Perry Mason and the Case of the Impossibly Good Camera

Do you ever watch a movie or tv show just for the cameras? If you are anything like me, I’m sure you do. I will even rewatch movies, especially, for certain cameras. But sometimes, you see cameras doing things they just can’t, in real life, do. And yes, we are all familiar with the  "Enhance 224 to 176. Enhance. Stop. Move in, stop.....Give me a hard copy right there" scene from the original Blade Runner and how silly that seems. 

One of the shows I have been watching is HBO’s new Perry Mason. I will leave reviews to others more experienced in that area and only say it has little to no relation to the Raymond Burr Perry Mason and is more of a Sam Spade detective story set in 1932. It has a stellar cast, featuring John Lithgow and the always excellent Tatiana Maslany or Orphan Black fame, Matthew Rhys stars as Perry Mason, who is a Private Eye instead of a lawyer at this point in the story. 

But enough about the show, what about that camera? Any good PI needs a great camera, right? For catching cheating spouses and stuff. Well, our man Perry has chosen the Kodak Flash Bantam as far as I can tell. Introduced in 1947, the Bantam is a small folding camera which fits easily inside a suit pocket or an overcoat inside pocket, they would seem to be a good choice for a private eye who would need a camera that could easily hidden and easily deployed. The Bantam takes a flash, which I do not have, so it should work well for night photography or dark interiors, such as inside a house, but we never see Perry use a flash either so I guess that's okay. 

They are, to my eye, a pretty little art deco style camera which take 828 film. 828 is basically 35mm film with fewer sprocket holes and if it takes a decent photo, I will be trying 35mm in mine, but for now I actually spent the dosh for two rolls of 828 which also has backing paper. I pretty much hate backing paper, but oh well.

The camera I have came from Etsy and cost me about $25 with shipping. It opens and closes easily and smoothly and the case is all leather and in excellent shape except for a broken strap. I can see that keeping it in a pocket or purse would be very convenient. On the show, Perry Mason never uses a case, he just folds it up and puts it in his pocket.

The real fun starts when the photography starts (isn't that always the case?) and gets amped to the nth degree when we see the stellar photos that come from this tiny camera!! I think you will agree with me that Perry Mason has truly missed his calling as a photographer when you see the prints he coaxes out of this little shooter!

I am going to try to reproduce at least 3 of the photos from the show using this same camera. I don't have a darkroom right now so I have to send my film out for processing but in the meantime, next week I will go into what I did to try to reproduce shots from the show.

Next Week - How did you get that shot?

I'm back

I am going to start posting again. I'll try to be more consistent now that I am home most of the time and not working. I retired last month and I've gotten a few new (to me) cameras I will be writing about. A couple use odd/unusual film sizes which ought to be interesting. I am also outfitting my old Burke and James camera to be able to do tintypes but that is going to be a longer term project as I need a few pieces of kit so I have to go slow due to finances. 

In the meantime, I have a couple of projects in the works. I am participating in the Shitty Camera Challenge ( https://emulsive.org/articles/the-anti-contest-contest-say-hello-to-the-shitty-camera-challenge ) which mostly seems to happen on Twitter these days. This month I am going to shoot this old Anscoflex I got off Etsy. It takes 620 film, which is just 120 on a different size spool. The film mechanism doesn't have any sprockets, which might be bad, but it also has a plate that holds the film flat which might be good? We will see.

The other project involves trying to recreate some of the photos taken on tv shows and movies with the same camera used in the shows. I am going to start with the new Perry Mason, which has ridiculous photos taken with a tiny Kodak Bantam. I was able to find one for under $20, again on Etsy, and film was even available so there will be a blog post on that sometime next month. The camera is adorable, and the spools of film are very tiny so I am kind of stupidly excited about this project. I'll try to get some photos of the camera and the film in the next blog on Thursday next week.