Revisiting the Micro 110

Micro 110 camera with reloaded 110 cartridge

Having previously used the Micro 110 camera two years ago for the #shittycamerachallenge in June 2018, when the current three-month June to August 'Quarantine Special' challange was announced, I thought I'd revisit the camera. Choosing the Micro 110 was partly due to the camera fitting the ethos of the challenge, and also as it is eminently portable. However, due to being busy with work during this period I didn't embrace the current #shittycamerachallenge as enthusiastically as I might (I had initially thought I might choose a different camera for each of the three months of the challenge, but in the event I shot most of the photos in June, then as July came around I still had a part-used cartridge in the camera, which I thought I should finish, and having loaded one more cartridge, I used that for the rest of the month into the start of August). I used 110 cartridges reloaded with 16mm Kodak Photo Instrumentation film throughout, rather than use different film stocks, and, being double perforated, the sprocket holes show up prominently in all the images.

Micro 110 with Kodak Photo Instrumentation Film

I developed the film I shot in two batches, and based on the results from the first couple of rolls once developed, I made a few changes: the initial rolls had a lot of light leaks, partly solved by using more black tape, particularly on either side of the cartridges where it met the camera body, and shielding the camera from light more carefully when advancing the film (in the image at the top of this post, there is a rubber band around one side of the cartridge, intended to block the light where the camera body meets the cartridge, but this wasn't sufficient).

Micro 110 with Kodak Photo Instrumentation Film, showing light leaks

I also changed how I was framing the photographs, realising that with the small aperture and short focal length, the camera does give a reasonable depth of focus (at least in relative terms, given the limitations of the lens), and in the second batch of photographs, I looked for compositions in which subjects were closer to the lens; the camera is hardly designed for wide expansive views. I was also more conscious that with using reloaded cartridges, without the pre-exposed frame that 110 film usually imposes, the frame is much wider than the rudimentary viewfinder indicates, albeit with a pronounced fall-off towards the left-hand of the frame. I did utilise this to effect in the one shot in vertical format, below, which gets darker to the foreground, but would have been more better without the light leaks.

Micro 110 with Kodak Photo Instrumentation Film

Thinking about the #shittycamerachallenge, and using the Micro 110 these past three months, although the camera is clearly so cheap and basic, perhaps it isn't truly 'shitty'; perhaps what really makes for the spirit of the challenge is a camera with at least some pretensions, but one that falls far short. I did think that the Halina 35X embodies this, in that there was an intention in its design to make an inexpensive 35mm camera with all the features one might require in such a camera, but done badly. However, I no longer have the Halina 35X; the Micro 110 by contrast is nothing other than the cheap plastic novelty that it so clearly is.

 

127 Day Summer 2020

Rolleiflex 4x4 with Kodak High Resolution Aerial Duplicating Film

For last month's 127 Day on 12th July, I used the Rolleiflex 4x4 as I had done for 2019's summer 127 Day. This time I only used Kodak High Resolution Aerial Duplicating Film, as I didn't have any medium format film to cut down to 127 for the day, and cut this to size under safelights to roll it with 127 backing paper for shooting. I took some interior shots before taking a walk with the Rolleiflex (and a tripod).

Although I have been rating the High Resolution Aerial Duplicating Film at an exposure index of 2, I did attempt a couple of shots hand-held. Given the brightness of the sunlight mid-afternoon in July, this was just possible - the shot below was taken hand-held wide open (f3.5) at 1/15th; the reason for doing this was that the tripod I was using would not give me a high enough angle, and to help steady the camera I did brace myself for the shot against some convenient street furniture, and partly, I suppose, just to show that it was possible to shoot 2 ISO hand-held. (Most of the other images on this post were shot stopped down and exposed for a few seconds with a tripod in contrast to this).

As the High Resolution Aerial Duplicating Film is blue sensitive - like photographic paper - in sunny weather with blue skies (or blue skies and brightly-lit clouds, as I had last summer's 127 Day), these tend to be overexposed and almost featureless. In the image above, the fact that the camera was pointing upwards into a very deep blue sky with a bright foreground negates this somewhat. Other shots, like that immediately below show this difficulty quite acutely; most of the photographs I took on the day were framed to avoid including much or any sky in the image.

Having used the High Resolution Aerial Duplicating Film a fair bit more in recent months, I feel I've begun to understand how to handle it to get the best pictorial results (a purpose of which the film is not intended for). When I was first testing the film, I found it hard to control the contrast when developing the film with conventional film developers, and, at the time, I felt it was best suited to overcast conditions in order to achieve a good range of tones - taking photographs in bright sun seemed to produce negatives with blown highlights and little shadow detail, even when using Rodinal, which I thought would be ideal for the film at high dilutions. Since I've started using the film again more recently, I've been using Ilford Multigrade print developer, at quite high dilutions, with better results. Although I framed most of the shots I took on the day to avoid including too much sky in the frame for reasons outlined above, a number of shots did have patches of sunlight amid shadows, particularly those surrounded by trees and foliage, but these highlights aren't completely devoid of detail, which I would have feared would be the case previously.

The rolls I shot on 127 Day were tray developed by inspection under safelights using the 'see-saw' method in Ilford Multigrade paper developer diluted to around 1+50 (this wasn't very exact - I had already developed a number of paper negatives and sheets of ortho film in the developer in the same session, which I had diluted at about 1+25, and, before developing the Aerial Duplicating Film, I added more water to dilute it still further). The high dilution seems to affect development time more than contrast, but this does have the effect of making development easier by slowing it down; gentle agitation was provided by the slow see-saw motion of passing the film in and out of the tray of developer until the negatives looked dense enough. As the film itself is pretty transparent, or, perhaps more precisely, translucent, before fixing, it can be held up against the safelights to examine the development fairly closely.

116 Day June 2020

Zeiss Ikon Cocarette with Kodak Verichrome Pan

Last month, as well as shooting 126 film on the twelfth for 126 Day, I also shot several rolls of 116 format film the day before for a '116 Day'. I used a Zeiss Ikon Cocarette camera: in my post on the camera I wrote about how I had made some minor (and reversible) modifications to enable the camera to take 120 medium format rollfilm. On 116 Day in June, I undid these modifications in order to shoot 116 film, rather than 120. 116 film hasn't been made for over thirty years, and all the rolls of film I shot were much older than that. My expectations for the results were that I'd get something, but even if the film's emulsions had suffered from significant deterioration, I would at least have more 116 format backing paper for rolling with 120 film.

Ilford Selochrome Fast Ortho Film, September 1952

The first roll of film that I shot on the day was Ilford Selochrome 'Fast Ortho Film', was the oldest, with a date on the box of September 1952. Rating it at an exposure index of around 10, I also bracketed the shots, which I did with most of the shots on the day. I also used a tripod for most of the shots in this post, allowing for smaller apertures as a result of using longer exposure times than I would be comfortable hand-holding, although the weather was bright on 11th June in the UK when I took the photographs. As this Selochrome film was orthochromatic (there were also panchromatic versions of Selochrome), I tray developed it by inspection (using the 'see-saw' method) in Ilford Multigrade paper developer diluted 1+30. The negatives did need more exposure despite the bracketing; while developing the film, I could see that more development was just fogging the film however. After development, to get as much as I could from the film, I used a bath of selenium toner at a dilution of 1+9 to intensify the negatives.

Zeiss Ikon Cocarette with Ilford Selochrome Fast Ortho Film

The emulsion had reacted with the backing paper, unsurprising perhaps with a 68-year old roll of film. The number markings show up in a regular pattern of dots, visible at bottom right in the image above, and across the top. Incidentally, the roll of Selochrome had a full range of 116 format numbers on the backing paper, something I've not encountered before - the usual numbers for 8 exposures at 6.5x11cm, but also 12 exposures for 6.5x6.5cm square, and 16 exposures for 5.5x6.5cm 'half-frame format'. This did of course mean that there was more printing for the emulsion to react to than other 116 backing papers (this - the film reacting to the printing on backing paper - is an issue which still plagues the odd batch of new 120 film from time to time).

616 format Kodak Plus-X, develop before October 1955

The next roll of film that I shot on the day was 616 format, not 116: 616 is to 116 what 620 was to 120. Kodak used the same film size and backing paper arrangement but on a slimmer spool, with narrower flanges at the ends. Although the winding key for the film is also smaller, the central hole in the spool itself is the same size as with 116, which means that a roll of 616 film should fit into the supply-side chamber of a 116 camera without any problems. The 616 film I shot was a roll of Kodak Plus-X with a develop before date of October 1955. However, although the box was in good condition, this film had obviously been exposed to damp: the roll was wrapped in foil, and on unwrapping, one end of the metal spool had some visible corrosion. Advancing it through the camera, the film was very stiff, and needed a fair amount of force to get this onto the second frame; it also made a worrying noise when I advanced it. When it came to developing the film, I found that, for most of its length, it had stuck to the backing paper - although fortunately to the reverse of the film, not the emulsion side. Tearing it from the backing paper in a changing bag, once the tank was loaded, I found that the inside layer of the backing paper had mostly adhered to the film: a thin layer of backing paper remained surprisingly intact - the whole length of the roll, with the frame numberings (this film had two frame sizes on its backing paper - 8 exposures for 6.5x11cm, and 16 exposures for 5.5x6.5cm).

Although the second roll shot, this was the last that I developed, and seeing the results from the two rolls of Verichrome Pan,  I stand developed the Plus-X for three hours in Ilfotec LC29 diluted 1+100, agitating at the beginning and at the half-way mark. After development, and after thorough washing, but before fixing, I took the film of the developing reel and was able to remove the backing paper with some gentle rubbing.

Zeiss Ikon Cocarette with Kodak Plus-X

Having had very low expectations of this film, there were images on it. In just a few areas, the emulsion had lifted, possibly from sticking to the backing paper (as above), and this did also have frame markings imprinted on the negatives, more clearly on some frames than others. In addition, there are what looks like some kind of water marks - I'm not sure what caused these - possibly, this might be due to developing the film while stuck to the backing paper, and the chemicals being unevenly absorbed - or, despite a thorough washing, the backing paper still had film developer absorbed into it when I removed it to clean off the paper (I did this in order that the fix wouldn't end up full of black paper fibres as a result).

Zeiss Ikon Cocarette with Kodak Plus-X

The second frame also had creases across it - this was the point beyond which the backing paper had stuck to the film, and in forcing the film to advance, I had somehow gotten a fold running across the film - this is the frame above. One crease is clearly visible on the left of the frame: there is another just right of the centre, which is less visible. With all its problems, the 616 film also did not wind very tightly when advanced, resulting in some light leaks at the end of the film.

116 format Kodak Verichrome Pan, develop before August/September 1965

The last two rolls of 116 film that I shot on the day were both Kodak Verichrome Pan: one had a develop before date of August 1965, the other September 1965. These I'd bought as a single lot online, so possibly these two rolls of film had been bought at the same time in the early sixties, and had not been separated since. I have had some good results with Verichrome Pan of different ages, although not consistently so, and as these were a decade more recent than the other films, I had hopes that the emulsion might not have deteriorated as much. Incidentally, these have just one set of frame numberings on the backing paper, as I've found with other 116 film I've used - perhaps manufacturers abandoned printing numbers for the the less common formats as time when on. When I shot the films, I didn't note which was which, and the results were different - one roll had lots of tiny pinholes in the emulsion (showing as black specks); the other much less, but this one appears to have lots of small fibres (showing as irregular white flecks) stuck to the surface of the emulsion, although this patterning may be a reaction to the backing paper again. The first roll I stand developed for one hour in Ilfotec LC29 at a dilution of 1+100; the second I increased the time to 2 hours and 30 minutes. As the first roll had rather thin negatives, I again used selenium toner to intensify the negatives - the first image below is from this roll, as well as the image at the top of this post.

Zeiss Ikon Cocarette with Kodak Verichrome Pan, showing pinholing

Zeiss Ikon Cocarette with Kodak Verichrome Pan, showing white flecks

For landscape work, I find the proportions of the 6.5x11cm frame attractive: this might be the primary reason for continuing to use 116 format cameras. Short of investing in some 70mm-wide film to respool with the backing paper, using 120 film does work well enough, as I have done previously, although this crops some of the image from the top and bottom of the frame. When the 116 format was introduced at the very end of the 19th century, negatives would usually have been contact-printed, as with the other rollfilm formats of the time, driving the demand for the relatively large negative size; I frequently use 'expired' film, and, taking into account all the inherent problems of doing so, the results of the films shot on 116 Day go some way to demonstrating the possibilities of the large 6.5x11cm frame.

Zeiss Ikon Cocarette with Ilford Selochrome Fast Ortho Film

Zeiss Ikon Cocarette with Ilford Selochrome Fast Ortho Film

Zeiss Ikon Cocarette with Kodak Plus-X

Zeiss Ikon Cocarette with Kodak Plus-X

Zeiss Ikon Cocarette with Kodak Verichrome Pan

Zeiss Ikon Cocarette with Kodak Verichrome Pan

Zeiss Ikon Cocarette with Kodak Verichrome Pan

126 Day June 2020

Kodak Instamatic 277X with Kodak Verichrome Pan

Two days ago, on the 12th, I shot some film with a Kodak Instamatic 277X to mark June's '126 Day'. Unlike 127 Day, or some of the other calendrical photography days, I'm not aware that anyone really observes a 126 Day. Reasons for this doubtless include the fact that no new 126 format film has been produced for years, although rumours of its resurrection do occasionally surface. I would not have predicted that the 110 format would reappear after the major manufacturers stopped production, so 126 film's re-emergence is not an impossibility; new 127 format rollfilm did disappear for a time, but is now more available, and the demand must in part be due to the fact that there were a number of well-designed cameras produced for the format, particularly during the popularity of the 4x4 twin lens reflex in 1950s. There were a small handful of relatively higher-specification 126 cameras, but most were simple point-and-shoot models, plastic equivalents of the box cameras of a generation before. I shot with the Instamatic 277X on 126 Day, as, although basic, it does have a relatively wide range of aperture settings and it is also better at handling perforated 35mm film loaded into original 126 cartridges than other 126 cameras I've used. I shot a couple of cartridges loaded with Ilford FP4 on the day, and wasn't quite as careful as I might have been in advancing the film, with the result of several overlapping exposures.

Kodak Instamatic 277X with Ilford FP4 Plus

Kodak Instamatic 277X with Ilford FP4 Plus

In developing the film, conversely, I was too cautious. Using Ilfotec LC29 which had been mixed from stock at a dilution of 1+9 three months earlier, I extended developing time by another minute on top of the extra time, factored for pushing it one stop, as I wasn't sure how well the developer was going to work, as the developer was looking quite discoloured. The resulting negatives were quite dense as a result, and should clearly have been developed as if rated at box speed for the correct time. As a result the midtones to highlights were compressed, and meant careful scanning was needed to recover as much range as possible, as well as some digital dodging and burning to help separate tones.

Kodak Instamatic 277X with Ilford FP4 Plus

Kodak Instamatic 277X with Ilford FP4 Plus

Kodak Instamatic 277X with Ilford FP4 Plus

Kodak Instamatic 277X with Ilford FP4 Plus

In addition to the cartridges loaded with 35mm FP4 Plus, I also shot a cartridge of Kodak Verichrome Pan. I (nominally) rated this at box speed, originally 125 ISO: with the Kodak Instamatic 277X, this meant simply following the pictograms for the lighting conditions. The cartridge had a develop before date of 06/1986; often with film this old, I would increase exposure to compensate for the loss of sensitivity due to age, but my previous experiences with Verichrome Pan suggested that I could risk not doing this with thirty-odd year old film. It might have been wise to bracket the exposures, but with only 12 frames in the cartridge, I didn't do this. I also shot the film with a yellow filter (as I had done with the FP4 Plus), which I might not have adequately accounted for in exposure; however, I stand developed the Verichrome Pan, which is generally very forgiving in terms of variations in exposure, and, although the resulting negatives had a moderate level of base fog due to age, the results were pretty good for a 34-year-old black and white film.

Kodak Instamatic 277X with Kodak Verichrome Pan

Kodak Instamatic 277X with Kodak Verichrome Pan

Kodak Instamatic 277X with Kodak Verichrome Pan

Kodak Instamatic 277X with Kodak Verichrome Pan

Kodak Instamatic 277X with Kodak Verichrome Pan