Old Town

 I have been walking around Old Town with my cameras since we moved to Albuquerque about sixteen years ago.  A lot of little shops have come and gone in that time, but the character of the place has largely endured.

Baila Baila

 The folk dance group, Baila Baila, puts on an elaborate show each year in Old Town during the Balloon Fiesta with children in traditional Mexican costumes and a lot of makeup.  The large number of participants offers many opportunities for photographers.

I am still not getting the tonal qualities I would like from the expired Acros 400.  The balance of shadows and highlights presents a difficult challenge for scanning and only approach acceptability with considerable photoshopping.  I tried semi-stand development in hc110 with this roll, so will probably go to dilution B or E for the next.

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.  

Using 120 Film in 116 Cameras

I have made quite a few pictures with my 116 cameras using 120 film with only minimal adaptations.  I loaded the 120 film roll into the cameras and rolled it onto the 116 reel, advancing 8 and one half turns to get to the first frame with the ruby window covered.  Two and a half turns between frames gets you five pictures from the 120 roll.  The process is particularly easy with the No. 1A Pocket Kodak because the boxy internal structure holds the feed reel in place with no need to directly engage the end disks of the reel.  Rolling the film onto the big 116 reel leaves the film edges exposed, so it is necessary to use a dark bag to open the camera, remove the reel and load the film onto the processing reel to go into the film developing tank.

While this simplest procedure mostly works, a few glitches can degrade the results.  The film rolls onto the take-up reel rather loosely and it can drift sideways, causing some misalignment of the image on the film.  An easy fix for that problem is to acquire some 120 to 116 film adapters like the ones sold by the Film Photography Project.

The adapters allow a tight fit of the 120 roll of film into the camera as well as the use of a standard 120 take-up reel.  That solves the problem of film misalignment, and the spacers also produce sufficient tautness on the film to help keep the film flat at the film plane.  The red adapter disks from the kit can be used alone to hold the film reels, but I found it helpful to insert them into the white holders to facilitate positioning the reels in the camera.  The tabs on adapters are a loose fit in the reel slots, so I put a small bit of tape over the tabs to keep them on while inserting them into the camera.

I found the small bubble level on ebay for just a few dollars.  Since the old folders have no accessory holders I just attached the level to the top deck of the camera with a piece of double-sided tape.

I have not seen any problem with film flatness even without a 120 mask for the film plane.  It would be helpful to accurate composition though to make a mask for the viewfinder.

Scanning the long negatives can be a bit of a challenge.  My old Epson Perfection 2450 flatbed scanner has a film holder with a 4x5 frame, so I make use of that to hold the  negatives in place by placing them directly on the scanner's glass and laying the film holder on top of the film.  With the emulsion side of the film toward the glass, the upward curve of the film helps to avoid Newton rings on the scanned images.

I shot Fomapan 100 in my last outing with the 1A Pocket Kodak using a tripod and cable release to ensure steadiness.  Most exposures were at 1/25, with apertures of f22 or f32.  I developed the film semi-stand in Rodinal 1:100 for one hour.

Kodak Verichrome Pan

 Verichrome Pan is one of those films a lot of old guys would like to see on the shelves again.  It yielded a rich tonal range and very fine grain that very few modern films can match.  Kodak stopped making VP 120 about twenty-five years ago, but it ages well and there is a pretty good chance of getting some images with it even from a roll that is well expired.  The two rolls I was given recently are definitely in that category; the one that recorded this set of pictures had a use-before-date of Dec. 1973.  I decided to shoot the film in my Kodak No.1 Autographic Special folder that was built around 1917.

All the exposures were at 1/100 and f8 in bright morning sun, two stops wider than the 125 ASA box speed.  The negatives were pretty light, so a stop or two more probably would have been better.  I processed semi-stand for fifty minutes in Rodinal 1:100.

I did a poor job of framing my shots through the open frame viewfinder which I taped to the side of the camera,  so I cropped all the shots to match my intentions.  The uncoated Tessar lens never fails to astound me with its sharpness.

The bellows on my No.1 Special seems fine, but a small light leak has shown up in previous outings with the camera.  This time I ran some black electrical tape all around the back, and that seems to have solved the problem.  Given the fine performance the camera delivered on this last occasion, I think it deserves another go with some fresh film.

 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.

Morning by the River

Close

My mobility has been at a low level for a couple months thanks to a leg injury.  I've made some progress and am hoping for more to get back to where I was.  In the meantime, it seems prudent to get in some practice with photography projects closer to home.

I processed the TMAX 100 with semi-stand development in HC-110 at 1:100 dilution.  The images were a little contrasty, so I think a bit higher dilution would be a good idea.

macro abstract

A typical photo session for me often encompasses a couple miles of walking along the river.  Limiting my field of view to a table top can offer as many opportunities for finding images, but at a different scale.

These images were all made with the Pentax SP and a +4 accessory lens screwed onto either the 1.4/50 or the 2.8/135.  The TMAX 100 was processed in Rodinal 1:100 semi-stand for an hour.  I liked the results ok, but medium format would likely have given me a little wider spectrum of tones.

Random Acts of Photography

My FED 3 is bigger and heavier than most of my otheer Soviet cameras; it's about the same in those regards as the Kiev IIa.  While the FED 3 can't be slipped into a pocket like the earlier Barnack-style FEDs and Zorkis, it does have a number of advanced features which makes it an attractive shooter.

The feature that most immediately grabs the attention of the Soviet camera enthusiast will be the ease of loading the FED 3 with a back that removes to allow cassette insertion with no film leader cutting or fussy threading of the film as in the Barnack-style cameras.  There is also a built-in take-up reel which allows easy attachment of the film leader, and it doesn't fall out on the floor when you open the camera as is the case with the Kiev IIa. 
    My FED 3 looks almost new.  The fast-working lever advance snaps smartly back when released.  The relatively quiet shutter works well at all speeds.  The combined viewfinder/rangefinder window is brighter than most of my other old rf cameras.  The weak spot is the focal plane shutter with its cloth curtains, which seem to develop pin holes even more readily than most of the other Soviet film cameras.  A liberal application of black fabric paint will often remedy the situation, but it is prudent to check thoroughly for pinholes prior to any use of the camera.

The interesting light of a Fall morning got me out on the street early with the FED 3 loaded with a roll of Kentmere 100.  I managed to finish off the roll on a zigzagging walk to the First Street Rail Runner station.  Back home, I processed the film with semi-stand development in HC-110.  I was not very impressed with the performance of the Industar 61 lens; it seemed no better to me than any of my other normal Sovent lenses, but the camera performed perfectly so I'll likely get out again soon with it and one of my other lenses.