tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15731935460357560712024-03-16T01:09:14.394+00:00Photo-AnalogueAdventures in Analogue PhotographyUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger275125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1573193546035756071.post-52001692585647803332024-02-18T12:30:00.000+00:002024-02-18T12:30:11.396+00:00Photographs Not Taken<div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53534242316/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="332" data-original-width="500" height="332" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53534242316_8d0f9697c3.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Colville Road, 18th February 1994<br /></td></tr></tbody></table>Continuing my project of documenting the demolitions to make way for the M11 Link Road in 1994, I had gone to take more photographs on the 13th of February, a Sunday, essentially retracing my steps from a month earlier (see <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2024/01/squibb.html">SQUIBB</a>) when I’d used colour film, walking between Leytonstone and Leyton stations, then getting the tube back to Leytonstone–rather than Wanstead–and walking from there to Wanstead Station. It was bitterly cold, presaging a couple of days of snow, and, given the police and security activity around George Green in Wanstead, I’m not sure I tried to take many photographs there: as it turned out, I hadn’t loaded my camera properly. When rewinding the film later in the week, I realised my mistake (I don’t think I knew then to keep an eye on the rewind crank turning as the film advanced): the perforations at the very end of the film were torn, and I got the photography technician at college to retrieve the end from the cassette to be able to use the unexposed film (I had at least realised before the possibility of giving myself the additional disappointment of processing the film only to discover that it was blank).<br /><br />At college, I found myself not knowing what kind of work to make. Conversations with the course tutors–one in particular–suggested that I should concentrate on painting and drawing from observation, this being seen as where my strengths lay. The course itself, however, was opening up possibilities, different ways to think about and to make artwork. Learning photography and using my first SLR camera began a turn away from making work by hand direct from the motif, although I was still doing some work like that. Having spent the previous summer filling a sketchbook with observational drawing, the camera had begun to supplant my sketchbook. Something which had had an impact at the time was seeing the American Art in the 20th Century exhibition at the Royal Academy in the autumn. I’d started making a number of Rauschenberg-inspired collages, which combined some of my photographs–including those from the M11 Link Road–with clippings from magazines, leaflets, and studio detritus. There was a lack of confidence in what I was doing though: I realised that everything that had been highly prized when studying A-level art was now no longer that important. Different values were in play. Concurrently, around this time I was beginning to attend some open days for degree courses, and, although the work I had been making was changing, I was still set then on studying painting (I subsequently failed to secure a place on a painting degree course, studying printmaking instead).<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1290" data-original-width="4413" height="117" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTpnZ_udkRjeD47l1Sb75ON3CI0dvR5YzP9eKRxv8g1MWdKNUtAz4AIzrh6jvAw5ugXLCs1z8gNbFqVguhLWmE7S6X9ATPhJ5-Y3gHEsqhTIj7JPS18yGd8xSJMm2ekyg_YRlBRLOue2pAq10sP1dT_ntWnuF1lBr6ez1Q8lA2j9nd0iRrlzO6bpUEA0o/w400-h117/M11%20Link%20Road%20Map%2018-02-1994.jpg" width="400" /><p style="text-align: left;">I returned with the same film in my camera on Friday the 18th February,
and walked between Leytonstone and Leyton stations again, without
returning to Wanstead; later that day I drew a schematic map of the
route in my diary. The day before, I had a surprise in seeing a friend
from school (who was still at school at the time) on the cover of the G2
section of the Guardian, in the middle of a crowd that had been on the
Green the previous day, which must have been around the time of the
evictions from the treehouse in the ancient chestnut tree there, its
occupation an attempt to prevent the tree being cut down. Between
Leytonstone and Leyton some of the houses had been demolished during the
week since I’d failed to photograph them. Looking back, it’s
interesting to note that many of my photographs of the route were taken
on Dyers Hall Road, and on Colville Road, rather than on Claremont
Road, the name of which became practically synonymous with the M11 Link Road protest. This may have been due to the fact the houses here were being
actively demolished through the winter, while Claremont Road, as the
focus of resistance to the road scheme, with the houses there occupied
around the clock, was not substantially demolished until much later
in the year–and all the houses on Claremont Road were marked for demolition, unlike Dyers Hall Road and Colville Road, both of which partially survived the road scheme. As a result, I seem to recall that Dyers Hall Road in particular had an eerie,
deserted feeling. The misty weather on the 18th
February when I took the photographs then only added to this.</p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53533355397/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="332" data-original-width="500" height="266" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53533355397_1aabe86350.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: left;">The sequence of photographs begins on Dyers Hall Road, and unlike the previous occasions, this time I did take many more photographs of the same subjects in some cases, from different angles, moving closer and around the houses, aided by the fact that some of the corrugated iron fences had been torn down during the week on Colville Road, while I stood on some of the remaining garden walls on Dyers Hall Road, to achieve photographs like that below.</p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53534559439/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="332" data-original-width="500" height="266" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53534559439_6a687f46e6.jpg" width="400" /></a> <br /></div><p></p><p style="text-align: left;">When I returned to photograph these locations in 2014, those photographs taken beyond the line of the fences from 1994 were impossible to recreate as these would be entirely within the cutting of the A12 road (the negatives from 2014 were somewhat dense and scanned less well that the thirty-year-old negatives from 1994). </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53534560214/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="332" data-original-width="500" height="266" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53534560214_22eb79eec1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>
<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53534651055/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="500" height="266" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53534651055_f2f47e0d4b.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;">
In many cases, these were just photographs of the wall that runs alongside the A12. In the image immediately above, looking over the wall to the road was perhaps closer to the photograph from 1994 that precedes it; below, when trying to match the railway bridge in the background to the photograph taken in 1994, which really should be more wall and less sky, it provided a nearly abstract composition.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53534244436/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="332" data-original-width="500" height="266" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53534244436_8a63091669.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;"></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53534650635/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="330" data-original-width="500" height="264" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53534650635_28af44188c.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: left;">
I again climbed the footbridge from Dyers Hall Road over the Central Line, to take a couple more photographs there, the second catching a North London Line train. One more house there had been demolished since the photographs made a month earlier. </p><p></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53534558744/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="332" data-original-width="500" height="266" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53534558744_7a9b44c40d.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53534547954/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="330" data-original-width="500" height="264" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53534547954_148185fc02.jpg" width="400" /></a> <br /></div><p></p><p style="text-align: left;">There were just two photographs taken on Claremont Road that day, where the partially
demolished houses on the southern dog-leg of the road that I’d
photographed in January were now gone. I attempted to recreate the
viewpoint of these in two of the photographs taken in 2014, with the result
of one being almost entirely the blank wall of the new houses built
since (the viewpoint itself was almost certainly further back, hovering
over the A12: the advertising hoarding on the side of the house in the background at the left of the frame gives an indication of this).
<br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53534661375/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="332" data-original-width="500" height="266" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53534661375_be9a89bf8c.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53534650365/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="330" data-original-width="500" height="264" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53534650365_2fd759f544.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53534558304/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="332" data-original-width="500" height="266" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53534558304_1a1b8432aa.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53534410748/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="330" data-original-width="500" height="264" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53534410748_aec673252c.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">
The rest of the photographs were taken on Colville Road, some revisiting where I'd taken some of photographs in January and in December 1993. The photograph below looks across the northern end of Colville Road, with the backs of houses seen beyond the fence facing onto the southern end of Claremont Road. In the image below this, the gable end of some of the new houses on Claremont Road appear beyond the buddleia, probably more to the left of the position in the photo from 1994.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53533352877/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="332" data-original-width="500" height="266" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53533352877_c0f209844a.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53534547474/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="330" data-original-width="500" height="264" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53534547474_b2c568f1bc.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">The two houses at the end of the road which had been intact in December when I’d taken photographs then had their roofs and side walls removed to make them uninhabitable, ahead of a more comprehensive demolition, an efficient strategy used throughout the link road clearances.<br /><p></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53534243586/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="332" data-original-width="500" height="266" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53534243586_62a39b1ec3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53533342782/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="330" data-original-width="500" height="264" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53533342782_81b5d9ebd6.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53534557524/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="332" data-original-width="500" height="266" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53534557524_60fecfecaa.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53534410658/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="330" data-original-width="500" height="264" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53534410658_4866181958.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">With some of the fences here having been pulled down during the week, I could take photographs from the fields of rubble where the
terraces had been sliced through to the gaping insides of some of the
houses, backing onto the railway line here in the last couple of photographs (as in the image at the head of this post), only some of which I could recreate in 2014, and many where the angle isn't quite right: in the pair below, the image from 2014 should really show more of the surviving terrace on Colville Road, seen on the right, but should be from just over the other side of the wall.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53534557514/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="332" data-original-width="500" height="266" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53534557514_d470038930.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53534649730/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="330" data-original-width="500" height="264" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53534649730_d80e5e3583.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53534556929/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="332" data-original-width="500" height="266" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53534556929_3c4d4494d0.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53534232866/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="330" data-original-width="500" height="264" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53534232866_f5edd06e51.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: left;">When I retraced the route in 2014, I took a few additional photographs, not recreating those from 1994, but showing a little of the wider context, something I occasionally feel that I wished had done then, looking back down Colville Road from the footbridge at its end (which used to be a road bridge, although I don't really remember it as such), then, from the far side of the bridge, looking back towards Colville Road, where once the view would have shown the rear of the terraced houses backing onto the railway line, now long gone.</p><p style="text-align: left;"></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53533341602/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="330" data-original-width="500" height="330" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53533341602_bb8a795b38.jpg" width="500" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53534546574/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="330" data-original-width="500" height="330" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53534546574_45bc583583.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><br /><p></p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1573193546035756071.post-23499350450135912872024-02-04T17:48:00.001+00:002024-02-04T17:48:43.715+00:00127 Day January 2024<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53507520317/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="319" data-original-width="500" height="319" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53507520317_d65063db45.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kodak Baby Brownie with Fomapan 200<br /></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p>Last weekend's <b>127 Day</b> provided an excuse to use the <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2024/01/kodak-baby-brownie.html">Kodak Baby Brownie</a>, the subject of my previous post. I had cut down two rolls of medium format film to 127 size and rolled these with the appropriate backing paper and spools: one roll of <a href="https://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2019/11/kentmere-pan-400.html">Kentmere Pan 400</a> and one of Fomapan 200. I shot the Kentmere Pan 400 first, then the Fomapan 200, but developed them in the reverse order. The lighting conditions had been light cloud giving way to hazy sunshine. When I took the roll of Fomapan 200 from the tank, the negatives looked very thin, something that I had noticed with the film shot in the Baby Brownie last summer. With hazy sunshine, and a nominal exposure of 1/50th at f16 (or however close to this the Baby Brownie's aperture and shutter speed are), a 200 ISO film should have given adequate results. Although a stop faster, given that the lighting was perhaps a little less bright for the Kentmere Pan 400, I extended development time to push it another stop. </p><p>
</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53508832015/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="305" data-original-width="499" height="244" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53508832015_560c7ef496.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kodak Baby Brownie with Kentmere Pan 400<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>The results from the Kentmere Pan 400 were much denser, and this push was probably unnecessary. I had used Kodak HC-110 for both films; a little research online reveals lots of comments about Fomapan 200 and HC-110 not being a good combination. I had used the times from the Massive Dev Chart, and when subsequently developing another roll of Fomapan 200 (not from the 127 Day), I pushed this a stop, and the results were much better (it would probably be preferable to rate the film a stop lower instead however).<br /></p><p>Another aspect of using the camera again was checking the lens' angle of view.I had suspected that this was wider than the viewfinder–probably to give the casual user a margin of error not to lose heads from the top of the frame–and took a couple of photographs with this in mind, particularly the one below. Here the shot was framed with the second pillars from the centre at the edge of the viewfinder, demonstrating that the actual shot is notably wider than what the viewfinder does show, although one wouldn't chose a Bakelite box camera from the 1930s or 40s if accuracy was really important, but worth bearing in mind.<br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53508723469/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="317" data-original-width="499" height="254" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53508723469_bb4405da66.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kodak Baby Brownie with Kentmere Pan 400<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>I had a few problems with development thanks to the slightly uneven cut edge of the film: the Kentmere Pan roll was a little taller once cut to fit well into the developing spiral, causing a little buckling and a few section of negatives not processing properly due to contact while developing. This also created a bit of a 'fat roll' with some light leaks as a result. By contrast the Fomapan cut much more smoothly, but scratched more easily in the process of being cut down, due I think to the emulsion being softer, and possibly the film substrate too. The thin negatives of the Fomapan film in combination with the choice of subject–as in the image at the top of this post–was vaguely reminiscent of Pictorialist landscape work, something not entirely unsympathetic in the use of a camera such as the Kodak Baby Brownie.</p><p>
</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53508831990/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="318" data-original-width="499" height="318" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53508831990_a0229b7283.jpg" width="499" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kodak Baby Brownie with Kentmere Pan 400</td></tr></tbody></table><p>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53508723584/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="499" height="320" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53508723584_168cf4c05c.jpg" width="499" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kodak Baby Brownie with Kentmere Pan 400</td></tr></tbody></table><p>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53508406346/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="313" data-original-width="499" height="313" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53508406346_13e7f07c3e.jpg" width="499" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kodak Baby Brownie with Kentmere Pan 400</td></tr></tbody></table><p>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53508832210/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="319" data-original-width="499" height="319" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53508832210_b78034dd15.jpg" width="499" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kodak Baby Brownie with Fomapan 200</td></tr></tbody></table><p>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53508723859/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="314" data-original-width="500" height="314" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53508723859_21af6be6bd.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kodak Baby Brownie with Fomapan 200</td></tr></tbody></table><p>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53508723709/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="323" data-original-width="500" height="323" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53508723709_8ab9685e81.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kodak Baby Brownie with Fomapan 200</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1573193546035756071.post-7125185521146653542024-01-27T16:19:00.004+00:002024-02-04T17:53:50.671+00:00Kodak Baby Brownie<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53463252396/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53463252396_789b8b47a4.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kodak Baby Brownie<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>The emergence of plastic in the manufacture of cameras from the late 1920s into the 1930s allowed for the typical shape of the snapshot camera to radically change. The <b>Kodak Baby Brownie</b> with its Bakelite body, updates the simple, entry-level box camera. One imagines that it looked very modern when first produced, in comparison to Kodak's typical box camera, which only recently would have been made with a cardboard body. The Kodak Baby Brownie owes its distinctive styling to <a href="http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Walter_Dorwin_Teague" target="_blank">Walter Dorwin Teague</a> who designed many cameras for Kodak: the
vertical ribbed designs that run around the camera with the central roundel of the lens makes it a little reminiscent of an
Art Deco radio set, while the curves and scalloped edges evoke light wooden furniture, a bureau or a cabinet perhaps. It was not Kodak's first plastic camera–according to <a href="http://www.artdecocameras.com/cameras/kodak/hawkette/" target="_blank">Art Deco Cameras</a>, Kodak Ltd in the UK had that honour with the No. 2 Hawkette–the Hawkette however was made for promotional purposes, not for general retail; according to numerous sources, <i>4 million</i> Kodak Baby Brownies were produced over the two phases of its production either side of the Second World War.<br /></p><p>It appears that the rationale behind the design of the Kodak Baby Brownie was Kodak's desire to return to the $1 price point of the original Brownie camera of 1900 (it's worth mentioning that this does not of course account for the effect of inflation over the thirty-odd years–a single dollar must have bought a lot more in 1900 compared to 1934, when the Baby Brownie appeared; the low price of the camera presumably reflects the economies of scale possible with Kodak's manufacturing in the mid-thirties). The Kodak Baby Brownie is simpler than the original Brownie too, partly due to the plastic construction. The meniscus lens is fixed-focus, with a fixed-aperture, and the rotary shutter has a single speed. Most sites profiling the camera do not usually provide lens and
shutter specifications: <a href="http://www.artdecocameras.com/cameras/kodak/baby-brownie/">Art Deco Cameras</a> lists the lens' focal length as being 60mm, its aperture as f16 and the shutter speed at 1/50th; the manual states that "everything about five feet and beyond will be photographed sharply". It takes 127 format rollfilm, smaller and cheaper than 120, appropriately for a cheap camera appearing during the Depression, although it does use the 'full-frame' of the 127 format, nominally 4x6cm, giving eight exposures on a roll of 127 film–other cameras had already created the 'half-frame' 3x4cm negative size, which provides sixteen frames on a roll.<br /></p><p>The Kodak Baby Brownie had two distinct periods of production. Kodak manufactured the Baby Brownie in the US until 1941; subsequently, Kodak Ltd in the UK made the camera between 1948-52. Given that there appears to be no observable differences between the US and UK made Baby Brownies, one wonders whether the dies and moulds were shipped out to the UK after the Second World War to boost the Kodak Ltd's postwar production, with the Baby Brownie, coming of the Depression, now a fitting camera for Austerity Britain, still in rationing. There was a slight variant model Kodak Baby Brownie for export, distinguished by a metal stud or pin above the lens. This is a 'time' setting: pull the stud out, and the shutter stays open when the shutter lever is pressed. The Brownie Camera Page states that this export version was made in the UK during the camera's second production run; my camera has the time setting, although the lettering on the bottom of the camera clearly reads "MADE IN USA". If exactly the same moulds were used for the UK-made camera (the time setting requiring a single small hole to be drilled through the front), this might explain this discrepancy, although I would have thought that any camera made in the UK would have to be marked as such. As well as the 'export variant' there was also a commemorative version made for the 1939 New York's World Fair, which has a rectangular name plate around the lens with this lettering: the camera itself has 'BABY BROWNIE' embossed around the lens.<br /></p>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53463252346/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53463252346_64d11efdc4.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kodak Baby Brownie with viewfinder raised<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>
I bought my Kodak Baby Brownie at the Place du Jeu de Balle flea market
in Brussels in late spring last year for €10, haggled down from €15
(there were many other cameras there, but I was on a tight budget after a
week abroad, and knowing that there's usually very little that can go
wrong with a simple box camera, the Brownie seemed a safe investment). I
used it last year on the 127 Day in July, but did not scan the
negatives at the time, a couple of which illustrate this post below.
When I bought the camera I wasn't aware of the export variant, but was
pleased that was what I had, a small difference which does increase the
conditions in which the camera can be used–although with some caveats,
mentioned below. The modest size of the camera, with its curved and ribbed shape, as well as the Bakelite itself, does feel good in the hand, perhaps rather like an over-sized <i>netsuke</i>.<br /></p><p>To open the camera for loading and unloading film, on the camera's base is a metal lever which pivots between OPEN/CLOSE (and sweeps over lettering stating the camera was made in the USA). The top slides out from the body with the film carrier attached. Opening the camera shows how simply it is constructed despite its Art Deco stylings: the camera is made from three pieces of Bakelite, the body, top plate, and film carrier, with a few metal fixings.<br /></p>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53463391083/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="375" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53463391083_ee893aa53d.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kodak Baby Brownie - opened for loading<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>
The the camera has a curved film plane, a common strategy to compensate for the limitations of a simple meniscus lens. The inside moulding is ribbed behind the lens inside counter reflections on the smooth Bakelite surface. One can also see that there's a metal stop behind the lens to reduce its aperture and increase definition, another frequent compensation for the limitations of a simple lens. The film spools are held either side of the lens opening on the film carrier by a sprung metal clip, with an additional piece of sprung curved metal on the supple-side to prevent the film from unspooling. Manual frame advance uses the red window in the middle of the camera back.<br /></p>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53462337917/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53462337917_c7a65573ec.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kodak Baby Brownie - opened for loading<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>
</p><p>The rotary shutter on my camera has some rust as can be seen in the
image below. To trip the shutter, the lever has to be pulled to the left
from the user's position; it springs back into position with a
self-capping function. The time setting works by simply blocking the
shutter from completing its swing when the pin or stud is pulled out.
The shutter lever needs constant pressure for the shutter to remain
open: it will close when the shutter lever is released, or if the time
pin is pushed back in. Framing is achieved by a fold-up open frame
finder on the top of the camera body.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53462337992/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="415" data-original-width="499" height="333" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53462337992_f754b6bfae.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kodak Baby Brownie - detail of shutter mechanism<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>
My camera had some damage to two opposite corners, showing the fragility of the Bakelite: the chip on the inside rear corner I thought might possibly cause a light leak, which can be seen in the image above. To counter this, I added a small strip of black tape on the inside of the body. Using the camera for July 2023's 127 Day, the few frames from the Kodak Baby Brownie show that the lens has fairly good
definition in the centre of the image, but this does fall off
considerably towards the edges. When the camera was produced, most photographs for the typical user would probably have been made as contact prints and the limitations of the lens less apparent.<br /></p>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53487222670/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="318" data-original-width="499" height="318" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53487114224_80a27f70bf.jpg" width="499" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kodak Baby Brownie with Fomapan 200<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>
I used Fomapan 200 for the images on this post. Despite the photographs being taken in July, the weather was heavily overcast on the day, and a 400 speed film (or pushing a stop in development) would have been a better choice. The manual states for best results "outdoor exposures should be made with the subjects in bright sunlight", the usual conditions for a typical box camera when these were made; using a faster emulsion allows for a broader range of subject conditions for these cameras than would have been the case when first in use.</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53487222670_1da380d048.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="319" data-original-width="499" height="319" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53487222670_1da380d048.jpg" width="499" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kodak Baby Brownie with Fomapan 200<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>The one aspect of the Kodak Baby Brownie in use that feels to me not sufficiently thought-through is the position of the shutter lever: placed directly below the lens, this keeps the camera's design symmetrical, with the exception of the winding knob. Here, it feels as though it should naturally be used by the left hand (an illustration in the manual confirms this), and the action of tripping the shutter is to <i>pull</i> it away from the camera's centre of gravity (which must increase the chance of some camera shake). There was a successor to the Kodak Baby Brownie, also designed by Walter Dorwin Teague, though rather less beautiful, in the <a href="http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Kodak_Baby_Brownie_Special" target="_blank">Kodak Baby Brownie Special</a>. It is notable that the shutter button of the Special is on the user's right, and it pushes in to trip the shutter. The position of the shutter lever on the Kodak Baby Brownie being directly under the lens is also inconvenient when using the time function: the camera does not have a tripod fixing, but the camera's based is fairly flush, allowing for it to be placed on a level surface for long exposures–which makes reaching for the shutter lever less easy–almost any other placement on the camera would be better for this. However, this additional function of the export variant of the Baby Brownie, must make it a little more desirable over the standard model.<br />
</p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sources/further reading<br />
<a href="http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Kodak_Baby_Brownie" target="_blank">The Kodak Baby Brownie on Camera-wiki</a><br />
<a href="https://brownie-camera.com/1.shtml" target="_blank">Baby Brownie</a> on The Brownie Camera Page<br />
<a href="http://www.artdecocameras.com/cameras/kodak/baby-brownie/" target="_blank">On Art Deco Cameras</a> with <a href="http://www.artdecocameras.com/manuals/baby-brownie/baby-brownie.pdf" target="_blank">manual</a> (PDF)<br />
<a href="https://retrofilmcamera.com/kodak-baby-brownie/" target="_blank">Kodak Baby Brownie</a> on Retro Film Camera<br />
<a href="https://blog.jimgrey.net/2015/10/05/kodak-baby-brownie/" target="_blank">Kodak Baby Brownie</a> on Down the Road<br />
<a href="https://www.cooperhewitt.org/2016/08/30/21213/" target="_blank">A Camera Worth a Thousand Words</a> Cooper Hewitt</span><br /></p><p></p><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1573193546035756071.post-59367298246424186232024-01-16T18:57:00.003+00:002024-01-16T18:57:58.240+00:00SQUIBB<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53460584902/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="327" data-original-width="500" height="327" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53460584902_008a52fe8a.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Claremont Road, Leytonstone, 16th January 1994<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>
As described in my previous post, ‘<a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2023/12/retracings.html">Retracings</a>’, after the first set of photographs of the destruction along the route of the M11 Link Road, I returned on subsequent occasions through the first months of 1994 to take more pictures. The next set of photographs was taken on the 16th of January, a Sunday. For these I used a colour film, according to the film rebate, Kodak Gold 100. I didn’t take very many photographs–nine–and three of them almost exactly replicated those shot on black and white film just over two weeks earlier as featured in my last post; I hadn’t, at that point, developed the black and white film. The colour film was developed the following week, before the black and white film, probably at Boots or Jessops in Ilford, dropped off before college one morning and picked up a couple of days later. The black and white film was not developed until the second week of February, partly due to the periodic absence of the photography technician, from which one had to borrow developing tanks, as well as lenses to use the enlargers, signed out and signed back in from a cubby hole.<br /><br />I did take more photographs on the short southern end of Claremont Road, where more houses had been demolished in the intervening weeks, with a sequence of four images from the end of the terrace facing the Central line, around to the section of the road where it rejoined Grove Green Road: this begins with the image below with the NO M11 graffiti, and ends with the image at the top of this post. These obliquely show some of the murals painted on the corrugated iron hoardings, and the painting on the houses, which became more prominent in the summer of 1994 along Claremont Road, functioning somewhat like an open air art gallery.</p>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53461917675/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="325" data-original-width="500" height="260" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53461917675_5613483957.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>
In January 2014, I retraced the route again, and photographed some of the same sites on colour film (the film rebate tells me that this was a Boots 200 ISO film, almost certainly out of date by the time I used it): the locations of the above three frames from Claremont Road would now be directly over the A12; the last image of this sequence, the photograph at the top of this post would have been relatively close to the remaining stub of Claremont Road (although almost certainly to the right), which I photographed in 2014, below.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53461637493/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="301" data-original-width="500" height="241" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53461637493_ba636369db.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>
Of the photographs that replicated those taken previously on black and white film, one was from the footbridge over the Central Line from Dyers Hall Road; the other two were on Colville Road. One of the 2014 versions of the Colville Road photographs shows more of the trees in the cemetery on the far side of the road and Central Line, which clearly shows that these are the same. The angle of the second image is almost certainly less accurate.</p><p></p>
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Having walked the route from Leytonstone to Leyton stations as I had done in December 1993, I then got the tube to Wanstead, where I got out to take a couple of photographs from the footbridge over Eastern Avenue. One of these, looking southwest towards a couple of houses which were demolished to provide space for a slip road off Eastern Avenue before it enters the cut-and-cover tunnel under George Green the road, and, parallel to this, to join Wigram Road to Elm Close, the latter road otherwise having been entirely marooned by the new road scheme. The new footbridge also needed to be wider and a wall built to mitigate the traffic noise for those residents that remained. </p>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53460581632/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="323" data-original-width="500" height="258" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53460581632_3833261e48.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p><br />
I also took a photograph from the footbridge looking in the opposite direction, northeast, towards Claybury. The house nearest to the bridge was boarded up at the time, and I suppose I must have thought that this too was to be demolished. The photograph taken in 2014 shows the same house with a large extension to its side; possibly the windows were boarded in anticipation of this building work–or it might have been under the threat of demolition, but this was not necessary for the road as built. The photograph above also shows extensions and attic conversions visible across the nearest row of houses: the two semi-detatched houses on the end are nearly unrecognisable as a result. The graffiti in the photograph from 1994 includes the motto DAMP SQUIBB: Squibb was the name emblazoned on the plant machinery responsible for much of the demolition, but was also used as something of a tag–perhaps in an accusatory manner–in the graffiti used along the route, visible again on the corrugated iron in the first photograph taken in December 1993 on Dyers Hall Road.<br /></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53460584062/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="500" height="256" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53460584062_a4ac8aaf6b.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53460581652/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="321" data-original-width="500" height="257" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53460581652_942247fb46.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1573193546035756071.post-84722270756561648252023-12-31T09:30:00.022+00:002024-01-25T17:34:34.554+00:00Retracings<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53424767174/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="331" height="400" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53424767174_4fa20a4372.jpg" width="265" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dyers Hall Road, Leytonstone, 31st December 1993<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>In a post that I wrote for this blog ten years ago, '<a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2013/12/twenty-years-since.html">Twenty Years Since</a>', I mentioned–almost in passing–photographs taken of houses being demolished to make way for what was then called the M11 Link Road, now the A12. The few words that described the experience of taking these photographs belies what was, in retrospect, an important formative experience or experiences. The taking of the these photographs was tied up with learning the craft of photography itself, following a basic introduction to photography as part of my Foundation Course in Art & Design a few weeks earlier, then receiving a secondhand Praktica BCA for Christmas in 1993.<br /><br />I had been aware of the planning blight that accompanied the road scheme years earlier, although I hadn’t known that this was what it was. A journey into central London would involve taking the Central Line from Gants Hill or Redbridge stations; this branch of the Central Line is in a tunnel under Eastern Avenue, resurfacing just before Leytonstone station for a couple of stops, making this brief view from the windows of the tube train a diverting contrast to the darkness of the rest of the way. Houses backing on to the line where it runs above ground here had begun to be demolished or fall into disrepair years earlier: I distinctly remember the graffiti spelling out WHY BOTHER? on the back of a house from the late 1980s, later to provoke the rejoinder WHY NOT? (These were then joined by CRAWLING KING SNAKES KICK YO ASS.)<br /><br />What had been an occasional journey while I was at school in nearby Wanstead became a daily one when I started college in 1993; I was all the more aware then that the demolitions were something that was actively happening, rather than what might have appeared to be a few streets fallen into desperate disrepair that I’d see whenever travelling into town. The protests around the tree on George Green in the autumn term was the moment that the active resistance to the road scheme made itself felt. (Rather pointlessly, one night after being kicked out of The George with a friend, we pulled down a fence post that had just been put up around the tree–there appeared to be no security at that stage–delaying the construction of the road by what must have been minutes at best, my only attempt at direct action).<br /><br />The weather around Christmas in 1993 had been largely cold and wet, with some snow; the last day of the year, a Friday, turned fine and sunny, prompting me to decide that it was the perfect opportunity to use my new secondhand camera, with a roll of Ilford HP5 Plus bought for a holiday college project, which was to illustrate a number of words that we had been given. The photos are a record of that change in the weather. I took the tube to Leytonstone, and walked to Leyton, taking photographs along the way. I took some photographs in the British Museum afterwards on the same day; the last two photographs of the M11 Link Road sequence were taken from a moving train. These may have been from Leyton in the direction of Stratford, or I think I may have taken an eastbound train from Leyton back to Leytonstone, before then switching over (or under as the case is at Leytonstone) to take a Westbound train to Tottenham Court Road for the museum.<br /><br />I returned on a number of occasions in the following months to take more photographs, neither systematic not comprehensive, but with the awareness that this felt like something of which it was worth making a visual record (the one time that I chanced upon evictions happening on Claremont Road in the summer of 1994, I had a part-used roll of film in my camera and no spare). The photographs were printed in the darkroom at college, rather inexpertly, and the images ended up used in artwork then, in collages and paintings, and I drew on these the following year when I’d left London and started a degree in Fine Art.<br />
</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/53424425586/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="331" height="400" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53424425586_ef6fcdc795.jpg" width="265" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dyers Hall Road, Leytonstone, 31st December 2013<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>
I had occasion to revisit these photographs earlier this year, and needed to find the original negatives; in doing so I also found a set of negatives from 2013 in which I had attempted to match the locations from the photographs of what was then twenty ago as closely as possible. These negatives weren’t scanned at the time–I had intended a blog post then–and the moment passed. I had scanned the original negatives in 2007, and had posted these online in 2008, and rather over-promised the content of these images by calling this the ‘M11 Link Road Archive’ (an actual archive of material related to the M11 Link Road and the protests resides at the Museum of London). Returning to some of the original files, the quality of these original scans was relatively poor, with scanning artefacts and clipped highlights and shadows in many of the frames. (Scanning issues–software and hardware–partly explain the absence of posts on this blog this year, although the main excuse was the writing up of my PhD). Having found the negatives from both 1993 and 2013, I was able to scan these recently with better results for this post.<br /><br />What I didn’t know at the time was that many of the houses along the route were or had been inhabited by artists. Acme Studios had been offered a number of the compulsorily-purchased houses by the Department of Transport in the 1980s; by the time I was taking these photographs, the houses along the route were occupied by the few original residents who had not moved away, some of the Acme artists who became involved in resisting the demolitions, and the first wave of anti-roads protestors, some of whom had come from Twyford Down, just outside Winchester–where I was going on to study–and many subsequently moved onto to protest the Newbury Bypass after the M11 campaign. <br /><br />For a few years I probably didn’t think about this part of my life very much; I happened to cycle over the road on the Quartermile Lane bridge from Hackney just before it opened in 1999. I didn’t have a camera on me at the time, and thought I’d return to take photographs of the empty road, but I never did. Then in 2003, a site-specific sound piece by the artist Graeme Miller called LINKED was installed along the route. This required collecting a radio receiver and headphones, available from local amenities–we got ours from Wanstead Leisure Centre–and walking a route from Wanstead to Hackney Wick, along which one would encounter transmitters that broadcast audio loops consisting of extracts of oral history weaved with music into soundscapes.<br /><br />Related to Miller’s LINKED, in 2008 I attended a number of seminars at LCC’s Photography and the Archive Research Centre (PARC), part of their research project Road: Artists and the Stop The M11 Link Road Campaign, 1984–1994; the ninth issue of PARC’s journal, Fieldstudy, was devoted to this research project, and featured a few of my photographs from 1993-94. Last year, Graeme Miller revisited LINKED: since its initial installation, with most of the receivers being placed on lamp posts along the road, a slow attrition had reduced these in number over time, some going as the Hackney Wick end of the route was swallowed up by the 2012 Olympic Park, others from the streetlights being knocked over, or the transmitters being unknowingly discarded by contractors. In anticipation of the project’s 20th anniversary, Miller revisited it for Re-LINK last year where the receivers were made available again for 48 hours and a roundtable discussion was hosted by Leytonstone Library; in conjunction with the exhibition Radical Landscapes at the William Morris Gallery, three open days for LINKED were planned, the first was in November, the next on 20th January and 17th February 2024. (In the intermediate years I had other opportunities to revisit Miller’s LINKED a few times, re-walking the route in different groups, thanks to the artwork being used as a PhD case study by Dr. Sarah Wishart.)<br /><br />In 2013, attempting–as best I could–to find the same viewpoints as the photographs taken in 1993, it wasn’t always clear as to where exactly each picture had been taken then: I hadn’t taken any notes. However, the sequence on the contact sheet, and the linear nature of the route from station to station made this relatively easy in most cases, but for some photographs this would have meant hovering above the A12 itself, as with most of those taken along Claremont Road itself. Some of the photographs in my retracings from 2013 and 2014 were taken with a Zenit 11, some with Praktica MTL3, but for both cameras I used a Prakticar f1.8 50mm lens, the same design lens as I would have had on my Praktica BC1, and then the BCA which replaced it later in 1994 (Edit 25/01/24: Having rediscovered the contact prints from the photographs taken on the 31st December 2013, I had actually used an Olympus OM10 for this set of photographs).<br /><br />
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The photographs from 1993 start at Dyers Hall Road. This road formed a shallow loop underneath the Gospel Oak to Barking branch of what was then the North London Line, joining Grove Green Road either end in a slightly more direct route along the Central Line. The A12 reduced Dyers Hall Road into two stubs, the shorter one now with the suffix 'South'.<br />
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For the pedestrian, or cyclist, the two ends of Dyers Hall Road are joined by a footpath and cycle lane which runs alongside the brick wall of the A12 here. At the end of Dyers Hall Road South, there is a footbridge that crosses the A12 to Norman Road on the eastern side; there had been a shorter footbridge here in 1993, which afforded a view across cleared ground to the railway bridge, a section of its brick arches already replaced by a long straight steel span.<br />
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A second photograph from the bridge looks over back gardens on Dyers Hall Road; the houses in the background face onto Grove Green Road. I took one photograph in 2013 looking across from the far end of the bridge towards the rear of those same houses on Grove Green Road, but a truer position would be on the footbridge itself, just past the line of the railway, where the previous footbridge would have ended–as in the third image below.<br />
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The next photographs are from Claremont Road, which became the focus of protest in 1994. The first of these are at the end of the right angle where it comes off Grove Green Road, two houses, one with a gibbet fixed to a chimney and a poster in a window: M11 LINK ROAD/DEVASTATING OUR COMMUNITIES. I’m reasonably sure that these houses were at the northern end of the road: the fence that runs alongside borders the Central Line. Behind would have been the Cathall Road bridge over the railway. In 2013 I took two photographs looking in the same general direction, one from that bridge, which would be somewhat behind the location of these houses, the other from the wide pavement before the bridge, which would be to the west.<br />
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A photograph of a house with a front door, curtains and a cat painted on breeze blocks is one of the pictures that would now be entirely where the A12 is now, or above, as the road sits in a cutting here.<br />
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There are two photographs at the southern end of Claremont Road where it turns back to Grove Green Road. After the A12 was built a small section of the southern end of Claremont Road remained; there was a little space here to build some houses, facing onto the road, thus ensuring that Claremont Road as a residential address still exists. A photograph looking back from here to Grove Green Road roughly replicates the same view of that from 1993.<br />
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The next photographs are from Colville Road. This was set a little further back from the Central Line than Claremont Road: houses which backed onto the railway were all demolished, along with some houses facing those at its northern end, where the angle of Colville Road was changed to accommodate the A12, running behind its brick wall but a stretch of terraced housing on the road’s western side survived.<br />
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This change in the course of the road can be clearly seen in the photograph from 2013 which looks along the wall, replicating a picture from 1993 looking over the corrugated iron fence to the end of terrace, side-on to the first photograph of Colville Road.<br />
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From here another photograph looks across to the Central Line, showing a 1962 stock Central Line train passing St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic cemetery in the far background (these trains, which I had grown up with, were phased out during that year I spent commuting on the Central Line, going to college, replaced by the current 1992 stock). A photograph of this view would be straight on to the brick wall; I took a picture in 2013 which I think must be looking up and more to the right.<br />
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There are two photographs from 1993 that mark the end of the walk from the entrance to the rail yard that lay to the southwest of Leyton Station; this would seem to extend down to Temple Mills, although I haven’t been ably to find whether Leyton Rail Yard was separate from that of Temple Mills, which is now the Eurostar depot. The view from here shows the horizon opening up to take in a skyline in which one can see One Canada Square in Canary Wharf, new in 1993 and the tallest building in the country at that point, past three tower blocks by Bow Church station, the Bryant and May match factory, across what is now the 2012 Olympic Park, marked by the two squat UEL residential towers, to the tower blocks clustered around Wick Lane and Victoria Park. The view now is almost entirely different: trying to locate the exact viewpoint would take one to the edge of the Leyton Mills retail park; slightly to the left, on the bridge over the A12 itself, shows a broadly similar view to that of 1993, with most of the horizon filled with development on the 2012 Olympic site. One Canada Square can still just be seen, as can the tower blocks by Wick Lane.<br />
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A second photograph in 1993 was taken at right angles to the first, looking back towards Leyton station, dominated by railway buildings facing the rise in the high road as it passes over the railway line; the current station building’s roof can just be see to their left, mostly obscured. A similar view today looks across the ramp and stairs into the retail park, with the station’s pitched roof in roughly the same position. I didn’t try to replicate the two photographs shot from the moving train in 1993, as I couldn’t be at all sure exactly where they were taken.<br />
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Although never directly involved in the campaigns and protests, not knowing about the community of artists there, feeling like an outsider despite it being relatively local, seeing and recording the progress of these demolitions in 1993 and 1994 affected me in part I think as the houses were very much like that I had grown up in, and was something that I could see happening as I took the tube to college every day. There was also an aspect of being confronted by the arbitrary use of the power of the state at this formative age, bound up as it felt at the time with the Criminal Justice Bill, much in the news at the time, passed into law in November 1994, with many of its measures seemingly targeted at the young and politically active, and how this galvanised, pre-internet, before social media, a grassroots opposition (Labour, under Tony Blair–first as shadow home secretary as the bill made its way through parliament, then as leader of the opposition following John Smith’s death–abstained when the bill received its third reading). My awareness of this came through a very different media ecology from today: posters on the streets, what alternative press I happened to come across, like SchNEWS, but mostly how it filtered through into the music of the time and the wider conversations around it in part through the ‘polytextuality’ (as Dean L. Biron describes it) of the music’s physical artefacts–the artwork and liner notes–and how this was reflected in the music press and the conversations that were part of meeting new people, new ideas, starting a college course, anticipating leaving home. When I took the photographs on the last day of 1993, photography was <i>physical</i> (it would be many years before I even saw a digital camera, though I did have my first experiences with Adobe Photoshop then, with a faint intuition that this would be a transformative technology), enabling me to return to the negatives thirty years later and create images anew from their matrices.<br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/id/eprint/3098/137/fieldstudy_9_v8.pdf">Fieldstudy issue 9 (PDF file)</a><br /><a href="https://graememiller.org/project/linked/">Graeme Miller LINKED</a> <br /><a href="https://www.sarahwishart.com/provenance-of-performance">Sarah Wishart, 'A Provenance of Performance'</a><br /><a href="https://schnews.org/archive/news03.htm">SchNEWS Issue 3 December 1994</a><br /><a href="http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/portal/article/viewFile/1682/2443">Dean L. Biron, 'Writing and Music: Album Liner Notes'</a><br /></span></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1573193546035756071.post-42469733486410771232023-06-19T19:42:00.004+01:002023-06-19T19:42:33.691+01:00Earthwise/Hopscotch<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4961" data-original-width="4961" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMPZFSw9D9tMTUVryGJZ-kwwZ_I-2HJHGGNqnE76FgHEdCc5P3ZJuxPcte_S9rnb56nHnJw1ofy0CHbQIjoSeq5ctDuT4towCwK5Oj3JtYDAzgbuH-_srQtJKsX1o7q1FXDN4_gcyPeof_ewyEQ1tiERjxjs63FjYKfopxMklXd-yKJrKTRZdac5nvJoo/w400-h400/Earthwise%20image%20highres.jpg" width="400" /></div><br />I am showing some new and previously unexhibited work in two exhibitions opening in London this week, with openings on Wednesday & on Thursday. For 'Earthwise', an exhibition, event and publication by PhD and MRes students from the Royal College of Arts’ School of Arts and Humanities, opening this Wednesday, I am showing a photographic-text piece, not dissimilar to other recent work.<p></p><blockquote><b>Earthwise</b><br />Wednesday 21st June–Saturday 1st July 12-5pm<br />Private View: 6-9pm Wednesday 21st June<br />Beaconsfield Gallery, 22 Newport St, London SE11 6AY<br /><a href="https://beaconsfield.ltd.uk/projects/earthwise/">https://beaconsfield.ltd.uk/projects/earthwise/</a></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3KA00EnuuQ7FibT29PgtaS6OUOYZtyABl5YgxIjyp0W__zVNGXu_QKq0lx2xVvHXwJlIl4Fy02v3rqHaSw9btSBEHi34EDzrLlGFd0ipiFfzbZnVj2E_goSvSlZZvs1M6iWAeQtBWW3ml6BaQoyZjF1Hfsa4CJjbpKARxJ_yvVfPAjw0e5USoYrupJnI/s3509/Hopscotch%20horizontal.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2481" data-original-width="3509" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3KA00EnuuQ7FibT29PgtaS6OUOYZtyABl5YgxIjyp0W__zVNGXu_QKq0lx2xVvHXwJlIl4Fy02v3rqHaSw9btSBEHi34EDzrLlGFd0ipiFfzbZnVj2E_goSvSlZZvs1M6iWAeQtBWW3ml6BaQoyZjF1Hfsa4CJjbpKARxJ_yvVfPAjw0e5USoYrupJnI/w400-h283/Hopscotch%20horizontal.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div>The other exhibition is 'Hopscotch' and forms the physical iteration of the RCA's Research Biennale, and opens on Thursday, in which I am showing a kind of 'sketch' for a photographic work, intended to be made in the darkroom, but which I never made as planned due to the pandemic.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><blockquote><b>Hopscotch</b><br /><span><div>Thursday 22nd to Saturday 24th June 10am–6pm</div><div>Private View: 6–9.30pm Thursday 22nd June</div></span>Closing event: 6-9.00pm, Saturday 24 June<br />Copeland Gallery, Unit 9, Copeland Park, 133 Copeland Rd, Peckham, London SE15 3SN<br /><a href="https://www.copelandpark.com/events/23590/hopscotch-rca-research-biennale/?t=23605">www.copelandpark.com</a></blockquote></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1573193546035756071.post-57577258240493821562023-04-29T14:49:00.006+01:002023-04-29T14:58:11.060+01:00Ciné-Kodak Model K<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52849133345/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="369" data-original-width="500" height="369" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52849133345_ab9df92491.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ciné-Kodak Model K 16mm camera</td></tr></tbody></table><blockquote><i>A leader for years, Ciné-Kodak, Model K, is deservedly still the favorite 16mm. motion picture camera of thousands of home movie fans. Moderately priced, Model K possesses such outstanding features as 100-foot film capacity, Kodak Anastigmat f/1.9 lens–easily interchangeable with a wide selection of accessory lenses, half speed and normal speed, eye-level and waist-height finder, and locking exposure lever. </i><br /><div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Cine-Kodak 8mm and 16mm Home Movie Equipment, 1940</span></div></blockquote>
<br />In my post on the <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2020/08/cine-kodak-bb-junior.html">Ciné-Kodak Model BB Junior</a>, I summarised the evolution of Kodak's range of 16mm cine cameras, from the (retrospectively named) Model A, followed by the Model B, which represents a significant design rethink, and then the BB (and its derivative, the BB Junior), taking the general layout of the Model B, but, by using a smaller capacity spool, making the camera smaller and lighter. The next model, introduced in July 1930, was the <b>Ciné-Kodak Model K</b>. This represented a change in the Kodak ciné cameras' naming conventions, with the previous models named in something approaching a logical sequence. Possibly, the use of the letter 'K' is from Kodak itself, indicating that, when introduced, the Ciné-Kodak Model K was seen as the definitive design iteration of Kodak's 16mm ciné cameras; Kodak manufactured the Model K for 16 years, until 1946, longer than any of the other 16mm models (the next longest production run–15 years–was the Ciné-Kodak Special) and, as a result, ninety years on, the Model K is not a rare camera.<br /><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52849190508/" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52849190508_04c3b6b107.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ciné-Kodak Model BB Junior (front) and Model K (back)</td></tr></tbody></table><div>
Taking the general design and internal layout from the Ciné-Kodak BB, with a slightly longer and taller body, the Model K was designed for the larger-capacity 100ft daylight-loading spool–used in the first two Kodak 16mm cameras–that the BB had sacrificed for compactness. This would mean around 4 minutes of footage at the camera's normal running at 16 frames per second. With aspects of the BB's design, the Model K is smaller than the Model B, but with comparable specifications. After my initial experiences with the Ciné-Kodak BB Junior, I subsequently had an eye on the Model K for its capacity to take daylight-loading 100ft spools, rather than the BB Junior's 50ft spools; apart from the spool size, most of my caveats about contemporary use of the BB Junior apply to the Model K, particularly that it takes double-perforated 16mm film. However, I saw a Model K offered for sale on a well-known auction website for a starting price of just €3.50–from Germany. With postage this was just over £20 in total and no-one else placed a bid on the camera (this was in late 2020, before the UK left the EU, and before prices when buying from the EU went up considerably as a result). The Model K came with the f1.9 25mm Anastigmat lens, which was the higher-priced variant; it could also be bought with a lower-value f3.5 25mm lens. The camera came in its original case, which has space for a second lens, with mounting pins to secure it, and two rolls of film. It also had the key for the case's lock, attached to the ribbon inside.<div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52849190513/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52849190513_56ab4868d2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ciné-Kodak Model K in original case</td></tr></tbody></table></div><div>
Other than taking 100ft spools, the main difference from the BB Junior is that the Model K has interchangeable lenses. My version came with the standard 25mm f1.9 anastigmat lens (the Model K could also be bought cheaper with a f3.5 25mm lens); other lenses do show up from time to time, but seem to be rare. As a viewfinder camera, the interchangeable lenses each had a front viewfinder attached to the mount, so changing a lens also changes the viewfinder (the rear sight on the body remains). The Model K also has a waist-level viewfinder on the body, next to the lens, but the angle of view for this is unaffected by changing lenses. There was a wide range of lenses provided for the Model K: by 1940, there were 7 available in additional to the standard 25mm, from a wide-angle 15mm lens to a 152mm/6 inch lens. Early in 1940, Kodak abandoned the aperture plate guide around the lens with descriptions of lighting conditions and subjects as by then there was a wider range of film stocks available with a range of speeds, thus making too many exceptions; my camera evidently dates from before this, and did not later have its aperture plate replaced, as was offered as a service (it does intriguingly have two marks in the leather on one side which look as though it may had something taped to the side of the camera, which looks as though it <i>could</i> have been the new exposure guide which replaced the aperture plate, consisting of a dial with the aperture numbers and a slot for a card which came with each film, detailing the conditions and subjects particular to its emulsion).</div><div><br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52849190538/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52849190538_8e5e95fb68.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ciné-Kodak Model K with lens removed</td></tr></tbody></table><div>
The lenses are removed by a button twist bayonet lugs plate with Each lens came with the front folding viewfinder element attached to the mount, in order that the viewfinder showed the correct angle of view for the corresponding lens. The rear viewfinder remained on the body of the camera: its lens can slide down out of the sighting aperture. This is for when the 15mm wide angle lens is mounted. As with the BB Junior, the viewfinder has parallax marks for the top of the frame at distances of 6ft and 2ft. </div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52848156577/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52848156577_a012eb2f08.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ciné-Kodak Model K detail of the standard 25mm lens and waist level finder</td></tr></tbody></table><div>
The Ciné-Kodak Model K also has a waist-level viewfinder built into the body, offset to the right of the lens from the operator's position. This has no parallax indications, and doesn't change with lenses of the different focal lengths. Evidently it was provided to facilitate using the camera held at a lower height, possibly against the body–very much like one might hold a Kodak Brownie. In addition, it's reversed laterally, which makes it less intuitive to use; after explaining laboriously how to follow a moving subject with the waist-level finder, <i>Making the Most of Your Ciné-Kodak</i> does offer the following encouragement: "Bearing this in mind, you will quickly master the trick and be able to keep up with the action. The reflecting finder will be found very convenient when taking pictures of children, pets and all subjects that are at waist level or lower." The waist-level finder does very much feel like it has been transplanted from a contemporary still camera, with Kodak's early ciné cameras being conceived in many of the same terms, functionally at least.</div><div><p>
</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52849133340/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="369" data-original-width="500" height="295" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52849133340_3661fe6462.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ciné-Kodak Model K showing winding lever, shutter release and slow speed button</td></tr></tbody></table><div>
As with the BB Junior, the shutter release lever has two positions: pushed down lightly and the camera runs; push down further and the lever locks in the run position. At 16 frames per second, the effective shutter speed would be 1/32nd of a second, as close as 1/30th as practical. There is also a button on the side of the camera above the shutter lever which, when depressed, reduces the frame rate to 8fps, with an equivalent shutter speed of 1/16th. This has to be kept held down at the same time as the shutter lever, and does not itself lock. The reason for this slow speed is a result of the slow emulsions available at the time–Kodak's first 16mm film stock would have been around 10 ISO–<i>Making the Most of Your Ciné-Kodak</i> advises that "The half-speed feature is not intended for ordinary use, and should be resorted to only when the light is of such extremely poor quality that black and white pictures cannot properly be exposed at normal speed with the largest diaphragm opening (/.1.9 or /.3.5), or when it is desired to make Kodacolor pictures without direct sunlight." (It later states that it can be also used for comedy effects; with the projector only running at 16fps, any footage shot at 8fps would therefore by projected at twice its speed). The motor is wound by a handle which tucks into the body with a recess for its rotating knob when not in use. In comparison to the BB Junior's rather smaller key, the handle allows for the motor to be fully wound very quickly. When fully wound on my camera, the motor runs for about 40 seconds without film, audibly slowing towards the end of this. It runs twice as long at 8fps, as it's the revolutions of the sprocket wheel and pull-down claw–and therefore the number of frames itself–that determines duration.</div></div></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52848733901/" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="369" data-original-width="500" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52848733901_4fba163a00.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ciné-Kodak Model K opened for loading</td></tr></tbody></table>
Most of the description and comments in my post on the loading and use of the BB Junior apply equally to the Model K: the placement of full and empty spools is the same, opening the pull-down claw and sprocket clamps to feed the film through the gate and correctly form loops is exactly the same too, so there's no need to detail that here: one can refer back to the <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2020/08/cine-kodak-bb-junior.html">post on the BB Junior</a> for a description of how to load the camera. There are just two differences with respect to loading the Model K to note: first, the lock on the Model K has <i>two</i> steps to open the camera: the button is rotated 180 before sliding into the open position to remove the side of the camera; the BB Junior's lock simply slides. Second, as the Model K accepts both 50ft and 100ft spools, there is a small lever to set a guide for the take up spool of the relevant capacity (one can of course use a 100ft take-up spool for a 50ft supply spool; vice-versa, one would end up with a lot of loose exposed film inside the camera). Opening my particular Model K, there is an engraved inscription "R.H.MACY & CO. INC."; interestingly, the serial number, normally visible on the crank arm when folded out has had the serial number removed with what looks to be the same tool.<br /><p>There were a couple of small repairs which I made to the camera. When it arrived, the carrying handle was missing its fixing on one end. I made a replacement from a D-ring (usually used for hanging pictures), drilling two small holes for the screws and then trimming it down to the right size. At this point, I gave the camera a general clean, removing some fixings in the process, including the cover of the footage counter. The footage counter has numerals for every ten feet of film, with marks in between, with stars for loading for both 100ft and 50ft rolls. </p>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52848734321/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="381" data-original-width="500" height="305" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52848734321_7ec8ba6353.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ciné-Kodak Model K film counter</td></tr></tbody></table>
Underneath the cover, the footage counter has a serial number–possibly matching that removed from the handle–but also "100'-BB": possibly, during its initial production phase, the camera was known as the 100ft BB camera, and only named the Model K when marketed on introduction–which only appears on the footage counter cover itself in relatively small letters. The counter has a movable pointer, moved by the round knob with the milled edge, which should be aligned with the start position when each film is loaded for accuracy, a feature which appears to have been dropped later in the production run.<div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52849191198/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="381" data-original-width="500" height="305" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52849191198_40b2b45590.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ciné-Kodak Model K footage counter with cover removed</td></tr></tbody></table>
The other repair was to the rear sight: the mechanism by which it clicks into place, either flat, folded against the body, or upright, in use, is a flat metal tongue the end of which sits under the hinge of the sight. This is fixed to the base of the sight with a small rivet, which sheared off relatively soon after I got the camera (in the BB Junior, this part is fixed by a small screw). To repair the camera, I replaced the rivet with a bolt, drilling out the rivet, then drilling a matching hole in the camera body to fix the bolt through.<p>My reason for acquiring the Ciné-Kodak Model K was for its 100ft capacity in comparison to the BB Junior, as well as the possibility of using interchangeable lenses; as with the latter camera, there was a notion that I could convert it for single perforated film, which would mean being able to use a wider range of film stocks still available–although most of the 16mm I've shot so far has been old double-perforated stocks of various types. This I have yet to do: for one reason or another, I have used the Model K very little, less than the BB Junior. I have also not found additional lenses at a reasonable price, at least in comparison to the low price I paid for the camera itself. The first short test roll I shot in the camera was Ilford Fast Pan film on an overcast winter's day, shot fairly wide open as a result.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52848734061/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52848734061_1fe811137c.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ciné-Kodak Model K test with Ilford Fast Pan film</td></tr></tbody></table>Developing the film (above), the pressure plate has a square and round hole, which is some form of identification mark when the film is exposed (the BB Junior has three circular holes, two of which are joined). I did use the Model K to make a very short three-colur process film with the Ilford Fast Pan film again, right at the end of a roll. This was made in the same manner as in my post <a href="https://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2020/12/three-colour-8mm-film.html">Three Colour Process 8mm Film</a>, holding each red, green, and blue filter over the lens as the camera ran. I shot two sequences, one inside, with the filter factor, needed the lens wide open at 8fps; the second at the normal 16fps outside.<p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="375" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/822284783?h=4bfd8f65e9" title="" width="500"></iframe></div><p>
As with the previous three-colour film, I overlaid three versions of the black and white film and offset each so that the sections with red, green, and blue would synchronise, but without the complicated sequence of separation and repetition in the first film. The RGB colour rendition is less accurate than it might be as the blue filter has a different filter factor, but it was not practical to change the aperture during the exposure to compensate, as I wanted to film the sequence in one, rather than start and stop for each filter instead.
</p><p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="375" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/822285005?h=d74e5c56a4&badge=0&autopause=0&player_id=0&app_id=58479" title="16mm Three Colour Process II" width="500"></iframe></div><p>
</p><div>One wonders how the Ciné-Kodak Model K might have looked to a potential buyer looking for a home movie camera towards the end of its production run just post-war. The rate of technological development in just over twenty years since Kodak had introduced the 16mm format had meant that the Model K had begun to lose its purpose, I suspect: it no longer fitted any particular segment of the market. Kodak's introduction of the 8mm format in 1932 provided for a more cost-conscious entry into home-movie making, becoming the new standard; for convenience itself, the 16mm magazine format from 1936 took over from daylight-loading spools; for ambition–the 16mm format's direction after the introduction of 8mm, for the serious amateur, the artist, documentarist or educationalist–the Ciné-Kodak Special of 1933 had many more features than the Model K (in addition of course, Kodak's competitors were also developing numerous cameras for the film formats that Kodak had developed). Regardless, the Ciné-Kodak Model K's long production run attests to it durability and reliability as a design–Kodak had other 16mm cameras, the Model M and Model E, which came and went during that period–and as stated earlier, it's not an uncommon camera nearly eighty years after its production finished. Again, as mentioned at the beginning of this post, there are important caveats about its utility today as a 16mm camera, without modifications, but, given the relatively low prices that it fetches (usually less than a roll of new 16mm film in a typical used condition), it's also one of the more affordable entry point into 16mm.</div><div><br /><p><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sources/further reading:<br />Doug Kerr <a href="http://dougkerr.net/Pumpkin/articles/Kodak_Cine-Kodak.pdf">The Kodak Ciné-Kodak line of motion picture cameras</a><br /><a href="https://archive.org/details/MakingTheMostOfYourCineKodakModelK1931">Making the Most of Your Ciné Kodak</a><br /><a href="https://www.libraryweb.org/~digitized/tradecats/kodak/Cine_Kodaks_1933.pdf">Ciné Kodaks 1933</a><br /><a href="https://www.libraryweb.org/~digitized/tradecats/kodak/Cine_Kodaks_1940.pdf">Ciné Kodaks 1940</a></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1573193546035756071.post-71443568592743986392023-02-25T22:03:00.001+00:002023-02-25T22:10:43.253+00:00Lomography Fantôme 8 - single roll review<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52691396489/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="387" data-original-width="500" height="387" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52691396489_07b7e541fe.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lomography Fantôme 8 35mm film</td></tr></tbody></table>
<p>Approaching two years ago at the time of writing, I posted a short 'single roll' review on the <a href="https://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2021/06/lomography-berlin-kino-400-single-roll.html">Lomography Berlin Kino 400 film</a>. This had been one of the rolls of film that I had won as part of the #ShittyCameraChallenge prize (sponsored by David Walster - <a href="https://twitter.com/196photo">@196photo on Twitter</a>), four different rolls of 35mm black and white film, all of which were new to me. One of the other rolls was <b>Lomography Fantôme 8</b>; like the other Lomomgraphy film, the box has the description '35mm KINO film', but unlike the 'Berlin' film, Fantôme 8's origins are not those of a camera film, used to generate a negative–which its low ISO of 8 indicates. <a href="http://www.alexluyckx.com/blog/2021/05/10/film-review-blog-no-71-lomography-fantome-8/" target="_blank">According to Alex Luyckx</a>, Fantôme 8 is Orwo DP31. <a href="https://www.orwona.com/content/orwotechspecsdp31.pdf" target="_blank">Orwo's data sheet</a> describes it thus:</p>
<blockquote><i>ORWO duplicating positive film DP 31 serves as a film for the production of intermediate positives (master positives). Due to is panchromatic sensitisation this film can be used for duplicating from black & white negatives as well as from colour negatives producing well-balanced grey values referring to original colours. Special features of this film are the excellent resolving power and the extraordinary fine grain</i></blockquote><p>As a very low ISO film, I had been anticipating that I'd want to use the roll of Fantôme 8 for something specific which would take advantage of its particular characteristics, rather than 'everyday' film photography. Last week I wanted to make an <i>interpositive</i> to create a print in negative from a negative, and naturally thought of the Fantôme 8 for precisely the qualities the data sheet describes (this, incidentally, was for <a href="https://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2023/02/undertow-at-unit-1-gallery.html">the Undertow exhibition</a>). I shot half the roll and developed it as needed, then decided that I may well as well find the time to use the remainder of the film. For the purposes of making the interpositive, I used a tripod and my <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-canon-1.html">Canon A-1 SLR</a>; at 8 ISO, there are few situations in which hand-holding a camera with Fantôme 8 is practical, but I did expose a couple of frames hand-held, both of which were with the lens wide open at f1.8 and a fairly slow shutter speed. The second image below was at 1/20th, which will have probably introduced a small amount of camera shake, leading it to be less sharp as a result; the first image, silhouetting bare branches against a bright sky at a medium distance was rather easier </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52710907963/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="500" height="256" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52710907963_c476d4ee60.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Canon A-1 with Lomography Fantôme 8</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52710428916/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="500" height="256" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52710428916_46255b8580.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Canon A-1 with Lomography Fantôme 8</td></tr></tbody></table>
<p>The first image above was shot on the end of the half of the roll I had used first, and the high contrast of the image was fairly evident. I used Kodak HC-110 at dilution H, 1+63 from concentrate, with a time of 14 minutes at 20ºC (the Orwo data sheet, unsurprisingly for a motion picture film, gives D96 as a developer). The film has probably the clearest base of any I've used–and was also extremely curly once developed. Having used half the film first, and assessing the results, this gave me an idea of how to approach using the remainder of the film. Thanks to its high contrast, in terms of subjects, for most frames I avoided including much or any sky in the composition, concerned it would render almost entirely bright and featureless (as a panchromatic film, it would have been possible to use a yellow filter); the image below was one of the few with a significant area of sky in the frame.</p>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52709906397/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="327" data-original-width="500" height="262" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52709906397_2e0ee8ecec.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Canon A-1 with Lomography Fantôme 8</td></tr></tbody></table>I may have been cautious in this, but the few frames with bright sky and bare branches silhouetted against it brought up a different problem in scanning: the clear base introduced a form of halation in the scanning of the negatives, with the light of the scanner passing through these clear areas and reflecting back inside the scanner. This is an effect I've noticed with a few other films, but this was particularly intrusive here. In the image below it is a rather disruptive artefact of the scanning process; I imagine that darkroom printing would not have the same problem.<div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52710844220/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="500" height="256" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52710844220_f38cf7b357.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Canon A-1 with Lomography Fantôme 8</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="671" data-original-width="1050" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfzjhXxbL50TZo7wExeVbx3eAZpODk_ZyFvG9qc6dJb-8hoiJIt2IDghhJoESnTTj0f-PNcr7B6h-u14PU2FjVHJVKy59TQSYQP6H4L-T2gGpZv9o2ewgWhEH_mEr0ouyG1veTvvY7G1cCx1mNmAxalAjNcRi9m_OX3Hvgd4b8FBteYLXwlKbynAzV/w400-h255/Fantome%208%2003%20crop.jpg" width="400" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Close-up crop from scan</td></tr></tbody></table>
<p>Given Fantôme 8's characteristics, I had hoped for overcast weather conditions for photographing, not uncommon here in February, but instead I found it was an afternoon of intermittent, if hazy sunshine. To lessen the high contrast of the film, using the Canon A-1, with its double exposure capability, on a number of frames, I was able to use the technique of pre-exposure to raise the shadow values. To do this, I first shot a frame of a grey card without focussing three and a half stops below the camera's indicated exposure, then pushed in the multiple exposure switch before engaging the film advance, which, with the multiple exposure switch engaged, simply cocks the shutter without moving the film. After development, the frames which had pre-exposure were easily distinguishable on the negatives, although in scanning, with many frames the differences were not as great as I might have expected.</p>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52709906677/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="500" height="256" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52709906677_013ec05edc.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Canon A-1 with Lomography Fantôme 8</td></tr></tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52709906712/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="327" data-original-width="500" height="262" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52709906712_0c617139d7.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Canon A-1 with Lomography Fantôme 8 and pre-exposure</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;">
The most successful use of this technique is demonstrated in a pair of frames in which the subject was the low winter sun reflecting of a puddle, with the surroundings otherwise in shadow, which wouldn't be a subject easy to expose for a film with greater latitude: the pre-exposure here opens up the shadow detail just enough to define the landscape which becomes a little lost in the first image, where more exposure would lose detail in the highlights.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52709906467/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="327" data-original-width="500" height="262" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52709906467_64fe09c1bc.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Canon A-1 with Lomography Fantôme 8</td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52710844460/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="327" data-original-width="500" height="262" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52710844460_80ed85928e.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Canon A-1 with Lomography Fantôme 8 and pre-exposure</td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="text-align: left;">A better test would be to print from these negatives in the darkroom, to be able to properly appreciate the difference the pre-exposure has made. However, for some of the images here, it does appear to have benefitted the negatives. As a general preference, longer tonal scales in negatives I find easier to work with (which was, in part, the frustration I felt with <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2017/07/ferrania-p30-alpha.html">Ferrania P30</a>); for many or most subjects it's a general look that I prefer, and, as a technique, using pre-exposure with Fantôme 8 here has softened some of the film's particular qualities. Many of the examples of the film that I've seen online play on these high-contrast qualities, and, had I been wanting that look, and found subjects appropriate for it, Fantôme 8 would have been ideal: I do feel that I found it a bit more flexible than I had anticipated. With the some of the compositions in which I was mindful in not including the sky, I found that there was something–a little–of the 'ungrounded' quality of some of Muybridge's photographs of Yosemite (on a much less grand scale of course) which I had been looking at again recently, in which the lack of a horizon or discernible foreground places the viewer in an uncertain relation to the scene depicted. Having used the film initially for a purpose not dissimilar to its original usage, then, finding the right subject matter and an appropriate technique for the film's limitations, I found myself liking Lomography Fantôme 8 rather more than I had expected to.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52710908023/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52710908023_9a7062f79d.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52710844190/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="327" data-original-width="500" height="327" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52710844190_d0d9188b8b.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52709906377/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="327" data-original-width="500" height="327" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52709906377_36bb6f3c46.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52710844335/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="327" data-original-width="500" height="327" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52710844335_79a7165238.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sources/further reading</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.lomography.com/magazine/343958-mastering-the-new-lomography-fantome-kino-b-w-iso-8"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Mastering the new Lomography Fantome Kino 8</span></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.orwona.com/content/orwotechspecsdp31.pdf">Orwo DP31 data sheet</a> (PDF)</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.alexluyckx.com/blog/2021/05/10/film-review-blog-no-71-lomography-fantome-8/"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Alex Luyckx on Lomography Fantome 8</span></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://casualphotophile.com/2022/02/21/shooting-lomography-fantome-film/"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Fantome 8 on the casualphotophile</span></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.35mmc.com/26/03/2020/lomography-fantome-kino-bw-8-iso-35mm-film-review/"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Fantome 8 on 35mmc</span></a></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1573193546035756071.post-2937610654924079802023-02-16T23:12:00.004+00:002023-02-26T18:47:50.525+00:00Undertow at Unit 1 Gallery<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="649" data-original-width="520" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd9V1_wbw9KVWIVSBdGNktinEONjgHZsEqFF3vb1HtPnt0BmdaNB-OqFqDV88AzrDeiuc0QX2XY_a-j--84tE8YCXgs-R30FrfujMw8w2SUaJq0_Dd1KsWc0qUsH-4zAVo3HvRvV8cdW1omdbTapwMBwVtbXhjUN2pUv5aPh39C-QR-Scf78gpTBVp/s16000/Undertow%20-%20Evite%20-%20U1GW%20-%20520.jpg" /></div>
<div><blockquote><p style="line-height: 134%;"><i>Moving below the surface current and in a different direction, the subterranean emotion is held carefully under the surface, as the understated surface half reveals and half-conceals the turmoil beneath.</i><span style="font-size: x-small;">†</span></p><p></p><p></p></blockquote></div><div>
When prevailing discourses tip towards hyperbole, generalisations or simplification, there is a need to</div><div>swim against the current, to carve out a space that allows for ambiguity, correspondence, and a quieter</div><div>voice. In the employment of few words, a scale of action or use of minimal materials, understatement</div><div>can be both a way of confronting moments of crisis, or of evading them. Undertow brings together a</div><div>group of artists working in dialogue around these concerns. The Undertow research group's remit is</div><div>open, as is the shape it takes, and the work is rooted in the sensibilities of material and material</div><div>understanding. Our practices span the use of text, ceramics, wood, paper, paint, film, photography.</div><div><br /></div><div>This exhibition is an opportunity to regroup, to re-open conversations and begin new ones, to test</div><div>ideas in the absence of pre-conceived outcomes, but with purpose and direction. What emerges in the</div><div>work coalesces around language, data, codes, a collapsing of scale, of how a still surface half-reveals,</div><div>half-conceals subterranean undercurrents.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">†. Michael O’Neil, and Madeleine Callaghan, (editors), ‘Situated Sequences and Marginal Voices’, in <i>Twentieth Century British and Irish Poetry: Hardy to Mahon</i>, 2011 </span></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://undertow-research.blogspot.com"><i>Undertow Research blog</i></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Alex Simpson<br />Alison Rees<br />Lauren Ilsley<br />Nicholas Middleton<br />Sarah Wishart<br />Tana West<div><br /></div><div>Unit 1 Gallery<div>1 Bard Road, London W10 6TP</div><div>3rd-25th March 2023</div><div>Tuesday-Saturday 11am-6pm</div><div>Private view, Thursday 2nd March 6-9pm<br /> <p></p></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1573193546035756071.post-78157388262509858542023-01-31T14:27:00.002+00:002023-01-31T17:17:23.432+00:00Kentmere Pan 400 - part 2<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52600638304/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="371" data-original-width="500" height="371" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52600638304_b7cb25c42e.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kentmere Pan 400 in medium format<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>When I wrote my original post on <a href="https://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2019/11/kentmere-pan-400.html">Kentmere Pan 400 in 2019</a>, it was then available in 35mm only; in December 2022, in a surprise announcement from Harman, the film's manufacturer, that the two black and white Kentmere emulsions were now to be available in medium format, having previously been available in 35mm only. I did write in my original post three years ago that "having been around for many years [Kentmere Pan 400] is unlikely to suddenly be offered in medium and large format, although this is not impossible: Ilford's Ortho Plus film, a niche sheet film emulsion for decades, has just been introduced in 35mm and 120." As described in the recent post on its slower-speed companion, <a href="https://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2020/09/kentmere-pan-100.html">Kentmere Pan 100</a>, there's a logic to Harman complementing their Ilford brand with lower-priced films in medium format, to compete–in particular, it seems–with cheaper films such as Fomapan 100 and <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2015/12/fomapan-400.html">400</a>. The original post on Kentmere Pan 400 was written to compare the film with <a href="https://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2019/09/ilford-pan-400.html">Ilford Pan 400</a>, which I had been told was going to be discontinued (although at the time of writing, this film is still available), and one can see the logic in rationalising Harman's budget film lines. </p><p>After the announcement of the film's new availability in medium format, I bought a couple of rolls and used the film, cut down, for last week's <a href="https://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2023/01/127-day-january-2023.html">127 Day</a> (I used the 16mm off-cut in a subminiature camera, but this suffered from successive overlapping exposures due to issues with the film advance, and so not worth illustrating here); I shot the other roll on New Year's Day, with the <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2013/02/ica-icarette-l.html">Ica Icarette II/L</a>. The reason for choosing this particular medium format camera was simply not having used it for a while. As with the comments in the last post on 127 Day, with overcast winter weather, a one-stop push might have improved the contrast of the negatives; the Icarette's Tessar lens–99 years old–is uncoated, and the somewhat hazy conditions were no doubt emphasised in the results thanks to the low-contrast of the uncoated lens.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52660564696/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="331" data-original-width="500" height="331" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52660564696_bf52ec5e80.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ica Icarette II with Kentmere Pan 400</td></tr></tbody></table>The image above, directed towards the sun, just about discernible on the day through the clouds, shows this quite well (thanks to the weather conditions, there may also–just–have been some haze as a remainder of the fireworks a few hours before). In the <a href="https://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2019/11/kentmere-pan-400.html">original post on Kentmere Pan 400</a>, I did test both pushing and pulling the film, and used Rodinal (or a Rodinal clone) and Ilfotec LC29 for developers, and in particular, having used Rodinal for many years, I was familiar with it and what to expect; with the medium format Kentmere Pan 400, I used Kodak HC-110 (at dilution B here), a developer new to me: with one or two rolls of film and a new developer, there wasn't the opportunity to work out how exactly to tailor the developer to exposure to get the particular result I wanted–or to use a different camera, which might have produced better results for these couple of rolls of Kentmere Pan 400 in medium format (as with the roll shot on 127 Day, the low contrast of the negatives was notable). As with my summary in the original post from just over three years ago, I feel there's nothing really distinctive about Kentmere Pan 400: I ended by writing then that the film is "a perfectly good, competitively priced, all-round 35mm black and white film with a certain flexibility in exposure and development"–which it is, but also now very welcome in medium format too.<div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52661055858/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="327" data-original-width="500" height="327" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52661055858_4849b9aa3a.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ica Icarette II with Kentmere Pan 400</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52660565011/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="328" data-original-width="500" height="328" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52660565011_5255a42b53.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ica Icarette II with Kentmere Pan 400</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div></div></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52660065057/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="328" data-original-width="500" height="328" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52660065057_981eb3e376.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ica Icarette II with Kentmere Pan 400</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52661008270/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="328" data-original-width="500" height="328" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52661008270_68f96e1a37.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ica Icarette II with Kentmere Pan 400</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1573193546035756071.post-67696644969953230442023-01-29T17:06:00.003+00:002023-01-29T17:06:56.209+00:00127 Day January 2023<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52656458329/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="387" data-original-width="500" height="387" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52656458329_02c9b2f8d6.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Baby Ikonta with Kentmere Pan 400</td></tr></tbody></table><div>Last Friday was the first of the year's calendrical <b>127 Days</b>, and I had time during the early afternoon to expose a roll of cut-down <a href="https://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2019/11/kentmere-pan-400.html">Kentmere Pan 400</a> in the <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2017/07/zeiss-ikon-box-tengor-5418-baby-box.html">Zeiss Ikon Ikonta 520/18</a>–the 'Baby Ikonta'–a favourite for its small size, relatively good Novar lens and Compur shutter. I used <a href="https://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2015/07/making-film-slitter.html">cut-down medium format</a> Kentmere Pan 400. The weather was mostly overcast, and having a 400 ISO film certainly fitted the lighting conditions typical this time of year in the Northern hemisphere. Even then, in a few situations, such as under the dense branches of bare trees, the light levels were pretty low, and I didn't accurately guess-focus as accurately as I might in a few frames, with the aperture wider than I might have liked to provide little assistance in careless focussing. Developing the film in Kodak HC-110 (at dilution E, 1+47 from concentrate) provided low contrast negatives, no doubt compounded by the uncoated Novar lens of the Baby Ikonta, some flare in a few frames (such as in the second image below), on top of the lighting conditions. In retrospect, a one-stop push might have benefitted both the contrast, as well as being able to use a smaller aperture in some situations. However, regardless of the results of this one roll, having an inexpensive 400-speed film newly available in medium format is ideal for the purposes of being cut down to 127 size–a rather cheaper alternative to the few films currently available in the niche 127 rollfilm format, which, somehow, still survives in 2023.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52656620740/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="386" data-original-width="500" height="386" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52656620740_865660c622.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52656620880/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="384" data-original-width="500" height="384" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52656620880_3617ce345e.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52656620585/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="383" data-original-width="500" height="383" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52656620585_b52e62a931.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52656620560/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="384" data-original-width="500" height="384" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52656620560_06c260b319.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52656173776/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="384" data-original-width="500" height="384" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52656173776_2bcd9234f5.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52655687762/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="385" height="500" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52655687762_dc3452061f.jpg" width="385" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1573193546035756071.post-351099193805183772022-12-29T18:40:00.000+00:002022-12-29T18:40:24.202+00:00Kentmere Pan 100<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51286356560/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51286356560_4bf9c48530.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kentmere Pan 100 35mm film</td></tr></tbody></table><br />
It's become something of a commonplace to describe how the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has altered the perception of time, simultaneously stretching and squashing it, making everything from 'before' feel unusually distant, separated. I wrote a post in November 2019 about <a href="https://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2019/11/kentmere-pan-400.html">Kentmere Pan 400</a> after its rebranding, with the prominent 'pan' added to the name, and in it I compared this to the <a href="https://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2019/09/ilford-pan-400.html">Ilford Pan 400</a> film I'd written about previously (being one of two cheaper Ilford films which had only recently then become more widely available in the UK, while the point of comparison being that the Kentmere films are made by Harman, Ilford's parent company at a similar lower price than Ilford's other films); having heard that these-the Ilford Pan films-were to be discontinued, naturally, I then wanted to write about Kentmere Pan 100 as a logical comparison to <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2018/05/ilford-pan-100.html">Ilford Pan 100</a> and as a companion to the Kentmere Pan 400 post. I hadn't used the slower Kentmere film as much as the 400 previously, and I began as I would with any other film new to me, by exposing a roll for a latitude test. This was done on the day (check) that my work announced that they were moving from being face to face to online for the forseeable future, a week before the UK government issued its general 'stay at home' order.<br /><br />Subsequently, I used Kentmere Pan 100 quite a bit over the next year and a half, in early autumn 2020, as the initial restrictions were eased and I went back to working face to face, as part of my plan to use the <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2021/02/ten-years-on.html">Olympus Pen EE3 half frame camera for the year leading up to the tenth anniversary of this blog</a>, then at the start of 2021 when restrictions were back and I was recovering from my first Covid infection, taking allowed walks for exercise, and taking a camera with me. I had long planned to write this post after having used the film as much as I had; I had thought I should do so as the second anniversary of the pandemic and my first test of the film came around in March this year, but that came and went. <div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52594012965/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="402" data-original-width="500" height="322" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52594012965_ea1f2b25cd.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kentmere Pan 100 in medium format</td></tr></tbody></table><br />
Then, at the start of this month, on December 1st, Ilford announced that the Kentmere films were being produced in medium format, having only been previously available in 35mm. This provided the motivation to finish this post, and to add the medium format results to it, and, although I have so far only shot a single roll in medium format, all the tests made so far on 35mm film obviously are still relevant.</div><div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52593952565/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="421" data-original-width="500" height="337" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52593952565_3931f3a0c8.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kentmere Pan 100 latitude test contact sheet</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>
I made the latitude test using the <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/the-canon-1.html">Canon A-1</a>; compared to Ilford Pan 100, Kentmere Pan 100 does appear to show greater latitude, although the test was slightly marred by one set of frames being double exposed somehow. The top row of frames on the contact sheet above were exposed at 12-25-50-100-200-400 and developed in Ilfotec LC29 diluted 1+19 for 7 minutes at 20ºC. The lower three rows were rated at box speed, but with some bracketing. One stop either side of box speed scanned well; at 400, the shadow detail starts to look lacking, while at 25, two stops overexposed, the midtones and highlights start to look less separated, making scanning a little more difficult, but probably still printable with some care. In comparison with Kentmere Pan 400, the 100-speed version has less latitude, which is probably in part a function of its contrast, with higher speed films generally being lower in contrast by their nature.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>As part of my usual testing of film stocks, I pushed–and pulled–Kentmere Pan 100. I used the film quite a bit during the winter months of 2020-21, and as a result, pushing the film often made sense in terms of working with available light. My first attempts at pushing one stop to 200 and used Ilfotec LC29, which appeared to provide a little more contrast, although most of the photographs taken on that first pushed film were in autumn sunshine, with bright light but relatively low, against deeper shadows. This did suit some of the subjects, as in the second image below.</div><div><br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/50459461537/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="328" data-original-width="499" height="263" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50459461537_9f15df6b28.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Canon A-1 with Kentmere Pan 100, rated 200, Ilfotec LC29 1+19, 8m 20ºC</td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/50459463462/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="328" data-original-width="499" height="263" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50459463462_e766fb2d32.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Canon A-1 with Kentmere Pan 100, rated 200, Ilfotec LC29 1+19, 8m 20ºC</td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div>
The second roll of Kentmere Pan 100 at a rating of 200 was developed in exactly the same way, but using the <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2020/02/voigtlander-vito-b.html">Voigtländer Vito B</a>, with an older lens from the Canon A-1's standard FD-fit 50mm f1.8 lens gave a different feel to the images. These photographs were taken on a couple of bright days in very early January, with very low sunlight, and it might have been more appropriate to <i>pull</i> the film to lower the contrast for many of these images (the top image being of a lower-contrast subject perhaps demonstrates this), but I'd decided to push the film without considering what the weather conditions might be: the results were not unsympathetic however.
</div><div><br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52593527441/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="499" height="253" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52593527441_2ba3582838.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: start;">Voigtländer Vito B with Kentmere Pan 100 rated 200, Ilfotec LC 29 1+19, 8m 20ºC</span></td><td class="tr-caption"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>
<div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><br /><img border="0" data-original-height="311" data-original-width="499" height="249" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52593953690_16359fb8f1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: start;">Voigtländer Vito B with Kentmere Pan 100 rated 200, Ilfotec LC 29 1+19, 8m 20ºC</span></td><td class="tr-caption"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>
<br />As I used the Kentmere Pan 100 over quite a number of months, as well as the different tests, I also used a few different developers, not with the intention of comparing the results, but more simply being the case that I was using whichever black and white developer I currently had in use. It would have been instructive to have been more programmatic in this regard, but I hadn't thought that my testing of the film would have occurred over quite such a long period of time. Harman's own data sheet for Kentmere Pan 100 does not provide any timings for a two-stop push to 400 (the metal 35mm canister does have a box next to that 100 and 200 to mark an exposure rating, logically for 400), but this would be a good comparison to the Ilford Pan 100 film. For that particular film, I estimated an extended development time using Ilfotec LC29, with what I felt at the time were rather mixed results. I tried a different approach then with semi-<a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/stand-development.html">stand development</a>. I used R09 One Shot diluted to 1+150 for 3 hours, agitating on each hour interval (a method used previously with Ilford HP5 Plus: the theory behind using such a high dilution of Rodinal is to reduce the contrast that accompanies push-processing; no doubt most of the development has occurred by the one-hour stage, but I wanted to give the shadow areas as much opportunity to develop as possible). I did the same with Kentmere Pan 100.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52594048773/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="364" data-original-width="500" height="291" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52594048773_0345bd2c7a.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Canon A-1 with Kentmere Pan 100, rated 400, 3 hours semi-stand development Adox Rodinal 1+150</td></tr></tbody></table><br />
</td></tr></tbody></table></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52593529021/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="324" data-original-width="500" height="259" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52593529021_ae7c3fcfbb.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Canon A-1 with Kentmere Pan 100, rated 400, 3 hours semi-stand development Adox Rodinal 1+150</td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div></div><div>The results (above) were comparable to the approach with the Ilford Pan 100 film, and there's a <i>smoothness</i> to the grain which suggests this to be sympathetic to rating the film at 400, given all the caveats one would want to make in relation to push processing. However, I've not tried a more conventional development regime for a two-stop push with this film to see what the difference might be against this extended semi-stand development.</div><div><br /></div><div>There are probably more conditions under which one might push a film, compared to pull-processing, but I did also try this with Kentmere Pan 100. As regards the comments above with the one-stop push with the Vito B camera, the roll which I rated at 50 might have been better with higher contrast subjects–as pulling a film reduces its contrast–most of this roll of the film was shot under overcast conditions in January. I used the <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/kiev-4.html">Kiev-4 rangefinder</a> for this, and it may be a fortuitous combination of lighting conditions, reduced development, and the lens used (the Helios-103), but the results pulled one stop in Rodinal appeared to me to be both smooth <i>and</i> sharp, and possibly represents an achievable look of Kentmere Pan 100 that, of all the different exposure/development combinations I've tried while testing the film, I liked the most (the real test would be to print in the darkroom of course).</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52593787384/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="317" data-original-width="500" height="254" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52593787384_3ba6e17f89.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kiev-4 with Kentmere Pan 100 rated 50, Rodinal 1+50, 9m 20ºC</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52593790214/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="317" data-original-width="500" height="254" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52593790214_cb01bde5d9.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kiev-4 with Kentmere Pan 100 rated 50, Rodinal 1+50, 9m 20ºC</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>I also used the film with a couple of 35mm half-frame cameras, and the relatively fine grain made the film sympathetic to the smaller frame size, although the film used in the <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/in-praise-of-olympus-pen-ee3.html">Olympus Pen EE3</a> coincided with that camera's lens becoming loose and providing slightly-out-of-focus images. This was part of my year-long re-engagement, an ultimately frustrating one, with the Pen EE3, with the Kentmere Pan 100 film being one that I had in my camera through the summer of 2020.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50970164262_7586252250.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="357" data-original-width="500" height="286" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50970164262_7586252250.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Olympus Pen EE3 with Kentmere Pan 100, Ilfotec LC29 1+19, 9m 18ºC</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52593530886_9305434754.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="374" data-original-width="499" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52593530886_9305434754.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Agat 18K with Kentmere Pan 100, Ilfotec LC29 1+19, 7m 20ºC</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>As written about at the start of this post, what made me finally gather all the images together and write this post was the introduction of Kentmere Pan 100 in medium format rollfilm. As with the 35mm version of the film, this is clearly intended to compete with other lower priced films currently available, and no doubt it makes sense for Harman to be part of that market for medium format. Just over a week ago, on the shortest day of the year, I shot a roll of medium format Kentmere Pan 100 with the <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/voigtlander-bessa-rf.html">Voigtländer Bessa rangefinder</a>. If it hadn't been for this particular post, a 400-speed film would have been better for the lighting conditions, as, on an overcast day in the middle of winter, I found I was having to use a slower shutter speed or wider aperture than I might have liked, and was using the camera hand-held too. </div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52593044787/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="337" data-original-width="500" height="337" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52593044787_b0ae817b40.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Voigtländer Bessa with Kentmere Pan 100, Kodak HC-110, 1+31, 5m45s at 22ºC<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>However, medium format can be quite forgiving and returning to the film in that new format, the results of which were very promising–the film dried flat, and was easy to scan, and I suspect as a choice of emulsions, I'd be more likely to choose Kentmere Pan 100 in medium format perhaps more so than in 35mm in future. As a lower-priced film stock, Kentmere Pan 100 fits a gap, especially given the current circumstances as I write, but I generally feel it's relatively unremarkable–it doesn't compare to Ilford FP4 Plus or Delta 100 as Harman's similar speed films–but as I've written above in relation to pulling it to a rating of 50 with the Kiev-4, with judicious exposure and development the results can be better than one might expect for a 'budget' black and white film, which makes its introduction into medium format (as with Kentmere Pan 400) all the more welcome.</div><div><br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52593790484/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="319" data-original-width="500" height="319" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52593790484_7f6e912f9c.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kiev-4 with Kentmere Pan 100 rated 50, Rodinal 1+50, 9m 20ºC</td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52594048033/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="500" height="326" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52594048033_d507c7652c.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Siluet Elektro with Kentmere Pan 100, rated 80, Rodinal 1+50 15m 20ºC</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/50970163772/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="364" data-original-width="500" height="291" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50970163772_0bac3401c1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Olympus Pen EE3 with Kentmere Pan 100, Ilfotec LC29 1+19, 9m 18ºC</td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52593048397_ec2a9db7ab.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="378" data-original-width="500" height="302" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52593048397_ec2a9db7ab.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Agat 18K with Kentmere Pan 100, Ilfotec LC29 1+19, 7m 20ºC</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52594046643_c2fe2563c7.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="324" data-original-width="500" height="324" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52594046643_c2fe2563c7.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Canon A-1 with Kentmere Pan 100, Ilfotec LC29 1+19, 7m 20ºC</td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52593954650/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="324" data-original-width="500" height="324" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52593954650_02e7497d29.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kodak Retina IIa with Kentmere Pan 100, Ars-Imago #9 (Rodinal formula) 1+50, 15m 20ºC</td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52593527456/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="316" data-original-width="500" height="316" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52593527456_4782a6b83b.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Voigtländer Vito B with Kentmere Pan 100 rated 200, Ilfotec LC 29 1+19, 8m 20ºC </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/50459463472/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="321" data-original-width="500" height="321" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50459463472_01a0e48bcc.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Canon A-1 with Kentmere Pan 100, rated 200, Ilfotec LC29 1+19, 8m 20ºC</td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52594048663/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="324" data-original-width="500" height="324" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52594048663_60b64d0ea3.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Canon A-1 with Kentmere Pan 100, rated 400, 3 hours semi-stand development Adox Rodinal 1+150</td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52593044852/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="332" data-original-width="499" height="332" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52593044852_7e7c256172.jpg" width="499" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Voigtländer Bessa with Kentmere Pan 100, Kodak HC-110, 1+31, 5m45s at 22ºC
</td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><div><br />
</div><div><a href="https://www.ilfordphoto.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/KENTMERE-PAN-100_04_07_22.pdf" target="_blank">Kentmere Pan 100 data sheet</a> (PDF)</div>
<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1573193546035756071.post-31711556008591498052022-12-17T22:11:00.002+00:002022-12-17T22:12:29.106+00:00'After Vermeer'<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1279" data-original-width="1806" height="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXUl9kaxdMeTU3twssknPZIXBQQ20GcnaozWy2yymXOcNP3dXFGQhWIw4YR4PRr4AmqbG_tFXowsMIZqUc49bMm5YxQga1bz7kgVO-Zl_S_dt5Aoo1u2KfiPeFs-IOZWkrvEwuwODm7pBLXjyqVyFQATr4z3qR_L6nrbQmgRTNcgGLNeCtZXKLas8Z/w400-h284/After%20Vermeer%20(crop).jpg" width="400" /></div><br /><p>For many years, it was known that Vermeer's painting <i>Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window</i> originally had a large painting on its far wall parallel to the picture plane which had been painted over. It was believed that this had been done during the artist's lifetime, with the inevitable conclusion that this act was by the artist himself; more recent analysis had determined that a layer of dirt underneath the overpainted area must have taken decades to accumulate, and therefore the painting–or the version of it as had become familiar since the mid-nineteenth century ‘rediscovery’ of the artist–did not in fact reflect Vermeer’s intention for the work. The painting, held in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden was painstakingly restored, with the later overpaint removed, revealing a framed picture of Cupid holding up a playing card, which appears in two other works by Vermeer. The radically restored painting was the centrepiece of an exhibition, 'Johannes Vermeer: Vom Innenhalten (On Reflection)', at the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, housed in the Dresden Zwinger late last year. </p><p>A couple of years ago I wrote about my interest in the art of Vermeer in two posts, <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2020/09/cameras-obscura.html">Cameras Obscura</a> and <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2020/10/a-view-of-delft.html">A View of Delft</a>. These were written after a trip to Delft, Amsterdam, and the Hague, and the work which I had made there, referencing the long-speculated upon use of optical technology–the camera obscura–by Vermeer, and by another Delft painter, Carel Fabritius, the evidence of which appears to be present in their paintings to a greater or lesser degree. This ‘pre-history’ of the photographic has long been an interest of mine, in relation to my own paintings and their relationship to photographic source material, and I had, in the past, made work with specific references to the paintings of Vermeer. As part of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden’s accompanying programme to 'Johannes Vermeer: Vom Innenhalten', there was a small display in the Zwinger’s Café Algarotti. This showed three <i>photographic</i> works in dialogue with <i>Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window</i>: Alfred Stieglitz’s <i>Sun Rays—Paula, Berlin</i> (1899), which depicts the photographer’s sister writing a letter by an open window, strikingly illuminated through slatted blinds; Tom Hunter’s <i>Woman reading a Possession Order</i> (1997), more directly referencing Vermeer’s painting; and my own <i>After Vermeer</i>. In the Zwinger’s display, this was a digital print, a composite image constructed from a number of photographs which had originated on film. </p><p>
</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51443252629/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="389" height="500" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51443252629_068f4223ab.jpg" width="389" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>After Vermeer</i>, digital composite</td></tr></tbody></table><p>
</p><p>As an artwork in its own right, this particular version of <i>After Vermeer</i> had only ever existed as an image on a website many years ago–it was made as a reference image for a painting, one component among others, a working image for part of a trompe l’oeil painting: the painting as a whole had the conceit that it shows a section of an artist’s studio wall. The photograph was paired with a photocopy of the two-page page spread showing the reproduction of <i>Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window</i> from Arthur J. Wheelock’s book on Vermeer. In the painting, my version of the Vermeer composition appears as a photograph that the artist is working from to make a painting: in the trompe l’oeil, this image has a grid drawn (painted) onto it for the purpose of transferring the image, usually with an element of scaling up, to this notional painting’s surface.</p>
<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1236" data-original-width="1600" height="309" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbEVpGPvo-OYfTk4bxikuQm5erN82R62K_IF9ZhfVz6aTARabB7-mDnz206b5EmOqxLjmVi1gmgvxctJBp1V7o7v2rJ64FMlrhW8ug9zb7Q_c2KIhSaghzleuBNjPncKdcazfOSRjGcW86rrtFPxdhfcm_ccnxse7B0_Elgk3cBnVM16X5oSSe8V53/w400-h309/Artist's%20Studio%201.jpg" width="400" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Artist's Studio I</i>, oil on board, 56x72cm</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p>
<p>I had initially planned four trompe l’oeil paintings in the series of the studio wall. The painting with the photocopy of <i>Vermeer’s Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window</i> was selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 2001; a second painting, in the same format, with a photocopy of Edward Hopper’s <i>Automat</i> and my own composition based on it, wasn’t selected. I completed a third painting, with a composition of my own which was a more oblique referencing to one of Artemisia Gentilischi’s paintings of <i>Susanna and the Elders</i>, included within. The fourth painting in the series was started but never finished. All four paintings were designed to join together horizontally, with elements spanning from the edge of one painting to the next (that the compositions are cut off at the edges points to the paintings being ‘about’ or using the approach of trompe l’oeil, rather than being true trompe l’oeil works). I kept the board for the fourth painting for many years afterwards. It had a slight bit of painting of the overlapping newspaper clipping. Eventually this got damaged and the board was cut up to be re-used. </p><p>At the time I made this series, in early 2001, I had no intention of making singular paintings of my own compositions within them which refer to the historical paintings that were their inspiration. This was partly that I (then) had a resistance to making paintings that appeared as if (based on) a single photograph, a resistance I relinquished a year or so later. From the other trompe l’oeil paintings completed in the series I used the digital images of my compositions for two back-lit transparencies mounted on lightboxes which were exhibited a couple of times; my version of Vermeer's <i>Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window</i> was never made into a lightbox, partly a result of being dissatisfied with the quality of the images, mainly as a result of being made relatively cheaply. I began an etching of the image from the composition based on Edward Hopper’s <i>Automat</i> but this was never finished; the other composition I had made as a postcard before eventually using it, with a number of changes, as the basis for a larger painting.</p><p>
</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2400" data-original-width="2000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfE_WUN3hlq07mFneYzHi74Lbl5jBnVqKkvh4D2bMAdntoF4OuHt1GNuEgGXxcb7s0zjY_Fh_ONHf1-0mp4IXPqHfqA_xhdTiPlFV4Vs9Fc8yj1DruOvimNprx_JpEp3VtYT_ope6a6nxwxA7EkOi7albn8bzp8A4A8pHa1MxKWsnGaYD6a_2ekMxs/w334-h400/After%20Vermeer.jpg" width="334" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>After Vermeer</i>, oil on canvas, 80x50cm</td></tr></tbody></table><p>
</p><p>I returned to the Vermeer composition five years later to make a single painting. This was shown in an exhibition at a gallery specialising in photography and subsequently sold. When I received an email from the Dresden museum, my initial supposition was that they wanted to shown my painting in the accompanying programme; this has had a handful of enquiries in the years since I sold it and is now no longer accessible. However, they were interested in the photograph of <i>After Vermeer</i>, which had never been made into a physical version, only ever existing as a digital image on my website, on a page long since orphaned from the site itself, but still online (for a time, there were in fact two digital versions of the composition on my website, the first with a different position to the model’s head). I didn’t ask how the curator stumbled across this, but was relieved that I <i>could</i> show the photographic <i>After Vermeer</i>: as well as the rather low-resolution jpeg online, I still had the original working Photoshop file on a disk. </p><p>A number of things came together to provoke me to make <i>After Vermeer</i>. The initial spark came from receiving a photograph of Tom Hunter’s picture from a teacher that I was still in touch with. This must have been after <i>Woman reading a Possession Order</i> was exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, receiving a certain amount of exposure. I happened to be living in the London Borough of Hackney at the time, from the very end of the 1990s into the 2000s and, as a result, many of Tom Hunter's locations became very familiar to me, with just a faint, occasional sense of our paths crossing, with Hunter, no doubt completely unaware, several, many steps ahead. At the time I was still working out what kind of artist I wanted to be, but very quickly painting became predominant, although in 2000 this wasn’t entirely clear, and in recent years photographic processes in their own right have become more important once again. I hadn’t studied painting at degree level, studying printmaking instead; after art college I pursued painting as this seemed the easiest route at the time, something I could do in my rented room with the minimum amount of equipment (and cost), not needing a workshop, making do without a studio. </p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52569108632/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="402" data-original-width="500" height="402" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52569108632_6f57f4866e.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Contact sheet, Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex Ic with Ilford HP5 Plus</td></tr></tbody></table>
<p>The architecture of the kitchen of the rented house in which I was living at the time allowed me to create a very similar composition to Hunter’s photograph, with a large window to the left over the sink providing just the right kind of diffused light, similar to Vermeer’s original and Tom Hunter’s version. There was space, under the stairs by the back door, to stand far enough back to take the photographs. I think I had planned to combine a number of photographs together to make the digital image to work from for the painting: this allowed me to select from different shots, and combine these to make something closer to Vermeer’s painting. At the time, I imagined this to be like working with photography as a painter works, but, perhaps, this was more to do with not having the confidence to achieve what I wanted in a single photograph itself (I had been much taken by Jeff Wall’s working processes at the time, with pieces such as <i>The Flooded Grave</i> impressing me, although it’s very clear, practically, as to why that work could not be made as a single photograph). Unable to ignore the fact that this was a kitchen, I chose to depict the mundane action of drying dishes, with the light itself standing in or conferring any sense of a moment of the sublime, a contrast to Tom Hunter’s understated photograph given a sense of affect through its title. I did originally call my work <i>After Tom Hunter After Vermeer</i>.</p>
<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52570095268/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="403" height="400" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52570095268_5a10f57ffc.jpg" width="322" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Contact sheet, 35mm Ilford XP2 Super</td></tr></tbody></table>
<p>Returning to the original Photoshop file, I discovered that, on closer inspection, it wasn’t really finished: good enough to paint from, I hadn’t needed to ensure a level of finish as the digital file wasn’t to be the end result, but I was still surprised at the lack of care and attention to its editing. It had been made from scans of photographic prints rather than negatives: at the time, I had no access to negative scanning, nor a darkroom to make my own prints. The photographs were taken on medium format and 35mm negatives (from my <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2016/03/zeiss-ikon-ikoflex-ic.html">Ikoflex twin-lens reflex</a> and a Praktica BCA SLR: the strap for the Praktica can actually be seen in the final image, hanging down from being placed on the stovetop, just visible at the edge of the doorframe), but, working from small lab prints, the difference between the formats was probably negligible. This was still essentially a pre-digital world, photographically at least: the medium format film, <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2012/08/ilford-hp5-plus.html">Ilford HP5 Plus</a>, was developed at a branch of Jessops that used to be in Moorgate; the 35mm <a href="https://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2018/09/ilford-xp2-super-part-one.html">XP2 Super</a> went to Tesco on Bishopsgate, opposite Liverpool Street Station: the supermarket used a Kodak lab, and both were a convenient stop on my way to and from my part-time job on the other side of London Bridge. There was probably no consideration to use colour: black and white has a certain connotation of the ‘photographic’, historically situated of course, and a equivalence to the black and white photocopy from the book on Vermeer (with an incidental association to David Hockney’s approach in <i>Secret Knowledge</i>, reproducing paintings in black and white to emphasise their ‘optical’ look which the photocopy achieves). Opening the .psd file after twenty years, this had been saved with some separate layers (there were six layers, but with layers named Layer 8 and Layer 9, others had clearly been merged at the time), making it a little easier to edit the file to achieve what I hoped to be an acceptable a level of finish, neglected twenty years earlier. The original had been printed at 8x10 inches for the painting, smaller than A4 size; I was fortunate in that the curator found the image file to be sufficient in quality at double the size to include in the accompanying programme. Although I still had the original negatives I had been reluctant to remake the image from scratch–although I might have wanted to–and the re-edited digital file was printed for exhibition. I did scan the negatives later, and found that many of the frames were marred by motion blur or were poorly focused, possibly confirming my instinctive lack of confidence over getting it ‘right’ in a single shot.</p><p>The Vermeer exhibition opened around the start of the new academic year; I had hoped to go at the Christmas break (and was also hoping to be able to afford to do so too), which would have been around this time last year, to see the restored Vermeer, and to experience a work of mine on display in Dresden, reflecting on its afterlife as something made many years ago for quite different purposes. The emergence of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus meant that the exhibition shut to the public in November, shortly followed by UK nationals being prevented from travelling to Germany. Although 'Johannes Vermeer: Vom Innenhalten' closed at the start of this year, as scheduled, the accompanying programme display was extended into April 2022. Conditions sufficiently improved for travel into Europe in the spring, and I booked to do so in April, just before the extended display was due to finish.</p><p>The day before I left London for Dresden, I discovered that the accompanying exhibition in which my photograph had featured had already been taken down, short of the scheduled close its extended display, to clear the way for the accompanying programme for the next exhibition. This was 'Edward Hopper: Die inner und die äußere Welt (Inner and Outer Worlds)', opening a week after we were due to leave. In the Café Algarotti where the accompanying programme had been, I photographed my hand holding a mobile phone showing an image of this display–the image at the top of this post–no longer there by the time I had travelled to Dresden. The image within the image is too small to see my work, the framed picture on the right-hand side, disappearing behind the glare on the glass from the windows opposite, perhaps appropriate. Vermeer’s <i>Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window</i> was absent, so I did not get to see the restored painting either; the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister did have his <i>Procuress</i> on display, an earlier painting, where aspects of Vermeer’s particular stylistic approaches remain yet to be worked through, but the still life element of the painting equals that of many of Vermeer’s paintings in his mature style. The blue-and-white Westerwald stoneware jug is painted in sharp focus, existing in an isolated plane in depth, while the figures appear just out of focus, painted with some passages of incredibly thick paint, with barely any sharp outlines, the edges diffused, suggestive of a shallow depth of field from a camera obscura. The foreground carpet and fur provide a means to push the rest of the composition back away from the picture plane as well as hiding any compositional problems of how to resolve exactly how the figures are spaced around the table that the jug and glass are resting upon.</p><p>Recalling the kitchen of twenty years earlier, and making of that picture, the architecture in the apartment where we were staying in Dresden had an incidental affinity to Vermeer’s space: a window at right angles to the kitchen worktop, admitted perfectly diffused light, picking out a kettle, some bread, with a heavy curtain casting a chair and a table into foreground shadow, coming together in a composition, photographed on colour film this time.</p><p><br /></p><p>
</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52569843189/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="335" height="500" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52569843189_88643a800b.jpg" width="335" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'Dresden', Zodel Baldalux with Fuji Pro 400H</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sources/Further reading<br /></span><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://gemaeldegalerie.skd.museum/en/exhibitions/vermeer-johannes-ermeers-girl-reading-a-letter-at-an-open-window-and-17th-century-dutch-genre-painting/" target="_blank">'Johannes Vermeer: On Reflection'</a> SKD Museums<br />
Jane Boddy, '<a href="https://voices.skd.museum/en/voices-mag/vermeers-generosity/" target="_blank">Vermeer's Generosity</a>'<br />
<a href="http://www.essentialvermeer.com/catalogue/girl_reading_a_letter_by_an_open_window.html#top">Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window</a> on Essential Vermeer</span><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1573193546035756071.post-50553062643299288582022-12-12T18:28:00.000+00:002022-12-12T18:28:37.073+00:00127 Day December 2022<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52559174696/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="324" height="500" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52559174696_39dc4def62.jpg" width="324" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Baby Ikonta with cut-down Rollei Superpan</td></tr></tbody></table><br />Despite neglecting this blog for a few months now, I couldn't not observe last week's <b>127 Day</b>. I used the <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/the-baby-ikonta.html">Baby Ikonta again</a>, but had just a couple of rolls of <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/kodak-high-resolution-aerial.html">Kodak High Resolution Aerial Duplicating film</a> cut to 127 size, and a short off-cut from a previously-cut-down roll of <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/agfarollei-superpan-200.html">Rollei Superpan 200</a> (when <a href="https://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2015/07/making-film-slitter.html">cutting down 120 film to 127</a>, the length of the 120 roll is longer than that needed for 127, meaning that with every cut down roll of 120, there's a remainder of film long enough for 5-6 'half'-frames on the '16-on' format); the image above is from the beginning of the short roll which shows that I hadn't accurately lined up the cut end of the film with the start of the numbers on the backing paper. The frames on the Superpan film were hand-held; the Kodak High Resolution Aerial Duplicating film when used as a negative film has a workable ISO of 2. I took most of these photographs in the Victoria & Albert Museum, without a tripod, placing the camera on any level and stable surface I could find that might provide an interesting viewpoint, mostly parapets and benches. I did take one frame, handheld outside, at (I think) 1/10th at f3.5 (the image of Second World War bomb damage to the museum's exterior; another photograph taken outside with this film was made placing the camera on a brick wall).<div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52559723388/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="390" data-original-width="500" height="312" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52559723388_04868d07a0.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Baby Ikonta with Kodak High Resolution Aerial Duplicating film</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>On a winter's day, the light levels in the museum are often quite low: exposure times were between 8 seconds and approximately 1 minute. When I developed the film using PQ Universal, it was clear that I could have bracketed more, and, possibly at longer times, the film does exhibit some reciprocity law failure. Scanning the negatives, there was a lot of digital 'spotting' to do: the extremely clear shadow areas show up any specks of dust or dirt incredibly well. The blue-sensitive high-contrast nature of the film also shows how the daylight entering the galleries from skylights caused the floor appearing in some of the frames to appear very bright in comparison to almost everything else in the image, with the exception of some of the plaster casts (such as Michelangelo's <i>David</i>). </div><div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52559646810/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="386" data-original-width="499" height="309" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52559646810_46df8d7654.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Baby Ikonta with Kodak High Resolution Aerial Duplicating film</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>There was also a denser band along one side of one roll of this film, which I haven't found the cause of, but this may be fogging due to cutting the film down by hand under safelights in an insufficiently-dark darkroom, with something partially shading the film. I did think that this <i>could</i> be due to not using enough chemistry when developing, but usually this would show up as a pattern with the image of bubbles from the surface of the developer. This line can be seen to the left of the cast of the architectural façade in the image below.</div></div></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52559647405_89e9f2d549.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="392" data-original-width="500" height="314" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52559647405_89e9f2d549.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Baby Ikonta with Kodak High Resolution Aerial Duplicating film<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>The <span style="text-align: center;">Kodak High Resolution Aerial Duplicating film may also have benefitted from flashing before exposure to raise the shadow values, perhaps something to remember for January's 127 Day. The Rollei Superpan film was less problematic (despite not being taped at quite the right place to the backing paper), but I did use Kodak HC-110 to develop the film, having previously tested this with Rodinal, and worked out a time/temperature/dilution regime to get the best results for my own approach, which I haven't done with HC-110, merely taking the Massive Dev Chart's single recommendation: 6 minutes at dilution B, 1+31 from concentrate.</span></div><div><span style="text-align: center;"><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52559647470/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="384" data-original-width="500" height="384" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52559647470_deb99e84ea.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Baby Ikonta with Kodak High Resolution Aerial Duplicating film<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52559176676/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="390" data-original-width="500" height="390" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52559176676_2abebc79ba.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Baby Ikonta with Kodak High Resolution Aerial Duplicating film<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52559176166/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="385" data-original-width="500" height="385" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52559176166_5476e98203.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Baby Ikonta with Kodak High Resolution Aerial Duplicating film<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52559647575/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="387" data-original-width="500" height="387" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52559647575_c760b9f857.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Baby Ikonta with Kodak High Resolution Aerial Duplicating film<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52559720123/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="388" data-original-width="500" height="388" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52559720123_19f186b39d.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Baby Ikonta with Rollei Superpan 200</td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52559642055/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="386" data-original-width="500" height="386" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52559642055_895e6f6fea.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Baby Ikonta with Rollei Superpan 200<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52559176746/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="375" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52559176746_76e31a2fff.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Baby Ikonta with Kodak High Resolution Aerial Duplicating film<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1573193546035756071.post-6438750999844778742022-08-13T19:35:00.006+01:002022-08-13T19:39:49.176+01:00Kodalux L lightmeter (second version)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52267164573/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="375" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52267164573_f4cd8a8acf.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kodak Kodalux L lightmeter and case</td></tr></tbody></table><p>One of the peculiarities of the (admittedly niche) popularity of film photography and the perceived value of older film cameras in recent years (and the attendant high prices of secondhand equipment-especially when certain cameras gain a fashionable cache) is the emergence of a new class of shoe-mounted lightmeters. A decade or so ago, this might have seemed an unlikely proposition, but thanks to new manufacturing techniques, there are now a number of meters, largely deriving their design principles from the Voigtländer VC Meter I and II from the early 2000s.</p>For many years, I've used a hand-held Weston Master II whenever I've needed a lightmeter, although I do also use the 'sunny 16' rule relatively frequently, especially if I'm just taking snapshots when I'm not too concerned with critical accuracy in exposure. One of the features I've really appreciated about the Weston Master II is how low the ISO settings go, down to 2 ISO, useful for exposing photographic paper for <a href="https://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2020/05/isolation-projects.html">paper negatives</a>, and for the <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2014/07/kodak-high-resolution-aerial.html">Kodak High Resolution Aerial Duplicating film</a>, which I have been using at 2 ISO. However, when taking photographs in December, I dropped my lightmeter on the stone flags surrounding the <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51772880973/" target="_blank">Pole Hill obelisk on the day of the winter solstice</a>-and it stopped working (it might simple be that the meter needle is stuck, but I have been wary so far in disassembling the Weston Master).<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52267636120/" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52267636120_74b9a537d1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kodalux L meter - showing diffuser</td></tr></tbody></table>
Looking for a new lightmeter as a consequence, I did consider the new shoe-mounted meters alluded to earlier, but searching for secondhand lightmeters online, I found the <b>Kodak Kodalux L</b>, and was able to pick one up pretty cheaply, around half the price of the cheaper of the new meters currently available. There are two models of the Kodalux L, with the second model being notably smaller than the first, and this made it the preferable choice.<br /><br />Being a 1950s meter, the Kodalux L is powered by a selenium cell, covered with a typical honeycomb-glass. As I've written in previous posts, selenium cells do attract some negative opinions expressed online, but in my own personal experience, with numerous cameras (and the Weston Master II), I don't think I've actually encountered a non-working selenium cell, and, in general, they have been accurate enough for my preferred photographic medium, black and white negative film. The main caveat is that in low-enough light levels, selenium cells are simply not sensitive enough, but this would generally mean night photography. In addition, the design of most selenium cell meters would make them incompatible with a zone-exposure approach.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52267164973_b6898e98ea.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52267164973_b6898e98ea.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kodalux L with case</td></tr></tbody></table>
The Kodalux L is a prime example of the precision of German manufacturing before their camera industry was supplanted by Japan: the meter measures slightly under 3cm high, including the shoe fitting, 3cm wide and 3.5cm deep. The meter is largely constructed from metal, with a plastic base, embossed with 'MADE IN GERMANY (WEST)'. My meter came with its dedicated 'ever-ready' case (approximately 4x4x5.5cm, with a couple of loops to fit to a thin strap), which has a accessory shoe fitting for use mounted in the case itself. Equally, it can be used mounted on the accessory or 'cold' shoe on a camera. Although branded Kodak (although the meter itself doesn't have the band name Kodak on it, but the case does), the Kodalux L was manufactured for Kodak by <a href="http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Gossen" target="_blank">Gossen</a>. The first model Kodalux meter is simply a rebranded Sixti; the second Kodalux appears to be a unique model, similar to the Gossen Sixtino or Pilot meter, but with significant differences. Gossen provided the lightmeters to the Kodak Retina and Retinette: the meter dials on some of these cameras appear almost identical to that of the Kodalux.<div><br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52266180287/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52266180287_4aa53a1aca.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kodalux L meter - top view</td></tr></tbody></table><div>
Use of the meter is simple: a white meter needle responds to light hitting the cell, and, with the correct ISO set, a milled ring or dial is turned to align a yellow pointer to the needle. One can then read the appropriate aperture/shutter speed combinations around the edge of this ring. Being familiar with manual and mechanical meters, I found it immediately instinctive to use; I did find <a href="https://retinarescue.com/files/smallkodaluxinstructions.pdf" target="_blank">a scan of the manual</a>, which was useful when it came to calibrating the meter. Setting the meter, there is an inner disc, which turns with a stud, which has a window each side displaying film speed in DIN on one side and ASA (ISO) on the other. The ASA ranges from 5 to 1300, a good top film speed for its time. The ASA settings are picked out in what are largely obsolete numbers, at least at the faster end of the scale 160-320-650-1300, but these are divided with marks at thirds in between, so 400 ISO is one mark above 320 for example. Apertures run from 2 to 22; with shutter speeds from 500 down to 4 whole seconds, with whole seconds subtlety picked out in green. For its size, apertures are given in whole values, no half-settings, but one can extrapolate these. Aligning the yellow pointer to the white needle also gives a light value (LV) number in a window at the top of the disc, running from 2 to 18 in red numbers (this window is wide enough to show three readings, and, although it's easy to add or subtract 1 from the reading, this might possibly give a quick reference for over- and underexposure compensation. The meter also has a diffusing cover for incident reading, which slides from one side like a roll-top desk with a tiny metal catch.</div><div><br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52267147871/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52267147871_7ba1d7abd6.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kodalux L showing zero setting screw</td></tr></tbody></table>
<div>When I first got the Kodalux L, the meter did seem to be a little off in its readings. comparing it to readings from my digital camera and the readings from my <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-canon-1.html">Canon A-1</a>. From the manual, there is a description of how to zero the meter. This involves completely covering the selenium cell: if correctly set, the needle should point to a blue dot at the far left of the meter window; if not, there is a small screw in the centre of the back of the meter which can be adjusted using a small screwdriver. There are other blue dots in the window, but the manual states that these are used for setting during assembly and "have no significance on exposure readings." I carefully adjusted the setting screw, and the meter now appears to read close to the other meters I have been comparing it to. I subsequently used the meter for filming 16mm (see '<a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2022/04/homage.html">Homage</a>') and with some medium format, including in <a href="https://somethoughtsonrailwaystations.blogspot.com/p/modern-suburbs.html" target="_blank">Dresden</a>. In use, I usually keep the lightmeter inside its case, using it handheld, but, for the purposes of illustrating this post, I photographed the Kodalux L on the contemporaneous <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2012/01/kodak-retina-iia.html">Kodak Retina IIa</a>, an appropriately stylistic match.</div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52267636065/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52267636065_546aec4b34.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kodalux L mounted on Kodak Retina IIa</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sources/further reading:</span></div><div><a href="https://retinarescue.com/files/smallkodaluxinstructions.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Kodalux L manual</span></a></div><div><a href="https://retinarescue.com/KodaluxLinstructions.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Kodalux light meters on Retina Rescue</span></a></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.photo.net/discuss/threads/kodalux-l-light-meter-used-one.156177/" target="_blank">Discussion of the Kodalux L on Photo.net</a></span></div></div><div><a href="https://blende-und-zeit.sirutor-und-compur.de/thread.php?board=52&thread=15" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Forum discussion in German</span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1573193546035756071.post-52537710217479441262022-08-06T19:27:00.001+01:002022-08-06T19:27:46.383+01:00Silberra S25 Limited Edition - single roll review<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52253789353/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="375" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52253789353_27fde487a3.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Silberra S25 Limited Edition</td></tr></tbody></table><blockquote><i>Silberra S25 is limited edition black & white photographic film. Extra fine grain, moderate contrast and high resolution of the image are the main typical qualities of S25 film. Initial batch of S25 consists of 400 rolls and, possibly, the overall quantity of the batch will be extended up to 800 rolls.<p>Silberra S25 perfectly suits architectural and landscape photography; due to its great photographic latitude S25 film shall perform nicely at bright scenes also preserving impressive level of detalisation through shadows without significant loss in highlights.</p><p>Silberra S25 has high sensibilization level which makes it possible to use S25 for IR-photography with corresponding IR-filter (we recommend to use filters at wavelength shorter than 725nm for optimal result).</p><p></p></i></blockquote>I have previously posted a couple of 'single roll' reviews of film stocks, which came from being gifted some films I might not ordinarily have used, or might not use again, and although I prefer to work with an emulsion for a few rolls at least, to get a feel for how it might respond in different exposure situations and approaches to development, this single roll review came about through realising I might not use another roll of <b>Silberra S25</b> black and white film. As the description above (from <a href="https://silberra.com/films/silberra-s25" target="_blank">Silberra's website</a>) states, at the lower limit, there may have only been 400 rolls of film made, or 800 in total if production was 'extended'. I wasn't aware of this at the time, if so I might have picked up more than one roll. I believe I picked it up from the Photographer's Gallery shop, before the current pandemic, with the intention of using it to photograph some text, thinking that its 25 ISO speed would mean that the grain would be fine enough for the purpose I had in mind; I didn't use it for that, but took it with me to Dresden in the Spring, and shot it with the <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2016/02/kiev-4.html">Kiev-4</a> over a couple of days.<div><br /></div><div><div>Understandably, there's not much on line about Silberra S25, and with just the one roll, I simply rated it at 25 ISO, and didn't really think that much about how I was to use the film. The film cassette is a plastic reusable one, but it is DX coded, and also has check-boxes for exposure at 12, 25, and 50 ISO, indicating that it does have sufficient latitude for this to be worth the manufacturers including on the label. Silberra's webpage has a small development chart, presumably all times listed are for box speed, although this isn't stated. I used Adox Rodinal, and the time/dilution given (at 20ºC) is for 6 minutes at 1+100. This seems a high dilution for 'standard' development, but, again thanks to having just a single roll, I used the published time and dilution. (There is also R09 listed for 30 seconds less than Rodinal, where one might have expected this to be the same: I have used both Foma's version of R09 and Compard's R09, and treated these both as any named version of Rodinal).</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52266020484/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="321" data-original-width="500" height="321" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52266020484_b8d5c66fdb.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kiev-4 (Helios 103 lens) and Silberra S25 film</td></tr></tbody></table><div>When developed, the negatives looked relatively high in contrast, with a clear base and no edge markings whatsoever. The film dried very flat and appeared to show a small amount of 'light-piping': the film base appears to be polyester and not tri-acetate (it doesn't tear and needs cutting). Ideally, I would have made prints in the darkroom from the negatives, but the results on this post are all from scans from a desktop scanner. The scans have almost no discernible grain, and no doubt show up the limitations of the desktop scanner rather than the ultimate resolution of the film itself. I'd shot the film outside, half in bright sunny weather one afternoon, ideal for it relatively slow speed of 25, with the other half shot early on a sunny morning, which was more challenging in terms of exposure, thanks to the low angle of the sunlight creating a very wide range of contrast between brightly lit surfaces and deep shadow with little in-fill from reflected light. Some of these latter frames (as below) struggled to record shadow detail without losing detail in the highlights, which didn't quite match the assertion that "<span style="font-style: italic;">due to its great photographic latitude S25 film shall perform nicely at bright scenes also preserving impressive level of detalisation</span>[sic]<span style="font-style: italic;"> through shadows without significant loss in highlights"</span>.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52266238810/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="304" data-original-width="500" height="304" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52266238810_99754f5c36.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kiev-4 (Helios 103 lens) and Silberra S25 film</td></tr></tbody></table>It would have been instructive to see how scenes lit with well-diffused light, such as on an overcast day, might have been recorded, but almost every single frame I shot with the film was sunlight and shadows. The nearest equivalent was one photograph of a sign in a gallery window, below, illuminated by light reflecting off the pavement and surrounding buildings, almost certainly the one negative with the narrowest exposure range (this, incidentally, showed that my original intention for the film–photographing text–would have been an entirely appropriate use).<br /><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52266020779/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="332" data-original-width="499" height="332" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52266020779_172787e001.jpg" width="499" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kiev-4 (Helios 103 lens) and Silberra S25 film</td></tr></tbody></table><div>Not having an IR filter I was unable to verify the film's '<span style="font-style: italic;">high sensibilization level'</span>: given the suggestion for the use of an infra-red filter, this must mean extended red sensitivity. For some frames I <i>might</i> have used a light yellow filter, regardless, the tonality of the sky in some frames <i>possibly</i> indicates a more balanced spectral sensitivity than standard panchromatic film. My general impressions are that Silberra S25 has the feel of some kind of technical film–for me, how it handled and how it responded to exposure was very reminiscent <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2012/10/kodak-technical-pan.html">Kodak Technical Pan</a>–with both the positives and drawbacks of that discontinued emulsion. Given the very limited production run, it would be interesting, if it was possible to quantify, how many rolls of Silberra S25 are still out there, yet to be exposed: it's still listed on the Photographer's Gallery shop online, but <i>sold out</i>.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52265756596/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="500" height="326" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52265756596_74ae2a9276.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52265769978/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="330" data-original-width="500" height="330" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52265769978_8df5eb3302.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52266020829/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="302" data-original-width="500" height="302" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52266020829_88eee202a6.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52265756531/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="298" data-original-width="499" height="298" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52265756531_dd040889a8.jpg" width="499" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52266238910/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="302" data-original-width="500" height="302" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52266238910_dd6b24ac07.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><br /><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">Further information:</span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://silberra.com/films/silberra-s25">Silberra product page for S25 Limited Edition</a></span><br /></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1573193546035756071.post-17364914339650370012022-07-15T19:18:00.001+01:002022-07-15T19:18:13.166+01:00127 Day July 2022<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52218514174/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="375" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52218514174_8467460f94.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Zeiss Ikon Ikonta 520/18 with Rollei Superpan<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Although I've not devoted much time to this blog of late, I didn't want to miss <b>127 Day</b> earlier this week. This occurred towards the end of a spell of hot humid weather, with a dip to slightly more comfortable temperatures and humidity, a lull before the forecasted extreme heat in a few days' time. Taking some photographs on a walk in the early evening, it was still very warm, and the lighting had a peculiar heavy overcast quality (I was also recovering from a second Covid-19 infection, which, with the weather, gave a slightly soporific feel to the evening, and possibly as a result I wasn't really giving that much sufficient attention to subject matter and composition). I used the <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-baby-ikonta.html">reliable Baby Ikonta</a>, and a roll of <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2015/07/making-film-slitter.html">cut-down</a> <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2015/06/agfarollei-superpan-200.html">Rollei Superpan 200</a>, a film I've used a few times before, and had tested a fair bit in Rodinal to get a workable time/dilution; however, the roll of film I shot on 127 Day I developed with Kodak HC-110, a new developer for me, and so I went with the Massive Dev Chart's recommended time/dilution. Somehow, to me at least (and it may just be my own associated memory), the resulting negatives convey the airless quality of the day, with glimpses of the grass looking bleached by the sun, the foliage of the trees beginning to get the dusty dark tonality of high summer, possibly in part thanks to the extended red sensitivity of Rollei Superpan. Possibly most of the images might also have benefited from a yellow filter too, although I don't have any filters which fit the Baby Ikonta's lens: the constraints and conditions of exposing just a single roll on the day didn't really allow for any of these considerations.</p><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52217237077/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="385" data-original-width="500" height="308" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52217237077_30c0b55d52.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52218243921/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="382" data-original-width="500" height="306" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52218243921_e7f08fde85.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52217236147/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="381" data-original-width="500" height="305" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52217236147_552873a577.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52218257803/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="379" data-original-width="500" height="303" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52218257803_e4d21145ed.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52218243711/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="382" data-original-width="500" height="306" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52218243711_c579d6ed6c.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52218243586/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="377" data-original-width="499" height="302" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52218243586_16e8893751.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1573193546035756071.post-57996838116916147932022-04-29T10:12:00.003+01:002023-04-10T21:02:04.933+01:00'Homage'<div>What is an artistic medium? Encountering a work of art in a museum or gallery, or when this encounter takes place secondhand, through a book, magazine, or online, adjacent to the work there’s almost always a line of text, after the name of the artist (if known), after the title, and possibly the date, which will inform the reader of specific <i>material</i> substance or substances that constitute the object or artefact. On the <a href="https://www.mariangoodman.com/artists/39-tacita-dean/works/39680/" target="_blank">website for the Marian Goodman gallery</a> New York, Tacita Dean’s film <i>Sound Mirrors</i> is listed as follows: </div>
<blockquote><div><i>Sound Mirrors</i>, 1999</div><div>16 mm b/w film; optical sound; 7 minutes</div><div>Edition of 4 plus 1 artist's proof</div></blockquote>
<div>An artistic medium is not <i>just</i> the material basis for an artwork. It can be defined by its use, its practice, and the user’s intentions, as well as its constituent material. I am currently typing these words on a keyboard derived from a mechanical typewriter where once the pressure of my fingers would move metal keys, each with a raised–and reversed–letter, compressing an inked ribbon onto the surface of paper, a matrix with which to create legible, repeatable and standardised text. Now the words appear on a screen by an opaque process, the digital interface being one in which inputs become outputs by an inscrutable process. However, the medium is still writing. In the last two or three decades, with the rapid assimilation (and emulation) of what had once been long-established physical processes, there can be a tendency to see this shift creating a flat, surfaceless, frictionless digital world–a digital ’monomedium’–especially when so many tools to create <i>anything</i> can all be accessed through one device. Yet an artistic medium is both “‘at one and the same time’” the physical material used <i>and</i> the “emergent work” being created (Joseph Margolis, quoted by Nannicelli and Turvey in ‘Against Post-Cinema). This ‘emergent work’ is situated within a set of distinct social practices - production, distribution, exhibition, and, mirroring these, audience expectation.</div><div><br /></div><div>Tacita Dean’s films are made to be seen <i>as</i> projections in a contiguous space with their material matrix or substrate and the apparatus for doing so. Access to Dean’s film work outside of an exhibition context is all but impossible. Digital versions do not exist. UbuWeb does have a <a href="https://www.ubu.com/film/dean.html" target="_blank">page for Tacita Dean</a>, but the visitor is welcomed by the note: “These films have been temporarily removed by request of the Marian Goodman Gallery. For all inquiries please contact The Marian Goodman Gallery.” There is an insistence on the physicality of the medium, and its uniqueness in the encounter with the viewer, which can only occur when both are brought together in the same space and time, an odd inversion of Walter Benjamin’s sense of the aura: as artwork originating on film, these become that unique instance that needs direct experience, not encountered in reproduction.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52037531168/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="337" data-original-width="500" height="337" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52037531168_8d3175aa17.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Voigtländer Bessa RF with Fomapan 400</td></tr></tbody></table><div>I must have seen <i>Sound Mirrors</i> in 2001 as part of the exhibition 'Tacita Dean: Recent films and other works' at the relatively newly renamed Tate Britain–and I have not seen it since. (In my unreliable memory, before referencing exhibition dates, I had thought that I might have seen <i>Sound Mirrors</i> in the Turner Prize exhibition in 1999–I used to go every year–but Dean was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1998, one year before <i>Sound Mirrors</i> was made [Edit 10/04/23: Having recently found the exhibition guide to the 2001 exhibition, this was indeed where I saw the film–there is one small image in the booklet which <i>could</i> be a frame from the film itself, and a much larger reproduction of a 'location photograph']). Like Dean’s films, access to the sound mirrors on Denge Marsh is strictly limited, sited on a managed nature reserve. With an institutional trip arranged to Dungeness and to the sound mirrors, the possibility arose–especially since I had begun using 16mm film recently–of making <i>something</i> in response to the site, and to my own memories of seeing a film, once, long ago.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52037730194" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="306" data-original-width="500" height="245" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52037730194_d590f500d6.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dungeness, Canon A-1 with Silberra Pan 160</td></tr></tbody></table><div>The edge of England where the sound mirrors are located has has a sense of having been rather mythologised in recent years, partly through the restricted access to the sound mirrors themselves, partly due to the particularity of the flat landscape, the coast road, the nuclear power station, and the presence of Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage and his garden, and Tacita Dean was not the first to commit the sound mirrors to film. Hal Foster, in ‘An Archival Impulse’, describes the sound mirrors, among other subjects of Dean’s films, as being "archival objects", and, pointedly, as “found arks of lost moments in which the here-and-now of the work functions as a possible portal between an unfinished past and a reopened future.” In 1999, encountering moving image works in a gallery or exhibition setting, the difference in image quality between film and video was still (just) marked: the ‘poor image’ of video in the hands of artists was used for its distinct qualities as a medium, oversaturated, bleeding colours, light trails, noise, all contributing to video’s immediacy. Now, film <i>as a medium</i> has a doubly-archival sense to it, becoming its own ‘archival object’, embodying a broad range of historical practices, once more prevalent and present, but now vanished (or still-vanishing) from a common everyday experience, like the sound mirrors, being overtaken by new technology. New technologies continue to be haunted by older forms, however, through their adoption of existing language, through emulation of processes, and through the very conception of what the medium is.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52036442037/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="342" data-original-width="500" height="342" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52036442037_22b362ea62.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Voigtländer Bessa RF with Fomapan 400</td></tr></tbody></table><div>In <i>Tacita Dean</i> (Tate, 2001) there are images of the sound mirrors, but these are described as ‘location photographs’, not actual frames from the film itself. Here it may be worth making a distinction between still frames–the individual frames which comprise the moving image–and production stills, often called film stills: it was common practice in film productions to have a still photographer on set to produce images for publicity purposes and Dean’s location photographs fit this mould. I also took a handful of photographs on medium format film with a Voigtländer Bessa rangefinder camera, my own ‘location photographs’ (I took additional 35mm photographs, not of the sound mirrors themselves, with a Canon A-1 SLR), but ones which do not need to stand in for the film itself: for this, I used a single magazine loaded with 16mm Eastman Kodak Plus-X film manufactured in 1999, the same date as Dean's Sound Mirrors. The film was exposed using a Magazine Ciné-Kodak camera from 1936, around the time that the research on the methods embodied by the sound mirrors was becoming obsolete. The length of film in the magazine determined the duration of the film: nominally 50 feet (15 metres), this provides 2 minutes when shot at 16 frames per second, the camera's standard frame rate, that of silent non-sound synchronised film. I used the lens with which the camera was provided on purchase: a 25mm f1.9 Kodak Anastigmat. On regular 16mm film (not Super-16), this gives a slightly narrow angle of view. No sound was recorded: the Magazine Ciné-Kodak does not record sound; few 16mm cameras do.</div>
<blockquote>“No one who went unprejudiced to watch a silent film missed the noises which could have been heard if the same events had been taking place in real life [...] People took the silence of the movies for granted because they never quite lost the feeling that what they saw was after all only <i>pictures</i>.”<br /><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Rudolf Arnheim, <i>Film as Art</i> (my emphasis)</span></div></blockquote>
<div>Although naturalised, the sound film is a hybrid medium: the nature of a recorded image–a representation–and the nature of recorded sound–a reproduction–are different: when sound is reproduced–however it is recorded–it becomes sound again. Three-dimensional reality becomes a two dimensional image in the process of filming, a representation. With cameras which do (or did historically) record sound on film, most commonly through a magnetic stripe, a problem arises in that the recording of sound requires the substrate to be moving continuously, while the images require intermittent motion. Rudolf Arnheim, along with other writers on film who experienced the shift from silent to sound, and from black and white to colour, as a formalist, was wary of what he called the ‘complete film’, subjected to sound, colour, the widescreen, and stereoscopy, becoming inartistic, his conception of film as a medium depending on its limitations informing its possibilities: “…what might be called the ‘drawbacks’ of film technique (and which engineers are doing their best to ‘overcome’) actually form the tools of the creative artist.” The history of moving images is more complicated of course: films were hand coloured, tinted and toned, with the earliest ‘indexical’ colour experiments dating to around 1900. Sound was also present from film’s beginnings, harnessed to Edison’s phonograph in the ‘Dickson Experimental Sound Film’ from 1894 or 1895, synchronised with varying degrees of fidelity in the first decade of the 20th century, only for the form of film to outstrip its duration: with reproduction from a disc, sound had the same limitation as when Edison first experimented with images on a cylinder: sound needed to catch up with images and find its medium whereby the physical carrier, a spatially circular and cyclical recording, as Muybridge had achieved with projected images before Edison, became linear, allowing for expansion.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52037531133/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="328" data-original-width="500" height="328" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52037531133_01c7b7e9a3.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Voigtländer Bessa RF with Fomapan 400</td></tr></tbody></table><div>My memory of seeing Dean’s <i>Sound Mirrors</i> twenty-one years ago is indistinct: there was no question of trying to emulate any aspects of shot length, composition, sequencing. There was also no real way of planning the film, only having access to the site on the day, with a limited time, with the result that the filming itself had to be simply improvised. The only consideration to structure was an attempt to begin with details, before building up to wider, more comprehensive angles of view, the opposite of using an establishing shot or shots to describe the space in which any action takes place. The result is ‘edited in camera’, or otherwise unedited, the continuous sequence of fifty feet unspooling through the camera. The only physical edit was removing a couple of fragmentary frames to create a clean splice at the end of the film. The nature of ‘editing in camera’ creates a coherent sequence in time, like a contact sheet of a single roll of film. The act of editing is another form of mediation of course, whether in camera or at the editing table. </div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52037730159/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52037730159_0453dfe12f.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">16mm fragment of Plus-X film</td></tr></tbody></table><div>That Tacita Dean’s film <i>Sound Mirrors</i> exists in an edition of 4 plus 1 artist’s proof suggests that this was originated on negative stock and subsequently printed, whether with internegatives or interpositives, or any other stages in between, unlike being filmed on reversal film to produce a single, unique positive. The introduction of 16mm film as an amateur format relied on reversal processing, not negative-positive printing. However, even reversal film begins as a negative, the first stage of processing develops the latent image into a negative, which is subsequently bleached and the remaining undeveloped photographic emulsion re-exposed and developed. Theoretical or philosophical approaches to the the nature of photographic mediums, whether moving or still, have drawn the photograph’s beguiling power from its semiotic status as an indexical sign, that is, the necessary direct relationship between the photographic image and its referent: light reflecting off a surface passes through a lens (or other aperture) and leaves its trace as an imprint on a light sensitive matrix. In some respects, the photographic negative functions like any other matrix to <i>print</i> from, like a woodblock or etching plate, and this, and its initial monochrome nature, was conceptualised as printing, and borrowed the older mediums’ language. Unlike a woodblock, a tool for making a print, the negative is different, it cannot but embody this indexicality: in some senses it is more direct than the positive which it generates: it is like a daguerreotype or Polaroid. Semiotically, the index doesn’t have to <i>look</i> like its referent, only to possess a direct relationship. This is, in a sense, incidental: that photographs look like their referents extends their nature as signs from indexical to icons. The most famous (and most reproduced) photographic negative is William Henry Fox Talbot’s window at Lacock Abbey, with his note in which he described being able to count every individual pane of glass. Although not an established practice, especially at its very beginnings, negatives were sometimes shown <i>as</i> negatives–and have been shown again as such, as with Benjamin Brecknell Turner’s calotype negatives at the Victoria & Albert Museum. In an essay by Sarah Lea, ‘Tacita Dean: Mediums’, in the catalogue to accompany the co-ordinated 2018 LANDSCAPE/PORTRAIT/STILL LIFE exhibitions of Dean’s work, Lea emphasises the importance of contact, direct and unmediated, with the real physical material that comprises the many aspects of the work, the found photographs, the blackboard drawings, and film: film “embodies that contact with the actual: to some extent photochemical film retains an aspect of a document, or perhaps a chronicle, for we are only ever a step away from fabrication.” A negative may be the slightest of steps here.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPxoLOiBLYhTrj7vSrlO_lhxsykStcn0CydL1BvD6D0qhmk-Lv75y4yzxSG8v8XZLC6sAqACXg_rIEm_24WwjcNyfddMKEFP_jFgkiWhcvIrPXMW6GqG8piD46I9UR3OPLE7EYjBC4iY-FUQxCif5yGk4Sbu3C5N90bG5dTMNd3Q1UY-KMKYwTAgli/s500/Cut.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPxoLOiBLYhTrj7vSrlO_lhxsykStcn0CydL1BvD6D0qhmk-Lv75y4yzxSG8v8XZLC6sAqACXg_rIEm_24WwjcNyfddMKEFP_jFgkiWhcvIrPXMW6GqG8piD46I9UR3OPLE7EYjBC4iY-FUQxCif5yGk4Sbu3C5N90bG5dTMNd3Q1UY-KMKYwTAgli/w400-h300/Cut.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div>In the book to accompany the 2001 Tate Britain exhibition, the credits to <i>Sound Mirrors</i> list Tacita Dean as ‘camera’, with four assistants, a sound editor, and various editing and post production facilities. Given the complicated nature of film as a medium, it is often a collaborative one, with specialised division of labour: often, in gallery and exhibition contexts, such aspects of production are often hidden. My camera, film, and film magazines were all bought secondhand; the coach trip to the location was provided by the institution (as improvised, each shot was framed in an attempt to avoid other members of this party appearing on-screen; a figure can be seen just walking into the edge of the frame in one shot). Photographic chemicals (in small quantities) were bought new. I developed my film by hand, using Adox Rodinal, in two halves, followed by a water bath, fixed, then washed, dried, and then the two separate sections spliced together with presstapes (the join is at the 42-second mark in the film). It was then physically posted to Gaugefilm to be scanned (the single most expensive aspect of the whole production process), creating a (positive) digital file which was then turned back into a negative using Adobe Premiere Pro, and vertically flipped. In the camera, when exposed, the image that the lens projects is upside down, and back to front on the surface of the photographic emulsion. When I first developed black and white film, I did not fully realise that this was what was happening inside the camera, obscured by the nature of the transparent substrate, reinforced by the orientation of edge printings, but obvious when working with opaque processes, direct positives or paper negatives–and a feature of the daguerreotype, its mirror image no doubt benefitting its use for portraiture, the subjects used to seeing themselves in the same orientation. </div><div><br /></div><div>The Eastman Plus-X negative film stock used for 'Homage', manufactured in the year that Tacita Dean made <i>Sound Mirrors</i>, was discontinued by Kodak over a decade ago. Dean has been active in preserving film as viable medium–the material basis–for the moving image. Perhaps, ideally, I would only show ‘Homage’ as a projection, from the unique 50ft length of original camera negative, an edition of one, physically degrading as it moves through the projector’s sprockets, pull-down claw, intermittently moving through the gate, loop after loop; but, thinking of the distinct practices of production, distribution, exhibition, and <i>access</i> to these channels of distribution and exhibition, the digital hybrid medium created by scanning the film allows for a flat, online distribution on such platforms as currently exist, possibly lost in a sea of content clamouring for attention, but there nonetheless.</div><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="375" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/704458370?h=f5bb002fdf&byline=0&portrait=0" width="500"></iframe></div>
<div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">Bibliography</span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">Richard Abel and Rick Altman (editors), <i>The Sounds of Early Cinema</i>, Indiana University Press 2001</span></div></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">Rudolf Arnheim, <i>Film as Art</i>, Faber and Faber, London 1958. First published as Film als Kunst, 1933</span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">Walter Benjamin, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ (originally published 1936) in <i>One Way Street and Other Writings</i>, translated by J. A. Underwood, Penguin Books, London 2009.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Tacita Dean</i>, Tate 2001. Published on the occasion of the exhibition 'Tacita Dean: Recent films and other works', Tate Britain 15 February - 6 May 2001</span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">Brian Dillon, 'Listening for the Enemy', <i>Cabinet Magazine</i>, Fall/Winter 2003 <a href="https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/12/dillon.php">https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/12/dillon.php</a></span></div><div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">Hal Foster, ‘An Archival Impulse’, <i>October</i>, Autumn 2004</span></div></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">Jonathon Griffin, 'Tacita Dean: “I don’t care about the long run. I care about now.”', <i>Royal Academy Magazine</i>, 21/03/18 <a href="https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/magazine-tacita-dean">https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/magazine-tacita-dean</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sarah Lea, ‘Tacita Dean: Mediums’, in <i>LANDSCAPE/PORTRAIT/STILL LIFE </i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">Patrick Loughney, ‘Domitor Witnesses the First Complete Public Presentation of the 'Dickson Experimental Sound Film' in the 20th Century’, <i>Film History,</i> 1999, Vol. 11, No. 4, Special Domitor Issue: Global Experiments in Early Synchronous Sounds (1999), pp. 400-403</span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ted Nannicelli and Malcolm Turvey, 'Against Post-Cinema', <i>Cinema & Cie</i>, vol. XVI, no.26-27, Spring/Summer 2016, pp31-43.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1573193546035756071.post-46063884373989723732022-04-24T17:43:00.003+01:002022-04-24T18:37:24.674+01:00Ciné-"Kodak" Model BB Junior<div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52021347997/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="375" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52021347997_5dd104abb7.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ciné-Kodak Model BB Junior with f1.9 lens</td></tr></tbody></table><div>Before Kodak introduced the 16mm film format in 1923, there had been a number of other attempts to use smaller-gauge formats–for reasons of economy–to <i>create</i> an amateur market for moving pictures, but with Kodak's weight behind it, 16mm film was widely adopted and has persisted, in all its iterations, for a century (and, just like 35mm, beginning as a movie film format, it was also then recognised for its size, convenience and availability, and used for still cameras). Kodak's new amateur format was dependent on two essential innovations, aside from its smaller gauge: the cellulose acetate base–otherwise known as safety film (a phrase that persisted for decades, imprinted on film rebates), at the time when flammable 35mm nitrate film was the norm. Among the short-lived small-gauge formats prior to 16mm, 35mm film had been used, split in half to make 17.5mm film, with some systems using the existing perforations on one side, but one can imagine that Kodak deliberately chose the 16mm width with much smaller perforations–on both sides–so as to prevent any simple attempt to use cut-down nitrate stock. The other innovation was reversal processing, meaning that, instead of processing the film to a negative and then needing to make a separate positive print for projection, the same film could be processed–with extra steps–to create a positive, cutting material film costs in half. The reversal process also results in a finer-grained image, in comparison to a negative, beneficial to the smaller frame size in 16mm when compared to 35mm.</div><div><br /></div><div>The first 16mm Ciné-Kodak camera of 1923 was hand-cranked, as were almost all 35mm cameras at the time: this only changed with the necessity of synchronising sound to image, which happened in the professional field a few short years after the appearance of the first 16mm camera. Constantly turning a handle to advance the film through the camera made hand-holding an impracticality, and a tripod was a necessity (initially, Kodak only sold the Ciné-Kodak as a complete package with tripod, projector, screen and splicer; although aimed at the amateur market, in 1923 this sold for the same price as a Model T Ford). Kodak introduced the Ciné-Kodak Model B two years later (with the first camera being retrospectively renamed the Model A); this featured a wind-up clockwork motor, allowing for the possibility of being used hand-held (the Model A was provided with an optional battery-driven motor, but this was only available for a short time, suggesting that, given the battery technology of the 1920s, this was not a great improvement: battery driven amateur ciné cameras only really dominated with the introduction of Super-8 in the mid-1960s). The design of the camera was also greatly changed to make it much more compact, notably by having the two daylight loading 100ft spools sitting parallel to each other inside the camera body, rather than one above the other as in the original Ciné-Kodak; the viewfinder was also placed atop the front and back of the body, consisting of an reverse-Gallilean type of finder and reciprocal eyepiece which fold down when not in use. It also had a waist level viewfinder not unlike the contemporary Brownie cameras: Kodak's own literature likens using the next version, the Ciné-Kodak Model BB to the simplicity of the Brownie.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52022389116/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52022389116_ef7d90a10c.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ciné-Kodak Model BB Junior: winding key and exposure lever side</td></tr></tbody></table><div>The Ciné-Kodak Model BB followed in 1929, a further evolution towards a more compact camera. By keeping the same general layout of the Model B, but using smaller 50ft daylight loading spools (which had been available to the previous two cameras, along with the 100ft spools), the Model BB was also more economical with the space inside the camera body (as <a href="http://dougkerr.net/Pumpkin/articles/Kodak_Cine-Kodak.pdf" target="_blank">Douglas A. Kerr writes, the layout was “tightened up”</a>). The <b>Ciné-Kodak Model BB Junior</b> is a distinct derivation of the Model BB, and dates to 1930. There does not appear to be much on the Model BB Junior specifically online–or at least there appears to be a not uncommon failure to differentiate these two models. Possibly the Model BB Junior originated with Kodak Ltd in the UK (where both my versions of the camera were made) as a simplified production variant of the Model BB. That the BB Junior originates from Kodak Ltd might explain why its name plate has "Kodak" in double-inverted commas, presumably to indicate that the word Kodak is an invented word or trademark, and used like a title, designated as such in British English rather than allowed to go unadorned in American English: the manual uses "Kodak" throughout, with single commas for the manual's title page (the illustration of the footage counter on page 15 does not have "Kodak" but also one cannot see the word 'Junior': this appears to be a photograph of the footage counter on the Model BB not the BB Junior). </div><div><br /></div><div>There are two key distinguishing features to separate the Model BB Junior from the BB: it does not have the slow speed button which reduced the frame rate to 8 frames-per-second (found just above the shutter release lever on the side of the body on the BB; it exposes at 16 frames per second, meaning its shutter speed is effectively around 1/30th), nor does it have the waist-level viewfinder. The Model BB Junior was available with either a fixed-focus f3.5 lens, or a focussing 25mm f1.9 Kodak Anastigmat. There were changes during the production runs of all Kodak's early ciné cameras, which can complicate identification: many initially were provided with slower, non-interchangeable fixed-focus lenses, and then gained faster, focussing lenses, and interchangeable ones. When I started researching the Model BB Junior, I did think that having non-interchangeable lenses was one of its distinguishing features, but, subsequently, I've seen examples online which <i>do</i> have interchangeable lenses. The move to faster lenses seems to be driven in part by the introduction of Kodak's first colour film from 1928, Kodacolor (not to be confused with or the later colour negative film of the same name), a lenticular film exposed through its base–like Dufaycolor–and needing a special filter. As a result, it required much more light to register an image; Kodacolor was on the market for a limited period, but one which coincided with advances in Kodak's ciné cameras.</div><div><br /></div><div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52022902600/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52022902600_5f937fab1c.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ciné-Kodak Model BB Junior: cover side with catch</td></tr></tbody></table>I bought my first BB Junior on something of a whim: having used 2x8mm film for a few projects (and having bought a developing tank for 2x8mm, which would therefore take 16mm-wide film), and also having some 16mm film stock for use in 16mm still cameras, I was looking for a cheap 16mm camera, rather than investing in something more sophisticated which I might not use with any regularity. The Ciné-Kodak Model BB Junior is relatively common, and I bought my first camera for less than £30 online. There are two main considerations against choosing to use the Ciné-Kodak Model BB Junior (or the BB itself) in the present day: firstly, the camera uses double perforated (otherwise known as 2R) film; secondly, the camera takes 50ft daylight loading spools. With regards to the issue of double-perforation, there is some limited availability at the time of writing: Foma makes its R100 film in 16mm double perforation, and a number of double perforated film stocks are available from the Film Photography Project in the US; there is also the possibility of using old double-perforated film stock–which, at the time of writing, I've done exclusively. Less problematic is the 50ft daylight-loading spools: 16mm film hasn't been sold on 50ft daylight loading spools for many years, as far as I am aware (possibly since the 1960s), but although respooling from 100ft lengths (or longer) in the dark may be tedious, it's not difficult. One needs two spools of course, one for supply, and another in the camera for take up. My first camera arrived without any spools, and I spent nearly as much on two 50ft spools as on the camera itself, although, had I waited, no doubt I could have found cheaper spools–or a camera with spools. 50ft spools have a diameter of 7cm, compared to the mode common 9cm 100ft spools.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52022423893/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52022423893_0610ee0051.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ciné-Kodak Model BB Junior with cover removed</td></tr></tbody></table>To load the camera, there is a catch on one side which simply slides from LOCK to OPEN, allowing the cover to then be entirely removed. As already mentioned, the side-by-side spool layout was first established in the Model B: inside the camera body, the take-up spool is uppermost. The supply spool is exactly parallel to this, located behind a hinged door. If there is a spool in the take-up position, this needs to be removed to open the door, which has a small catch at its lower right, seen just below the spool in the image above. </div>
<div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52022901350/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="377" data-original-width="500" height="302" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52022901350_041e316f23.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Detail of pull-down claw held in the open position with the spring clip</td></tr></tbody></table><div>Before loading, the manual recommends opening the pull-down claw, which has a metal spring clip to secure it in the open position (it has a semi-circular tab for handling), and opening the sprocket clamps, ensuring that the whole film path is now free for threading the film from the fresh or supply spool, around the sprocket, through the film gate, back around the sprocket again to the empty or take-up spool. The manual also recommends winding the motor a small amount to create tension for the pull down claw when loading. The sprocket clamps have a knurled grip on their pin heads: these pull up, allowing the clamps to pivot away from the sprocket itself, leaving space for the film to be threaded through either side of the sprocket.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52022387906/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52022387906_9d8387f2f7.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Detail of sprocket with clamps in the closed position</td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52021346737/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52021346737_b371dcc4b3.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Detail of sprocket with clamps opened</td></tr></tbody></table><div>With the film path clear for threading, the door to load the new spool of film is opened, revealing the spindle inside. The 50ft spools are designed to fit in one orientation only: one side has a round hole for the top of the spindle, the other square, which fits the bottom of the spindle shaft. This would appear to be designed to prevent an exposed roll of film being accidentally double-exposed: once shot, the film is in the wrong direction on the spool to then be loaded into the supply position. There is also a thin sprung metal finger which is connected to the internal door's opening mechanism: when shut, this rests with some tension on the supply spool and is connected to the footage indicator on top of the camera underneath the handle. </div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52022422833/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52022422833_3010c76f4e.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ciné-Kodak Model BB Junior opened to show spindle for the new, unexposed film spool</td></tr></tbody></table><div>The film peels off the spool 'backwards': it should be emulsion side in on the spool, then passes over the angled roller, emulsion side out for this side to be facing the lens. If the spool is correctly positioned on the spindle, the door will close and latch. The camera is provided with white lines for the correct size of the loops either side on the film gate: the film is threaded through the upper sprocket clamp and then through the film gate. The film gate is sprung against the square aperture behind the lens: the film threads between this and a plate behind, and then loops through the lower sprocket clamp. The upper and lower clamps should be closed in that order, ensuring that the perforations on the film are located on the sprocket teeth, with the right size of loops formed, but sometimes on loading, I've found that this does need adjusting, finding the right pair of perforations on which to close the clamps to get the loops the right size. Once through the film gate and both sides of the sprocket, the camera can be very briefly run and the pull-down claw will automatically disengage from the spring clip; the free end of the film then needs to be threaded through to the slot in the centre of the take-up spool in the direction of the curved arrow printed around the take-up spindle.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52021346927/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52021346927_b2e9f71979.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ciné-Kodak Model BB Junior loaded with film</td></tr></tbody></table></div><div>Once fully threaded, it's advisable to very briefly run the camera for a second just to make sure the film is running freely from supply to take-up, through both sides of the sprocket and through the film gate. The exposure lever pushes down to run the camera; pushing this further locks it into in the running position. Replacing the cover, there's a shallow semi-circular cut-out for the lens side for correct orientation, and the catch slides back to the Lock position. The cover will only lock if the film spools are properly seated on both spindles and the sprocket clamps properly closed. On both cameras that I currently have, the serial number, located on the camera's winding key, is also written in pencil inside the cover, partially hidden by its internal catch when in the OPEN position.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52022388986/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52022388986_174f0f0fe3.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Serial number in pencil inside camera cover</td></tr></tbody></table><div>As described above, the fact that the BB Junior takes double-perforated film is a consideration against using it today: there are other considerations, concerning the ease of use, in choosing such an early 16mm camera. It is entirely manual, without any later innovations–such as a reflex viewfinder for accurate focus and framing, or metering for exposure–as would assist the amateur user. The viewfinder is a relatively simple reverse-Gallilean type, consisting of a small eye piece at the back of the camera and a corresponding viewfinder at the front, both of which fold down to the body when not in use. </div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52022387921/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52022387921_03933d7a48.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Front and rear viewfinder, raised for use</td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52021346702/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="370" data-original-width="500" height="296" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52021346702_a05ed0261f.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Front viewfinder with parallax marks for 6ft and 2ft</td></tr></tbody></table><div>The viewfinder has parallax marks for the top of the frame at 6ft and another at 2ft. As the viewfinder is directly above the lens, parallax is only a problem vertically, not horizontally. Focus on the 25mm f1.9 Kodak Anastigmat is manual, estimated, with marks in feet only, around the lens down to a close focus of 2 feet. The 25ft mark is picked out in red as a hyperfocal setting: the manual states that when set at this distance, with an aperture of f5.6 or smaller (the lens stops down to f16), everything from 8 feet to infinity will be in focus.</div></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52022422488/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52022422488_9c07ac354f.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kodak Anastigmat lens with focal distances in feet</td></tr></tbody></table><div>
For exposure, until 1940 Ciné-Kodak cameras were provided with a guide plate matching aperture settings to lighting and subject conditions, which align to a pointer on the aperture ring. When the first Ciné-Kodak appeared, this had a logic to it as there was only one single 16mm film available, so the descriptions of lighting and subject conditions were not complicated by different film speeds; very quickly however, Kodak introduced a Ciné-Kodak Panchromatic film (the original Ciné-Kodak safety film was orthochromatic), then Kodacolor film (soon discontinued), Super-sensitive Pan film, and Kodachrome, all of which required different exposure settings.</div>
<div> </div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52021348087/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52021348087_9357e8fd6a.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ciné-Kodak BB Junior aperture guide plate</td></tr></tbody></table><div>At the time the Ciné-Kodak Model BB Junior was introduced, the films available were Ciné-Kodak Panchromatic film, Super-sensitive Panchromatic film, and Kodachrome: the directions on the aperture plate are for the Panchromatic film; the manual advises with Super-sensitive Panchromatic film to use the next smaller aperture for the conditions described, while Kodachrome had its own exposure guide provided with the film. Kodak abandoned the aperture plate guides in 1940, announced in the <a href="https://mcnygenealogy.com/book/kodak/cine-kodak-v16-n02.pdf" target="_blank">March-April issue of Cine Kodak News</a>: new cameras had a 'Universal Guide' on the side of the camera, a plate into which the user could insert a card, included with each roll of film, which could then be read against a dial aligning subject conditions to aperture setting. Owners of cameras produced before this point could have one of these new guides fitted, and at the same time the aperture plate would be removed and replaced with a plate usually featuring a name or logotype. Both of my BB Juniors have the original aperture plates however, possibly suggesting that they may not have been used much after this date–or simply that the original owners did not want the cameras altered.</div><div><br /></div><div>For a first test, I shot a short roll of Eastman 4-X through the camera. Originally 500 ISO in daylight, the film is more than three decades old as 4-X was discontinued in 1990. The film has lost a lot of sensitivity with age, and there is a lot of base fog, particularly along one edge. I nominally rated the Eastman 4-X film at 25, although I didn't meter for the exposure, which was simply light projected on a wall. This was developed in Ilfotec LC29, diluted 1+19 for 8 minutes at 18ºC. The results were pretty uninstructive, but the camera did appear to work.</div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="361" data-original-width="500" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYG-sJTPPPTMg8oSqQAvU8KpYsIVxZy6rhyn54aArUNRV-9QgpVU8BTVEEDywaojGn-9fQAGbiqdesHVsCf4OL4GZyKwbyeZDr2k0w68q-pq0nWZxVOt8sbPiCnWlI7byfoAnE5Hnu5ZNs7FfXXhaFLjCNKoIVwtAAxs8H7bCZKIJGWSetix4o4pzR/w400-h289/Cine-Kodak-BB-Junior-First-Test.gif" width="400" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ciné-Kodak Model BB Junior first test</td></tr></tbody></table>I then shot some double-perforated Kodak Plus-X. As described in '<a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2022/04/workers-not-leaving-factory-once-more.html">Workers Not Leaving The Factory (Once More)</a>', when fully wound, the clockwork motor runs for just over 30 seconds, although it does audibly begin to sound as though it is running slow after about 25 seconds, notably with film (when not loaded with film, there's less drag on the mechanism, so it runs more freely). I had planned a film with four uninterrupted shots of 30 seconds each to use a whole 50ft roll. This was filmed on the A104 Woodford New Road, showing the northbound and southbound lanes of the road both north and south of the junction with the A406 North Circular known as the Waterworks roundabout. I framed a narrow band of the road which used to feature a cattle grid, relatively recently removed, but discernible in the concrete edges of the shallow trench which formed the base of the grid. The cattle grids had been necessary due to a herd of cattle which had grazed freely on nearby Wanstead Flats, but also roamed between other grazing spots, sometimes along suburban streets. The cattle were removed around the time that the M11 Link Road was opened in the late 1990s. After filming the four scenes of 30 seconds each, there was still some film left from respooling. When the footage counter reaches the zero mark, the manual instructs the user to run the camera until a circular mark after zero is indicated, as provision for a trailer on the roll of film, ensuring that no footage is spoiled on unloading. Without the need to reload immediately, I could do this in complete darkness and use all the film on the roll, so filmed a few short scenes at the same location. I did try loading the camera in the dark, especially with short lengths of film for testing, but this makes it difficult to achieve the right-sized loops: too small and the loops are too tight, creating a 'jumpy' gate as the film pulls against it; too large, and the film can drag against the interior of the camera body.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisYl6TUCm8GPkFbUWzVW9Ofs19x3e8BVxqzm7WdmHfLg9Rr2k7AcAB__DzUroVwT0fft-pVy_kAC9_JnxeF44JRYkJXtV-h5FAKOvCxMaxLf9sHR3lqz_Unmdvu9dHNi33gh-UV4DwRpaW20VJroHIHJOX-KY1bU2lBESfcB-lsjH0hHV24RlYFIdE/w400-h300/Plus-X-Test.gif" width="400" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ciné-Kodak Model BB Junior Plus-X test</td></tr></tbody></table><div>Before developing this film, I shot a very short test on the same Plus-X stock (from the roll as used on <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2020/03/expired-film-day-2020.html">Expired Film Day in 2020</a>, dating to 1992) to check my exposure and developing times were right. This was loaded in the camera in the dark with some difficulties, exposed at 40, and developed in Ilfotec LC29, diluted 1+19 for 5m30s at 20ºC. Although short, this looked good enough to develop the 50ft roll of Plus-X with the same time and dilution. I had this roll of 16mm Plus-X professionally scanned, and when the scan was returned, it was immediately clear that there were problems with focus: in the <i>middle</i> of the frame, focus was clearly off, although towards the edges, the images looked sharp enough.</div><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"> <iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="375" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/702554539?h=40fdd6eeec&loop=1&title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" width="500"></iframe></div><div><br /></div>For what I had intended to film, the four framings of the no-longer-extant cattle grid, this wasn't too intrusive, and I imagined if this were even to be shown, that these four scenes could be <a href="https://vimeo.com/616917192" target="_blank">played on four screens, simultaneously</a>. However, with any more detailed or static scenes, this lack of focus was distracting. One of the curiosities of the design of Kodak's 16mm cameras around this period is their curving film path <i>through</i> the gate–and that this curves <i>away</i> from the lens. With cheap still film cameras, many have a film plane curved <i>towards</i> the lens to make up for distortion inherent in cheap lens designs. In the Ciné-Kodak Model BB Junior, possibly the curve away from the lens may be in part to have a smoother film path from the upper loop to lower loop, but I did wonder if this itself was part of the problem with focus, in particular that the lens-to-film plane distance was just too short in the centre of the frame to achieve infinity focus. I removed the lens to investigate–it comes off fairly easily with undoing the two screws. I had thought that a solution might be to add a shim, fractionally increasing the lens-to-film plane distance, which I did with a thin sheet of metal cut from a drinks can. </div><div><br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52021347287/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52021347287_d49bf104aa.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lens shim cut from thin aluminium placed behind lens mount</td></tr></tbody></table><div>Having removed the lens, I could also see that this was very dirty internally, so took this apart, unscrewing the front and rear groups, and cleaning all surfaces before reassembling and fixing the lens back to the camera body.</div><div><br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52022638444/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52022638444_b48b3955c0.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ciné-Kodak Anastigmat lens disassembled for cleaning</td></tr></tbody></table><div><br />As can be seen in the image above, the f1.9 Ciné-Kodak Anastigmat lens was provided a lens hood (seen upper right) which slots into the lens housing itself with a pin to orient it correctly (the slot for the pin can be seen inside the lens housing in the image above; with the hood better seen in the image below). This lens hood could be replaced with filters attached to a similar hood, designated by Kodak as 'W' mount, and were also colour-coded with a painted rim: I subsequently acquired a couple of yellow filters, which, naturally enough, have a yellow rim. This came in cases either made from brass or Bakelite. The filters themselves are of the push-fit variety, and simply slip on the inside end of the W-mount hood.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52022389266/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="375" height="400" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52022389266_88d4755825.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lens hood removed showing orientation pin</td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52022901115/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52022901115_47516f3182.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">W-mount filter and cases</td></tr></tbody></table><div>I also cleaned the film gate, which I should have done before first using the camera, with accumulated dust and dirt being visible along the top edge of the frame in the scanned film. There is a long metal post with a slotted head and knurled grip at the top of its shaft which unscrews, allowing the film gate, consisting of the gate itself and back plate which slot together, and then can be taken apart for cleaning. There is an arrangement of holes–three round holes, with two linked–on one edge of the gate which appear to be some form of identifying edge mark: this can be seen very clearly in the full scan Plus-X test below.</div><div><br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/52021348047/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52021348047_9d574224ee.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Film gate removed for cleaning</td></tr></tbody></table>
I made a couple of further tests once I'd cleaned the gate (which should probably be done after every roll of film as good practice) and replaced the lens, and this was the camera which I used to film '<a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2022/04/workers-not-leaving-factory-once-more.html">Workers Not Leaving The Factory (Once More)</a>'. The tests looked promising, although it's hard to know whether adding the shim or cleaning the lens internally had made more difference.<div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLw3JHm777RcSml6UuOIAEcJzgMVdPL_E8HjWFvE1_q24wLKfB-U2XihiAEWx3UR_skWyUVBidx_Ul3Y5YpG4eY9gwyjtxQOE0tqbwyN7b_LELSIfm2HKmwM4WGcV2NZPFwpwYTxjgzjKEVcIA9r4931c46rAPRnvD53cmfl9ueGVZJ4L0EHXUc8vA/w400-h300/Cine-Kodak-BB-Junior-Plus-X-Test-12-2-21.gif" width="400" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ciné-Kodak Model BB Junior test after cleaning & shimming lens</td></tr></tbody></table>After cleaning the lens, replacing it with the shim, and then filming 'Workers Not Leaving The Factory (Once More)', I bought a second Ciné-Kodak Model BB Junior. I had an idea that I could modify the sprocket and pull-down claw in order to use single-perforated 16mm film in the camera, which would be useful in terms of being able to use a wider range of new film stocks; I also thought that it might be possible to modify the film gate to the Ultra-16 format, especially given how the holes on the left hand side show that the image formed by the lens covers a wider frame. I found a Model BB Junior for £5 online: if either of these modifications made the camera unusable, I hadn't wasted much money (this also came with two 50ft spools inside). However, when the second camera arrived, it was in better condition, cosmetically at least, than the first one, so that was earmarked for modifications instead–which I have yet to attempt. The photographs illustrating this post are a mostly of the newer Model BB Junior; the older camera has paint losses, especially on the winding key, as can be seen in a couple of images, but this was the camera used for all the moving images.</div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><div><div><div>The second Model BB Junior is in such good condition despite being around 90 years old (although introduced in 1930, I've found no date for the Model BB Junior's discontinuation) that I imagine it can never have been used that much (or its owner kept incredibly good care of it). As an amateur movie format, 16mm was soon superseded by the more economic 2x8mm, then the easier-to-use Super-8, before home movies became electronic with video cameras in the 1980s. 16mm drifted from being the format for the home or amateur use which Kodak designed it to be, to that favoured for educational, industrial, and experimental or independent avant-garde uses. The Ciné-Kodak Model BB Junior has many reasons to dissuade its use today, as outlined earlier in this post; in addition, it isn't the most ergonomic of cameras to use hand held, essentially a rectangular box with a lens on the front; without access to home-developing, as well as being able to respool 50ft lengths of film, it is generally an impractical camera. However, as with many of the still cameras I've written about–indeed, much of this blog–there's a sense, partly a form of social history, in gaining an understanding of these technologies of image-making through their use–often, importantly, their limitations–which is a connection, historically, to both how and why images look the way they do.</div><div><br /></div></div></div><div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sources/further reading</span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.vintagecameras.fr/images/MonSite/KODAK/Cine-Kodak_BB_Junior/_Doc/Cin%C3%A9-Kodak_Model_BB-Junior_Manual_en.pdf">Ciné-Kodak Model BB Junior manual</a> (PDF)</span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Code2000;">Alan D. Kattle, 'The Evolution of Amateur Motion Picture Equipment 1895-1965',</span><span style="font-family: Code2000;"> <i>Journal of Film and Video,</i> Summer-Fall 1986, Vol. 38, No. 3/4, pp. 47-57</span><span style="font-family: Code2000;"> <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20687736">https://www.jstor.org/stable/20687736</a></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">Douglas A. Kerr, <a href="http://dougkerr.net/Pumpkin/articles/Kodak_Cine-Kodak.pdf" target="_blank"><i>The Kodak Ciné-Kodak line of motion picture cameras</i> </a> (PDF)</span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Code2000;">Dwight Swanson, '</span><span style="font-family: 'Code2000';">Inventing Amateur Film: Marion Norris Gleason, Eastman Kodak and the Rochester
Scene, 1921-1932',</span><span style="font-family: Code2000;"> <i>Film History</i>, 2003, Vol. 15, No. 2, Small-Gauge and Amateur Film (2003), pp.
126-136</span><span style="font-family: Code2000;"> <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3815505">https://www.jstor.org/stable/3815505</a> </span></span></div><p><span style="font-family: Code2000; font-size: x-small;"><i>Monroe County New York also has an excellent collection of <a href="https://mcnygenealogy.com/book/kodak/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">historical records from Kodak</a>, including many issues of Cine-Kodak News</i></span></p><div>
</div></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1573193546035756071.post-44845882684986023212022-04-17T18:24:00.001+01:002022-04-24T17:45:18.001+01:00Workers Not Leaving The Factory (Once More)<div>Two years ago, I made a very short film called '<a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2020/03/workers-not-leaving-factory.html">Workers Not Leaving the Factory</a>'. The rationale for this was to record <i>moving images</i> onto Ilford film of the sites of the Ilford’s Britannia Works factory in the town of the same name, identifying two locations that would have been exits from the site at the time that the Lumière brothers filmed <i>La Sortie de l'Usine Lumière à Lyon</i>, its title variously translated into English as <i>Workers Leaving The Lumière Factory in Lyon</i>, <i>Employees Leaving the Lumière Factory</i>, or <i>Exiting the Factory</i>, the first film to be projected in front of an audience, at the Société d'Encouragement de l'Industrie Nationale, on 22nd March 1895. Last year I had the desire to revisit this, 125 years to the day on which the Lumières’ films were first shown to a paying audience in London, but did not do so due to the pandemic restrictions in force on that date. Instead, I made a rather imperfect contact print of the first film to project it at home, alongside a digital projection from a webcam that provided the nearest possible view to those which I had filmed, a visual representation of how the moving image and its dissemination has fundamentally changed the experience of time and space, echoing Patrick Keiller’s desire to make a film of “distant landscapes […] without leaving home.” This was '<a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2021/02/additional-pourtrayals-sic.html">ADDITIONAL POURTRAYALS [sic]</a>', the name derived from a phrase in the original programme for the Lumières’ first exhibition of the cinématographe in England, in which I speculated, that, although <i>La Sortie de l'Usine Lumière à Lyon</i> was not named as one of the films shown, it <i>could</i> have appeared as one of these ‘ADDITIONAL POURTRAYALS’.</div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="560" data-original-width="996" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfFoqMkxCXMJfAMrqL8voOLO3_ND9u6VXOFPO8ZvpZwMeYTjAzKuPWsDGBtJj2LFxy7c9AiS0tp4utVTq-gNLjr4FuWsLZlv8MA2SO0x8uowu0ADoAEDzHbAILkRYAmX_zaY4lQeH_mrdvL_FxfvXEF1fww-cBEtixDgy7WlhXmMSKRCfbZ02HkPlM/w400-h225/vlcsnap-2021-02-26-19h10m03s262.png" width="400" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">ADDITIONAL POURTRAYALS [sic]</td></tr></tbody></table>The original Lumière programme appears in reproduction in <a href="http://www.cineressources.net/consultationPdf/web/o000/310.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">a souvenir booklet</a> produced for an event in 1936 to mark forty years since the first public exhibition of the Lumières' Cinématographe in London at the Polytechnic on Regent Street. As well as recreating the Lumières' original programme of short films in the same institution (which now boasted a School of Kinematography), there was also an exhibition showcasing the history and development of the technology of moving pictures, with a number of manufacturers keen to display the very latest advances. Among these were Ilford and Kodak Ltd: Kodak Ltd had a number of Ciné-Kodak cameras and projectors “Showing how Cine Kodak has advanced since introduction in 1923” with dates: the last camera listed is the “Cine Kodak “BB” Junr. f3/5” from 1930. Subsequent to 'Workers Not Leaving the Factory', I’d acquired a <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2020/08/cine-kodak-bb-junior.html">Ciné-Kodak Model BB Junior</a>, but that with the faster f1.9 lens. In the exhibition, Ilford showed <a href="https://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2014/12/dufaycolor.html">Dufaycolor</a>, frame enlargements from 9.5mm Selo film and also the “ILFORD CINE SERVICE. Showing processing and control of 16 mm. and 9.5 mm. Ilford Cine Films”. Ilford stopped manufacturing ciné film many years ago, and when making 'Workers Not Leaving the Factory', specifically <i>to</i> shoot this on an Ilford emulsion, I cut <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/ilford-fp4-plus.html">FP4 Plus</a> film down to 16mm, unperforated of course, but was able to use this–not without problems–in a Bolex 8mm camera. </div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/50988786873/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="403" data-original-width="500" height="323" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50988786873_1b361be6b3.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ilford Fast Pan 16mm Film</td></tr></tbody></table>For an Ilford motion picture film stock to use in the Ciné-Kodak BB Junior camera, I’d found a couple of 100ft rolls of 16mm Ilford Fast Pan film. On the labels of both there is a stamp "date of test 6.1.69", meaning that the film would almost certainly have been made at the Britannia Works site in Ilford before production there stopped in the mid-1970s. This is very reminiscent to the <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2013/04/ilford-mk-v-motion-picture-film.html">Ilford Mark V film</a> I used a few years ago, presumably being an emulsion test; when researching that particular film stock, I found a suggestion that this lead to the fifth iteration of Ilford’s HP film, currently <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/ilford-hp5-plus.html">HP5 Plus</a> today. It’s <i>possible</i> then that the Fast Pan film could be a version of the FP emulsion, although in the original FP film, the letters stood for <i>Fine grain Panchromatic</i>.<div><br /><div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1400" data-original-width="1940" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOtmLqYGMOEza09Nx-UYuTUzZseX5dc6MNQ6EphXvB_n_qDCy_tzpSyGNK6iO-DiSp6U4bTHhE66HirJ9RHcfGrwVAqV-ctLwK01Y3vks0jdM21hDn2v6X_7BQuE5kPIrF3XQDthsmzTtGkv9qP1Kpfk5z-eK8XePRfvXwuF4Y46IyAoZTQV7MqKVT/w400-h289/Workers%202%20Shot%201.jpg" width="400" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Roden Street, Ilford</td></tr></tbody></table>Unable to revisit the Ilford sites in February 2021, enacting 'ADDITIONAL POURTRAYALS [sic]' to mark the date instead, I <i>did</i> then return last year as soon as the general 'stay at home' order was lifted on 29th March. I shot the Ilford Fast Pan film where it was originally manufactured in the Ciné-Kodak BB Junior–and subsequently did not develop the film for several months, until very recently, almost a year since the film was exposed. The Ilford Fast Pan film labels do not specify a film speed, and over fifty years since being made, I supposed that the film would have lost sensitivity regardless. My initial tests showed the film had a lot of fog, and I shot the film at an exposure index of 25. </div><div><br /></div><div>The Ciné-Kodak BB Junior takes 50ft daylight loading spools, which equates to around 2 minutes at the camera’s frame rate of 16 frames a second. When I filmed 'Workers Not Leaving the Factory', as the 2x8mm format requires the film to be passed through the camera twice, there was a logic to shooting two separate scenes, between which the film needed to be unloaded from the camera, the spools flipped over and then reloaded to shoot the second side of the film. In doing this, I chose the locations where two entrances to the Britannia Works site had been, having <a href="https://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2013/04/ilford-limited-ilford.html">researched the site history in some detail in 2013</a>. The first location was the entrance to Sainsbury's car park on Roden Street, the other a section of brick wall on Riverdene Road, which appears to align with what was once the entrance to an alley that led into Britannia Works. The Ciné-Kodak BB Junior runs for just over 30 seconds with its clockwork motor fully wound, this would determine the duration of each scene: I assumed that I would then get <i>four</i> different shots on the 50ft spool; in the event, there was enough film for five scenes, partly due to unloading the camera after shooting in the dark (the footage indicator on the camera suggests that there’s about five feet of film <i>after</i> the zero mark which would usually be exposed when removing the film from the camera). </div><div><br /></div></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1400" data-original-width="1940" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4hWZeVKl6AZQVeqjKOFcALAx8hqAGyPg4dYLOP4oaKrrSl_UQf-NCpLjOSEEI4KV1r4VmF1FhT-8uinZQb2ZHqm2GQOKdaFKodA7j_75Krmb0IGtwLmm2Ilvz9azjC08QG5X6VVd-zB-pJ0FZMeNvoT7ZfOO_FYMD8owL7YvXMb2vN9BmXHGybDLo/w400-h289/Worker%202%20Shot%202.jpg" width="400" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Riverdene Road, Ilford</td></tr></tbody></table><div>I filmed the same two locations as in 'Workers Not Leaving the Factory' for the first two shots. The next two sites where those related to 'ADDITIONAL POURTRAYALS [sic]': the CCTV camera which records the scene that I had projected digitally, and then I pointed the BB Junior in the same direction as this CCTV camera, but from the ground level of course. This viewpoint was as close as I could get to the scene of the Britannia Works site remotely: at some point in the evolution of Ilford’s sprawling site, it <i>might</i> have been possible to see part of it from here, namely the skating rink which Ilford rented in the 1930s. Reading accounts of the history of early film in Britain in <i>In the Kingdom of Shadows</i> recently, I couldn't help noticing that the cinema was linked to skating in a couple of accounts, usually in the nature of popular fads or crazes:</div><div><blockquote>“SEVERAL EXPLANATIONS have been given of the bad theatrical business in the provinces, reports of which daily reach the managers most concerned in sending out companies. […] Mr. George Dance, who has as much experience of the business side of the theatre as anyone in England, is inclined to think that the comparative effect of cinematograph shows and skating rinks has been exaggerated.”<br /><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The World’s Fair</i>, 30 October 1909</span></div><p>“AT THE PRESENT MOMENT the popularity of picture palaces and the reason for it are directing a good deal of attention to the public mind. But these sudden crazes are not new: 30 years ago it was croquet, 15 years ago it [was] cycling, ten years ago it was roller skating…”<br /></p><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The Times</i><span>, 9th April 1913</span></span></div><p></p></blockquote>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1400" data-original-width="1940" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKUdVd6mtPsCiKf_GyQN5o7OK5IXaEqWwIwAp8tMkymN4Stl1CN6AqlNl9YSFTQ8SGSpoBG5vdBkaVpGrpQH7YJ2lspjUL50pL00-tzfhIl2R1xIl31RfUbSGbzSU61aQXzQR0HTxOig3lmYA_dxIU1AsnOkfmRgRUjKp6zY-Sl_uLVx-_Y60bW_Ff/w400-h289/Workers%202%20Shot%205.jpg" width="400" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Site of Alfred Harman's house, Cranbrook Road</td></tr></tbody></table><div>With the nominally-50ft roll not entirely used up, I went to the site of Alfred Harman’s house on Cranbrook Road, where Harman first coated glass plates in the basement, the very beginnings of what would become Ilford, Limited. When I developed the film, I used the developing times for Ilford FP4 Plus with Adox Adonal, an iteration of Rodinal. The developing tank I have been using for 16mm is really designed for 2x8mm: a normal 2x8mm camera roll is 25ft, but, with enough film for a leader and trailer, usually removed after processing, the actual length is closer to 33ft; this does still mean that a 50ft daylight spool has to be developed in two parts, if not strictly halves. The cut appears part way through the third scene shot, spliced together again after developing. </div></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1400" data-original-width="1940" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi8izAnr_0Iy0UzvbBP9jLUfh6t3DhmzQ_clhgZb3fe6D6sZgU0eY4cdhu5rsFSBYV5dL76vPMDc5jl9z-ze63lQRLCAurMuYZdKopS-wf6mvILm6bjRpC4CPA6lLKj3ZIoiRm8W0HrmaHwPXo1YU31MZE7yLmqWY8ZK3GKB_o_8McjHwkEorp5R32/w400-h289/Workers%202%20Shot%203.jpg" width="400" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cut between two lengths of the film developed separately</td></tr></tbody></table><div>The direction of the film through the camera means that the second half of the film was first to be developed first, for which I used a dilution of 1+50 for 15 minutes; the negative looked dense, so I reduced the time for the second half of the film to 12 minutes, which possibly could have been cut further (subsequently using the Ilford Fast Pan film, I’ve rated it at 40 or 50 rather than 25; in the image above it's just possible to discern that the image is brighter, thus the negative is denser, below the cut.). The nature of the film's age and overexposure and/or overdevelopment is that the images have quite pronounced grain as a result. Having developed the film by hand, the <i>cleanness</i> of the process itself could clearly be improved. In addition, by letting the camera’s motor run down entirely while exposing the film is that the frame rate slows close to the end, before the motor stops, with the result that the exposure time increases, the image getting brighter at the end of each scene. With the methodology determining the location and duration of each shot, anything happening in front of the camera was at the mercy of what Siegfried Kracauer would describe as ‘the contingency of the street’: the entrance to the supermarket car park and the road underneath the A406 flyover inevitably provided movement; the CCTV camera was shot hand-held, and a bird can be discerned flying through the shot at one point; the brick wall on Riverdene Road is only animated by subtle signs of the wind in the netting on the scaffolding which appears in the corner of the frame and the shadows from a tree on the right. Movement is also provided by the lack of stability of the frames and the vibrations the camera itself is subject to as the motor unwinds, rotating the shutter, pulling the film from supply to take up spool inside the camera, the intermittent motion briefly pausing its travel at the film gate for sixteen exposures every second.</div><div><br /></div><div>'With Workers Not Leaving The Factory', showing the two individual frames next to each other had a logic thanks to the nature of the 2x8mm film format. In 16mm, there was a coherence to keeping the revisited scenes in juxtaposition; with the following shots as an angle-reverse angle pair, this had also had a reason to be placed together after the first two. The fifth shot I discarded.</div><div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="232" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/700227332?h=42f97313d4" title="vimeo-player" width="600"></iframe></div>
</div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sources/Further reading:</span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.cineressources.net/consultationPdf/web/o000/310.pdf" target="_blank">Lumière Celebration programme </a>(PDF)</span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">Colin Harding and Simon Popple, <i>In the Kingdom of Shadows</i>, Cygnus Arts, London 1996</span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">Patrick Keiller, 'The Robinson Institute', <i>The View From the Train</i>, Verso 2013</span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">Siegfried Kracauer, <i>Nature of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality</i>, Dobson Books, 1970</span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1573193546035756071.post-53342952483518733482022-03-29T10:19:00.000+01:002022-03-29T10:19:00.749+01:00A small adjustment to the Baldalux's double-exposure prevention mechanism<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51964006257/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="375" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51964006257_58a351dbab.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Zodel Baldalux–view of top plate</td></tr></tbody></table>Anticipating a trip abroad in the near future, the first since the global pandemic, I was considering which medium format camera to take with me, and naturally thought of the <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2012/03/zodel-baldalux.html">6x9 folding <b>Zodel Baldalux</b> camera</a>. Over the past decade this has accompanied me on many trips, and usually provides fairly good results for its modest specifications. However, since I'd first acquired the camera, I'd always been using it with the double-exposure prevention disabled. I'd done this as it had begun to continually trip to the 'exposed' position, denoted by a red 'E' in the small square window on the camera's top plate. In this position, the shutter release on the body is prevented from being depressed and the only way to release the shutter is either with a cable release attached to the lens or, rather more clumsily, by pulling down the lever on the shutter which connects to the body shutter release linkage, and this is a good way to get one's fingers in front of the lens. I taped a small L-shaped piece of card in place to stop the mechanism from shifting to the 'E' position, which, at the time, seemed like a good–and reversible–intervention. At the time I wrote "I've yet to accidentally double-expose a frame, but I'm sure that this will happen." This did happen subsequently, not too often, but picking up the Baldalux once more, I decided to look at this again.<div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/7027317849/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/7054/7027317849_3d4d7678c8.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Double-exposure prevention mechanism disabled with card and tape</td></tr></tbody></table>To remove the top plate of the camera, there are four screws, two at each end, which are fairly easily loosed. I found that it was simple enough to keep the top plate level, and not actually take them out from their respective holes. I could lift and pivot the plate on the shutter release (which pops up when the camera is unfolded) and remove the piece of card, which looked a little frayed at the edges after ten years. Before taking the plate off completely, the shutter release button needs to be removed. Opening the camera makes the shutter release stand proud of the top plate, which may make it easier to undo. In the centre of the release is a separate slotted screw cap which once undone, lifts off with the shutter button, itself sitting on the release pin that has a threaded top that the screw cap connects to.<p></p></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51965289184/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="354" data-original-width="499" height="284" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51965289184_89223c1314.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shutter release with slotted centre cap.</td></tr></tbody></table><div>With the shutter release removed, the camera's top plate can be taken off, and, as mentioned, kept upright with the screws in their holes at either end. Underneath the top plate, loose, but on the shutter release pin, is a short arm that has the screw fitting for the cable release slot on the top plate. This can be simply lifted off.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51964006417/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51964006417_91ab201553.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shutter release pin with cable release arm</td></tr></tbody></table><div>At this point, although separate from the top plate, I removed the film advance knob. This is best seen in the image above showing how I originally disabled the mechanism: slightly off centre in the middle of the knob is a tiny screw–very easy to loose!–which needs to be unscrewed before the advance knob itself can be unscrew: the two images below show it positioned for unexposed ('O') and exposed ('E').</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51965009286/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="356" data-original-width="500" height="356" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51965009286_a82f13cf7b.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Double-exposure prevention mechanism in 'unexposed' position 'O'.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51965009321/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="356" data-original-width="500" height="356" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51965009321_f5fec16e3f.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Double-exposure prevention mechanism in 'exposed' position 'E'.</td></tr></tbody></table><div>The sequence of how the mechanism should work from the unexposed position, through exposed to unexposed again is as follows:</div><div><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Having first cocked the shutter, as the shutter release is depressed, the shaft under the button pushes against a detent in a vertical section of the forward arm (seen below the rectangular hole around the shutter release pin in the pictures above). For this to work once the top plate is removed, I placed the shutter release button onto the shutter release pin (this did not need to be fixed with the central screw plate to activate the mechanism).</li><li>This pushes the forward arm down and away from the front of the camera: the right hand end of the arm is held in tension by a spring. This downward movement releases a small angled catch at the end of the arm which can then slip past a vertical section of the lower or rear arm, and is pulled taut past this vertical piece by the spring. A section of the detent on the forward arm is now underneath the shutter release button shaft, preventing its depression, and thus preventing double exposure.</li><li>Simultaneously, the other end of the forward arm travels under the viewfinder to the left side of the mechanism where it pulls on a linkage to move the double-exposure indicator from 'O' to 'E'. This also causes a flat pin to protrude towards the film advance knob.</li><li>To reset the mechanism, the film advance knob needs to be rotated. Under the advance knob (now removed), there is a kind of cap which sits over the shaft of the film advance column (which travels through the top of the camera body to the take-up spool inside). This has two arms either side with downward pointing ends.</li><li>As the advance knob rotates, one of these arms pushes the flat pin of the indicator linkage towards the back of the camera body and in doing so this pulls the forward arm to slip its small catch over the vertical section of the rear arm. This pulls the detent away from the shutter release button shaft. The shutter can now be tripped again.</li><li>Meanwhile the indicator linkage shifts from 'E' back to 'O' and the flat pin of the linkage slips out from the arm of the film advance cap and springs back to a position where the advance can now rotate freely without connecting with the pin.</li></ol><div>With the camera top plate removed, turning the cap that would normally be hidden by the advance knob was pushing the flat pin in the indicator linkage, shifting the position from 'E' to 'O', but once released from the pressure of the arm, the mechanism sprang back to 'E', My initial thought was that the spring on the other end of the forward arm no longer held this in sufficient tension–hardly surprising after sixty-odd years–to pull it firmly back into the 'O' position, and the small catch at that end was loose enough to slip back past the upright which should stop it.</div></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51965009391/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51965009391_9a116f10ca.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Detail of spring, catch and hook</td></tr></tbody></table>I stretched a couple of loops of the spring over the hook to which it is attached to increase the tension, then reduced it to one loop as this felt too much. This did not solve the issue; I wondered whether it was the spring at the other end under the indicator linkage, but this is slightly more difficult to access. Manipulating the whole linkage here by hand, it looked as though the flat pin on the linkage did not travel far enough to lock this into the 'O' position. Removing the cap on the film advance column, I tried to bend the ends of the two arms so that these would flare slightly outwards, as in the picture below (I didn't take a 'before' photo). This seemed to have solved the problem: in this position, they push the flat pin of the indicator linkage further towards the back of the camera as they rotate, and the linkage now locks into the 'O' position until the shutter is released.<div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51965565115/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="346" data-original-width="500" height="277" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51965565115_7f9989d097.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cap with arms showing adjusted angle</td></tr></tbody></table>Reassembly is a case of following the disassembly steps backwards: the cap should sit firmly over the advance column–the hole on top has squared-off ends in order to turn the advance, which correspond with the top of the film advance. Replacing the film advance knob, I found I needed to firmly hold the key inside the camera which sits in the end of the 120 film spool with pliers to screw the knob on tightly enough to get the two halves of the tiny screw hole to match so that the screw can be reinserted. Replacing the top plate merely needs the tiny arm for the cable release positioning correctly before reinserting the screws at both ends, then finally replacing the shutter button on its pin and screwing down the small plate at its centre to secure this. Before reassembly, I also polished the indicator plate, somewhat tarnished, particularly over the letter 'O'.</div><div><div><br /><div><br /></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1573193546035756071.post-56163578268199638872022-03-07T20:15:00.000+00:002022-03-07T20:15:00.629+00:00Agfa Agfamatic 4008 tele pocket sensor<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51887984904/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="375" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51887984904_4567f86f4d.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Agfa Agfamatic 4008 tele pocket sensor</td></tr></tbody></table>
Thanks to Lomography's reintroduction and support of 110 film, this subminiature drop-in, cartridge load format–despite all its drawbacks–is not obsolete as it once was, and looked to remain, at some point in the 2000s when Kodak and Fuji stopped making 110 film. Early last year, during a period of pandemic restrictions, I found myself looking at Agfa's range of 110 cameras from the 1970s again. I had used the <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2017/09/agfa-optima-6000-pocket-sensor.html" target="">Agfa Optima 6000 Pocket Sensor camera</a> for a while, but had ultimately sold it on; looking back to that post, I realise that I'd only used reloaded 110 cartridges with the camera, and no new 110 film. This was partly, I think, due to having never been quite satisfied with Lomography's black and white Orca film when I'd used it before–as well as not using colour film, leaving unexplored other film options with the camera. <br /><p>In my post on the Optima 6000 pocket sensor I'd written a bit about Agfa's enthusiastic embrace of the 110 format, but neglected to mention Agfa's approach to <i>design</i> in the 1970s: this, I suspect, is part of the reason for the appeal of their cameras, and mention should be made of Agfa's employment of the Schlagheck & Schultes Design studio. Alfred Klomp, <a href="http://cameras.alfredklomp.com/optima1535/" target="_blank">writing about the Optima Sensor cameras</a>, sums it up thus:</p>
<blockquote>"...the Agfa Optima marks the end of the engineer's era and the onset of the industrial designer's. Around the time of the Optima series, industrial design became a serious factor in consumer products. Flatly technical solutions didn't cut it anymore, because with increasing competition on price, manufacturers couldn't afford to disregard their users's experience. Had camera manufacturing always been the realm of the small mechanical industry, now the factories discovered that it was profitable to listen to consumers. Hence the industrial design approach. [...]<br /><br />I think Agfa's idea was to design a line of cameras without reference to any mechanical heritage or past. They emancipated the camera as something technical/mechanical and gave it to the users as a friendly household instrument."</blockquote>
<div>Regardless of precisely whatever it was that drew me back to Agfa's 110 cameras, online, I found a fairly inexpensive <b>Agfamatic 4008 tele pocket sensor</b>. The 4000 models are towards the upper end of Agfa's range, with features that put them fairly above the usual 110 box-camera equivalents (usually a fixed focus lens, one or two aperture settings, and/or one or two shutter speeds), but below the 5000 and 6000 cameras. This also makes the 4000 cameras shorter than the 5000 and 6000s, with the Agfamatic 4008 tele pocket sensor 12cm long when closed, compared to the 6000 at 13.2cm. </div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51886691952/" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51886691952_4d36b6847a.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Front view, opened for use</td></tr></tbody></table>
<div>The first iteration, the 4000 model, takes flash cubes; this was updated to take a flip-flash, and named 4008 (presumably the eight in the name stands for the eight bulbs in the flip-flash unit). The final version of the camera from 1975 has 'tele pocket' appended to its name, and, as this suggests, it features an additional telephoto lens, and is also a little longer in the body than the other 4000 models (there was also a later 4000 flash pocket model). Having been unable to find a manual for the tele pocket version of the Agfamatic 4008, there is conflicting information online about its precise technical specifications. Many sites describe it as being 'the same' as the Agfamatic 4008 pocket sensor with the addition of the telephoto lens: the <a href="http://www.submin.com/110/manuals/agfa/index.htm" target="_blank">4008 pocket version manual</a> states a shutter speed range of 1/500th to 30 seconds; the lens is not described, but online, this is given as a 26mm f6.3 Color Apotar name. For the 4008 tele pocket model, <a href="http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Agfamatic_4008_pocket_sensor" target="_blank">Camera-Wiki</a> gives an aperture of f5.6 with a focal length of 27mm (the additional lens being 47mm and f5.6) and a shutter speed range of 1/1000th to 15 seconds - but having timed the longest exposure (with the shutter closing again–see comments about night photography below), this is 30 seconds. Apart from the telephoto lens however, it <i>is</i> a different camera from the non-tele 4008: notably, the focus scale itself is different (which might suggest the possibility of a different lens) close focus being 1.2 metres; the sliding focus scale has markings at distances from 1.5, 2, 3, 5, and infinity. The non-tele model has just three settings with pictograms for 5m-infinity (a mountain), 2-5m (two people) and 1-2m (one person): on the other side of this scale, it's marked 4, 2, 1 metres for flash. Intriguingly, the <a href="http://apphotnum.free.fr/Agfamatic1-e.html" target="_blank">Apphotnum website</a> describes the Agfamatic 4008 tele pocket as a <a name="A4008T"><p style="display: inline;">"special model based on 4008 but with some elements borrowed to 5008 and 6008"–without stating what those elements are. Given the slightly more detailed focus scale on the 4008 tele pocket model</p></a><a name="A4008T"><p style="display: inline;">, one might speculate that this <i>might</i> be helpful for more accurately focussing a slightly faster lens, especially as the aperture is fixed </p></a><a name="A4008T"><p style="display: inline;">(the sliding scale is also longer–allowing for more accurate intermediate positions)</p></a><a name="A4008T"><p style="display: inline;">; in addition, having a slightly faster lens <i>might</i> also call for a higher top speed of 1/1000th (as well as a shorter long exposure limit) - however, without knowing the true specifications this is just speculation. </p></a>Although neither f6.3 nor f5.6 is especially fast, either would be a large improvement on simpler 110 cameras which commonly feature f9, f11 or smaller aperture fixed focus lenses. </div><div><br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51887654346/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51887654346_b50f39906a.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Top view showing focus slider, cable release thread, telephoto lens selector, <br />flipflash socket and sensor shutter release</td></tr></tbody></table><div>
As can be seen from the image above, most of the user controls are located on the top right of the camera, easily accessible by fingers on the user's right hand: the big orange sensor shutter release, the focus slider and selector for the telephoto lens. This switches between the normal lens, behind the shutter, to the telephoto lens, which swings in front of the shutter. The viewfinder also changes, with an additional hinged component for the wider-angle view that the normal lens requires. There is a cable release socket between the focus scale and shutter release, useful given the camera's impressive shutter speed range–whether this runs from 1/500th to 30 seconds, or from 1/1000th to 15 seconds. Partially depressing the shutter button, a red light inside the viewfinder shows as a long exposure warning if exposure is below 1/30th. The manual for the non-tele version of the 4008 also describes holding a finger over the small CDS meter and partially depressing the button for a battery check. The viewfinder itself has a simple frame outline with a single mark for parallax. On the bottom of the camera is a sliding catch to unlock the camera for opening; typically, frame advance is by opening and closing the camera. The catch on the bottom can be put in the 'close' position while the camera is open, which means that when the camera is pushed into the closed position, it locks closed, rather than (for example) having to hold the camera closed and then sliding the catch back to lock it. To load the camera, a small sliding catch releases the back of the camera. </div><div><br />
<div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51886692032/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51886692032_ec5220e662.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Battery cover opened, showing LR44 instead of V625U batteries</td></tr></tbody></table><div>
The camera takes two V625U batteries, hidden behind the name and model number panel on the front of the camera, with a subtle finger grip to slide this open. I tried two LR44 button cell batteries when I first received the camera, and these seem to work perfectly well, and, despite being a slightly different shape from the V625U, the nature of the battery compartment design with two angled, sprung contacts, secures these without any need to adapt them (such as with a washer or other spacer that would need to be conductive). Incidentally, the shutter will not open to expose film without batteries inserted, although there's clearly both a mechanical element as well as an electronic one to the shutter: pressing the shutter release without batteries inserted does trip the shutter–which appears to be a guillotine-type–and one blade can be seen replacing another, which makes a noise, deceptive perhaps, and the film can be advanced to cock the shutter again–but the lens remains covered.</div></div></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51886692042/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51886692042_efeeaa74b4.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Detail of accessory shoe, wrist strap and tripod socket</td></tr></tbody></table><div>
One final feature on the camera is its accessory shoe, which can be used to mount the dedicated Agfalux 400T electronic flash unit, with a cable that plugs into the flipflash socket; the accessory shoe is also used to attach the wrist strap, which fixes into a plastic tab via a screw fitting inserted into the accessory shoe: this doubles as a tripod socket.</div><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51891719199/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="379" data-original-width="499" height="304" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51891719199_21f302e6d6.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Agfamatic 4008 with Lomography Orca film</td></tr></tbody></table>
I first used the Agfamatic 4008 during the period of restrictions early in 2021 while still working from home, but leaving the house for exercise, walking and cycling. I tested the camera with some reloaded 16mm film to make sure everything worked, and then shot cartridges of both Lomography Orca film and expired Fukkatsu black and white film. The Fukkatsu film had a "PROCCESS [sic] BEFORE" date of 2018, and is marked 100 ISO–but is packaged in a cartridge with a high film speed tab. This isn't an important concern for many simple 110 format cameras which do not sense the film speed but, for those which do–like the Agfamatic 4008–the film would therefore be underexposed. When Kodak designed the 110 cartridge, they included the possibility of indicating film speed by the length of the tab at one end of the cartridge, without specifying what ISO these referred to, leaving it to camera manufacturers to designate: essentially there is a low ISO cartridge tab (long) and a high ISO tab (short). There's very little information online about Fukkatsu films (it's not listed on the Massive Dev Chart; the box does state "PROCCESS [sic] D-76/ID-11" but without any times), and certainly no times for a two-stop push, and, as a result, this was left on a shelf undeveloped for months.<p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51887985194/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51887985194_88f9ecaaca.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fukkatsu 110 Black & White Film</td></tr></tbody></table>In late December, looking for a camera and some film to put in a pocket for a cycle ride, I went back to the Agfamatic 4008; I had a cartridge of Lomography Orca film, but, as the light levels were low, with short days of overcast weather, I cut the film speed tab on the Orca cartridge to expose it as a high speed film. When it came to developing the Orca film, like the Fukkatsu film, the Massive Dev Chart wasn't much help in terms of times, with only entries for Orca at box speed in Rodinal, my preferred developer. I used Adox Adonal (a Rodinal clone) at a dilution of 1+25 for 14 minutes at 20ºC, an educated guess for a two-stop push. I also loaded the tank with the roll of Fukkatsu film shot earlier in the year just to see what the results were with the same development time as the Orca film. Incidentally, the Fukkatsu cartridge came apart very easily after scoring with a knife, to remove the film in the dark. I've used Lomography Orca before, but have generally been underwhelmed by the film in the past; when scanning the negatives after pushing the film, I was pleasantly surprised by the results.<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51891718579/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51891718579_620857292a.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lomography Orca film, pushed two stops</td></tr></tbody></table>The estimated development time worked well enough, and the film scanned quite easily; any increase in contrast was not especially discernible given the low-level, low-contrast lighting conditions. Ultimately, the Lomography Orca film when pushed gave the best results with the camera, and I'd certainly expose and develop the film in this way in future. The extended development time also worked for the Fukkatsu film exposed months earlier.<div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51891470273/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="377" data-original-width="500" height="302" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51891470273_e8c07b8ecc.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fukkatsu B&W film, pushed two stops</td></tr></tbody></table>
For a second roll of the Fukkatsu film, I wanted to expose it at the right exposure index, so needed a way for the camera to recognise the cassette as being a low ISO film. As a simple expedient, I cut a short length from a wooden skewer and taped it at the bottom of the tab, which would connect to the button inside the camera. <div><br /><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51887739378/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51887739378_766b9594ea.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fukkatsu 110 cartridges, front cartridge (left) modified for low film speed</td></tr></tbody></table>
When I developed this roll, I found that the focus seemed a little off on many of the frames. This could have been user error, but there were a few shots that would have been set to infinity focus (such as in the image below), and these were very soft. I suspect that the piece of wood taped to the cassette end upset the lens-to-film plane distance a small amount, being a little thicker than the cassette on its own (as a consequence of the format's design, the tolerances of using paper-backed film inside the plastic cassette is in itself not ideal in this regard). A better approach may have been to simply reload the film into a properly-tabbed 110 cartridge.<p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51891718969/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="381" data-original-width="500" height="305" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51891718969_4e7a876868.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fukkatsu B&W film at box speed</td></tr></tbody></table>
I also used some Kodak Plus-X, reloaded into a slow-film speed tabbed cassette. Like many 110 cameras, the Agfamatic 4008 does need the format's single perforation for each frame: reloading the cassette with double perforated 16mm film means that the internal pin locates each perforation, preventing the film from advancing any further, so, to avoid overlapping exposures, a second 'blank' shot needs to be taken to advance the film sufficiently. With unperforated film, the camera's lens does not cock, and the film will wind all the way through without stopping.<br /></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51891380671/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="349" data-original-width="500" height="279" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51891380671_679e05b216.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kodak Plus-X in reloaded 110 cartridge</td></tr></tbody></table>Using double perforated film, the perforations do show prominently at the top and bottom of the frame. I did get some overlapping exposures, and some in which I did not cover the lens enough when making the second exposure. Reloading 110 cartridges with 16mm film does make use of the whole negative area, without the pre-exposed frames of the 110 format; with single perforated film, and with cropping these out, very little of the image area would be lost in relation to a pre-exposed 110 frame.</div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51892036330/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="380" data-original-width="500" height="304" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51892036330_c97a942782.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Long exposure with Lomography Orca film (pushed two stops)</td></tr></tbody></table>
Given the Agfamatic 4008's shutter speed range, I wanted to test long exposures with the camera. With relatively low light, this seemed to work pretty well: I made some test exposures at night, under moderately low interior lighting, placing the camera on a table for stability rather than a tripod, and could hear the lens open and close with exposures measured in seconds, as in the image above; taking photographs outside at night with the camera, I found that the shutter stayed open. This may <i>possibly</i> be intentional, an effective 'B' setting if the exposure is longer than 30 seconds, but the shutter only closes when advancing the film–which is very hard, if not impossible to do without moving the camera and this showing up in the resulting image, as seen below with the light trails (there is also a small amount of camera shake). However, with care, it is possible to get sufficiently good night shots with the Agfamatic 4008 as seen in the second image below.</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51891380736/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="376" data-original-width="500" height="301" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51891380736_d350f8708a.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Long exposure with Lomography Orca film at box speed</td></tr></tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51890420687/" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="381" data-original-width="500" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51890420687_09660cbe34.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Long exposure with Fukkatsu B&W film at box speed</td></tr></tbody></table>
The one feature of the Agfamatic 4008 tele pocket sensor I've left to last is the telephoto lens: on my camera, selecting this simply resulted in out of focus images, as in the comparison of the two frames below. Initially I did wonder whether, when engaging this lens, the camera's focus lever had to be set at <i>different</i> distances from the normal lens, but there are no markings for this, which one would expect if this was intentional. Despite the possibility of an effective 'B' setting as described above, it's impossible to keep the shutter open to check how the focus works with the telephoto lens: ideally, one could use tape in the back of the open camera and a loupe, but, having tried covering the light sensor to get the shutter to stick open, it still closes again shortly afterwards if it's in an environment bright enough to be able to examine the camera.<div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51891719209/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="376" data-original-width="499" height="301" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51891719209_95403a2d14.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lomography Orca film (box speed) with normal lens</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51890420812/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="378" data-original-width="500" height="302" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51890420812_42febf31d8.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lomography Orca film (box speed) with telephoto lens</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>The out of focus telephoto lens is a bit of a puzzle: sliding the focus scale, the telephoto lens clearly moves with the scale, but there does not appear to be any means to adjust the lens itself. It's possible that the telephoto lens in my camera may have always been out of registration, but, short of taking it apart to investigate, this is unknowable (the camera doesn't have any damage to suggest a significant knock or drop which might have caused such a problem). Putting aside the unusable telephoto lens, the camera itself is one of the better 110 cameras around (even without the telephoto lens, the more accurate focussing scale might make it preferable to the standard 4008 model), and Agfamatics of all kinds seem to be very plentiful on the secondhand market. It's clearly not in the same league as the Pentax 110 Auto, but still a good camera for a once all-but-obsolete film format which, unlikely as it seems, is still catered for in 2022. </div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51892036400/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="381" data-original-width="500" height="381" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51892036400_559c2db9c5.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Agfa Agfamatic 4008 tele pocket sensor with Fukkatsu B&W film at box speed</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51891380056/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="381" data-original-width="500" height="381" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51891380056_53b33f66ca.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Agfa Agfamatic 4008 tele pocket sensor with Fukkatsu B&W film at box speed<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51892036745/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="379" data-original-width="499" height="379" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51892036745_fa4f9553fb.jpg" width="499" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Agfa Agfamatic 4008 tele pocket sensor with Lomography Orca at box speed</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51890420827/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="378" data-original-width="500" height="378" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51890420827_0ba21fef28.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Agfa Agfamatic 4008 tele pocket sensor with Lomography Orca at box speed<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51892036735/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="349" data-original-width="500" height="349" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51892036735_d1e472a08e.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Agfa Agfamatic 4008 tele pocket sensor with Plus-X</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51891718569/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="349" data-original-width="500" height="349" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51891718569_4d4038f410.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Agfa Agfamatic 4008 tele pocket sensor with Plus-X</td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51891718529/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="375" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51891718529_f32bf8416a.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Agfa Agfamatic 4008 tele pocket sensor with push-processed Fukkatsu B&W film</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51891719129/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="376" data-original-width="499" height="376" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51891719129_72f04decb5.jpg" width="499" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Agfa Agfamatic 4008 tele pocket sensor with push-processed Fukkatsu B&W film<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51891469628/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="378" data-original-width="500" height="378" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51891469628_d1d92ae9cc.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Agfa Agfamatic 4008 tele pocket sensor with push-processed Lomography Orca film<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51891380211/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="378" data-original-width="500" height="378" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51891380211_248b931af5.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Agfa Agfamatic 4008 tele pocket sensor with push-processed Lomography Orca film<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51890420142/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="378" data-original-width="500" height="378" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51890420142_98a8a86e21.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Agfa Agfamatic 4008 tele pocket sensor with push-processed Lomography Orca film<br /></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p> </p><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sources/further reading:</span></div><div><a href="http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Agfamatic_4008_pocket_sensor"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Agfamatic 4008 tele pocket sensor on Camera-Wiki</span></a></div><div><a href="http://apphotnum.free.fr/Agfamatic1-e.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Agfamatic range on Apphotnum</span></a></div><div><a href="https://www.aperturepreview.com/agfamatic-4008-pocket-sensor"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Aperturepreview review of the non-tele version of the Agfamatic 4008 pocket sensor</span></a></div><div><a href="http://www.submin.com/110/collection/agfa110/" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Agfa 110 cameras on Submin.com</span></a></div><div><a href="http://www.subclub.org/shop/agfa110.htm"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Agfa 110 cameras on Subclub.org</span></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><p></p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1573193546035756071.post-88119557814770510872022-01-30T18:35:00.002+00:002022-01-30T18:36:36.691+00:00127 Day January 2022<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51852577884/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="384" data-original-width="500" height="384" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51852577884_c308bba547.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Zeiss Ikon Ikonta 520/18 with Ilford HP5 Plus</td></tr></tbody></table>As I wrote in my entry for <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2021/12/127-day-december-2021.html">December's 127 Day</a>, I rarely miss the opportunity of shooting 127 format cameras on the calendrical 127 days, and last Thursday's January iteration was no exception. It was however a working day, and in addition, the day began very dull and overcast, with very low light levels on the way to work shortly after sunrise–not dissimilar to the weather in December. I used the <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-baby-ikonta.html">Baby Ikonta</a> again, which has a moderately wide aperture lens at f3.5, compared to other 127 format cameras which I might have chosen had the weather been better. Partly as a result of the low light levels I took very few pictures on the way to work; then, with a busy day at work, I took fewer photographs than I might have done, just one roll of <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2015/07/making-film-slitter.html">cut-down</a> <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2012/08/ilford-hp5-plus.html">Ilford HP5 Plus</a>, but the light did improve later in the day as the clouds cleared, and I made use of this, taking a few frames around windows before the light went. Had the day remained overcast, I might have been tempted to develop the film to compensate by adding a stop to increase contrast (I'd estimated exposure with reference to the 'Sunny 16' rule) but I went with box speed after the light improved, using Adox Adonal diluted 1+25 for 6 minutes at 20ºC.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51852907170/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="386" data-original-width="500" height="386" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51852907170_d7fd6d5354.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51852577769/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="387" data-original-width="500" height="387" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51852577769_5e33b9c387.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51852577854/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="386" data-original-width="500" height="386" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51852577854_e00ef7f7aa.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51851286852/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="386" data-original-width="500" height="386" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51851286852_e992f88cd9.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51852907300/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="386" data-original-width="500" height="386" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51852907300_e824e033a2.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51852907460_a0bb487f93.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="387" data-original-width="500" height="387" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51852907460_a0bb487f93.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51852326918/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="388" height="500" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51852326918_3600d7c633.jpg" width="388" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1573193546035756071.post-10055118075663760702021-12-24T21:14:00.001+00:002021-12-26T11:30:46.746+00:00Rollei Ortho 25 plus - single roll review<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51766321458/" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="370" data-original-width="499" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51766321458_d9939e9c6b.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rollei Ortho 25 plus in 35mm</td></tr></tbody></table>
<blockquote>"Although panchromatic films are used for nearly all general photography today, we should avoid prejudice against other emulsions since they may have practical and aesthetic applications. Both orthochromatic and blue-sensitive films are usually capable of higher contrast than panchromatic film. An orthochromatic film can be quite luminous in rendering foliage in the landscape since the foliage green is rendered relatively light, comparable to our visual response; caution must be exercised if the subject contains red-reflecting surfaces such as certain rocks, tree bark, and flowers, since these will be rendered quite dark. It can also be used in portraiture, where it will emphasise skin features such as lips and freckles, and darken (sometimes excessively) a ruddy complexion." <br /><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ansel Adams, <i>The Negative</i></span></div></blockquote><p>Orthochromatic film has seen something of an (admittedly niche) increase in popularity in recent years, most notably with Ilford releasing its Ortho Plus in both 35mm and medium format after many years of only being available in sheet film sizes. My experiences with other orthochromatic emulsions, such as <a href="https://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2013/06/rollei-ato-21.html">Rollei ATO 2.1 Supergraphic</a> and <a href="https://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2012/04/kodagraph-ortho-negative-film.html">Kodagraph Ortho Negative film</a> has often been one of attempting to tame their inherent high contrast to use the films for pictorial purposes, unlike the graphic arts applications that these were formulated for; other experiences with more general purpose orthochromatic camera films, such as the original <a href="https://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2014/05/kodak-verichrome-and-naming-of.html">Kodak Verichrome</a>, <a href="https://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2020/07/116-day-june-2020.html">Ilford Selochrome Fast Ortho</a> and various glass plates, all involved using photographic material which was many decades old, where achieving any result in and of itself was far more important a consideration than the aesthetics of an orthochromatic rendering of a scene, thus negating, as Ansel Adams describes, the reasons one might favour orthochromatic over panchromatic film.</p><p>In my post on the <a href="https://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2021/06/lomography-berlin-kino-400-single-roll.html">Lomography Berlin Kino film</a>, nearly six months ago now, I wrote of the #ShittyCameraChallenge prize I'd received (sponsored by David Walster - <a href="https://twitter.com/196photo">@196photo on Twitter</a>), four different rolls of 35mm black and white film, none of which I'd used before. I also wrote about how I usually like to test films a little more fully before writing about them, but given the four all very different emulsions, I thought I might post 'single roll' reviews of these particular films. Towards the end of August, I shot the <b>Rollei Ortho 25 plus</b> with my <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2020/02/voigtlander-vito-b.html">Voigtländer Vito B</a>. I chose this camera as I thought that its lens might be a sympathetic fit to the look of an orthographic emulsion, although this is probably too nuanced to really matter that much. Despite my best intentions, after developing the film languished until such time that I had to scan it and work over the digital images (generally, just spotting and adjusting levels). My previous use of other ortho films (as well as other slow films) gave me some idea of what to expect–or so I thought. I actually loaded the film under red safelight conditions in an attempt to get as many frames as possible from the roll, so as not to expose the start of the roll, pulling out enough film to secure the end to the take-up spool. The <a href="https://www.rolleianalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/ORTHO25PLUS_Datenblatt_EN_R012101.pdf" target="_blank">data sheet for Rollei Ortho 25 plus</a> does state that "blue-green sensitivity allows the film to be handled under red
darkroom lighting" but also under 'Laboratory Lighting': "The film can be processed in absolute darkness and should not be
exposed to sunlight or darkroom lighting!" Presumably this refers to amber safelights rather than dark red. In the event, I got 39 frames on the 36-exposure roll, possibly not worth the extra effort.</p><p>After I developed the film and scanned the negatives, the results were more grainy than I had anticipated (for a 25 ISO film in comparison to other slow films I've used; clearly its nothing like a typical 400 ISO film). This may have been due to some overdevelopment and possibly some over-exposure (the grain is particularly prominent in the sky). Possibly some of this might be scanner noise, which I do find happens with dense negatives on my desktop scanner. I used Rodinal (as Ars Imago #9) to develop the film; possibly I should have used a higher dilution of 1+50 instead of 1+25 (the data sheet recommends Rollei Supergrain developer, not one I've ever used). Rodinal should work well with a slow film in theory: looking at other examples online, there does seem to be a range in terms of how fine the grain appears. Ideally, I'd like to print from the negatives in the darkroom, but my use of a darkroom for printing has somewhat been curtailed by the pandemic.</p><p>As most of the photographs were taken outside, often with a fair bit of sky in the frame, I did shoot a few frames with a yellow filter for comparison against those without (there was probably as much grey sky during the August of 2021 as there was blue). Generally, the sky has a 'soft' look to it, picking up more definition than I might have expected given the excess of blue light, but the use of a yellow filter does improve this: in the images below, the one with the filter really picks out the satellite dish against the darker sky on the distant building; at the same time it also makes some of the foliage lighter, with the tree in the middle of the frame appearing oddly washed out. I may have overcompensated in the exposure when using the yellow filter. I also feel the necessity of having a colour image here to really see exactly how the orthochromatic emulsion renders certain colours into tones.</p>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51758454117/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="325" data-original-width="500" height="260" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51758454117_11f9dd07fe.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Voigtländer Vito B with Rollei Ortho 25 plus - without filter</td></tr></tbody></table><p>
</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51758454097/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="325" data-original-width="500" height="260" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51758454097_36fa153289.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Voigtländer Vito B with Rollei Ortho 25 plus - with yellow filter</td></tr></tbody></table>
<p>Without a filter, bright summer clouds in a blue sky do begin to blend together,giving the soft look I described as in the example below. I would have liked to have tried more of a range of filters than I did: the data sheet lists yellow, orange, and red filters: to be listed, I imagine that a red filter would still transmit enough of the spectrum that the film is sensitive enough to record.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51759937069/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="318" data-original-width="499" height="255" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51759937069_c1fc935167.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Voigtländer Vito B with Rollei Ortho 25 plus - no filter</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Some of the frames with particularly localised areas of strong highlights appear to show some halation, as in the images below. This may be due to the Vito B's lens, although this isn't something I've really noticed before and the Color-Skopar on the camera is coated. This isn't an unpleasant artefact, but worth being aware of when shooting–in so much as it may be an effect to seek out. A comparison with shooting the film in a different camera with a more modern lens might be useful here, but outside the scope of this post. Incidentally, all the photographs I took with the film were handheld, mostly outside on bright days where the 25 ISO speed was not and issue–the interior shot below was quite well lit from the window.</p>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51759525173/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="328" data-original-width="499" height="263" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51759525173_20bd5dfc50.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Voigtländer Vito B with Rollei Ortho 25 plus</td></tr></tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51759524913/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="325" data-original-width="500" height="260" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51759524913_f36b7d3ebf.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Voigtländer Vito B with Rollei Ortho 25 plus<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>I didn't use the film for any portraits, so I can't specifically relate this use to part of what Ansel Adams writes about as regards portraiture. One subject that the film might be apt for could be architecture perhaps: rendering colour into equivalent tones may not be that necessary, and the slow speed of the film is less of a consideration than any potentially moving subjects. I did take a number of photographs which featured brickwork, and it would have been interesting to see how the ortho film rendered <i>red</i> bricks, but these are all yellow London stock bricks in the images below (in the third image, the wall of the house in the background is red brick though: the mortar stands out quite well against the bricks and just possibly this is enhanced by being rendered by orthographic film). </p>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51759525218/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="328" data-original-width="499" height="263" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51759525218_578d8ac607.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Voigtländer Vito B with Rollei Ortho 25 plus</td></tr></tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51760148795/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="318" data-original-width="500" height="254" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51760148795_e713d0e4d9.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Voigtländer Vito B with Rollei Ortho 25 plus</td></tr></tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51759284836/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="325" data-original-width="500" height="260" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51759284836_12db14dfff.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Voigtländer Vito B with Rollei Ortho 25 plus</td></tr></tbody></table>
<p>From using a single roll of Rollei Ortho 25 plus, I don't feel as though I've sufficiently tested the films capabilities: it would be useful to compare the results with the same subjects shot with panchromatic film, to try different developers, experiment more with filters, and print from the negatives, rather than simply scanning from them, as is the case with this post. It would be interesting to compare it to Ilford Ortho Plus too, a slightly faster orthographic film. Rollei Ortho 25 plus is also available in both medium format rollfilm and large format sheet film (according to the data sheet, in 4x5, 5x7, and 8x10 inch sizes) and I can imagine that it would be worth trying the film out in other sizes as well as the other approaches outlined above.</p><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51759524733/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="318" data-original-width="499" height="318" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51759524733_5ca201e4fd.jpg" width="499" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51760148285/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="328" data-original-width="499" height="328" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51760148285_5d8c071d31.jpg" width="499" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51760148375/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="328" data-original-width="499" height="328" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51760148375_e00590d10d.jpg" width="499" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51758454662/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="305" data-original-width="500" height="305" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51758454662_de2eca376e.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51759525483/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="305" data-original-width="500" height="305" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51759525483_ba03fa9c49.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51760148850/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="322" data-original-width="500" height="322" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51760148850_cefd46d328.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div>
<p><span style="font-size: x-small;">
Sources/further reading
<br /><a href="https://www.rolleianalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/ORTHO25PLUS_Datenblatt_EN_R012101.pdf" target="_blank">Rollei Ortho 25 plus data sheet</a> (PDF)
<br /><a href="https://filmphotographylondon.wordpress.com/2018/01/25/first-try-with-rollei-ortho-25/" target="_blank">Rollei Ortho 25 plus on Film Photography London</a>
<br /><a href="https://bluemooncameracodex.com/film-fridays/ffrolleiortho" target="_blank">Rollei Ortho 25 plus on Blue Moon Camera Codex</a>
<br /><a href="http://www.alexluyckx.com/blog/index.php/2018/04/10/ccrfrb-review-10-rollei-ortho-25-plus/">Rollei Ortho 25 plus Alex Luyckx Blog</a>
<br>Ansel Adams, <i>The Camera</i>, Little, Brown and Company, New York 1980, twelfth paperback printing, 2005.</span></div><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1573193546035756071.post-56322033542615120452021-12-08T20:13:00.004+00:002021-12-08T20:13:44.015+00:00127 Day December 2021<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51732859787/" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="351" data-original-width="500" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51732859787_70684e037f.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Zeiss Ikon Ikonta 520/18 with Ilford HP5 Plus</span></td></tr></tbody></table>I haven't posted very much on this blog for the last few months, for various reasons, but I didn't want to miss observing <b>127 Day</b> yesterday, and I did also have the time to develop and scan the negatives, not wanting to add to a backlog of half-written blog posts or unresolved tests of films and cameras. I shot one whole roll of cut-down <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2012/08/ilford-hp5-plus.html">Ilford HP5 Plus</a>, and a couple of short rolls of off-cuts from having previously cut down medium format HP5 to 127. I chose the <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-baby-ikonta.html">Baby Ikonta</a> in order to get as many shots from the film as possible, with the nominal 3x4.5cm negative format (and, with a little care, on a whole roll of 127 film with the Baby Ikonta one can get 17 pictures rather than the 16 numbered frames). I revisited a number of the shots that I'd taken in this summer's <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2021/07/127-day-july-2021.html">127 Day in July</a> (although not using the <a href="http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2016/07/vest-pocket-autographic-kodak.html">Vest Pocket Kodak</a> due to its light leaks); the weather condition were less conducive than the overcast July day then, with very flat and dull light and increasing rain. I did consider pushing the film one stop in development to increase contrast, but went with the standard time for box speed as I'd taken quite a few shots with the sky featuring rather prominently, and I thought that this might make any definition in the sky even more difficult to pull out. The results were very much as I would have expected given the lighting conditions, and even with a 400-speed film I did shoot with wider apertures than I might have liked for the Baby Ikonta's Novar lens, but for a ninety-year-old triplet lens, it performs well enough.<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51732860137/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="382" data-original-width="500" height="382" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51732860137_85ac80e907.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51733685626/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="386" data-original-width="500" height="386" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51733685626_361bdff2cc.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasmiddleton/51733685241/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="386" data-original-width="500" height="386" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51733685241_025beb91d9.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0