Wallace Koopmans Artlog

The Ricoh R1 is much like two cameras in one as I’ve stated previously.  The 30mm lens is a fantastic performer and the 24mm panoramic has a toy camera aesthetic.  The decision to use Adox color implosion film is more in keeping with the latter but I like the unmistakable ‘filmness’ either way.  The gallery that follows is a little of each and for the moment it ‘s the 24mm panoramic film camera I use as my Minolta Freedom Vista was stolen from my vehicle.  I suppose the joke is somewhat on them as there isn’t a big market for film cameras let alone ones that only take panoramic shots.  It’s more likely to end up in a dumpster than to take another picture but I hope it does get used even if it isn’t by me.  In the meantime the R1 is one of the best point and shoots I have so I turn to it often.

Niagara Falls seemed like a very gritty place to me, the city not the falls, the falls are wet.  The grainyness of Adox Colour Implosion suits the place well.  I loaded my Olympus XA with this film because it’s a great little camera to travel with.  It’s small, reliable and gives good results.  The images turned out to have a cool bluish cast to them from the Adox film but that too suits Niagara, at least when I was there at the end of April.  Here is a closeup look at gritty grainy Niagara

The second half to my Adox Colour Implosion post the first part can be seen here Half Frame Implosion

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.

Adox’s Color implosion film is marketed as having ‘a modified color scheme’  from there website translated to english:

Place your camera to ISO 400/27 °. The color option of your memory film implodes and you get images with very little color and “Toxic Grain”.  This awaits you if you belichtest Color implosion with your Holga.

Now I don’t know what blichtest means but it doesn’t sound good and I don’t like anyone telling me I have to use a Holga.

So the second suggestion which might have been what I was after is.

Place your camera to ISO 200/24 °.  Now everything explodes red, while the others remain in the green-blue color.  “Toxic Grain” is red. 
  If you like share with your laboratory staff that you would like the movie “supercharge plus 1”. “Bursting Red” also in your Holga

Still I don’t want anything bursting in my Holga if I had one, so I went with the third option.

Place your camera to ISO 100/21 °.  Now makes Color implosion for you beautifully surreal 70s summer colors.  The “Toxic Grain” is now yellow and not as concise.

By the way this is what ‘Toxic Grain’  looks like

While I had hoped for the reds to really stand out, they ended up being quite muted, perhaps because of my choice to shoot at 100 ISO. I’ve set a few of those images aside for a future post where I show the difference between the raw scans and the edited files.  For those I boosted the red channel to more closely match my expectations.  But without further ado(x) here are the images I belichtested.