Stretching Film

The economics of shooting film has taken on some added importance lately.  It is not a new concern and I have adapted procedures over a long period to keep my interest in film use viable.  The easiest solution, of course, is to just shoot digital, but I'm not there yet.

In regard to general cost containment, home processing makes film use orders of magnitude more economical than sending out film for commercial processing.  With careful technique and attention to adjusting C-41 times to account for use, a roll of color can be processed at home for about a buck per roll.  Using high-dilution black and white developers like Rodinal and HC110 along with stand development can make processing costs nearly negligible.

Because of the rising costs of old favorites like TMAX and Tri-X I have already switched to using some lower-cost alternatives like HP5 and Kentmere which work well with HC-110, L110 and PMK Pyro developers.  I am also looking forward to experimenting more with some other film choices like Ultra Fine Extreme and Fomapan. Buying any of those films in bulk will also help to tame costs.

A simple way to cut cost per exposure is through the use of half-frame cameras.  Many film camera producers came up with compact and elegant camera designs which allow getting up to twice the number of exposures normally available on a roll of film.

My Certo Dolly SuperSport has removable frame masks which give me either twelve 6x6 negatives or sixteen 6x4.5 frames.  The SuperSport's film compartment is also big enough to accommodate a 35mm cartridge, which produces an interesting sprocket hole border and a lot of exposures per session.

My humpback Mercury II-CX is the only 35mm half-frame I have at present. The camera doesn't quite double the number of frames from a 35mm cartridge because of the added spaces between frames, but it still takes me quite a while to work through a full roll.  The Mercury's rotary shutter is ultra-reliable and accurate, and it has a 1/1000 top speed. The  f2.7/35mm Tricor is coated and produces surprising sharpness.

My Zeiss Ikon Ikonta A 520 was an early acquisition when I got back to film photography.  Using only the 6x4.5 format, the camera can fold up to fit easily into a pocket and yet provide medium format negatives from 120 roll film.  My example has the uncommon combination of a Compur-Rapid shutter with an f3.5/7cm Tessar. Most of the black trim paint on the little Ikonta wore away a long time ago, but the camera's high-quality construction and reliability make it an enduring favorite.

An Old Favorite

I noticed recently that about three years had slipped past me since I last put any film through my Ikonta A 520.  The camera was one of the finest available in the pre-war period with its Compur Rapid shutter and Tessar lens.  The compact design was built around the 6x4.5 format on 120 roll film, so the camera fits comfortably in a pocket and produces images of extraordinary resolution.  I loaded a roll of Tri-X and took a walk around the neighborhood.

I developed the roll in HC-110-B.  The negatives looked ok, but my initial scans from my old Epson 2450 running SilverFast seemed over-exposed and excessively contrasty.  I played around with different film profiles in the scanning software and eventually chose to use the Kodak Royal Gold profile which gave me some sepia-toned images which I liked better than what the scanning software produced with the Tri-X settings.  The roll of Tri-X I shot in the camera three years ago was processed in Rodinal and produced very nice b&w tonality, so I'm going to order a bottle of that classic developer for the next round with this camera and film combo.

Zeiss Ikon Ikonta A 520

I have some nice old cameras in my collection, but none combine form and function more elegantly than the little Ikonta A.

This is an unusual example of the Ikonta A, probably made just before the outbreak of war in 1939 or 1940. Earlier models had simpler shutters. The post-war models featured a double-exposure prevention module and a different shutter-lens mount.

The camera's features can all be found on earlier Zeiss products, but in this case everthing has been scaled and optimized to fit the purpose of producing images in the 6x4.5 centimeter format. The result is a light-weight, ultra-compact medium format camera that can slip easily into a pocket. The sturdy Compur-Rapid shutter has a full range of speeds including T,B and 1-500. The f3.5, 7cm Tessar lens is uncoated, but produces sharp and contrasty images provided it is not brought too close to the sun. The rather short focal length of the lens makes the need to estimate focus less of problem than is the case with most other medium format cameras. The camera is a self-erecting folder design, so pressing the door release on the top deck pops out the lens to shooting position very smartly, and the viewfinder also automatically flips upright.

Most of the paint on the Ikonta's metal trim is worn off, speaking of a history of long use. However, the bellows looks near new, and it only took a little cleaning and lubrication to make the camera work like new. It did take me several tries to get the lens reinstalled so that the infinity focus was perfect. The three little set screws on Zeiss cameras usually seem like they should fit into some pre-drilled holes in the mount, but often don't.

The camera was made at a time when the numbering on the paper backing of 120 film was not completely standardized, and not all of it came with the properly numbered spacing for the half-frame format. The solution was to put two red windows on the back of the camera so that the 6x9 numbering could be used. To start, the film is wound until the numeral "1" is seen in the first window. After the exposure, the same numeral is advanced to the second window for the second exposure. Some care has to be exercised in not winding past the mark as the film is traveling a very short lateral distance. Once you are used to that, it is very nice to get sixteen frames on a 120 roll.

The only common problem with this camera and its close relatives is a light leak through the red windows in the back. The cure for that has been sorted out very effectively by Cliff Manley in a photo.net posting.

Some pictures from the Ikonta A 520:

 

End to End

Albuquerque's BioPark is anchored on the north end by the Botanical Garden and the Aquarium, and on the south end by the Zoo.  I got to both with my Ikonta 520.  The fishing boat is moored permanently in an artificial lagoon at the Aquarium.

The Zoo's new star is little Jazmine.  According to the keeper, she weighs about 350 pounds at present.  I snapped her picture with the last frame of a roll of Tri-X in my Ikonta 520.  I shot a few more with the digital and put the pictures on my other blog.

I was pleased to see that my bottle of Adonal developer is still working well.  I've had it in the refrigerator for about a year, and I wasn't sure how well it was holding up.  Everything I have read says the Adox Adonal is an exact replica of Rodinal which had a near infinite shelf life, and that seems to be true.

urban texture

Broadway Bridge

The Broadway is a double-leaf bascule bridge, a design that dates back to Roman times. It was the largest bridge of its type when completed in 1913, just a year after the Steel Bridge.



The wikipedia article has good illustrations of the bascule design and some history of the Broadway Bridge.

The Fremont Bridge

"The Fremont Bridge is a steel tied arch bridge over the Willamette River located in Portland, Oregon. It carries Interstate 405 and US 30 traffic between downtown and North Portland where it intersects with I-5. It has the longest main span of any bridge in Oregon and is the second longest tied arch bridge in the world (after Caiyuanba Bridge across the Yangtze River, China)." wikipedia



Peregrine falcons have been using the bridge structure as a nest site since 1994.



A crew was working at the west end of the bridge where I was taking pictures. One of the workers asked me if I had heard that the area was over-due for a big quake, and that the city's bridges would not likely survive the event. He seemed to be experiencing some genuine anxiety over the prospect.



Sure enough:

"Scientists and geologists said Portland is not ready for a massive 9.0 earthquake and our bridges would likely collapse. The Cascadia Subduction Zone is one of the most dangerous fault lines in the United States, running 600 miles long from northern California, along the Oregon and Washington coast, into Canada. Scientists didn't know it was there until the 1980s..." http://www.koinlocal6.com

There were three reader comments at the end of the article, all of them moronic.

Good luck, Portland.

The Steel Bridge

Completed in 1912, the Steel Bridge crosses the Willamette to Portland's city center. Counterweights in the towers raise the center section to allow passage of boats.







The camera for these shots was one of my frequent travel companions, the Ikonta A 520.

Chetro Ketl

With over 500 rooms, Chetro Ketl is the second largest of the Chaco Great Houses. Construction was begun about 1010 and continued in stages over the next century. Like near-by Pueblo Bonito, Chetro Ketl suffered considerable damage in the 1940s as a result of catastrophic flooding. As a result, more reconstruction was undertaken than at most of the Great House sites in order to restore the walls to their appearance as first uncovered during the early Twentieth Century excavations.



Even without natural disasters, the ruins are subject to natural deterioration through the action of wind, rain and invasion by the roots of desert plants. Since the late 19th Century, teams of skilled Navajo craftsmen have been constantly employed in maintaining all the major Great House sites.



The back wall of Chetro Ketl is 470 feet in length, attained a height of at least four stories, and all surfaces would have been smoothly plastered. Although the ruins are impressive in their size and architectural sophistication, the intact building complexes would have had an appearance much different from what is apparent to today's visitors to the site.



The Great Kiva at Chetro Ketl, sixty feet in diameter, is built below ground level like those of Pueblo Bonito and Casa Rinconada just across the arroyo. However, the site also features a unique tower Kiva and a number of smaller round Kiva-like structures.



The finely-crafted masonry walls are built up with relatively small blocks of sandstone. It seems likely that the finished surfaces would have borne murals and designs similar to the petroglyphs and pictographs seen on the canyon walls, but none have survived



The human effort that went into construction of the Great Houses of Chaco is hard to conceive. What kind of social organization supported such massive undertakings -- including dragging thousand-pound log beams across fifty miles of desert -- can only be guessed at.

SF boats

The Balclutha

The Balclutha, a steel-hulled sailing ship, was built in Glasgow in 1886. She was one of the last working square riggers on the high seas. Changes in owners were accompanied by new names: first, the Star of Alaska, and then the Pacific Queen. One of her last voyages was during an appearance in Mutiny on the Bounty in 1935. The ship was acquired by the San Francisco Maritime Museum in 1954.







The camera is my Zeiss Ikon Ikonta A 520, with a Tessar lens and the Compur Rapid shutter. The 6x4.5 format on 120 film yields images with great resolution, and the camera fits easily in a pocket.

battle ready

The al-Barran Chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism was out in force for their weekly martial practice at Bataan Park in Albuquerque. They seemed to be having a lot of fun whacking each other.

I was on my way somewhere else when I spotted the group and only had my Ikonta 520 with me -- not my first choice for war photography. I'll try to get back sometime soon with more suitable equipment.

'09 Art Museum Car Show, Albuquerque









I spent a fine morning at the car show. Shot b&w in my favorite little Zeiss Ikon Ikonta A 520.

For the die-hard car enthusiasts, there is a digital color slide show.