Jane Dallaway

Jane Dallaway

Jane Dallaway  //  Service Delivery manager, photographer, dog owner, gardener, reader, learner, software developer and occasional snowboarder

This blog contains all sorts of bits and bobs, from development related stuff, through process and productivity stuff, to photography stuff, and general inspiration things. It's a bit all over the place with no real theme, but then so am I

Email: jane @ dallaway.com
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Kit bag: Blackbird, Fly

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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

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