Wallace Koopmans Artlog

As I shoot through my first pack of Fuji FP100c I hope to learn what works and what doesn’t with this film and camera (Polaroid 330)   My initial reaction is that it doesn’t lend itself to taking close-ups or landscapes.  The best shot so far has been a Portrait and maybe that is where the strength of this combination will be.

This lens was made in many different camera mounts but here I have it in Olympus OM. It is a true macro lens providing a 1:1 ratio. I loaded my OM-1 with Fuji 400 film in order to get a little more speed over the 200 ASA I typically use. That one stop can mean the difference between a sharp image and a blurred one. For example while typically you can hand hold a 55mm lens at 1/60 sec that isn’t necessarily true with macro. The reason is that small amounts of movement are magnified at close distances, while an angular shift of a degree has little effect at 100ft it means an entirely different view at 1 foot. Of course a tripod would be a good idea ordinarily but in this case I either hand held or used a mono-pod. As you would expect with a macro lens it is very sharp and has very little distortion.

My only wish is that it were in K-mount so I could use it with my DSLR, I really can’t find any reason to fault it, on the OM-1 it performs great and I was able to use it as a normal lens too.

Today Kodak announced they intend to sell off there film business as part of the plan to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.  What most people think of when they think Kodak, “film” is tucked away under Paper and output systems, which is going up for sale.  I wish I could say I’m optimistic about still image film continuing to be produced but any company that takes this on would have to make a profit and film has really become a niche market (excluding motion picture film) 

Momma don’t take my  Kodachrome Ektachrome  Ektar away.

I have a strong affinity for the colour yellow and thought that I might want to have a camera that colour, you know to blend in.  I chose the Pentax 120SW for a couple of reasons: I liked the idea of trying out the 28mm wide end of this camera, It was cheap, It’s a Pentax and Pentax has released yellow camera’s  most notably the recent K-01

So once I have my victim camera and paint, I disassembled it and masked off any areas I didn’t want to be yellow. You know areas like the viewfinder.

I just used spray paint from the local hobby store that you would use on a model car or plane or camera or something similar

Then after somewhat careful re-assembly (No extra bits left over)

Are you my mother?

OK so that amused me for a few minutes but did the camera still take pictures?  Well yes and no.  Yes it still takes pictures but I’ve introduced a small light leak,  that could easily be found and fixed but that may not be worth my time or any more film.  It’s just not much of a camera to get excited over.  Yes the 28mm wide end is an interesting focal length but the Pentax EW24 is wider and ultimately a better camera.  So if your wondering did this fix my yellow camera yearning, not in the least I just need to find a better victim.

And now for something completely familiar

The iPad is turning out to be a versatile tool for realizing the images I want to create.  It is difficult and sometimes impossible to simplify a scene to the degree that I want with photography but this allows me that possibility.  While not as immediate as a photograph I’m finding that I can create sketches faster than I could with traditional media.

This week I’m posting two images at once.  A Polaroid Spectra shot and a Fuji FP100C shot taken with a Polaroid 330 Pack film camera.

 Polaroid Spectra

Fuji FP100C shot with a 330 Land Camera

I picked up this Yashica 44 as is at the Vancouver camera show. The problem with it was that the front of the camera just flopped around. Repairing it turned out to be very easy, it was missing some screws inside and by missing I mean gone, not a trace.

It turns out though that there are some screws that were an exact match inside a broken Pentax Spotmatic that I had. After putting it all back together it was time to break it. Well modify it anyway.

What I did was remove the upper roller and film holder so that I could squeeze a 35mm film canister in there. This is the point where the rev 0.9 comes in. I tested the camera and found a couple of things that didn’t quite work out. The first and most obvious one was that I miscalculated how much to advance the film for each frame. Half a turn is enough near the end of the roll but not at the beginning. The other issue is that the pressure plate that holds the film flat is very reflective. That isn’t a problem for film with a paper backing like this camera originally used but is with transparent film. I think that the light was reflected back through the film which reduced the sharpness and contrast. So to rectify that I will paint it black, I will also replace the dried up faux leather that graced the front of the camera before.

The scanning itself was a problem as the holder that I have obscures the sprocket holes. I placed the film on the Epson V700 glass directly but this is not an ideal situation and results in newton rings and discolouration around the edges. I think I will build a more general purpose film holder that can be adjusted for holding 35mm film from either end at the proper distance from the scanner.

The second drawing in my iPad series.