The Agfa Ansco D-6 Cadet

Agfa Ansco D-6 Cadet

A while back, I found a guy on Craigslist that was selling several random cameras out of a box in the trunk of his car. I think he was working for a thrift store and probably would collect some of the cameras that he ran across, using them as display pieces in his house. For whatever reason, he wanted to get rid of them so I met with him, rummaged through his stuff, and bought the entire box for $30. One of the 7 or 8 cameras in there was this box camera, an Agfa Ansco D-6 Cadet, which was produced from 1935 until 1941. Usually when I run across a pre-WWII box camera like this, it's a mess. The lens is missing or damaged, the winding mechanism is destroyed, etc.  In this case, it was just a little dirty. So I cleaned it up!

A Video Through the Eyes of a Mamiya C330

I adore my Mamiya C330, and so anything about that camera automatically clicks with me.  And when that thing also happens to be unusually awesome, well... all the better.

This is a short video shot entirely through the waist-level finder of a Mamiya C330. How cool is that?!



Walk in the Woods from Daniel Regner on Vimeo.

Taberna del Caballo

My success rate is much lower when I shoot film versus digital, partly because there's no safety net; I can't see if I've screwed up the photo until days later, whereas with a DSLR I can look and retake the photo immediately if I don't like it.

However, occasionally even I manage to get something right (at least, to my eyes).

Taberna del Caballo, St. Augustine, FL

Rolleicord In Montréal

I brought a much fuller set of camera gear to Montréal during my latest business trip in March and April. I previously didn't think I'd have the room to pack a full bag of DSLR gear and a second backpack containing my work laptop, but this time around I made it happen. In fact, I was even able to bring along my treasured little Rolleicord III by wedging into a space next to my laptop in the second backpack. While I didn't have quite as much play time as I had hoped on this trip, I still managed to get out a couple of times to enjoy the cold weather (I'm a Florida native so I can say "enjoy") and occasionally snap a photo or two. To be safe, I had all of the negatives processed before returning home, so there would be no chance of X-ray damage.

While I didn't really come up with anything amazing while I was shooting with this camera, I did end up with a couple of decent shots.  I think I might be too worried about being seen as something other than just a guy taking a picture, I don't know.  I always want to sit still for a while and concentrate on a scene, gathering information and finding the composition that best speaks to me.  Something about this bicycle spoke to me, with its odd mismatched brake levers and weird MacGuyver'ed rear mud guard, half buried in snow and forgotten over the long winter months in Montréal.  There was a great photo here, and I knew it as soon as I saw it.  But then I quickly started to feel self-conscious, wondering what those people down the street were thinking of this weird guy hanging out by someone's bicycle. Or wondering when someone was going to bust out running down the stairs with a baseball bat, mistaking me for a bike thief or creepy trespasser.  As a result of that insecurity, I ended up sticking around just long enough to meter the scene, dial it in, and fire off a shot without spending any time on composing it.  It left me with a photo that I didn't really love, and I still wonder what I would have ended up with if only I had spent more time.

Rolleicord III (K3B) and Focusing Screen

My Rolleicord III, sitting there being all awesome.

The Rolleicord is certainly the camera that got me back into film photography.  My Rolleicord III (along with a Rollei 35 that will surely be the subject of a later post) was given to me as a gift from my stepdad when he was getting rid of some of his unused equipment.

At the time, I had just dug myself even deeper into the digital camp by selling my Canon EOS 5D Mark II and buying the updated Mark III, but I was excited by the unexpected gift and couldn't wait to try it out (even though I knew absolutely nothing about Rollei). Medium format went off my radar when I went digital in 2003 but ever since the day I bought my first 35mm SLR in 1992, it had been a dream of mine. If I had known that quality, affordable 120 cameras like this were around I probably would have started a long time ago!


If you are unfamiliar with twin lens reflex cameras, their operation and build is relatively simple compared to SLR's.  The lower "taking lens" projects the image onto the film when
the shutter opens, and the light from the upper "viewing lens" is projected upward via a 45-degree mirror onto a matte viewing surface which is used to focus and compose.