dianaschnuth

I hadn’t taken my Starmatic out for a spin for a few years, so I loaded it up and took it for a walk downtown this past August.

Turned out that the Red Ball Project was downtown that day, so I started at the installation at the now-vacant Roulet Jewelers location.

After that, I went back to my plan of heading up Summit Street.

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[Taken 28 June 2012]

I scanned my 11-exposure roll in a single contact sheet, then cropped this image out of that scan, so the focus is just a touch fuzzier than the actual negative since it was in a plastic negative sleeve. The non-square format is due to a double-exposure at the frame edge — as I noted on last year’s test roll, my particular Starmatic experiences some slippage after advancing the film, and I forgot to under-wind to compensate.

If I plan to use my Starmatic on any sort of regular basis, I need to remember that:

1. The camera should be absolutely still. No walking and snapping a blurry photo.
2. I should under-wind the film after each exposure. Otherwise, when the film-advance sprockets slip, I’ll get a double-exposure on the edge of the frame.
3. There is some parallax error — similar to those old rectangular 110 Instamatic cameras, but not nearly that bad. Adjust the subject slightly to the left if you want it centered.
4. Be careful unloading the film! It’s too easy to expose the edges if the film is wound too loosely. Perhaps adjusting the tension on the take-up reel is in order.