Wallace Koopmans Artlog

If you have read my blog for a while you may already know about my affinity for this camera. Super Paxette, Real Photographers dont crop and Super Paxette More Images This time around I used Kodak’s excellent Ektar 100 film. The only thing that might make this camera better for me is if I had some of the other lenses that were made for it. I have the 45mm Kata which is the most useful focal length but there were also lenses available in focal lengths 35mm, 50, 85mm and 135mm.

It should be mentioned that the lens is not the sharpest even stopped down around f5.6-f8 and the bokeh has an odd distorted look when it’s focused on something close. The film mask creates a look something like the zig zag scissors you use in preschool and the shutter release is in a completely unfamiliar location. The flip side of all those things though is that the lens is sharp enough for making good 8x10s. The Bokeh is a cool effect that can be used when making an image and the film mask is also pretty interesting and the shutter is actually in a comfortable spot.

I’ve selected 26 images from the roll of 36 for inclusion but broken them into two separate posts. All 36 turned out technically fine it’s just that sometimes I shoot similar shots or even pictures that aren’t that interesting. (Yes I still get to decide here what is interesting or not)

Digital photography has a subset where some people seem to spend as much or more time worrying about their gear as actually taking pictures. It’s as if the acquisition of some new camera or lens will solve all their problems. Or time is spent arguing over some minor improvement that apparently renders everything previous obsolete, maybe they should delete all the pictures they took with such inferior equipment. A part of this obsession is focused (pun alert) on the resolution and pixel level sharpness of images apparently with no regard to how it would look printed and viewed. I recently spent some time looking at what are considered important photographs in a Sotheby’s auction catalogue and a large amount of them are anything but sharp or blur free. Part of the drive towards image sharpness may be the use of large prints in contemporary art. Photographers such as Jeff Wall, Andreas Gursky, and Gregory Crewdson create giant prints which are impressive to see in person, why wouldn’t you want to achieve that sort of image. The thing is you aren’t likely to no matter what camera you use. There are reasons images like these are impressive and it isn’t an accident, real work went into creating them including planning and a concept which doesn’t come with the latest model of camera.

I’m not immune from falling into this trap I’ve wasted more than my fair share of time evaluating camera gear instead of creating or enjoying the work of others.  I’m not railing against new cameras, I want the latest greatest too (also the oldest and worst), but having it shouldn’t be necessary to create art. In this photo by Ruth Orkin “American girl in Italy” what’s more important how detailed the image is viewed close up or the content?

My advice for anyone that finds themselves thinking that maybe they need a new camera or lens is to spend an equal amount of time looking at great photographs from other people and you may soon find out they didn’t even use equipment that matches what you already have.

If it’s that 1980’s vibe your after this camera will match your feathered hair nicely just don’t get it caught between the sides of your water-bed.  The Ricoh 35 EFS is very simple to operate. All exposure is automatic, the flash is turned on by you and you focus be selecting a little icon on the lens barrel.  I mean how well do you want the camera focused on that mix tape in your hand anyway.  So yes it’s built to look like a rangefinder of the 1970’s but it’s all plastic like the 80’s and is on the large side just like your shoulder pads.  The lens is a 40mm f2.8 with 3 groups and 4 elements.  Seriously though this is like totally the camera I would take in a Delorean at 88 miles an hour.

The Yashica T3 is one of those cameras that you tend to keep coming back to using because of the lens. I haven’t been able to definitely pinpoint what sets the look of the images from this camera apart but I know I like the results. It’s not always easy to convey that through small web images and these look a little soft as I post them but the originals are not.

Today I get to deliver one of my photographic prints to the Kariton Gallery for the 2nd Fraser Valley Regional Biennale I’m especially looking forward to seeing all the different work from the other artists that have been selected.

The work of mine is titled “Pipeline Crossing”.  The piece is part of my exploration of our relationship with fossil fuels and their impact, as the pipeline seems to precariously cross the sky.  The scale is hinted at with the human sized ladders.

If you would like to see the full picture (without my goofy visage) as well as all the other art please visit the Kariton Gallery during the Biennale and if you can at the opening reception on Sunday July 28th 1-4pm

On the technical side the physical print is 40cm x 58cm and is a digital archival print from a scan of 35mm Kodak Ektar 100 film.  It was printed skillfully at Abbotsford Lens and Shutter  and professionally framed at Abbotsford Art Gallery where they do a fantastic job.

I was also a participant in the 1st Fraser Valley Biennale at the Reach Gallery with one of my oil paintings “Made in Occupied Japan”

I have been very impressed with Kodak Ektar and its fine grain and how well it scans but have shied away from 400 ISO films until necessity has forced my hand.  I’ve found it increasingly hard to find inexpensive 200 ISO film so have migrated to using cheap 400 film for my everyday shooting.  The results from this change have been encouraging enough for me to consider trying some better more expensive 400 films like Kodak Portra.  Many people may not realize just how much of the movies are still shot on film, for example at the time I write this no Movie has won a best picture Oscar that was not shot on film.  The point is that despite the steep drop off of still photography on film, development and use continued on the movie side unabated.  In 2010 they  released this formulation of Kodak Portra 400 which used the technological advancements that had been made there.  The result as they claim is the worlds finest grained 400 ISO film and that it scans very well.  I will take their word for it as it certainly scans well and is fine-grained I’m just not really on a quest to prove that.

I scanned this Negative at 4800 DPI on my Epson V700 scanner producing an image 6800×4500 (32Mpixels)  but that is stretching things into the area of diminishing returns both for the film and the scanner. At 3200 DPI the image has as much detail so there is little need to create such large files.  Almost all the scanned frames produced from this roll of film have details in both the highlights and shadows.  This produces somewhat flat files without a lot of contrast but for my digital work flow this is fine in fact it is preferable, these files allow great latitude for manipulating them digitally.

My initial try with this camera was marred by the horrible out of date Polaroid brand film I used with it. If it hadn’t otherwise been such a good performing camera I would have just left it at that but it seemed to deserve another roll.
And how do I feel now? Well it’s a good camera with great ergonomics as I outlined in my first post  Ricoh RZ3000 , but as for results it doesn’t produce anything that necessarily stands out. I could go back to bad film, that stands out but otherwise it doesn’t really give me a look that says this is why I still shoot film.
When I choose to use film one of the reasons is the overall experience of the camera, such as using a Twin Lens or a rangefinder but with the RZ3000 it’s almost too much like just using a digital camera. So as good as it is it will go back into a small box with similar cameras until I forget what I just wrote and take it out again.

Kodak gold, old Kodak Gold, old Expired Kodak Gold is the most frustrating film to scan while showing the sprockets. It not only wants to coil into a tight little roll it wants to curl into a ball from the sides. Arrrrggg (That is the sound Of frustration) The curling was so bad that I couldn’t even scan it as colour because of all the shifts from the orange C41 mask, or hold it flat. That is why despite the film being labeled Gold-200 it’s converted to Black and White.

Switching to the Yashica 44’s ground glass from an SLR viewfinder or an LCD screen takes some adjustment as everything is mirrored. So to move an object on the glass to the left the camera needs to be turned to the right. I tend to tilt the horizon for some reason so the red lines are very helpful. Another added aid is the small magnifier (not shown here) that can be popped out to check focus on the glass. Modifying this camera (Yashica 44 35mm conversion) is a great way of making it usable again despite the fact that it is a film orphan. I will never use Kodak Gold in it again though.

More non-film images from my trip to Calgary Alberta

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