Wallace Koopmans Artlog

These are the 12 exposures I managed to take with my Voigtlander Vito CL before the film stopped advancing. I first noticed it when I advanced the film and could hear it skipping the sprockets. I thought I was at the end of the film. How could I think that I had taken 24 shots when I only took twelve? That’s easy I was carrying a ‘litter’ of cameras and not really paying attention to which one I had used as well as the fact that I hadn’t set the counter for the Vito CL back to zero when I loaded the film. The only real loss was the potential of taking another 12 shots as I rewound the film as soon as I ran into the problem.

The Vito CL is a viewfinder camera and you focus by the scale on the front of the lens. I prefer an actual rangefinder but scale focusing works too, it just requires estimating distances accurately. I am happy with the quality of the pictures from the Lanthar 50mm f2.8 lens. The shutter button is actually a sliding switch on the face of the camera and works quite well if you grip the camera with both thumbs on the back. Holding the camera this way ends up further reducing the already low camera shake of the leaf shutter.

More non-film images from my trip to Calgary Alberta

I’ve broken into my last remaining box of Polaroid Spectra.  I now have 19 frames left after which I might try some Impossible Project film.

Why would anyone choose to use this camera now when there are so many different options even just in the film world? No one needs to, I just did, you are welcome. If you must though the reasons are; the lens cover retracts like a pod bay door that’s cool’ish, at the wide end the lens is 28mm that’s wide’ish. Other than that it’s not that memorable a camera, although it does give decent results with 400ISO film. I wouldn’t use a film slower than this because at 75mm the maximum aperture is f8.9 so in low light the shutter speeds will be quite low. Enjoy your Freedom while it lasts.

First my own reflections. The impersonal hard reflections of the buildings, one against another couldn’t be a better metaphor for my first impression of Calgary. It seems as though in an effort to clean the city they stripped away more than the detritus, they removed the invisible fabric that allows humans to interact. While a week isn’t a long time it was immediately apparent that no amount of smiling or saying hello was enough to break through the invisible capsule Calgarians seem to have surrounding themselves. Now this is actually somewhat at odds with another part of my experience. As a pedestrian I noticed how courteous the drivers were towards me and each other. No one seemed to be in such a hurry that they would rather run you down than wait a second. As I said this was my first impression and it applies to the downtown where people mostly work and not live so it’s not enough to determine the true nature of the city.  As for the images, there were many opportunities to see one building reflected in another, and seaking them out was an enjoyable visual exercise.

These are some of the digital pictures I took while visiting Calgary Alberta. I was focused on using my film cameras but used my Pentax K-01 and Pentax Q as well.  There is some inevitable cross over between my film shots and digital images as I use both types concurrently.

The Olympus Stylus Epic (mju ii) is my go to pocketable film camera and there isn’t much more to say that hasn’t been said other than to re-iterate what a great camera this is. I used Kodak Ektar 100 film which I also think is a perfect pairing for this camera. Other posts from and about this camera can be seen here Olympus Stylus Epic

I’ve had some pretty bad luck with out of date APS film much of it producing thin negatives that did not scan well, so this time I used the exposure compensation feature of the Minolta Vectis S1 to dial in +1.5 EV of exposure compensation. The film was Kodak Advantix 400 so with the compensation the camera would have selected exposures as if the film was about 140 ISO. I can’t say for sure how much of a difference this made because I didn’t take any shots without the compensation but I did get better results than I have been recently.

More Minolta Vectis S1 here Feb 2013, Nov 2011, Expanded Vision Through Narrower Thinking

Calgary is nothing if not its buildings. Here are digital pictures of some the buildings around downtown Calgary taken over the course of a week during my recent visit.

I have to admit I was a little disappointed at first with the results I got from this film but it may have been more about my expectations than the film itself.   Adox describes it as having ‘Bursting Reds’ so I made sure that I shot a lot of red things.  They also suggest that to get the best results for reds to shoot at 200 ISO while I shot the film at 100 ISO which is what was on the film canister.  So to achieve closer to the result I was after I tweaked the reds in Lightroom as well as some other adjustments. This image demonstrates the difference.

And of course the grain is pretty extreme, as they say no one is going to mistake that for digital.   In the end though I got what I deserved 36 frames with a very different look.