Bratzseline: Too much of a good thing?

I love Bratz cameras. I love them so much, I own three of them. The first one came bundled with a Bratz doll--as I understand it, the 35mm trashcam came with some Bratz dolls as a promo for the Bratz movie. Problem was, I had to buy and then find something to do with the Bratz doll. I didn't want that. Just the camera. I got lucky with the other two cameras as I found them in the toy aisle at a local thrift store and paid 80 cents each for them. Two of my Bratz are unmodified (and imho take fantastic photos--see image above). The other one I modified by flipping the lens. Depending on the subject matter, the flipped lens version can also make some pretty cool images. [As an aside: The wind-on process with the Bratz is kinda funky and if I don't use them for some time, it takes me awhile to remember how to do it correctly. In contrast to a traditional 35mm loading process (where the film is inserted in the left/supply chamber and is brought to the right/take-up side of the camera and wound on, this particular camera requires you to place the film cartridge in the right side of the camera and then, using the film rewind, you must wind all the film into the left side of the camera. --You do this with the camera closed, of course. What this means that that when you advance each shot, you are pulling the film back into the cartridge. With the last shot, well, there's no need to rewind the film as you'd need to with a traditional load.]

Anyhoot. Having established how much I love this camera, my thought is that I could only love the Bratz more if I could make it do something it's not necessarily designed to do--like taking Lensbaby-esque shots. Vaseline smeared on the fake plastic lens mounted in front of the camera's "real" plastic lens seemed to me the best way of achieving this effect. Problem was, I didn't think to research this and/or to experiment with different amounts, distributions or thicknesses of Vaseline. What I got was, well, kind of a mess.



Case in point: Here is one of the better shots. And by this I mean that I could figure out where it was taken and what it was an image of. For the sake of comparison I've placed the color "Bratzseline" version of The Grace & Hope Mission sign next to a b/w version of it. Hmmm. No bueno.

A sampling of other recognizable shots (i.e., I only took pictures of one red thing that day--a boat) appear below:

a reason to rethink my top five?

For some time now, I've not wavered on my list of top five favorite cameras. This said, having finally gotten around to testing the Bratz camera I got for 80 cents last March, it may be time for me to rethink that list.

I'd worked with this particular camera before--well, kinda. The 35mm mini Bratz cam a quirky little thing--a small, plastic promo/give away camera that came packaged with Bratz dolls. NOTE: The thing is a real pain in the ass to load, and frankly, each time I load the camera I worry that it may well be the last time I'm able to use the camera. To explain: A new film cartridge must be placed upside down in the right side of the camera. The film is then wound (by way of a very, very fragile plastic winder on the bottom of the camera) to the other side (i.e., the supply side) of the camera. This is done, of course, with the back of the camera closed. There is no need to rewind the roll when finished since cranking the film advance wheel between shots essentially winds the exposed film back into the 35mm cartridge.

When I got my first Bratz camera, I immediately took it apart and flipped the lens. In order, however, to keep the lens in place, I needed to glue it in place which meant that I wasn't able to reverse the lens and see what the camera could do--or might have done--before I flipped the lens. But then, back in March, I found another Bratz mini cam. I'm not sure why I put off testing the new Bratz for so long. I guess I hadn't really expected much of the unflipped version and with so many other cameras still left to test, well, this one just kinda got lost in the shuffle.

Long story short, I finally got around to testing the camera this fall and I think I've taken it on every shoot since. Like I said to start, this is a serious contender for the top five fav list. Problem is, I'm not quite sure which camera it might knock out of its top position. Featured below is a sampling of the different images I've taken with the regular (non-flipped lens) Bratz. The image above depicts the same farm scene taken with the regular and flipped lens Bratz cams.

faux bratz cam pinholes (a sampling)

with the help of this most excellent resource, i tried making my own matchbox pinhole camera, starting it last night, finishing it this morning. i then shot and developed a test roll. hmmm.

okay, to be totally honest, this was the look i was hoping for. very optomistic, i know. but what i ended up getting. . . well, the final images (see below) looked like they might instead have been shot with my modified bratz cam. sigh. i'm guessing that the size of the pinhole was a wee bit too big.

if i had to list the things at which i decidedly do not excel, the list would include driving, taking/making accurate measurements, taping things carefully, cutting things accurately (complicating things is my aversion to using most sharp or dangerous tools, but especially exacto knives). bracketing the driving issue, all of these other skills were needed for a proper pinhole construction. if nothing else, i am hopeful and persistent so after seeing my finished products, i revamped my matchbox pinhole, subbing out the old pinhole for a new, more slimly-pointed version. we'll see how test roll two goes.

bratz cam

shortly after i began experimenting with different kinds of film cameras, i found this bratz cam. the good news is that it was more or less a freebie. . .












well, it was free provided that you purchased the bratz doll and this ended up posing a small problem since i couldn't justify spending 20 bucks for the camera and throwing the doll out. i could have, of course, tried giving the doll to one of the neighborhood kids but i wasn't sure how parents would feel about this. with my luck, i'd give it to someone whose parents had forbidden them to play with bratz dolls. as luck would have it, my mom found, purchased, and sent to me last month a deeply-discounted doll and cameras set. (in the end, i ended up keeping the doll even though i noted that one of the neighborhood kids does, in fact, ride a bratz bike and guessed at least her parents might not object to her receiving a free bratz doll.)

so, let the experimentation begin! . . . on second thought, if i'm being truthful, my response was more timid, less committed, less hopeful. more like, "let the experimentation begin?" at the time i received the bratz cam i had just experienced a run of really bad camera luck. it felt like everything i touched or tried to do came out the opposite of okay. first, there was the dead-spider-in-the-praktica-viewfinder situation that i was never able to solve. miraculously, i did find a post from another person--i think it may have been on flickr--who described having the same problem with his praktica. at first, i thought it might be the person who sold the camera to me but his was a different model. unfortunately, no one responded to his post and to this day, i wonder how the spider got in there. i tried taking the top off the camera, no luck. i got the screws out but the top wasn't budging. (again, left wondering how the spider got in there.) of course, it didn't need to be a total loss. i could always try to frame shots around (or inspite of) the spider, but it kinda made me queasy to look through the viewfinder.

and then there was the polaroid 225 misfortune. the camera only cost me 2 bucks "as is" and i was hoping that cleaning up the piggy little camera and installing a new battery would do the trick. no luck. i read up on how its electromagnetic shutter system worked, tried different tests to see if the shutter was firing as it should. no dice. 225 was placed in the "no bueno" box, where it is currently hanging with mr. praktica-with-spider. (fortunately the polaroid 220 I had purchased for 3 bucks arrived a few days after the bratz cam did and it works wonderfully--didn't even need a bath.)

also joining the 225 and the praktica in the "no bueno" box were the parts and pieces of two of the dollar store trashcams i had recently purchased and proceeded to break (or to not be able to get back together--at least not in working order) while attempting to flip their lenses. needless to say, when the bratz cam arrived, i was feeling like i had something decidely opposite of the midas touch when it came to cameras. and it didn't help that i had wanted the bratz cam for so long and that it was a gift from my mom. if i were to mess this one up to. . .well, i'm thinking that would have pushed me over the edge.

on the first modification. the great new was that the bratz cam is fairly idiot-proof when it comes to getting it apart and gaining access to the lens. unlike the other two trashcams in the "no bueno" box, i could flip the lens on the bratz cam and get the camera together again without messing up the shutter mechanism. the four pictures below were taken after i had inserted one of the lenses from one of the broken trashcams. i flipped, (lightly glued) and placed the other lens in the bratz cam. the lens was very similar in both size and shape to the lens that came with the bratz but this one had a little bit more plastic around the outside of the lens, making it easier to glue and hold in place. i was bummed when i scanned in the negatives--hanging there to dry, the negatives looked pretty promising. otherwise put, it appeared as though something would actually be in focus. no bueno.

































































on the second modification. i am, if nothing else, persistently hopeful. plus, i knew that i had at least two more lenses left to experiment with. and if all else failed, i could just use the camera as it was intended to be used--with the original non-flipped lens. for the next modification, i decided to insert and again lightly glue in place the lens from a suprema sunshine trashcam. compared with the original bratz lens and the lens used in the first modification, this lens was much larger and much flatter. i'm pretty sure i flipped it before putting it in place, but the lens was flat enough that it was kind of hard to tell.

once again, no point of focus but after viewing the negatives, i hadn't expected as much. but in this case, the images really grew on me. but maybe it had more to do with my actually working up the courage enough to drive myself somewhere (in this case, ellicott city) so that i could take pictures of things that were not in my house, backyard or on campus. . .