It’s the one that comes with the camera, it’s the ‘nifty fifty’ and the bog standard prime lense everyone has included in the pack that’s so quickly forgotten and replaced by fancier and more exotic focal lengths.
The invite dropped into my whatsapp in early February last year. Stag-do in Budapest! Long weekend! Now, I’m a habitual traveler, I love traveling and the majority of my photography falls in with that. I shoot quickly and on the move. A stag-do though poses a specific problem… Late nights, (possible) seedy bars, clubs and ‘activities’. So what camera do I take? Do I take my beloved Yashica Lynx? No it’s way too big and obvious despite being perfect for night photography.
I found my perfect Ski camera. It’s light, small and great for Landscapes oh by the way it’s a medium format 6×6 folding bellows camera from the 1950’s. Obviously! The camera takes 120 film and I was shooting Ilford FP4 Plus 125 to account for the brightness of the snow. The photos were taken in Borovets, Bulgaria ski resort in April 2019.
I didn’t buy this camera, I “borrowed” it from my Dad. I wanted a camera I could comfortably take to the beach and in the sea, that could take a bit of an unintentional knock and wouldn’t be likely to get nicked. He offered me his brand new, waterproof Nikon W300 (black and very nice but no RAW files!?). No, I decided I was going (pretty much) all film on this trip and I wanted the Sea & Sea Motormarine.
OK, so full disclosure, I went looking for a rangerfinder thinking I would buy something small, light and discreet as a daily carry that I could slip in my pocket. Something like a Yashica Electro say… As you can see by the title of the review, I didn’t buy one. Being fully mechanical and with an out of this world 45mm, F1.4 leaf shutter lens of the Yashica-Lynx-14 won me over. I mean, look at it…
