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When Richard returned from his trip to the US for Java One, he brought me a Superheadz Blackbird, Fly back. I'd seen these, and photos from them on flickr over the past few months and thought they looked fun.

It has 9 focussing zones - 0.8m, 1.5m, 2m, 2.5m, 3m, 4m, 5m, 10m and ∞
It has 2 shutter speeds 1/125th of a second, and bulb
It has 2 apertures f7 and f11
It has a flash hot shoe (which I haven't tried yet)
It has a fixed 33mm lens
It has 3 formats - standard 35x24mm, square 24x24mm, full (over the sprocket holes)


It is a very light, fairly simple camera available in a multitude of bright colours. Mine is the lovely bright orange colour.
I've now taken 4 films with it, all with Kodak Portra film stock, 3 VC400 and one VC160.

After a couple of months of use, my observations are:

  • looking down into the viewing area shows the scene in reverse due to the mirror. This makes getting horizons straight pretty tricky (as evidenced by this, this and this)
  • it's incredibly light and really easy to transport making it an ideal companion for dog-walking
  • the ability to change the format on a film by film basis (square, standard, full) makes it pretty adaptable and good to experiment with and play
  • loading a film can be a bit complex
  • I'm getting better at remember to check the zone before I take a photo although I still have my moments...
  • I need to get better at estimating distances to get the right zone at the right time :-)
  • overall, it's good fun

Some sample photos:

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More photos can be found on my flickr stream under the tag blackbirdfly