Nishika N8000
For the uninitiated, #camerathursdays is our little camera show-and-tell series. Because at Blurb we don’t just obsess about bookmaking, we obsess about cameras. And today’s camera is a true original, mind boggling in both its physical aspect, and its output. In fact, I hadn’t seen one until the photo arrived in my inbox.
Camera: Nishika N8000
Employee: Thomas
Job: Designer
While I use a perfectly well-functioning and dependable m4/3 digital system for work, I would never surrender the fun of picking up developed films from the less reliable and idiosyncratic cameras in my collection. I have acquired and retained through sentimentality, an interest in the evolution in product-design – and a love of gimmicks and design dead ends.
I came across the Nishika N8000 on flickr and bought one as soon as I could, having long been wowed by animated gifs made from stereoscopic images from as early as 1895. The camera itself is a ridiculous thing. As well as a weighty, metal base, the design has a lot of vestigial features used to suggest that this is a rather more serious camera than it really is: a fake LCD display, with printed-on characters, a prism style bump on top and and a battery compartment which, rather than firing a motor, powers an LED which helpfully tells you when it is dark, or when the battery is running out!
It shoots 4 images over 2 frames of standard 35mm and I have used it both to make animated gifs and anaglyphic (red+blue stereoscopy) images. Though it requires a bit of work to register the frames, and there are inconsistencies in between frames (probably best to scan the negatives one’s self ), I’ve got my first roll of film back and I’m actually pretty pleased with how it come out. Anaglyphic Blurb book on the way!
Click each image to see it in anaglyphic format (you’ll need red/blue 3D glasses to get the effect)
It’ll be hard to top this beauty, but we’ll be back next week with another dispatch from our little corner of camera nerd heaven.
