The first time I saw a picture of the Konica Pearl II, I knew one was in my future. It had the right balance between art and machine; what little I had read about it was decidedly positive. My quest for a Pearl grew from my desire to shoot with a medium-format folding camera. My Yashica Mat 124 and Minolta Autocord had sold me on medium format; however, both are not cameras one just grabs, heading out the door. Having fallen in love with medium-format images, I wanted a more portable way of obtaining them.
Finding something that worked and was within my budget took a few months. In the meantime, I had to return two Minolta Semi Ps because they did not work. My fortunes changed when an 85-year-old collector put up his gems for sale, and I grabbed the Pearl II. I loaded it with Lomo 100 CN soon after it arrived (that was nearly 18 months ago). Three weeks ago, I finally had a chance to take my Pearl for its long overdue outing.
Five years into the VMLP, I’ve shot a lot of cameras, but I’ve only used folding cameras a few times. Folders from the 50s take some getting used to. The only one in my collection with double exposure prevention has never made it off the shelf. The Pearl II has nothing to prevent one from firing away. Blank frames are the other side of the double-exposure coin. It’s easy to get caught up in shooting—setting the aperture, setting the shutter speed, cocking the shutter, focusing—and lose track of whether one has advanced the film. On my initial Pearl outing, I had only one double exposure but three blank frames. The blanks happened when I couldn’t remember whether I had advanced the film, so I did it (again) just to be safe.
Nothing I’ve said so far is peculiar to the Pearl II. The really jarring feature of the Pearl II is the shutter button/door release. The door release on the Pearl II is exactly where the shutter button is located on every other camera I have held. It even looks and feels just like a shutter button. The shutter release, oddly, is on the camera lens compartment door—yes, the one that swings open to release the bellows. Releasing the shutter requires that one use the left index finger, and as a rightie, this left-handed release was a difficult adjustment. Muscle memory often led me to put my right index finger on the door release, thinking it was the shutter. I would press it, then wonder why the shutter didn’t fire. Then, I would pause, look at the camera quizzically, and then finally remember the shutter button was on the door.
Camera shake was a problem because, in my usual shooting workflow, I steady the camera with my left hand while slowly releasing the shutter with my right index finger. With the Pearl II, I had to remember to steady the camera with my right hand while pressing the shutter with my left index finger. I forgot far more times than I remembered, so frames shot in the shade or slower shutter speeds are blurred.
The red film window was the final fumbling block. I was out in the brightest part of a sunny day, and my previous forays with folders had been partly or entirely cloudy days. Well, on this day, I forgot to close the door’s viewing window and got a light leak from it as a reward.
If all I’ve written sounds like I don’t like my Pearl II, nothing could be further from the truth. I love it! The few frames that turned out okay look great. This outing was an object lesson in “practice makes perfect.” Perhaps I will shoot nothing but folders for a few weeks until I get some level of muscle memory going. Whatever happens, you’ll read about it.
I had one folder, an Agfa, and many of the issues you mentioned also annoyed me as well. But I may have overcome them, if the images were good. They were not. The photos I get from my Ricohflex Dia TLR blow them away. But TLRs are bulky. I’m not that sold on medium format that I’d try another folder, but the Lomo C-LA 120 does intrigue me.
My outings with the Minolta Semi Ps turned out much better. The images are sharp and the cameras are lighter and don’t have an odd shutter button. Oddly, having to guess subject distance ended up being faster than using a rangefinder.
I love my TLR images, but lugging them around is a pain.
Oh, I agree. Lugging TLRs are indeed a pain.
But I guess what I’m trying to say is that medium format in general hasn’t done much for me, at least for the type of shooting I do. I’ve gotten spoiled with the prices one can pay on 35mm cameras and get great images–and the economy of 36 frames to a roll. I’ve liked the images from my Diacord, but I only get 12 frames, and most labs scan 120 film at a similar resolution to 35mm, so the advantage of “bigger negatives” is lost. Yes, you get better depth of field, but again, not always something I’m going after.
I will be lugging around the Diacord tomorrow. The cherry blossoms (sakura) are off the hook right now, and that’s something worthy of capturing in 120.
The medium format advantage shows up much better in scanning. Cropping is easier because so much detail is present. My Autocord images are amazing at 100%. I’ve taken images where paper with writing in is background, and blown up, the writing is easily read.
Medium format CAN show more detail when scanned, but it’s all about how it’s scanned. My local lab scans 35mm at 3072 × 2037 pixels and 120 at 4832 × 4760. Bigger, yes, but not at the same ratio as the original sizes. And I had one lab that would scan 120 at 3000×3000 and 35mm at 3000×2000.
Blue Moon’s standard scan for square 120 is 2380×2410, and their 35mm standard scan is 2075×3130. You can get premium in 120 and get the resolution I mentioned above, put you pay ten dollars a roll for that honor. At least the lab I get my film developed and scanned, The Shutterbug, charges nothing extra for the bigger resolution.
Yes, I can probably get bigger scans if I scan at home. But they won’t be of the same quality. Plus, my scanner does only 35mm so I’d have to invest in another scanner. For the amount of 120 I do, it’s not worth it.
My largest scans for 6×6 are a little more than 6000×6000 and I’m very happy with the results. I scan at home.
Commercial scanners are generally better, but once I got a better understanding of scanning and stopped using auto settings, what incremental improvements occur with lab scans are not worth the extra cost or trouble.