No Adjustments Needed

 I am always impressed by how my Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim (VUWS)  stacks up against much more sophisticated and expensive cameras in my collection.  I shot a roll of Kentmere 200 in the little point & shoot, aiming it often at subjects which I had previously visited with some high-end cameras.

The VUWS has been one of my most productive cameras over the past twenty years. In the past I mostly shot color with it, but that choice has been relegated by film prices to the digital realm.   The 22mm two-element lens handles black & white just fine.

 

Spare Parts

 In one week I managed to break the plastic rewind cranks on two old cameras that I like, the Nikon EM and my two-decade-old Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim.  Luckily for me I had a spare crank for the VUWS, and the Nikon EM was put back in working order thanks to the generosity of a friend.

So, time to test the repairs.  I headed over to the Los Poblanos fields to see if I could find some wintering Sandhill Cranes.  Thee were plenty of birds, but none were willing to allow me close enough for a picture.  I had to settle for a shot of an old cottonwood which showed no objection to being photographed.

Nikon EM

The next day I took  both cameras to the Tingley ponds. The little Ultra Wide was loaded with Kendtmere 100.  In the Nikon EM I had a roll of slightly expired Fuji Neopan Presto which Jim Grey sent me some time ago, 

I had walked around one of the ponds with the Vivitar 70-210 Macro Zoom on the Nikon EM.  That gave me more than enough reach to shoot the lounging ducks and geese.  Back at my starting point I rewarded my subjects with a single slice of bread which caused quite a lot of excitement.  There is a sign at the pool's edge requesting that people not feed the birds, but I figured my small transgression would not be noticed.

Shortly afterward this woman arrived in an suv and distributed about forty pounds of bird food to the ducks and geese.  She told me she did this daily!  I captured the scene with the Ultra Wide.

With two rolls of film to process I decided to do them together with semi-stand development in highly diluted HC110, following the technique developed by hjlphotos.  That turned out well with the Fuji Neopan 400.  The Kentmere 100 from the Ultra Wide did not like that choice however, and I had to resort to some careful photoshopping to get something acceptable.

Perspectives

 I have mostly shot color in my little Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim, but it handles black and white well too.  These are from a roll of Arista Edu Ultra 200 processed in HC-110e.

Theory vs Practice

I had a fresh roll of Arista Edu 100, so I decided to shoot it in my Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim and process it semi-stand in RO9 (Rodinal) at 1:100 for an hour.  I thought that should give me good control of contrast and tonality.  Wrong.  The pictures were excessively contrasty and the tendency of the vuws to vignette was emphasized.  Here are the best ones from the roll.

The rest had mostly blown out highlights.  I may have not gotten a fair test for my idea behind semi-stand processing.  I'm down to the dregs on my old bottle of RO9 (Rodinal), so there's no telling if the results would have been better with fresh developer.  

Cinco de Mayo

 I needed some color film to shoot on Cinco de Mayo, so I dug around in the film drawer of the refrigerator and turned up a roll of Kodak Professional 400UC.  There was no box, so no date.  I looked it up and found that 400UC was discontinued in 2009!  I loaded it in my Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim, which would mean a shutter speed of 1/100 at f11.  There was no officially scheduled event for the day in Old Town, but I was pretty sure some of the old car guys would show up.

Since I didn't know if anything was actually being recorded on the film I decided I might as well shoot the whole roll while walking around Old Town, looking for anything bright and colorful.    My Cinestill C-41 had already processed at least sixteen rolls; so I give the 400UC some extra time, eight minutes at 95C.  The negatives needed a bit of color and levels adjustment, but I thought the old film wore its age well.

Venturing Out

 A weekend of fine weather prompted me to get out with my Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim loaded with some well-expired Agfa APX 100.

To compensate for the age of the APX 100 I developed it in Rodinal 1:25 for a couple minutes over the recommended time.  The sunny morning park shots looked fine , but the dark interiors produced very thin negatives requiring some careful photoshopping.

Albuquerque Autumn

 I was able to get back to shooting my Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim thanks to the gift of a roll of Agfa Vista 100.  The use-by date was 2007, but I thought the colors looked pretty good with a little PhotoShop help.

I found I had forgotten a few things about shooting the little wide-lens Vivitar.  It is necessary to frame scenes tightly as the viewfinder shows less than what will appear on the film.  Keeping the camera level is also important to avoid out of control verticals.

I have another roll of the Agfa Vista.  I'll probably give it an additional minute or two in the developer to compensate for the film age as well as the depletion of the Cinestill C-41 which will be on its fourteenth roll.