Take Your Box Camera To Work Day 2013

Today, 28th February, was this year's 'Take Your Box Camera To Work Day'. Like last year, I took my Lumière Scout Box with some Fomapan 400 and Rollei RPX 400 film. I shot two rolls of RPX 400, and a roll of Fomapan 400. One consideration about taking such cameras to work is the fact the most people work inside, and box cameras were designed for taking photographs outside, in daylight. Like many box cameras, the Lumière Scout Box has no controls to change apertures or shutter speeds; however, the shutter can be set to 'Instant' or 'Pneumatique' (bulb). To take photographs inside my place of work, I relied on either finding sufficient natural light (first image below), or finding somewhere to balance or rest the camera for long exposures (second image below, about 2 seconds). I did also take a few shots outside moving between the two sites where I work, and as my place of work includes the darkroom where I processed the film, I took the last shots there, just prior to developing.

Lumiere Scout Box with RPX 400

Lumiere Scout Box with RPX 400

Lumiere Scout Box with Fomapan 400

See the whole set of photographs on Flickr.

Two Years On

It's been two years since I started this blog, partly through a desire to document my renewed interest in film photography, partly to act as a place to collate research into slightly obscure or obsolete technologies and techniques, and as a space to share my results. However, the deciding factor in starting the blog was actually buying my first digital camera in February 2011. This facilitated all the shots of cameras and equipment I'd been doing for Camera-Wiki (and before that, Camerapedia) but, other than for a few specific purposes, I still prefer to shoot film. I haven't posted as much as I'd have liked, as real life frequently gets in the way: to me, photography sits somewhere between a hobby and a sketchbook for what feels like my 'real' work, which is painting.

Two years into this blog it seemed like a good moment to take stock of the state of the raw material: film. In terms of production, the biggest shock has been the demise of Fotokemika and its Efke brand of films (and Emaks paper), and what this has meant for the 127 format. This has also affected Adox, as Fotokemika's factory used to handle much of Adox's production (although some Adox films are made in-house and are still available). Despite Kodak's well publicised problems, the company looks like it'll keep going for some time yet if it concentrates on its film business. Personally, I've never been keen on Kodak films, the only one I've used recently is the long discontinued Tech Pan - a film I would buy if they still made it. I also rarely shoot colour, but Kodak, along with Fuji, are the only real contenders in the colour film market. As well as colour, including their instant film, Fuji are still producing their Acros and Neopan black and white films.

The problems at Kodak have some echoes of what happened to Ilford; however since the management buyout in 2005, as well as continuing their existing film product lines, Ilford/Harman have been in a strong enough position to develop and market new products, notably the Harman Direct Positive Paper and their first camera in decades: the Titan pinhole camera. Harman also released budget 100 and 400 ISO films under the Kentmere name which they had acquired - and have a hand in the ongoing Impossible Project.

For the frugal photographer, as well as the Kentmere films mentioned, Foma reintroduced their 200 speed film to complement their Fomapan 100 and 400 ISO films. I have found Foma's quality control to be erratic at times, and I don't think that the latitude claimed for their 400 speed film stands up to scrutiny, but it does have a nice tonality and grittiness when exposed properly, and it's cheap.

As well as provding a number of competitively priced films, the prize for broadest product range must surely go to Maco: under the Rollei/Agfa brands Maco appear to be continually expanding a bewildering array of films. Maco is not a manufacturer of films however: the company repackages and distributes films and emulsions from other manufacturers. For example, their Rollei Retro 100 was the original Agfa APX 100, several million feet of which Maco bought up after AgfaPhoto ceased trading, while other products are made from aerial/surveillance films manufactured by Agfa-Gevaert (a separate company from AgfaPhoto since 2004). There's also a lot of online debate as to whether the RPX 100 & 400 films are the same emulsion as Kentmere 100 and 400, although I haven't been able to find a definitive answer other than that they are coated on the Harman production line, but the RPX films are available in medium format, unlike the Kentmere.

One of the factors that may be helping film production is Lomography. I have my issues with it on a number of levels: for example, at time of writing their online shop is offering expired XP2 for £7.96; new XP2 is £6.52 from Harmanexpress, and just £4.80 from Total Blank Media (incidentally, this last website is the cheapest place to buy Ilford films I've found); but if a by-product of the Lomo phenomenon - which essentially has created a market for selling over-priced and substandard products (I have nothing against using cheap plastic cameras, but these should at least be priced to reflect their cheap, plastic qualities) because of some perceived retro lifestyle 'coolness' to using film - adds to demand, then everyone benefits.

In some respects the catastrophe has already happened: the consumer market for photography is essentially digital. Using film is now a concern for amateurs, in the original sense of the word. Inevitably, more products will be discontinued, always frustrating when a particular film or format one loves goes, but in the main, while there is sufficient demand for film itself, one can confidently hope there will be a supply to meet it.

Edward Steichen, Self-Portrait, 1915

In 2007 I saw the exhibition Edward Steichen: Lives In Photography at the Jeu de Paume in Paris. I've recently been looking at the exhibition catalogue again. The exhibition was an overview of Steichen's life's work, from his earliest photographs from the 1890s to the celebrated exhibition designs of the 1950s and 60s. The Self-Portrait of 1915¹ comes at the end of Steichen's Pictorialist phase, in a transitional period which continued through to the 1920s, where Steichen began relearning his art. It's also from a period of exile, when, due to the war, Steichen was forced to abandon his house in France (where he had begun to devote a large part of his time to plant breeding) and return to America.

What do we see in the photograph? Steichen, confident in a dark suit with a bow tie and white shirt, apparently engages the viewer with his direct gaze. I describe this engagement with the viewer as apparent, for reasons I'll return to. Alongside the figure of Steichen, and level with his gaze is a large plate camera, the tripod of which can be seen in the shadows below. Of the mechanics of the camera, the lens is the most prominent: the wooden framework can be discerned, indeed there is a small plaque with some writing on, presumably with details of the camera's manufacturer or dealer. There is what looks to be a diaphragm aperture apparently in front of the lens (it may conceivably be an elaborate lens hood), that this is not between the lens elements as part of a leaf shutter arrangement suggests this is what's known as a barrel lens. If this is a barrel lens, then in all probability there is a Packard shutter, a focal plane type, between the lens and the plate. The shutter release curls down below the camera and leads the eye to Steichen's obscured right hand resting on his hip. It's probably a pneumatic bulb release for the date of the photograph. There's a small amount of blur due to movement at the end of the cable as the bulb was squeezed. Steichen's right hand, held folded against his body with the arm's elbow resting on a prop that can be dimly seen (this is echoed by a shape above Steichen's right shoulder that may be the edge of an easel). This hand is apparently relaxed, but, between the forefinger we cannot see and the thumb, this is may be holding a lens cap in the shadows. The top left hand corner of the image is cut off with a light-toned out of focus arc. The reflection on the surface of the lens appears to confirm that this is the edge of a circular or at least arched mirror, the surface to which the camera lens was pointing. The upside-down reflection in the lens shows the top of the mirror silhouetted against a window, providing the strong, frontal yet diffuse lighting for the self-portrait.

Returning to Edward Steichen's gaze, what the camera recorded and the photograph's effect are two separate things. The gaze is not at us, the viewer, of course, nor is Steichen looking at his own reflection - because this would not produce the effect of his image looking directly at us from the photograph. At the moment when he squeezed the bulb to release the shutter, Steichen must have been looking into the camera's lens. The glass plate that the image was recorded on cannot be seen in the photograph, although we know it must be there: in the shadow of the mirror's reflection on the lens, the darkness we see is an open aperture that leads directly to the photographic emulsion on the glass plate at the very moment that the latent image is being formed. In some sense, all photographs are an indexical link to their moment of creation by their very nature (this may still be true, but muddied, in the digital age), but the tradition of photographers' self-portraits in mirrors which include the camera that is taking the picture turn this into an open dialogue: by necessity, the camera's lens faces the subject, and the shutter must be open, the dark chamber of the camera being filled with light to record the image on the plate, film or sensor.²
 
Thinking about the Self-Portrait of 1915, the idea that, theoretically at least, the mirror allows one to see the surface of the photograph as it is being formed, for me, has an aspect of the uncanny. Many years ago, for my BA dissertation, I wrote an oblique investigation into why I found photography fascinating. I began my research by looking at photographers and photographs that embodied something of the Freudian Uncanny, but very quickly the essay abandoned any reference to particular works and became purely concerned with theory. I joined the dots from Sigmund Freud to Roland Barthes' Camera Lucida, and my conclusion was that the uncanny was located in the photograph's relation to death, that the photograph was a symbolic but disguised (and therefore uncanny) memento mori.³
 
Although overstated for purposes of making my argument, this still holds. We can see Edward Steichen looking (present tense) into the lens of the camera at the moment light is causing a reaction on the surface of the photographic emulsion; at the time of writing Edward Steichen died (past tense) forty years ago. That we understand these two tenses coexisting is uncomfortable. Steichen, to a degree, understood this too, in as much as the construction of the photograph needs a future viewer for his speculative gaze to engage with. However, it is the thought that through the blank eye of the camera we know that, potentially, it is possible to see the fundamental moment of creation as it is occurring that is to me uncanny here.

Notes
1. The best reproduction online of the Self-Portrait of 1915 is here: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDxmo1iHL0q-LsjpslTSTd5O5jjFl2jrr8v3zimof0SJCq72zVLdPe1kYRtw9fcUib7uWw-Jhxt9FueXxn5Yzix4lalsf8ZNU0zTEz0T8icg5p0KPXKz7gKM5eijLLvkc1sN0nY-dcDNA/s1600/fotos-steichen-001.jpeg
2. Jeff Wall's Picture For Women (1979) is perhaps the best example of this; David Campany wrote a whole book on the photograph. http://www.afterall.org/books/one.work/jeff-wall-picture-for-women
3. "For Death must be somewhere in a society; if it is no longer (or less intently) in religion, it must be elsewhere; perhaps in this image which produces Death while trying to preserve life." Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida.
 
Sources
Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida, Jonathon Cape, London,1982
Todd Brandow and William A Ewing, Edward Steichen: Lives In Photography, FEP Editions, Minneapolis, 2007
Sigmund Freud, The 'Uncanny', Penguin, London, 1985
Alfred Stieglitz, Camera Work The Complete Photographs 1903-1917, Taschen, Koln, 2008

Ica Icarette II/L

Ica Icarette II/L

Ica was a relatively short-lived Dresden-based camera manufacturer, formed in 1909 by the merger of four companies: Hüttig AG; Kamerawerk Dr. Krügener; Wünsche AG; and Carl Zeiss Palmos AG. Its name is derived from Internationale Camera A.-G. and it's often written ICA, however as written on the cameras themselves, in advertisements and other documentation, the company's name appears as Ica. Ica was one of the 'name-giving' partners when it merged with Ernemann, Goerz and Contessa-Nettel to create Zeiss-Ikon in 1926.

Ica continued many camera models from its constituent companies, but the Icarette line of elegant folding cameras was an entirely new range, using a number of different rollfilm formats, from 127 to 116. The Ica Icarette II (named the Icarette L in US Ica/Zeiss Ikon catalogues) takes 6x9cm size images on 120 film, but it's a dual format camera (as are some of the other Icarette models), meaning that it also takes plates. This makes it a model 500/2: there is an Icarette II which takes rollfilm only, with a model number of 500/1; the Icarette I was a horizontal folding camera in the 6x6 negative format. The Icarette II 500/2 has a section of the camera back with the orange window–and a separate pressure plate–that can be removed and replaced with a ground glass screen and plateholders for 6.5x9cm (or 2 1/2x3 1/2 inch) glass plates (my first post on glass plates discusses the differences between metric and imperial sizes). When loading rollfilm, the camera back removes entirely, and the spool holders on each side are hinged to swing out for ease of loading. The focus scale has to be adjusted to either 'P' for plates or 'F' for film as the focal plane changes depending on which format used. This has a notch for infinity, which the lensboard pulls out to, the Icarette being non-self-erecting, as self-erecting designs for folding cameras only became common in the 1930s. There's also a handwritten focus scale on the other side of the bed for the Distar lens attachment.

Ground-glass back removed, and plateholder inserted.

The first Icarettes were produced in 1919, with the II/L model appearing c.1925. My camera is from early in the Icarette II's production. The serial number on its lens dates it to 1924; interestingly the shutter's serial number appears to be from before 1920. As was common with many folding cameras, the Icarette was offered with a range of lenses depending on price. My example has the top-of-the-range Carl Zeiss Jena f4.5 105mm Tessar lens.

Icarette L lens detail

The above detail shows the Tessar lens in a dial-set Compur shutter; the shutter settings of T for 'Time', B for 'Bulb' and 'I' for 'Instant' suggest the camera was produced for export; I have a contemporaneous Voigtländer Avus with a Compur shutter with 'Z' 'D' 'M' marked on it, for 'Zeit', 'Moment', and 'Dauer' (duration). Unlike the later rim-set Compur shutters, the exposure mode is selected on the small wheel to the left of the lens in the picture above and the shutter speeds are set independently on the dial at the top.

The camera also features double extension bellows, and a rising front. I have found the double extension bellows can cause a problem when focused from infinity to any moderate distance, as most of the length of the bellows remain in the camera's body unless drawn out manually, otherwise they tend to occlude the edges of the frame widthways, blurring them. For a viewfinder, there's the brilliant finder adjacent to the lens, a wire frame sportsfinder, which has an unusual profile to fit around the shutter and permit access to its controls, and the ground glass screen when using plates.

One of the curious features of my Icarette is it has "The Westminster" impressed into the leather on the back of the ground glass screen hood, the rollfilm back and inscribed between the knobs of the lensboard base. This could be The Westminster Photographic Exchange: much like my Baldalux camera rebadged by Wallace Heaton, presumably the Icarette was sold in the UK by The Westminster Photographic Exchange. There's a camera very like the Icarette II in one of the company's advertisments, 'The Westminster' can be discerned on leather on the camera, although on closer inspection, I believe the camera depicted in the illustrations is actually a Contessa Nettel Cocarette (identifiable by the shape of the wireframe finder, catch on the camera body, and the vertical stand).

Although I also have a Wallace Heaton plate camera in 6.5x9cm size, I've only used the Icarette II to shoot my glass plates in this size. Fortunately, my Icarette still had both the ground glass screen and the rollfilm back and pressure plate, as well as a leather wallet with four Ica plate holders and a case. As well as plates, I've also shot a few rolls of film; the Icarette II is not the most convenient of my medium format folding cameras - but possibly has the best lens. The Tessar lens, nearly ninety years old, performs very well. In the examples below, the photograph of the London 2012 Olympic Village in particular shows the good edge-to-edge sharpness of the lens.

Hackney Downs, Rollei RPX 400 developed in R09 One Shot (Rodinal) 1+25 for 11m15s at 18˚C

London 2012 Olympic Village,  Fomapan 200, developed in Rodinal 1+50; 8mins at 20 degrees C.

Ilford R10 glass plate, stand developed in Rodinal 1+100

Kodak O.250 glass plate, stand developed in Rodinal 1+100

The Icarette II was continued by Zeiss Ikon long after Ica's merger into the new conglomerate. This advert shows that it was produced until at least 1937, while none of the other Icarette models appear: perhaps as a dual format camera, the Icarette II filled a unique niche in Zeiss Ikon's range.

Sources/further reading
Icarette models & Ica pages on Camera-Wiki
Ica chronology (in French)
Ica pages on Early Photography

Ilford G.30 Plates

Ilford G.30 Chromatic backed plates

Following the first vintage glass plates I shot last year, I've been keen to use more, although I have only found time to do so recently. I bought a couple of previously unopened boxes of Ilford G.30 Chromatic glass plates in 4x5 size; one of the film holders for my MPP large format camera takes glass plates (it does also have film sheaths, which can be inserted to shoot film). As the label states 'Open in red light only', the word 'Chromatic' appears to mean orthochromatic; where the label continues onto the underside of the box it also states, "Meter settings for minimum exposure ASA 10 DIN 11". The design of the packaging suggests the plates are from the 1960s; the leaflet inside the box has a code number L.64/D, which might refer to the year of printing, 1964.

For the first test I metered for 10 ISO, and took three successive exposures on the same plate, progressively withdrawing the darkslide between each shot (although not very evenly). Viewed from left to right, this effectively achieved exposures indexes of 10, 5, and 2.5. The plate was stand-developed in R09 One Shot (Rodinal), at a dilution of 1:100 for one hour, with a couple of inversions at the half hour mark.

Ilford G.30 Plate test - three successive exposures at 10 EI

There is some blurring due to a small amount of movement between the multiple exposures, but in terms of a test to determine a working exposure, it's clear enough. The first exposure at 10 EI appears to be workable, and initially I did think that this might have meant that the plates hadn't lost any sensitivity over the 50 years since manufacture, but Flickr member richard314159 reminded me of the doubling of film speed by the ASA in 1960. This change in standards simply reduced the margin of error against under-exposure. Although I can't be sure that the plates are from before the revised ASA settings, if so the plates would have originally been 20 rather than 10 by modern standards, and so may have lost one stop in sensitivity. There's also not much background fog on this plate, probably not much more than I've got with some contemporary films; from my limited experience, slower emulsions do appear to age better.

I subsequently shot two plates at night with long exposures. On first inspection, these seemed like they might have been over-exposed, but, particularly with the second plate below, this was important to register the foreground detail, although at the expense of the clarity of the lit-up lettering. The haloes around the lights are somewhat unusual, this may be due to the fact it's shot on glass. It is also noticeable that there's a line of thicker emulsion at two of the adjacent edges where, as it was poured onto the plate, the emulsion collected as the excess was poured off.

Ilford G.30 Plate - 1 minute exposure at f5.6

Ilford G.30 Plate - 2mins exposure at f5.6

Edit: 29/04/13

As a result of my research into Ilford, I discovered the Ilford Technical Information Book, which contains a sheet on the G.30 Chromatic plates, dated to 1965. This provides additional information for the plates from the leaflet in the box. It describes the G.30 Plate as

widely used for the photo-micrography of metal specimens. It is particularly useful for green-corrected microscope lenses since it allows comparatively short exposures to be given when using a Tricolour Green filter.

Ilford G.30 Chromatic Plates are used in the graphic arts, copying and scientific fields. For graphic arts work the main use is in the preparation of continuous tone negatives.

It gives the ASA setting for tungsten lighting as 5, against the daylight setting of 10. The date of the technical information sheet disproves the idea above after my first test that the meter settings were from before the change in speed ratings for black & white emulsions, and so the plates have lost very little sensitivity since they were made nearly 50 years ago. The table of development times gives further dilutions and times for both continuous and intermittent agitation.

Ilford G.30 Chromatic Plate development times

Ilford G.30 Chromatic Plate sensitometric curves

I subsequently shot some more plates with my MPP Micro-Technical camera, the best of which is below, a difficult subject given the brightness of the fluorescent strip lights under the awning compared to the building above.

Ilford G.30 Plate, 12 seconds exposure at f4.5

Some thoughts on night photography without a tripod

Offices at Night, Voightländer Bessa RF, HP5

I like night photography, but while traveling, or simply going out for an evening, I prefer not to carry a tripod with me. Not using a tripod is a compromise of course; this post is about how I negotiate that compromise. Having stated that, there are some very good small and compact tripods available that aren't a pain to carry around.

There are essentially two strategies, both of which I use: either a combination of a fast film with a fast (enough) lens; or steadying the camera on an immovable object for a long exposure. In terms of the subject matter for night photography, it's often a case of looking out for scenes lit up with street lights, or internal sources of illumination within buildings; light sources themselves can be the subject of the photograph.

The fastest films currently available are Ilford Delta 3200, Kodak Tmax P3200, and Fuji Neopan 1600, none of which have a true ISO as fast as the manufacturers' names suggest, being in the range of 800-1000, but these films give a 'normal' contrast range when exposed at box speed and developed accordingly. With night photography, low-light urban subjects tend to be high contrast to begin with, so push processing in an attempt to squeeze more speed out of a film can make contrast an issue (it may make more sense to pull the film to reduce contrast).

Seven Dials, Canon A1 with Ilford Delta 3200, hand-held

Hand-held

For hand-held night shots, one needs a fast film, a fast lens, and a slow shutter speed. The issues with each of these factors are: grain; a shallow depth of field; and camera shake, respectively. The first two factors can perhaps be accepted as a fait accompli, although the appearance of grain partly depends on the developer, and wider-angle lenses have greater depth of field. Of most concern is camera shake blurring the image. The general rule of thumb for avoiding camera shake is to use a shutter speed higher than the focal length of the camera's lens. On a 35mm camera with a 50mm lens this means 1/60th (or 1/50th depending on the shutter). However, this rule of thumb is worth taking with a pinch of salt- a shutter speed one stop slower is not too difficult to hold with a steady hand, i.e. 1/30th-1/25th with a 50mm lens. Some claim to be able to hand hold speeds of 1/15th or 1/8th, which they may be able to do, but I've found that I do get camera shake at these speeds.

Montmartre, Canon A1, Ilford Delta 3200 rated at 6400 EI, hand held

However, I don't always use a 35mm camera: a number of my recent night shots were taken with a Baldalux medium format camera with a f4.5 105mm lens. It's not a fast lens, and the focal length suggests a shutter speed of 1/100th to avoid camera shake, although I used 1/50th for the night shots. The type of camera and shutter may make a difference to camera shake. The Baldalux is a viewfinder camera with a leaf shutter: SLR cameras suffer from 'mirror slap', vibrations caused by the mirror moving up before the shutter opens. Focal plane shutters and leaf shutters also open and close in different ways which may affect vibrations: the curtains of focal plane shutters move in a single direction from top to bottom or left to right, while the blades of a leaf shutter swing in and out in a circular motion around the lens. When using very slow shutter speeds, it might be possible to minimize shake by using the camera's self timer so that the shutter actually fires separately from the action of depressing the shutter button.

Gartenstraße, Baldalux with Ilford Delta 3200, hand held

Long Exposures

For long exposures without a tripod, the first consideration is having a camera which will sit flat while exposing. While most modern cameras will happily stand on a flat bottom plate, this is not necessarily a given with vintage cameras. I'm particularly keen on old folding cameras, and often these will only rest on the vertical with a fold-out stand, like the Balda Rigona. Depending on the format, this is either portait or landscape: for example the image below is from a Plaubel Roll-Op, a medium format 6x4.5 camera. Some cameras simply will not stand on their own at all: despite being level on the bottom, the Kodak Retina is too front heavy when opened (it rests on the corner of the front cover facing at a slight downwards angle), and does not have a fold-out stand for vertical shots. Street furniture is good for places to stand a camera: benches, litter bins, post boxes, but also the flat tops of walls, railings, window sills, or even the pavement itself.

Lea Bridge Road, Plaubel Roll-Op, with RPX 400

As with hand held shots, consideration should be given as to how to trigger the shutter for a long exposure. The usual procedure for long exposures is to use a cable release. However, without the camera secured to a tripod, it is possible to move it by the force of pushing in the cable release if the camera's just placed on a flat surface. As with hand-holding the camera, using a self timer can avoid this. One of the most useful aspects of using older cameras for night photography is that the shutters often have a 'T' setting (common on better shutters until the 1950s). Unlike 'B' for 'Bulb' which needs constant pressure to keep the shutter open, with the shutter on 'T' (for Time), the shutter opens with one press of the button or lever, and then closes on a second press. Setting the shutter to 'T', I tend to place the camera, then open the shutter with my hand covering lens in case of any movement, and then remove my hand.

Mildmay Park, Baby Ikonta, Efke R100

I use a very loose starting point for long exposures of scenes lit with streetlights if I'm not metering for exposure: using a 400 ISO film I start with 12 seconds at f8. With exposures longer than a 1/10th second, for many films reciprocity law failure should be taken into account when calculating exposure. This actually builds in a large fudge factor, i.e. the longer an exposure, the less likely it is to be overexposed.

Sacre Coeur, Canon A1, Ilford Delta 3200, rated 6400 EI, hand-held

Wallis Road, Wallace Heaton Zodel, HP5, rated 1600 EI

Zagreb, Agfa Record I, HP5

St Giles, Canon A1, HP5 rated at 1600 EI

127 Day - Winter 2012

Bicycle, Baby Ikonta, Agfa Retro 80S

The future of the 127 film format currently looks uncertain: earlier this year Fotokemika announced that it was ceasing production; Fotokemika were the manufacturers of Efke films, including R100 in 127 format. The production line also handled the Retro 80S 127 film from Maco, sold as either Rollei Retro 80S or Agfa Retro 80S, meaning that there are now no black and white 127 film in production. (Maco do currently sell a couple of 'experimental' colour films in 127, but it appears that these are from Agfa 46mm filmstock on 127 spools).

I had one roll of Retro 80S to for the Winter 127 day on 7th December. Loading the film into my Baby Ikonta, I took a walk along the perimeter of the Olympic Park from Leyton to Stratford. Having left my Weston light meter at work, I used the Sunny 16 rule for exposure: this is a lot easier when there is actually some sun to go by, as a grey winter's morning in the northern hemisphere can be very dark indeed.

Skeltons Lane Park, Baby Ikonta, Agfa Retro 80S

When it came to developing the film, I got to the darkroom to discover that the thermometer was missing. Impatient to develop the film, I opted to use stand development at something approaching ambient temperature. From my previous experience of Retro 80S, where I've found the film to be high in contrast with the highlights all too easy to 'blow out' (although the flat overcast light would have taken the edge off the contrast in itself), I used Rodinal in a dilution of 1:150 rather than the more usual 1:100 for stand development. I've used this dilution with other high-contrast films such as Tech Pan and the Ilford data film HS23.

Drapers Field, Baby Ikonta, Agfa Retro 80S

Stratford City, Baby Ikonta, Agfa Retro 80S

See more photographs from 127 Day in the Flickr 127 Format Group Pool