Photo-Analogue: 116 Day Summer 2017

Sunday, 18 June 2017

116 Day Summer 2017

Kodak No.2A Brownie with Ilford HP5 Plus

For last weekend's '116 Day' I shot some 120 film in the 116 format Kodak No.2A Brownie (by coincidence, today, 18th June, is International Brownie Camera Day, as announced on the Brownie Camera Page). I shot some Ilford FP4 Plus and HP5 Plus both rolled with 116 backing paper, and also used the adaptors I'd made to fit 120 spools into the 116 spool chambers. As the weather was bright and sunny, I taped a yellow gelatine filter behind the lens on the inside of the camera body, meaning that, of course, all shots on a roll would have to use the filter; I could have taped the filter on the outside of the camera, but this would be likely to be scratched, as well as, given the construction on the camera's front, I was concerned that there might be some internal reflections between the filter and the lens. Using the filter reduced exposure by a stop, but, given the speed of both films (and the films' latitude), still meant that I used the smallest aperture stop for the open landscape shots, where the yellow filter provided good definition for the sky; some of the photographs with more shadow areas should have had more exposure, most of these being shot on the middle stop. Although not as obvious as when I first used the camera, the negatives still had some scratches from the rollers (probably due to a small amount of corrosion), the worst of which I mitigated in Photoshop; before using the No.2A Brownie again, the rollers would benefit from being removed and being polished.