in vitro

 Relentless Spring winds have pushed me indoors and strengthened my resolve to do more with still life.

 I took walks through my usual haunts including the neighborhood, the riverside bosque,  and the botanic garden with my Kodak Retina Reflex.

I shot the roll of Kentmere 400 at box speed and developed semi-stand in L110 with just 4ml in 640ml of water.  I thought the Kentmere in this instance did not show quite the tonal range I have gotten from processing with the L110 dilution B or with PMK Pyro.

Interesting Times

I was pleased to come across some Fuji 200 on line, so I bought three 3-packs.  I loaded some in my Retina Reflex and took a short walk around the block to shoot some local color with the early morning light.  Then I got on my bike and rode over to Albuquerque's Botanical Garden which was recently reopened to visitors.

Half the pictures lived up to my expectations for the Retina Reflex and its fine Xenon lens.

The rest of the roll showed a variety of bizarre colors and surface imperfections.  Here is the first scan from the roll:

Some tinkering with colors in Photoshop yielded something closer to reality, but not really much better.

Click on the next one to see the dense array of horizontal striations across the whole surface of the image.

I don't have an explanation of what happened with this roll of film.  Nor do I have any idea of how I should proceed now.  The C-41 kit was some re-packaged Unicolor from the Film Photography Project, and this was just the fourth roll through the batch.  The Fuji film came from Freestyle.

CLA in a can

I checked the operation of my Retina Reflex before taking it out for a shoot.  To my dismay, I found that the aperture stop-down mechanism was sticky.  With the Retina Reflex you need to advance the film and cock the shutter to bring the mirror down so you can see through the lens.   To test the operation of the shutter and aperture you set the speed to 1/500 and the aperture to f22, and when you release the shutter you should briefly see the aperture opened to its smallest setting before the shutter closes.

What I saw, however, was that the aperture was only closing down to about f8 before the shutter action was complete.

It seemed likely that some congealed lubricant and dirt on the aperture blades was interfering with sequence of events leading to proper exposure.  The problem with the Retina Reflex is that you can't get clear access to the shutter without completely disassembling the camera.   That is more of a repair job than I was prepared to undertake, however, so I decided to just try to resolve the problem with the application of some judiciously applied electronic contact cleaner which I picked up at a local auto supply store.

It is possible to get limited access to the shutter and aperture blades on the Retina Reflex by just removing the front lens group.  I set the shutter to the B setting so I could hold it open and get at the aperture blades underneath.  With  the aperture set to f22 I shot a couple short squirts of the cleaner onto the aperture blades, and worked the shutter open and closed several times which carried the black scum out onto the surface of the blades.  I then scrubbed the blades gently with some cotton q-tips until they looked clean.

I let everything dry thoroughly overnight and cleaned the the lens surfaces.  The shutter seemed to be working fine, so I took the camera out the next day loaded with a roll of Kentmere 400 which I shot at 200 ASA for processing in PMK Pyro.

I won't be surprised if I have to perform this operation again some time in the future, but I'm happy for now to be able to use the Retina Reflex again as it is one of my great favorites.

A midmorning walk with the Retina Reflex

Recalibrating

I've had some inconsistent results from my home film processing lately, so I decided to try to iron out some of the variables in the process. I got a new bottle of HC110 developer and a new digital thermometer from Freestyle along with a batch of TMAX and Tri-X film. I am thinking I will also do more stand and semi-stand developing as that makes time and temperature less important as well as providing some improvement in b&w tonal qualities. The last couple rolls I shot were processed normally in HC110 dilution B, so I'll try the next couple using semi-stand for comparison.

We have had some good ballooning weather lately.  This Stars and Stripes model came slowly down our street last Sunday at just over roof level.  I grabbed the Leica and walked along with the balloon thinking I might get some shots of a landing as that was pretty clearly what the pilot was aiming for.  However, there were really no likely landing spots on the course chosen by the wind, so about six blocks on the pilot gained some altitude and speed and left me behind.

A few days later I took my Retina Reflex loaded with another roll of TMAX 100 to the botanic garden.  I was the first one through the gate at 9:00 AM and it was nice to have the place to myself except for a few groundskeepers doing their watering and weeding.

Today is Cesar Chavez Day in Albuquerque, so I'm hoping to get to the celebration at the Hispanic Cultural Center with the Minolta X-700 and some Tri-X.   Lots of new photo opportunities on the horizon with the arrival of Spring.

Getting Closer

I needed some fixer, so I went to Albuquerque's one remaining camera store, Camera & Darkroom, to pick up a bottle.  While there I pawed through some boxes of junk and turned up a +3 close-up lens that I could put into a screw-in adapter for my Retina Reflex.

1957

I have these little close-up accessory lenses for each of my slr cameras.  They are not as seamless in operation as a genuine macro lens, but they are cheap, effective, and they work even with fixed lens cameras like the Retina Reflex.  When I'm not using the Retina Reflex for macro work I mount the little rubber Kodak lens hood to help reduce lens flare.  The hood can also be used on my Retina rangefinders which have the same Xenon lens.

(click to view images at full size)

The leaf shutter of Retina Reflex sits between the front and rear lens groups, so that gives the camera a very narrow front-to-back profile which makes the camera nice to carry on a neck strap.  And, like the similarly equipped Contaflex, the Retina Reflex can be stuffed into a jacket pocket when necessary. That compactness and enhanced portability more than make up for the absence of an instant-return mirror, which just takes a little getting used to.

The Production

The Costars

The Producer

The Diva

The Executive Producer

The Director

Extra

Stray Dog on the Set

Life as a screen play.
Our after-Thanksgiving breakfast with visiting family found us seated in the darkest part of Weck's restaurant on 4th Street.  I guessed at the proper camera settings to suit the low light levels, but missed the mark a few times.  No matter.  I liked everyone's picture anyway.  But, I may have to look for a new location scout.

Morning Walk

New Mexico is having some great weather lately - cool nights, warm days, blue skies.  If you live somewhere else, I'm sorry.
    I took a long walk down by the river on Monday morning with my Kodak Retina Reflex and its newly installed prism.  I thought it turned in a stellar performance.  Of course, it is a little hard to be completely objective when you bring a camera back to life.  The fact that it makes pictures at all seems somewhat miraculous, particularly when you are a rather clumsy repairman like me.  On the other hand, I have a Retina II, a Retina IIa and a Retina IIc that have the same Xenon lens as the Reflex, and they also make excellent images.  So, I think I'm on safe ground to claim that the Retina Reflex performs equally well in that respect.  The other thing those Retinas have in common are extraordinarily quiet shutters.  Even more surprising in the Reflex model is the fact that the mirror and aperture stop-down mechanism do not seem to add any noise to the exposure process.  Below are some pictures of the recent outing.  The camera out-performed the photographer by a substantial margin, but I'm working to catch up.