Retro 80s

Off on holiday to Europe I loaded up my trusty Nikon F with a roll of Retro 80s film. I was hoping to capture some crispy contrasty landscapes and dramatic skys and this film has a good reputation for contrast. I'm not sure who makes this film, its often called Rollei Retro, but the film canister says its made by Agfa. I purchased a couple of rolls from Silverprint (here). On my return I processed the roll in Rodinal, 14mins, 10sec agitation every minute. Here are some of the results, most of them taken with a Nikkor 24mm F2.8 lens:

I'm very happy with the clouds on this shot, but a common problem with this film is shadow detail and the detail on the shady side of the hill is a little poor.

Another shot with the sort of clouds I was hoping to capture.

This is probably my favourite. It has a really nice quality about it almost like a painting. Finally this photo, taken in bright sunlight and a cloudless sky shows the films contrast off well:

I will definitely use this film again, I love its contrast and the way it brings out clouds. Best results were in bright sunlight, with shadow detail poor. I may well try stand development next time.

Filters for clouds

I've always been a bit disappointed with the sky on my black and white landscape photos. I want the clouds to stand out but often they are almost invisible. To try and remedy this problem I thought I would try and photograph the same sky with different filters so see if they made much difference. I loaded up my Nikon F with Fuji Neopan and gave it a go. First with no filter at all, then a yellow filter and finally a red 25A filter. The 25A is really quite dark and takes about 3 stops off the exposure.

The photo on the left is with no filter, in the middle is with the yellow filter and on the right with the red 25A. The difference between them is quite subtle, with the clouds getting a little more defined and the contrast increasing slightly. I don't think there is much difference between the yellow and the red filter. Certainly the loss of 3 stops isn't really worth it!

I took the Nikon out to Canary Wharf in London recently and tried some building shots with the yellow filter. At the start of the outing there was a good amount of sunshine with some cloud. This is one of the first photos I took that day. I quite pleased with the cloud contrast.

Later in the day the cloud cover increased and it wasn't possible to get the type of sky/could photos I was after

Having done some research I am planning to try out some Rollei Retro 80 film. I believe that might give the high contrast super sharp look I am after.

Olympus OM-1

I got my OM-1 a while back on e-bay. I had lusted after these revolutionary cameras since I was at university 30 years ago. At that time they were way outside my budget, now of course they can be picked up quite cheaply. I ran a couple of films though it with good results but the on/off switch was damaged and before long it broke off completely. Recently I decided to get the OM-1 fixed and thanks to a recommendation from the Facebook OM group I found a guy in the UK who does quality camera repairs cheaply. This is the guy: www.cam-rep.co.uk

The camera came back with new light seals and a new on/off switch and seems to work fine.

This is a 'self portrait' taken in a mirror from the test film I put through the camera when I got it back. The repair guy suggested that I set the meter 1 stop faster than the film (400ASA for 200ASA film) as he tested the meter and found it was a bit weak.

The question that arises with OM-1 cameras is what battery to use. The original mercury cells are no longer available. I have been using hearing aid batteries (1.4volt 675ZA - you can get theses in Boots the chemist in the UK). However these batteries don't last very long. I though I would try so called Wein cells. These can be purchased in the UK from the Small Battery Company (www.smallbattery.company.org.uk/) but are quite a bit more expensive that the 675 hearing aid batteries (£5.20 ea) but are supposed to last a lot longer.

I'm still not convinced the meter is really accurate so as soon as I have some time I'm going to do a proper series of test shots to calibrate the meter properly

More tests with Spursinn

One of the claimed advantages of the Spursinn HCD two bath developer is its ability to push films to high EV levels. So I thought I would try this out and loaded a small length of Fuji Neopan 400 from my bulk roll (actually its Legacy Pro 400 but apparently its really rebranded Fuji). I tried it out at EI 12,800 - pushed 5 stops. I used my Olympus OM1 and manually checked the exposure using my old Weston Mast V light meter (The OM-1 meter only goes to 1600 and its broken anyway)

The literature that comes with HCD gives a development time of 3 mins (as always) in HCD-S and 24 mins in HCD-2.

Results? Not very good, the negatives are very thin and underexposed. I'm not sure if my meter works well at this high EI value. Maybe not.

These two are the only ones I could scan, and even then, they have quite a lot of work in Photoshop.

This one is a banana, in case you are wondering. If my meter does not work well at these speeds, I'm not sure I can get the advantage of pushing the films, although the results are not as grainy as you might imagine.

Polaroid Land Camera 330

I got this lovely old folding Polaroid on e-bay for just £6! The seller listed it incorrectly as a Kodak camera which may explain how I got it so cheap. The 330 model has a glass rather than plastic lens (that the 320 and lower numbers have). Its  in pretty good condition considering its age.

First task was to see if the 'electronic eye' which adjusts the shutter speed works. To do this a battery is needed.

The camera originally took a 3v battery which are not longer widely available. Luckily I had an AAA battery holder handy which takes two AAA cells to give 3 volts. I wired this up temporarily to check if the shutter works. In the dark the shutter can be heard closing a few seconds after the button is pressed showing that a longer exposure would have been made.

The Fuji FP-3000 film arrived (also from e-bay) and, with the battery still not properly fixed I tried it out. I went for an indoor mirror self portrait. The first photo was pretty dark so I tuned up the setting to lighter and tried again. This time the shot was still a little dark but quite sharp:

The pack film produces a kinda negative along with the print, I quite liked the effect of that so I scanned that part too:

Not bad for a first attempt. Next I must fix the battery properly.

Spursinn HCD

When I saw this new German B&W film developer advertised by AG-Photographic (UK film products supplier  web site is here) I thought I would give it a try. According to them 'Spursinn HCD 2+S is a unique and special 2 part developer and allows for massive flexibility in your chosen black and white film's exposure speed'. 

I rather broke the rules for testing when I tried out a short roll of Freestyle Legacy Pro 400 (expired March 2011) in my newly arrived Olympus Mju II (really I should have tested it using a camera I've used before). 

Freestyle Legacy 400 is actually rebranded Fuji Neopan 400, and I used the times for that film. I exposed it EI800. This is quite tricky on the Mju as film speed is set by the DX coding on the film cassette, so I used an old film cassette from a EI800 film and wound the Legacy 400 into that. I wanted to use an high speed not just to test the HCD but also as the weather is very dull at the moment.

The development process is a bit more complex than I am used to:
1) Pre-soak in water for 2 mins
2) Then 3 mins in the HCD-2 (30 sec agitation at the start only)
3) Then 5.5 mins in the HCD-2 (30 sec agitation to start then 3 inversions every minute)
4) Stop and fix as normal

The resulting negatives have lots of contrast and considering they are pushed by 1 stop they are relatively fine grained. Here are some examples (not very good subjects, and a very dull weekend):

I'm quite impressed with the results and will definitely use this developer again, perhaps trying even higher speeds

Polaroid - Edwin Land

Interesting video about Edwin Land, the man who invented the Polaroid camera.

See it here

Developer Shelf Life

As someone who works full time I am not able to dedicate as much time to film photography as I would like. I also like to experiment with different developers and processes. This means that I don't use up colour or black and white developers very quickly. This is one of the reasons why I use Rodinal quite a lot as it has a very long shelf life. Even half open bottles of Rodinal are said to last at least 40 years! Although the developer goes a dark brown colour, its still works fine.

The dark brown colour of myyear old half full bottle of Rodinal is nothing to worry about

Most other developers are not so flexible. I use Ilford Delta 3200 high speed film quite a lot and the best results are achieved by developing it in Ilford DD-X. DD-X comes in big 1 litre plastic bottles which is quite a lot a developer for me to use up even at 1+4 dilution. DD-X will last for up to 2 years in full bottles, but only 4 months in half full bottles. I therefore always decant it into small bottles to get the maximum shelf life. I have used DD-X that is up to 14 months old (but stored in small, full bottles) with no problems.

I decant DD-X into different size bottles to maximise shelf life

I got the little bottle in Boots (Chemist) the big one is a Tropicana Orange Juice Bottle, from McDonalds. 

Of course you never know how long the developer has been on the shelf of the store you buy it from, but I think Ilford's own shelf life figures are conservative anyway.

I do some C41 Colour home developing using the Tetenal kit (not as much as I used to as I'm in a black and white phase at the moment). Unlike the black and white developers, which I use 'one shot' (pour away after one use) the Tetenal chemicals must be reused. The quoted shelf life of the made up Tetenal chemicals is 6 weeks. The last batch I used seemed to be fine even after 12 months! I keep the chemicals in tightly sealed plastic bottles in a cool dark place.

Flickr Favorites

What photos do people view the most often in my Flickr photostream? Who cares! I hear you ask, well photos are there to be viewed and enjoyed by other people so I may as well consider their opinion and presumably the photos people view the most are the ones they like. Of course there may be other reasons why people view photos other than for purely artistic reasons! The popularity of photos of women seem to be inversely proportionate to how many items of clothing they are wearing!
My most viewed photo on Flickr (by quite a margin) is this one:

This is Kat Marsh, who used to be bass player with my son's ex-band, The King Blues. No doubt its popularity has nothing to do with its artistic quality (although I think its not a bad gig photo), Kat seems to be a very popular lady and a Google search of her name will list this photo, although not near the top. However the photo has no favorites! The photo that most people have added to their favorites is this one:

I enjoyed taking this photo as I had planned it in my head for some time. It shows an Exakta camera in the Wait Level Finder of another Exakta camera. It should really have been taken with a third Exakta camera but it wasn't, its taken with my Olympus OM-2. 

Another popular photo, with lots of favorites too, is this one, also taken with my OM2:

Its the instruments from my Honda 400/4 motorbike, made in 1976. Perhaps people liked it because it awakened memories of motorbikes of their youth!

Which are my favorite photos? Well I like black and white, interesting textures and reflections. This photo, taken recently (also with my OM2) is the one I like most:

It also has a few favorites on Flickr too! Another one I like a lot and has a few favorites is this one (taken with my Olympus XA2):

That's all for now!

Which little Olympus?

I always like to have a small easy to use film camera with me that takes great photos. That way I can capture interesting things that I come across in my day to day life without having a large SLR with me all the time. Key requirement is that is should fit in my pocket (or my briefcase if I'm working). I've tried a variety of cameras but it usually comes down to a little Olympus 35mm camera. I've had an Olympus XA2 for some time, it's a red one that I was given. It's a lovely camera, very small and light and very easy to use. Automatic exposure and zone focusing (3 settings, close ups, groups and distance).

Tempted by the sophistication of the XA, with its coupled rangefinder, I bought one on e-bay a little while back. Trouble is with my not so great eyesight, the rangefinder spot is quite difficult to see in the viewfinder, even with a tiny blob of Bluetack on the front of the viewfinder to make it a little clearer. I have got some good photos out of the XA but I don't find it that easy to use and for street shooting the focus lever and rangefinder are just too fiddly for me.

I used a number of other cameras in my collection for this role. I have a nice Olympus 35RC but its a bit temperamental and sometimes refuses to work (poor battery contacts I think) I also have a lovely Canon QL19 This camera always takes great pictures but its a little too big to go in my pocket.

In this picture the Canon doesn't look much bigger than the Olympus but it is significantly Larger

A rather different proposition is my 1930s Zeiss Super Ikonta 530. Being a folding camera this does fit in my pocket, although its pretty heavy. Its a beautiful instrument, although not really a 'street shooter' requiring a more leisurely approach (and a separate light meter). Of course is takes 120 film, not 35mm. Still, I really should take more photos with it.

So which is my favorite? Well the one that fit the bill and takes the best overall photos, the Olympus XA2 is hard to beat.

Kodak No2 Folding Pocket Brownie

I have been after one of these cameras for a while, and managed recently to 'win' one for a reasonable price on e-bay. These cameras were made from 1907 to 1915. The red bellows that my camera has were changed to black in 1911 so that dates my camera as before that year so it is around 102 years old.

The camera body is made of wood covered in imitation leather, the front shutter panel is made of brass I think and is engraved as shown below:

The patents listed at the bottom of the shutter are dated 1908 and 1909, so the camera was probably made in 1910 or 1911. The dial at the top can be set to I for instantaneous which is about 1/50th second, B is for bulb (shutter stays open until you release the shutter lever (on the left)) and T (shutter stays open until you press it again). Aperture is set using the leaver at the bottom. According to what I have read on Flickr Brownie Group 1 is equal to f16, 2 is f22 and 3 is f32. It takes standard 120 film. The lens in mounted behind the shutter. The shutter seems to work fine and the lens is OK, it was quite dusty when I got it but it cleaned up OK, no fungus I can see.

As New Year's Day was the first sunny day in weeks I loaded it up with Ilford FP4 and took some photos down at the Grand Union canal. Back home I develop it in Rodinal 1:100 using 1 hour 'stand' development. I think the results are surprisingly good: 

The lens seems pretty sharp in the center of the photo but the edges are quite blurry. It was a bright sunny day and the contrast of the photos is good. 

Photos were hand held, so the shutter must be firing at about 1/50th, the aperture was set at 2 (f22). Not bad for a 100 year old camera.