A Rough Neighborhood

 Some media attention has been given lately to the discovery and dating of the preserved footprints of humans and extinct animals in the dry bed of an ancient lake in White Sands National Monument.  The DNA of pollen associated with the prints suggests an age of twenty thousand years.  That puts the arrival of humans in the New World much further back in time than previously thought.  It also means that the humans were coexisting with some fearsome large predators including Saber-toothed Cats and Dire Wolves.

The Dire Wolf exhibit at the Natural History Museum is nicely lit by large nearby windows, making it an attractive subject for my cameras.  On this occasion I was shooting my Olympus Pen-FT with the 1.8/38mm lens.

Arista Edu Ultra 200

 I have a little film left on a bulk roll of Arista 200, so I loaded a short roll and shot it in my Olympus Pen-FT.  I chose familiar subjects in Old Town with the intension of comparing the results from the Arista with the Kentmere 100 and 400 that I had used previously in the same camera.

All three films were developed in PMK Pyro.  I don't see any very significant difference in the quality of the images.  The Kentmere 100 has a bit finer grain than the 200 or 400 speed films, but I think the tonal values are pretty similar among them, and scanner and Photoshop adjustments can easily over-ride other factors.

The prices of all three film  are under six dollars for a 24-exposure roll.  Bulk rolls of Kentmere are a few bucks cheaper than Arista at B&H.  So, any of these three films seem like they will be fine for half-frame negatives.  I have a couple fresh rolls of $6.99 Kodak Gold 200 in the refrigerator which I'll try in the Pen-FT as soon as I get a new Cinestill C-41 kit.

Half the size, Twice the fun

 The upside of the increase in film prices is that it gave me an excuse to acquire another half-frame camera.  It is one of Maitani's masterpieces, the Olympus Pen-FT.

The Pen-FT is only marginally larger than my Leica IIIa.  It seems amazing that Maitani was able to fit a single lens reflex system into such a small container.

On the morning after the camera's arrival I loaded it with a roll of Kentmere 400, first shooting a few frames near home, and then going down to the Plaza Vieja to finish off  the roll.  

The F Zuiko Auto-S 1.8/38mm lens focuses down to about one foot.

Finishishing off the Kentmere in the Plaza Vieja took a while as the 24-shot roll yielded 53 images!

It being a Friday morning, the old cars were lined up in front of the church waiting for their pictures to be taken.

'86 El Camino

'32 Ford Victoria

I bumped into my friend, Bob, in the Plaza so we took pictures of each other with the Pen-FT.

Bob

Mike

The camera worked perfectly.  I have ordered six rolls of Kentmere 100 and two of Kodak Gold 200 which I think will be well-suited to the half-frame capability.  I will probably also get some bulk film so I can make up some film rolls with a smaller number of frames.

The manual has illustrations showing the great array of lenses and accessories made by Olympus for the Pen-FT including adapters allowing the use of many standard 35mm lenses from Nikon, Practica, Leica and Exakta.

And, of course, this:

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.