Week 7 – The Braun Super Paxette
I was handed the Paxette with the words “I found it in the bottom of a box of bits!”
I didn't even know Braun made cameras!
Something perhaps worth knowing is aside from trying to produce a great
interesting image photographers usually have a secondary passion. It may be
trying different films pushing/pulling/testing them to their limits and beyond,
maybe the processing, different developers, experimenting endlessly to find
their perfect look. Me? Its the cameras! I like them, A LOT! Trying to squeeze
an image out of an old sometimes tatty slightly broken box excites me.
This
little fella, and it is little, is a looker. Lots of shiny silver bits adorning
a classic black body. While small it has a chucky feel like it has been on
steroids. Lovely. Everything appeared to be ticketty boo except the week! Wet,
dark and dreary and I was committed to a week from hell at work! Time was not
my friend. I would be going with a single roll, colour – Agfa Vista and pushed
to 400, pushing something I usually fail at. I will apologise now for the
boring images but I literally shot going to and from an endless stream of
Christmas work functions. I have to say it behaved well for something that had
been forgot for some time. Easy to use, the advance moved smoothly leaving
excellent spacing on the negative strip. Shutter swished sharply. The focus
planes on the range finder system were visible if not a little awkward on busy
dark scenes but workable and I was pleased with the sharpness of the final
(dull) images. There was clearly a parallax issue on closer shots but given a
roll or 2 more I would have sorted that. In short I loved this little muscle
bound camera, I just wish I had one or two of the available interchangeable
lenses, better weather and more time with it. It just about fits in a pocket,
hangs comfortably around the neck in its classic brown leather case.
There
are other cameras I yearn for ahead of this but I will be keeping my eye out
for one for sure.
