Built it Mah-self! (Twin Lens Reflex Camera)

Nevermind the fact that it took me a whopping 4 hours longer than the box said it would (...partially due to all the breaks I kept taking and the television distracting me and there was an hour and a half stint with the shutter mechanism which I will get into later...) I have successfully put together my very own Twin Lens Reflex Camera!!!

This was my Christmas present from Noah: The DIY Twin Lens Camera Kit. It really did kind of take me all day but I love building stuff so I had a lot of fun putting it together. I've always thought the old school twin lens cameras were pretty cool. Never bought one that I came across because I was always afraid they wouldn't actually work. Hah, so hopefully I did the job right and this one doesn't fail me.

The directions are kind of weird--it's a straight translation from the original Chinese (I think) so it's worded a little strange in some places. The photos are okay...but a little dark so it's hard to see which part they're talking about. (I'm not knocking the kit, don't get me wrong!). I found this website which helped me a lot--clear pictures that helped explain everything better.

The only real problem I had was with the shutter mechanism. First off the directions that come with the kit are misprinted--Spring C is the smaller spring that goes on the "shutter roller" and Spring D is the large one that goes on the "shutter push pole axes". Secondly, the Spring C that I had was too long/the hook and longer part weren't in the right position to fit in the camera like the instructions say. I read (later) that in such a case you should curl the spring on around the axes of the shutter roller so the long side lays along the "isolating plate" or the part separating the shutter and viewfinder areas (for anyone who stumbles on this while trying to put one of these kits together). Anyway, I jumped the gun and cut the spring down. Then had to tweak (and tweak and tweak) it until the spring action worked correctly. Thank God for my relentless persistence when I think I can fix things, hah. I was just about to throw in the towel and order a new kit when I miraculously got it working. This video shows how the shutter should operate.

So yeah, other than that part it was pretty easy. I'm excited to start using it! The end of the instructions talk about different ways to use the "reaming plate" to get different effects with your photos so I'm interested to see how the different options (behind lens, in front of lens, not used at all) affect the results of my photos. 

Gotta get some different kind of film though--the stuff I'm using (and the only stuff available around here...at walmart, unfortunately...) isn't quite cutting it. But that's a story for next time.  

Here's a link to some photos taken with Twin Lens Reflex cameras on lomography.com, check it!