I think I mentioned just as I arrived to Japan I bought a new little film camera, a Fuji Natura S and I figured I’d share some photos shot with it after having the negatives & 26GB of hi rez scans arrive yesterday.

The Natura S is a tiny and relatively rare film camera, as it was only released in the Japanese market, accordingly all the menus are in Japanese but being a point & shoot camera it is very easy to use…
And it is tiny! Literally small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, the camera also features a fast, wide lens – 21mm and F1.9 – and was designed to cope with shooting in low light. Fuji released a film Natura 1600 at the same time, and the camera has a special mode when it detects a combination of low light and fast film (800 or 1600 iso)

To get an idea of how small this camera is, compare the size with a 35mm film cannister:

Here are a few photos I shot with it, while in Japan… I was/am still learning to shoot with it, but its size & low light ability meant it rapidly became the one camera I always had with me, even if just going out for dinner and leaving my camera/sound bag at home…
Note the quality of the bokeh in these.. and the colour rendering with Natura 1600 – these have had only a tiny amount of post, small tweaks to contrast/black levels…. click photo to see larger version

This photo has a strong sonic memory attached… I was walking through quiet back streets in Kyoto and saw this dog tied to a door of a shop, I could hear the owner inside talking to the shopkeeper… I crouched down to shoot a photo and the dog jumped for joy, running a few steps towards me and thereby forcibly pulling the sliding door open, with a loud bang… The dogs owner came running out & apologised, to which I apologised and gestured I was trying to take his photo, it was my fault etc… The owner then got the dog to calm down, and pose for me… but I knew any sudden movements & the dog would be jumping around again…. Who’s a good boy?

For all the film emulation and post production in the world, I simply do not believe I would achieve the same results shooting digital. I love the bokeh, colour rendering & grain in these photos and while it is a long time since I used a point & shoot digital camera, it is a pleasure to have a Natura S and be able to shoot film rapidly, and instinctively even in low light… I’ll post some low light stills once I’ve been through all the scans…