NEWS: Omnar Lenses Brass E39 Lens caps & pixl-latr ‘Parts Kits’

As some (many?) of you might know, in recent years I have been working on two brands of photography products, Omnar lenses and pixl-latr. I have little bits of news about both brands today, so I thought I would share.

Omnar Lenses Brass E39 Lens caps

We have just launched our Omnar Lenses Brass E39 Lens caps. They currently only come in E39, but if you have an E39 thread size lens, and would like a solid brass lens cap that was machined in England, then we can help! The caps come plain brass that will tarnish over time. As such, we also have two pre-tarnished versions giving a total of 3 options of finish:

• Raw Brass (will patina over time with usage)
• Light Antique Brass (resembles teak/cherry/oak wood)
• Heavy Antique Brass (resembles walnut/mahogany wood)

The standard un-tarnished version is £35, and either light or heavy tarnished is £40.

You can read more about these caps on the website here

pixl-latr ‘Parts Kits’

As many of you will already know, a big part of the pixl-latr ethos is the flexibility of the platform. In the months after the Kickstarter campaign finished, I had it redesigned from the original simple laser-cut acrylic product to a partly injection moulded product – laser-cut acrylic by itself was just not suitable for the quality of product I wanted to produce. As time went on, it became very quickly clear to me that this decision potentially opened up the product to a wider audience of DIYers and people who like to ‘hack’ products to work in a way they wish them to.

This initially lent itself to pixl-latr being used to scan all sorts of different types of film and media – from 110 to 3 1/4 square glass plates, pixl-latr is now compatible with a very large and growing range of film formats. This is thanks to what I see as the ‘open-source’ nature of pixl-latr. We have downloadable files as part of our ‘Open Gate Platform‘, and encourage folks to submit their designs to our ‘Community Gate House‘

We have also teamed up with one of our competitors, Valoi, and by making an adapter that allows their film holders to slot into the top of ours – we even sell their holder on our website here.  I’m sure that some people would see teaming up with a competitor as slightly crazy, but for me, this again a big part of the pixl-latr ethos. I’m not interested in winning any battles in terms of who sells the most or makes the best product – I find those sorts of attitudes childish and incompatible with the film photography community. What I’m interested in is making a product that can work as flexibly and offer my customers as many possibilities as it possibly can.

I also listen to customers as much as I can when it comes to their suggestions – especially when it comes to what products I offer, and in what configuration those products can be bought. This is why I have just created two ‘parts kits‘.

The first parts kit is a simple one and exists because of a comment made to me at the recent ‘Analogue Spotlight‘ event. A customer came to my stand and said, “I don’t need the bits for scanning 35mm and 120 film, can you just sell me the diffuser and frame”. Of course, the answer was “yes” – I sell these parts as spares anyway – but it made me think about how many people out there there must be who are just looking to digitise 5×4. After all, when I first had the idea for pixl-latr, that’s all I was looking to do…

You can find the ‘pixl-latr Film Holder 5×4 Large Format Only Parts Kit’ here – I have even set the product up so it can be ordered with or without the legs. And yes, it is cheaper than if you order the parts separately.

The second kit I have just published contains all the parts required to digitise 5×4 lay flat on a surface as well as a pixl-latr x Valoi adapter. The idea of this kit came from me witnessing customer checkout choices. I have had a lot of customers purchase a frame, diffuser, Valoi adapter, and one or another of the Valoi holders. Initially, I must admit, I thought this was cheating… but I soon realised they were on to something. If they want to use Valoi holders for 35mm and 120 roll film and pixl-latr for 5×4 and don’t ever shoot any other formats that might require the gates, then good luck to them I say! In fact, why not make it easier for them…

You can find the ‘pixl-latr x Valoi Adapter Parts Kit’ here – again, it’s less expensive than buying the parts separately.

More news coming to 35mmc

Finally, I also wanted to mention that there are plans afoot to bring more analogue and non-mainstream photography news to the website. We have a new member of the team – more on that soon – but in the meanwhile, if you have anything you would like us to share, please email [email protected]

Thanks

Hamish

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