1920s folding camera + Canon 5D = awesome

(Credit:
Jason Bognacki)

The other day I was in a museum dedicated to environmental conservation and it had one of those old black rotary dial phones from way back when, surrounded by dozens of junked cell phones. It was trying to make the point that before manufacturers inflicted planned obsolescence on us, they made goods that would last.

Filmmaker Jason Bognacki’s recent experiments with vintage cameras make that point very effectively. In case you missed it, shutterbugs have been drooling over his hybrid camera, a masterful blending of analog and digital technologies.

Bognacki took a battered old Piccolette camera from the 1920s that he bought on eBay years ago. He decided to unite it with his Canon EOS 5D Mark II by having the Piccolette act as a lens for the Canon.

“My latest curiosity has been with vintage uncoated optics and the looks those lenses produce,” says the Los Angeles-based Bognacki, whose film credits include “The Red Door,” a horror short. “The spirit of experimentation got the best of me and I gave it a try.”

The Piccolette-Canon produced some very sharp images.

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