pardon my digital

Albuquerque gets some snow every winter in the Sandia Foothills.  Significant amounts only reach us in the valley about once in a decade.

I shot some Tri-X with the Kiev IIa which I'll post when it is developed.

Kodak HC-110 Developer

 I shot a roll of Tri-X in my Pentax K1000 at the zoo yesterday.  As I often do to get close to the subject and eliminate foreground clutter, the camera was mounted with a 135 Super Takumar plus a Vivitar 2X telextender.  The film was processed in HC-110 which has long been my favorite for black and white work as it seems to handle about any film well, and it does particularly well with TMAX and Tri-X.

The liter bottle of HC-110 which I popped open yesterday was the first I've used in about two years since the price doubled.  BHPhotovideo where I usually get my film won't ship HC-110 any longer, so I put in my order with Freestyle where I also get my Unicolor kits for color work.  The price for the HC-110 was $35.99 plus about four bucks for USPS shipping.

While I was sufficiently irritated with the price gouging to avoid buying the HC-110 for a long time, the truth is that even at the current price the developer is still one of the most economical resources for home black and white film processing.  The concentrate is used by most people in the 1:32 one-time-use Dilution B form.  That means the liter bottle will produce nearly 8.5 gallons of working solution to process around one hundred rolls of film.  In fact, it is possible to go to Dilution H with little loss of quality, and get twice the mileage.  For the specifics of mixing and using HC-110 the best source of information is still the old Covington Innovations web site.

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4/2/2026

I have filled the 27-inch screen of my iMac with the tiff file of the Snow Leopard as my current wallpaper choice.  Looks fantastic.  I don't know if I'll get back to using tri-x and hc-110 again, but it is certainly tempting. 

Getting what you see

I'm often happier with the images from simple cameras than those from some of my more sophisticated models with highly corrected lenses and shutters with a wide range of speeds.  The Argoflex Forty has a decent three-element coated lens, but the shutter has a top speed of just 1/150.  Focus is by estimation.  The camera's big advantage for me is the brilliant finder which gives me a very good idea of what I am actually going to get on the film.

Visualizing Albuquerque

The Visualizing Albuquerque exhibit runs from January 31 to May 3, 2015 at the Albuquerque Museum of Art.  It was not until my second visit that I noticed the sign out front said that photography is allowed at this show.  So I snapped a few shots with Tri-X in my Zorki 2-C, mounted with the Jupiter 12 lens.

Mildred Murphey. "Self Portrait", Aluminum

Ford Model T Speedster (1912)

I have taken quite a few photographs at the near-by Natural History Museum over the past few years.  Photography is not normally permitted in the Art Museum, so this exhibit presents an unusual opportunity to explore the museum experience.  I'll likely return several times with my cameras to try a variety of techniques.

winter flower

This plant flowers in mid-winter in the Mediterranean Conservatory.  I have made quite a few pictures of it over several years with a variety of old cameras.

Pentax K1000

Pentax Spotmatic

Kodak Recomar 18

Riding the Swan

I patched the last of the light leaks in the bellows of my oldest Kodak Duo Six-20 and took it to the Albuquerque Botanical Garden.  I seem to end up testing all my old cameras at some point with how well they can render a little garden sculpture there.

My impression at this point is that the lens on this camera is not quite as sharp as the ones on my two other Duo Six-20, but it is still a capable shooter if handled with some care.  

This mid-'30s model is very similar to the one Amelia Earhart carried with her on her last flight.  The camera's Deco style fit her nicely.

I felt I had made a little progress in getting the camera working closer to its potential on my outing at the Botanical Garden.  I was also happy with the combination of Tri-X film and D-76 developer on this occasion.  My last efforts with the combo had yielded some thin negatives, so I gave the film an extra minute this time in the 1+1 D-76 and got better density.

Mission Ruins

We drove southeast from Albuquerque to visit two of the three Salinas Pueblo Missions ruins near Mountainair.

Quarai

Abo

Kodak 35

I picked up another Kodak 35 recently on ebay.  I have another very similar, but this one has some interesting differences and is likely the first model which Kodak made in 1938.  

The most obvious difference in this early model is a frame with rollers which holds the film down over the film transport sprockets which both activate the film counter and cock the shutter.  Later models dispensed with the frame, but they all had a tendency to chew up the film strip along the edges.  After I cleaned up this one it seemed to be operating pretty smoothly, but it did tear out a couple edge perforations and caused some difficulties in loading the film on the developing reel leading to the loss of several frames. 

The pictures I got from the camera showed the Kodamatic shutter and the Anastigmat Special lens to be performing well.

Kodak continued production of the camera after WWII and beefed up the design with flash synchronization and a rangefinder.  However, those improvements did not allow Kodak's offering to catch up to the popularity of the Argus C-3 which had interchangeable lenses and no film transport issues.  In spite of the quirky design, the Kodak 35 is interesting historically, and it is pretty easy to work on.  I posted some notes on servicing the camera on Photo.net about eight years ago.  That model had a simpler lens and shutter than my recent acquisition, but the sunny day pictures it made seemed no less sharp to me.

diy color

This is my setup for color film processing.

If you search the web for tips on doing your own C-41 color film processing you will find people suggesting rather elaborate temperature control schemes, often involving aquarium heaters, turkey roasters or expensive rotary agitators.  None of that is necessary if, like me, you are mostly processing one roll at a time.  I just run some hot water into a plastic pan into which I put the developer, blix and stabilizer to warm to the recommended temperatures.  When the developer reaches 102 deg. I pour it into the developing tank, turn off the hot water and set the tank in the pan.  Since development only takes 3.5 minutes, there is very little temperature change that takes place.  The blix phase is less critical in regard to time and temperature, and the stabilizer goes in at room temperature.   I have developed nineteen rolls of color film using this method and the one-liter Unicolor kit and have not seen any unusual color shifts or other processing problems.  Below are some shots from my last roll shot on Fuji 200 in my Contessa 35.

velvet

We are pleased to see a rebirth of our favorite local coffee shop in a corner of Old Town Albuquerque.

The new owner is Greg Smith.  His enthusiasm for the place seems a good omen.

The pastry also provides some positive reinforcement.

Pull up a stool and I'll buy you a cup of coffee.

The last shot below is from my Contessa 35.  The rest were all from my Pentax Spotmatic with the 24mm Super Takumar.

Argoflex Forty Fix

The Argoflex Forty is one of my favorite cameras, but I haven't shot it much as it has been plagued by an intermittent light leak.  I thought I fixed it several times with layers of black tape over the back, but sunny day photo outings proved me wrong.

I finally figured out with the help of a bright little LED that the light was sneaking by the side of the slightly loose-fitting shutter release button.  The inner cone of the camera comes out with the removal of two screws, revealing the shutter release and double-exposure prevention mechanism.  I glued a small square of fuzzy light seal material beside the shutter release shaft and that seems finally to have done the trick.

None of the pictures on the last roll through the camera showed any light leaks.