Sunday, August 05, 2012

Brilliant Dance








Margaret called me from Old Town Albuquerque where she had ridden her bike to mail some letters from the post office there.  I could hardly hear her over the sound of the drums and the chanting, but it was clear that she thought I ought to get myself over there.

On something of a whim, I dropped a roll of 35mm Kodak Gold 100 into my Voigtländer Brilliant.  I taped up the yellow window on the camera's bottom to keep the light from the unprotected 35mm film.  One-and-one-half rotations of the film advance knob seemed about right to keep the frames separated properly.

Getting a moving target properly centered in the viewfinder which is left-right reversed was a little challenging.  Still, I thought the little camera performed brilliantly again.

3 comments:

Jim said...

What fun! The colors seem a little muted. Haven't shot with Kodak Gold 100 in ages; is this a characteristic of the film?

How do you get a roll of 35mm film to work in your Brilliant? Does it drop right in?

Mike said...

It is an uncoated lens, so that lessens the contrast a bit. My impression is that the shutter is operating about a stop-and-a-half fast, so the underexposure plays a part too.

There is a lot of room in the 120 film chamber, so no problem getting 35mm film in there. The trick after that is to make sure no light sneaks in other than through the shutter. It would probably be worthwhile to roll up the film inside of some 120 backing paper with this camera as you could then make use of the frame counter to precisely space the exposures. Of course, you also need to open the camera in a dark bag so you can roll the film back into the cassette.

Julio F said...

I like the colors and the way images come out through the film holes. It is like inviting the viewer to get beyond the technical means and into the picture.