mellow yellow

I took my Nikon F for a stroll in the Sandia foothills.  Mounted on the Nikkor 50mm f1.8 was a yellow filter.  That is something I haven't done more than a couple times.  The results were somewhat underwhelming as the effect is rather subtle.  I left the filter in place for most of the roll of Kentmere 400 which I shot at a stop slow for processing in PMK Pyro.

San Felipe de Neri has reopened for Sunday services.  The shops and restaurants around the plaza are seeing a little business, but many of the smaller ones on the side streets have closed for good.

That was the last of Kentmere I had on hand, but I've ordered ten more from B&H.  I have a roll of HP5+ in the Pentax H3v now and I'll try a few shots with that combination with a red filter.

CLA in a can

I checked the operation of my Retina Reflex before taking it out for a shoot.  To my dismay, I found that the aperture stop-down mechanism was sticky.  With the Retina Reflex you need to advance the film and cock the shutter to bring the mirror down so you can see through the lens.   To test the operation of the shutter and aperture you set the speed to 1/500 and the aperture to f22, and when you release the shutter you should briefly see the aperture opened to its smallest setting before the shutter closes.

What I saw, however, was that the aperture was only closing down to about f8 before the shutter action was complete.

It seemed likely that some congealed lubricant and dirt on the aperture blades was interfering with sequence of events leading to proper exposure.  The problem with the Retina Reflex is that you can't get clear access to the shutter without completely disassembling the camera.   That is more of a repair job than I was prepared to undertake, however, so I decided to just try to resolve the problem with the application of some judiciously applied electronic contact cleaner which I picked up at a local auto supply store.

It is possible to get limited access to the shutter and aperture blades on the Retina Reflex by just removing the front lens group.  I set the shutter to the B setting so I could hold it open and get at the aperture blades underneath.  With  the aperture set to f22 I shot a couple short squirts of the cleaner onto the aperture blades, and worked the shutter open and closed several times which carried the black scum out onto the surface of the blades.  I then scrubbed the blades gently with some cotton q-tips until they looked clean.

I let everything dry thoroughly overnight and cleaned the the lens surfaces.  The shutter seemed to be working fine, so I took the camera out the next day loaded with a roll of Kentmere 400 which I shot at 200 ASA for processing in PMK Pyro.

I won't be surprised if I have to perform this operation again some time in the future, but I'm happy for now to be able to use the Retina Reflex again as it is one of my great favorites.

June in the Bosque

The cottonwood forest along the river is bursting with life in June.  The Yerba Mansa is particularly impressive this year and I am seeing more varieties of wildflowers than I recall in past years.  Even though it has been warm and rather wet this Spring, there are no mosquitoes in the bosque; that makes riverside walks more pleasant, but may not bode well for the ecosystem.

Cottonwoods

Yerba Mansa

Siberian Elm

Pale Evening Primrose

Sandbells

I have had poor luck with my C-41 color processing for some time compared with the results I was getting initially when I started with it a few years ago.  I am seeing quite a bit of color shifting and red staining.  Both the Unicolor and Cinestill kits are giving me only half the number of rolls before exhaustion that I was getting before.

More from the Signet

I spent a couple days walking around with my Kodak Signet 35.  The camera is small enough to jam in a coat pocket and the Ektar lens always performs well.

The old car enthusiasts are back on the Plaza Vieja on the weekends.  This was the first time I've seen this well-restored Buick; I think it is a 1950 Special Jetback.  The lines in sideview are very graceful, but that massive grill kind of ruins the look for me.

The '54 Chevy 4-door is a work in progress.

Fins and quad lights.

Walking the Dog

The dog and I took along the Argoflex on our morning walk to Old Town.  The camera was loaded with a roll of 120 FP4+, re-rolled onto 620 spools.  I reduced the processing time for this roll to seven minutes at 20C in L110.

I liked the mid-tones that resulted from giving the FP4+ a little less time in the developer.  The Argoflex is always a joy to shoot because of its brilliant finder and the reliably nice sharpness from the modest lens and shutter.

FP4+

I took my Nikon FE on a couple walks on both sides of the river.  I decided to try processing the FP4+ in L110 following the recommendation for time and temp at the Covington HC110 site.  Nine minutes turned out to be way too long and I got very dense negatives.  Luckily, FP4+ turns out to have very good latitude for a relatively slow film and I was able to rescue a few shots.

Tough (to) Love

I took a walk into Old Town about nine in the morning.  I thought I might find some people and maybe a few old cars around the Plaza as I had last weekend.  However, the place was nearly empty, looking a lot like a graveyard on a slow day.

Well, no matter; I was out mostly to familiarize myself with a camera that had been given to me some time ago, a Holga 120N.

This model, in addition to the Optical Lens, features zone focusing, two f stops, bulb and instant shutter settings, a flash connection, and a fixed speed of around 1/100.  The camera uses 120 roll film and can shoot either 6x6 or 6x4.5 if you have the frame mask.

I decided to use Ilford FP4+ for the inaugural outing.  That proved to be a poor choice for a couple of reasons.  What I found in trying to load the roll of FP4+ was that the cartridge would not fit into the film chamber.  The X-shaped holes at the spool ends were just a little too small to permit wedging the cartridge in place.  So, I ended up re-rolling the film in the darkbag onto another spool which gave me just enough wiggle-room to get the cartridge inserted.

The other problem I ran into with the FP4+ was that, like a lot of other roll films these days, the framing numerals are small and dim, making it very difficult to advance the film without overshooting a frame unless the ruby window is exposed to bright sun.  I managed to lose two frames on the roll due to winding too far, but I was glad to see in the end that there were no light leaks in the vicinity of the window.

A 60mm lens is a bit on the wide side for a 6x6 camera and the viewfinder on the Holga shows quite a bit less than what is going to show up on the film.  The vignetting in the images came as no surprise, but the contrast and sharpness were a bit less than I expected from the meniscus lens.

If I can talk myself into shooting another roll of film in the Holga I think I'll likely get images I like a bit better knowing more now about what to expect from the camera.  Simple compositions that are not over-reliant on capturing fine detail are clearly advisable, and it seems like it could be interesting to try some portraits.