Minolta 500si traveller Signup & pictures

To avoid confusion with repeating and quoted posts with the list I am posting the current, up to date list here which is the only one I shall maintain:

1. Bob J - London - UK
2. bonneville - Lincolnshire - UK
3. neilt3 - Manchester - UK
End of roll 1

Start of roll 2
4. Richard T
5. Phil Wood
6. Howard S - Oxford - UK
7. Harm vb - Gorinchem - Netherlands
8. Pegelli - Schilde - Belgium
9. Maffe - (?) - Sweden
10. waldo_posth - Potsdam - Germany
11. ?

Bob J wrote: The following posts up to 17 March 2024 have been transferred from the film challenge thread. I resisted the temptation to name the thread "Soosi Super's road trip"...

Have you ever heard of or do you remember the........

Eggciting Journey Around The World ???

You will find it here. The first part ran for 67 pages and part 2 to page 28 before it concluded, with a mystery!

Never heard of it? Well in an egg shell it started with a little egg with legs visiting Dyxumers all over the world, and at each stop the temporary carer for Egg took it to their local sights and photographed it having fun before it was packed up and sent on to the next volunteer Dyxumer at a new destination. The project lasted for well over three years and when it was my turn to host I was still working and took Egg to my place of work where it got up to some really Eggciting adventures, including riding on the roof of my car!

Somewhere along the journey a second egg joined in but eventually they both disappeared without trace.

Prompted by this adventure our very own Bob J wrote several articles on 35mmc about the Travelling Canonet project, which was based on Dyxum's egg project but involved a film camera (ah! now you can see where this is going) sent from person to person throughout the globe, and it was a success. Each recipient was expected to take a shot or two on the current film and whoever finished the film was expected to replace it with a new black and white film and get the finished roll processed for display of the images.

The camera chosen needed to be a working film 35mm camera but of minimum value to discourage it from being taken away and never to be seen again. It also needed to be simple so that it had some chance of surviving the travel and handling.

Since many years have passed since the Egg travels I got to wondering if there is any appetite for Dyxum members, particularly with an interest in film photography to start up a similar project now with a dedicated thread for the resulting photographs to be displayed and enjoyed by everyone. Of course the camera would need to be a model from the Minolta stable to stay loyal to the forum, and if there is any "worthwhile" interest I happen to know from where a working Minolta 500si super could be donated to the project.

Interested? Pop your ID and global location in answer to this post and let's see if sufficient members are up for it and since I brought up the idea I would be willing to project manage it.

Over to you film fans (and any other photographers that would be interested), it is where this hobby of ours comes from.

Brian


Edited by bonneville - 19 April 2024 at 06:29

The 35mmc Brian refers to is here: https://www.35mmc.com/19/12/2021/an-open-invitation-to-the-travelling-canonet-project-by-bob-janes/

The 'commitment' there was:

to receive the camera, take 5 (or more) pictures, replenish the film if you use it up – process any used-up film and post on to the next person.

So, at maximum:

Share a contact email and a postal address with someone so they can send you a camera,
Spend up to 1 week [this was never held to, I think we were lucky getting it to 1 person a month - this is a bit of a long distance project] taking 5 pictures (or more) with a characterful camera from 1962,
Possibly supply a B&W film if you reach the end of the film,
Possibly either process a B&W film and post the results (or post the film to Greenwich, London, UK, with permission for me to post the results [or to whoever is willing to take on responsibility]),
Pay postage for a heavy-ish camera to somewhere that could be on another continent (marking value at zero for customs purposes) via a reasonable carrier…

At 35mmc I had a list and it takes quite a bit of admin to connect, but I guess we might be able to do something a bit more off the cuff in a forum. Perhaps if we had a list of people in various territories that were interested and we might be able to look for ways of cutting down customs delays when people visit countries..

Edited by Bob J - 22 February 2024 at 20:09

I'd be interested to join (pegelli, Schilde, Belgium)

I would definitely like to use some of my own A-mount lenses but to be sure for people who sold them all (or never had any) maybe inlude a light kit or short prime in the package.

We don't need to have a big list to start with.

I have a 500si here. Very surplus, plus my wife celebrates every time a camera leaves the house (I have far too many cameras..). I also have a 35-80 power-zoom, which is as close to valueless as an A mount lens gets (probably worth less than a body cap for transporting).

I could load a film, take 5 (or so) shots and send on to Brian, who could do his shots and send to Howard, if we didn't have any other (trusted) UK participants after that we cold pass the combo on to Pieter - who I'm sure would find other people in the low countries to participate... With our community, this thing can probably build over time.

What do you say, should we just start and see where mommentum takes us?

Harm vb wrote: I counted 5 people so far: Bonneville me Bob J Howard S Pegelli. 1 role of film can be shot

I´ll join

Starting to hava a a bunch of film to develop to the challange as well, just need to come around to do it

bonneville wrote: I’m bumping this in the vague hope that some of you may have missed it. But it isn’t looking promising I must confess. Never mind, the better weather is just around the corner and I have been longingly toying with my film cameras, both 35mm and medium format. Current arsenal contains: Minolta Dynax 9 (hoping soon to add a mint Ti to the collection). Minolta X-700 (black and rare silver versions) with auto winder. Leica M2 Rolleiflex T (Vivian Meyer) Also, still for sale, a lovely example of the MPP Microcord TLR with leather case

As per page one , I'm still in this challenge .
I've a few roll of film that was shot in late 2023 ( one or two frames to finish from them next week ) out of my Dynax 9 SSM/ADI upgraded camera , a few film backs used in my Bronica SQ-Ai .
Plus if I've enough colour film ready to develop , I'll be mixing up my fresh C41 chemicals to do them .

Having made a new years resolution not to buy any more photographic gear this year until I've sold on a load of unused gear , people started listing some lenses I've wanted for a long time , and people aren't paying as much just now .
So good time to buy , bad time to sell !

So I've got my X500 loaded with film and joining my Minolta 85mm f/2 and 100mm f/2 are the Minolta MD 28mm f/2 , 58mm f/1.2 , 250mm Reflex and now the 12.5mm f/2 micro bellows lens !
Just need to finish the roll off , I've a plan for the 12.5mm bellows lens along with the 20mm Canon bellows lens and Minolta ring flash and so on , now all the bits have arrived .

I had a weeks holiday but as most days it was raining and I'd done my shoulder in , I didn't get out as much as I'd hoped .

Hopefully I'll catch up getting the backlog of developing done while I'm off on sick leave next week .

Howard_S wrote: There seems to be two things going on here: (1) taking photos for the film challenge and (2) sending a 500si camera around for each person to take 5 shots. Are you in for (2) Neil? .

O.K , I'm up for taking 5 shots and passing the 500si on .

Let me know the plan and who to pass my details onto , and where to forward it on and so on when it's organised.