2nd toy: gakkenflex tlr

as mentioned in my previous post, i went to collect my gakkenflex tlr from kino after work that day. so excited...

and so the assembly process begins. 

these are the camera parts that came out from the box... a bit daunting, looking at all these...

even more daunting is, the instructions are in japanese!

but i found a trick to recognizing all the parts. firstly, don't take out all the parts from their compartments! when you need a part, match the japanese writing for that part to its picture on the front page (showing where everything is) and locate the compartment they're in. there are a few near-similar parts in there, so you have to make sure you're using the correct one. there are a few parts in small plastic bags, so after taking out one part, be sure to put the plastic bag with the other parts still in them back to their original compartment.

ta-da! took me over an hour to put it all together... i got stuck at one or two places, but i guess crocheting with japanese patterns helped me heaps in figuring how japanese instructions work! :)

with the viewfinder flap opened up...

they even provided 2 types of stickers for us to customize our tlr... i chose this brown one to give my tlr a more classic look, instead of the colour triangle ones, which is more retro. and then i found this cover template, where you can print just about any pattern onto them on a sticker paper, cut them out and stick them on to personalize your tlr!

i've tested it out a bit during the weekend and all i can say that it takes a bit of getting used to. first of all, like i mentioned before, we hold it at our waist, look down into the viewfinder and turn the lens to focus, instead of bringing the camera up to our face and sticking the viewfinder to our eyes.

secondly, the viewfinder will flip all the images! for example, if your books are on the right side of cabinet, you'll see it on the left side in the viewfinder... so it's really hard to get the right focus, especially if you're moving left and right to try to put the object in the centre of the frame.

also, it doesn't have a double exposure interlock, which means if you forgot to wind up the film after taking a shot and continue to take a second shot, you'll double expose your film. i think i did that a few times... we'll see what comes out when i get the film developed!

but other than that, it's really an awesome thing to play with! very fun to explore... and can't wait to see the results!

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1. new toy!