Photo-Analogue: LAPC Bank Holiday Photo Walk

Tuesday 29 March 2016

LAPC Bank Holiday Photo Walk

Ensign Folding Klito de Luxe No.9 with Ilford Special Rapid Panchromatic plate

Yesterday I joined the LAPC Bank Holiday Photo Walk along the Parkland Walk from Finsbury Park to Alexandra Palace, led by Melanie King and Daniel Berrange. I took my Ensign Folding Klito with a dozen plateholders with a few different types of plates. Not wanting to carry a tripod on the walk meant that I was constrained to shooting the plate camera on fairly slow shutter speeds - 1/25th and 1/50th - and at wide apertures (for the 12cm Ica Dominar lens), either f4.5 and f5.6. The best results were from a box of Ilford Special Rapid Panchromatic plates, which had a leaflet inside the box dating to July 1946. These glass plates, seventy years old, are relatively free from deterioration and fogging, apart from the edges, which is partly due to the emulsion being thicker where it collects from pouring. Although I rated the plates at an exposure index of just 10, the negatives would have benefitted from at least another stop of exposure; however, there were periods of bright sunshine to facilitate using the plates hand held. Other plates I shot were one Ilford N.40 Process plate from 1958, some Ilford N.50 Thin Film Half Tone plates from 1957, and some Kodak plates: one Kodak P300 Special Rapid Panchromatic plate, and two Kodak P1200 Super Panchro-Press plates from two different boxes. The emulsion lifted entirely from the plates from one box; the other plate (below), from a box with a handwritten date '11/4/61', has 'frilling' where the emulsion is lifting from the edges and some very obtrusive patches which look like they could be due to mould.

Ensign Folding Klito de Luxe No.9 with Kodak P1200 Super Panchro-Press plate

Ensign Folding Klito de Luxe No.9 with Ilford N.40 Process plate

The Ilford N.50 Thin Film Half Tone plates are heavily fogged (with more exposure a usable negative might have been obtained, but this wasn't really possible hand held - the case of the Kodak P300 Special Rapid Panchromatic plate demonstrates this with the shutter at 1/10th sticking open, giving perhaps a couple of seconds exposure); the Ilford N.40 Process plate (above) is much better. The plates I used yesterday had already been loaded into the holders without intending that these would be shot handheld: had I wanted more consistent results I would have chosen carefully which plates to use. (I also shot some Kodak Photo Instrumentation SO-078 film, with a develop before date of 08/2002, in the Kiev-30M.)