lot of superglue.

All things considered, my experiences using the camera have been very good. It is very easily handled – everything is automatic! The flash is very easily deselected. Battery time is nothing but acceptable.

Film Choice

I had the lab cross-process this Fuji Provia 400f slide film in C-41 negative film chemicals to punch up the colours. And I love the results! The film was gifted to me by a friend who’d gone digital a while back. I did hesitate before deciding to cross-process it – thinking that the colours would go all weird.

Seeing others’ attempts online made me go for it, though. And I’m not sorry. The colours got that extra punch, and the blacks turn pitch-black. Whites don’t burn out, which was my main concern really.

At the same time, I had the lab develop a 35-year-old Ektachrome 64 slide film in the same chemicals. That film turned out more grainy and pale. Possibly due to the fact that I had overexposed it two stops, originally with caffenol development in mind. I suspect that another factor is that older film stocks react differently to the modern slide film (E6) chemicals.

I am glad I survived to share this on 35mmc, along with so many inspiring writers and photographers!

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