Blackbird, fly

image by Rhett Redelings (Image rights)

Blackbird, fly or simply BBF is the name of a Pseudo TLR which was introduced in 2008. It was designed by Powershovel as a playful toy camera for more experimentally-minded photographers and marketed through the brand Superheadz. Despite the geared lenses, it is does not have the groundglass focusing of a true TLR, but instead uses a brilliant finder and scale focusing.

The BBF has apertures f11 (sunny) and f7 (cloudy), and a switch to choose between moment (1/125) and bulb mode of the shutter. It has also a hot shoe to connect a flashgun. It takes 35mm film and is available in a number of different colours including orange, red, blue, black, white and yellow. Its innovative aspect is a set of masks which can be put into the camera before inserting a film. Thus different framesizes are achieveable, from 24x24mm to a size which includes the 35mm film's sprocket holes.

Links

• video preview by artpunk [1] on vimeo.com
• video review by artpunk [2] on vimeo.com
• The Superheadz blackbird,fly site
• Unofficial Blackbird, fly site
• BBF Flickr Group with discussions and photos from the BBF