I took the images and wrote this post pre-pandemic
Does loading Fuji Superia into a Pentax ME super make for super duper images? Not likely but film in a camera is a recipe for fun in my book.
Knowing that I was going to be taking pictures in some lower light situations I chose some faster lenses such as the Vivitar 28 f2.0 in the above image as well as a 50mm f1.7 and a Vivitar 70-150 f3.8 which may not be the brightest lens but gives a bit of telephoto while still being compact. (I believe there were restrictions on the size of lens you could bring into the stadium seen in some of the images so I did not want to draw attention to my ‘state of the art’ kit.)
Additionally I set the camera to ISO 800 and pushed the film 1 stop during development. Using a Unicolor C41 kit this is achieved by increasing the development time by 1.25X for the one stop. So the normal developer time of 3.5 minutes is extended to 4min 24 Seconds (4 1/2 minutes unless your super fussy and think it would make a difference) I was happy with the results this gave me. The amount of grain is slightly increased but then it is as well if you were using natively 800 iso film.
No that’s not the deterioration of this camera over time. The one on top was stolen from my vehicle and the bottom one is its replacement. Not really an upgrade in aesthetics but just as good at taking pictures. In addition to always capturing images at a 2.75 aspect ratio the camera sports a 24mm wide angle lens. That aspect ratio is nearly approaching 3 to 1 which forces you to think differently when composing. The image quality doesn’t allow for much enlargement but the panoramic format is a nice change when it comes to composition. More information and samples can be found in the links bellow the gallery.
I had the need to scan some old Kodak safety film that was both an odd size (65mm x 110mm) that did not fit into any of my Epson film holders and had a massive amount of curl. And not a curl that is easily tamed more like the curl a 10 year old puts on their plastic floor hockey stick. The solution that I came up with was to use the glass film holder for my enlarger. I realize that not everyone has a 4×5 enlarger and by extension a 4×5 film holder but if you do it is one way to handle a situation like this. Handily it also turns out to hold the film at the right height off of the scanner glass for focusing the same as other film holders.
I picked this Holga up at a thrift store and could see that it already had a roll of film in it. “Waste not want not” so I finished the roll and processed it. Expectations being exceedingly low there was little danger of disappointment. And the camera is yellow that is always a bonus. The film turned out to be Ilford HP5 and because I was not set up for doing black and white developing I set it aside for quite awhile.
The Lens apparently, according to the writing on its front, is optical which is good because the other option would seem to be not being a lens. 60mm for medium format is a reasonably wide field of view considering that 80mm is more of a normal focal length for 6x6cm. The results were as expected poor. The film had been in the camera for quite awhile attested to by the frame number 5 and the paper backing being burned into one image.
I had difficulty making out what some of the previous owners images were but they seemed to all revolve around the kitchen.
And a babies hand double exposed onto someone sitting at a kitchen table.
The most identifiable image though is of the consumption of waffles. I’ve cropped the individuals face to protect them in case they have been claiming to be a lifetime member of the Keto diet society (That is not almond flour)
And finally here are the images that I took using the remainder of the roll. Poor quality to be sure but just good enough to show how crappy the lens is as well.
The Minolta X700 was a great film camera and the first camera that I ever bought for myself. It had a long run and was made from 1981 all the way to 1999. This means that there are many of them out there still in good working order. I’ve never actually come across one with a mechanical issue , their only weakness seams to be the electronics and in particular the capacitors. There was a trade off in weight vs the use of materials and to save weight and likely expense Minolta used a lot of plastic in the X700. Despite that the X700s that I have seen have all survived without any cracks or broken bits. In addition to the abundance of bodies there are numerous lenses available. Not only do the Minolta MD series lenses work on this camera but the older MC lenses work well although not necessarily in program mode. The gallery images were shot on Fuji Superia 400 which is a nice general purpose film that doesn’t have the finest grain for its speed but is more economical than Kodak Porta 400.
I’ve had some mixed results with expired Kodak Gold the main issue being the way it curls making it hard to hold flat for scanning. It also fogs and has poor contrast. So I decided to give a little push during development of this Gold 200 to roughly ISO 320. I can’t really say it came out better it still has more of a brown mask than orange but I could at least see the gaps between frames which I have also found to be a problem with expired Kodak Gold. The good news is that the Olympus XA I shot it with worked perfectly.
To achieve the push I merely increased the development time of the Unicolor kit I was using. The standard time for development is 3:30 min pushing two stops is 1.5x or 5:25, pushing 1 stop is 1.25x or 4:40, so going from 200 to 320 is 2/3 stops or a 1.16x increase for a time of 4:05. That is not to suggest that I’m achieving a to the second level of accuracy. There is difference in how long it takes to pour in and out the chemistry and when I start or stop the timer. Not to mention the variations in agitation.
Sometimes though I like the look of expired film with its blocked up blacks and its pee yellow highlights, vive la différence
The Rollei A26 has to be one of the most unique camera designs of all time. When not in use it forms what amounts to a rectangular cuboid
but when you pull it open to advance the film and cock the shutter it reveals its viewfinder shutter button and Sonnar lens. The lens is a 4 element 40mm with an maximum aperture of f3.5. I haven’t been able to find specifics around the actual lens design but its sure to have some of the characteristics of other Rollei Sonnar lenses of the time that are found on Rollei 35s. That is to say they are compact and have a short distance to the film plane while still producing good results. Also as with the Rollei 35s the lens collapses into the camera body for compactness when not in use.
I picked up this roll of long expired Agfa 126 film at a camera show (pre pandemic) As you would expect the film produced low contrast results and had a decided colour shift towards blue. The film was just good enough though to give a hint towards the quality the camera could be able to produce.
While there apparently were not a lot of them made I have come across two other A26s in rough non functional shape and have decided to use their lenses to build a 3D camera with them but that may take some time and will be an other post.
I will give you 10 seconds to come up with an answer for what that is……..3..2..1 times up. I’ve been trying to recover some of the silver from my film processing and had put Blix in a jar with some steal wool and had forgotten about it. When I did remember and have a look this was on the underside of what can only be described as a floating steel island. I guess all the different compounds that make up the Blix formed large crystals.
Within Blix are Sodium Carbonate, PENTASODIUM DTPA, ETHANOL, 2-[(4-Amino-3-Methylphenyl) Ethylamino]-, Sulfate (1:1), SODIUM SULFITE and HYDROXYLAMINE SULFATE. I will let you figure out which crystal is what.
Don’t be fooled by its cute little face this camera hates me. Somehow it managed to botch up a quarter of the roll…there is no way it could be user error.
The Holga Tim is a cute concept but with some issues. Even if your okay with the cheap plastic camera look the Tim takes it to a whole other level. Each of the two lenses has its own little eyelid that you can use to cover up one lens at a time so that you can use it to squeeze out twice as many shots from a roll but keeping track of which lens you last used and remembering to switch between them and cock the shutter before advancing the film requires the level of attention this camera doesn’t elicit. Probably half the pictures I took had some unexpected problem and for some both are completely blank.
If you do manage to take a picture though get ready for some plastic fantastic soft images. The one from the roll that does appear sharp I must have stopped down the lens all the way in the bright sunlight. That aperture is said to be f11 while the cloudy setting is f8. The shutter fires at 1/100sec and the focus is also fixed. A previous post about the TIM can be found here
