Argus C3

Week 52 - Argus C3 purchased from ebay last year that I've used once before. The camera originally came in a leather case with a strap and I was carrying it around using the strap and the strap broke, causing the camera to crash to a concrete floor. Of course the camera being very sturdy, was not damaged but the film advance became jammed and while trying to unjam it, the sprockets on the film roll were torn. Thus, it was not possible to spool the film onto a Paterson reel and the roll was ruined. I thought I would give it another go, and use the camera to finish up my 2016 Film Camera Project.

The choice of film for this final roll was Film Photography Project's FPP EDU 200, I wanted to stick with a black and white film, since I have a fresh batch of Kodak D-76 mixed up, and I chose the 200 speed film because some of the slower shutter speeds were sticky on the camera. I thought if I shot on a partly sunny to sunny day, I could shoot Sunny 16 and stick with the faster shutter speeds. I ventured out and about town with my camera bag and two other instant cameras on an unseasonably warm winter day this week, excited that I was going to finish this project before the end of the year.

First I drove into downtown and parked, then walked around a couple of blocks near Merlin's Coffee shop, but I was just not inspired by too much there, so I drove out to Codorus State Park's Lake Marburg area. The water is really low right now, exposing some nice textured landscapes that are normally under water. I love shooting at Lake Marburg, especially with black and white films this time of the year. I had also packed my Lomo'Instant camera (the original, not the Wide or the Automat) loaded with the new Fuji Instax MIni Monochrome. The monochrome instant photos came out super and I was excited to see what was going to come out of the Argus C3 after developing. I was mindful of the film advancing on the Argus, so that I didn't have a repeat of the last roll of film with the torn sprockets.

I really enjoyed those couple of hours, I think this time of the year is actually my favorite to shoot, I like the contrasty photos that can be achieved with barren landscapes before the winter snows start falling. There also are not a lot of people around the local parks this time of year, not that I don't want them in my photos, I just prefer the solitude of composing photos surrounded by quiet.

I promptly unloaded the Argus when returning home to get the film developed and scanned for the final blog post on this project before the end of the year. After spending the past year shooting lots of different cameras and films, I'm ready to narrow it down to a few that I really like. For the coming year, I want to focus more on shooting with my instant cameras and getting into to my as yet unused darkroom and make prints. Experimenting with caffenol printing and making cyanotypes is on my list as well. I want to buy less crappy cameras and add just a few higher quality ones that I've had my eye on for a while. I have another year long project lined up that is a bit different than 2016 - look for an upcoming post for the details.

Kodak Pazzazz Camera

Week 46 - Kodak Pazzazz 110 Camera that my stepfather found while going through his desk, which he then gifted to me (along with a few other lo-fi cameras). A web search for information on the Pazzazz indicated that it was manufactured in Mexico, but the model I have shows a "Made in U.S.A." stamp on the top. The camera came in two colors, rose and turquoise, and was a very simple 110 load, point, and shoot camera. There is an on-off switch for the flash, requiring two AA batteries.

I had not been shooting on the project for a couple of weeks as I was taking care of my mother in her battle with breast cancer and I was heartbroken when she passed two weeks ago. It's been hard to pick it up again, but I want to finish the project so that I can start the new year with hope for a less painful, loss-filled one than of 2016. My father passed in early spring, then our beloved family pet beagle, Cinnamon, two weeks later, and now my mother. Even though my parents have been divorced for many years, and I had been very distanced from my father, both of my parents had a significant, meaningful impact on my life.

My stepfather had been going through some things, and found a few cameras that he thought I might like, and this little pink (fushia?) camera was in the bunch. The name simply called out that I shoot with it, and I still had a fresh roll of Lomography Lobster Redscale 200 110 film to load it with. I had returned from work after being on family leave and wanted to get back into my routine of walking at lunch break and shooting photos of the city. I shot the entire roll of film on my lunch hour that day, but I admit, I wasn't very discriminating in my compositions.

As you can see in the resulting photos, this camera with this film requires lots of light, perhaps I should have saved a few shots to use with the flash on the camera. The film was processed with Film Photography Project C-41 kit and scanned with Epson V500 photo.

Rollei Prego 90

Week 39 - Rollei Prego 90 that Brenda purchased for $20 on one of her antique shopping stops a few weeks ago. The camera is a kind of clunky point and shoot with a Schneider-Kreuznach AF-Variogon f=28-90mm HFT Makro lens. There is a panorama setting, various modes - macro/closeup, bulb, zone focus, portrait zoom, fuzzy zoom, step zoom, multiple exposure, continuous shooting, and also exposure compensation, red eye reduction, remote control and self timer. I would like to fully explore all the options on this camera and try it with different films.

I used RetroChrome 160 from my stash in the fridge, and I'm not sure what happened when I developed it, except maybe my E6 kit is expired. It was only the fourth roll that I've used with the kit, but I did mix it up a couple of months ago. Otherwise, the photos appear sharp and crisp aside from the wild colors in them. The problem with shooting a new camera each week is that I'm not able to fully explore the features of each one and give each a thorough workout. But the purpose of this personal film project is to try out each camera to see if they are functional and revisit the ones that I find interesting at a later date. The potential of this camera's features looks very good, though it's a bit larger for the pocket than say, the Olympus Stylus Epic Zoom 80 in my collection, which is much more compact and sleek.

I was behind a week on my film camera project due the amount of time that I was spending at my mother's place, but on Sunday, Brenda and I took a morning drive over to Gettysburg. It's one of my favorite places for a quick drive from Hanover, and great for landscape photos. I tried to carefully compose shots for this camera and the previous week's camera, but as you can see, they don't look as nice as they could with the botched E6 processing. Perhaps a nice black and white film would be better. The Rollei was easy to use, it has auto focus and of course the 28-90 zoom lens, with a LCD screen on top for the various settings and modes. It does require two CR123A batteries, which were a bit tricky to find locally, but Brenda found them at the Rite Aid Pharmacy.

Olympus OM10 - 52 Cameras, 52 Weeks

Week 33 - Olympus OM10 purchased from someone on Craigslist for $10. It came with a 70-205mm Vivitar Zoom lens, but I purchased a 50mm Olympus Zuiko f1.8 lens for it from ebay for $20 with free shipping. The camera came with 36 rolls of exposed color film that I plan to develop in the coming weeks (it could even take months). I'm not sure if the photos will turn out as the camera and film were in a storage shed for years.

The film for this week was expired Kodak Portra 160NC and the photos were shot around Baltimore, MD and Codorus State Park, Hanover, PA. My favorite photos are the sunrise over Lake Marburg and the field landscape with big puffy clouds.

I mixed a new batch of C-41 Chemicals for this roll, scanned with Epson V500 Photo and Spot Dusted and adjusted for levels in Photoshop. Adjusting for levels is simply scanning the film on automatic, opening the file in Photoshop and selecting the lightest and darkest points in the levels dialog box. This brings the colors into range with the least amount of manipulation of the file.

Generic Plastic Camera - 52 Cameras, 52 Weeks

Week 31 - Generic plastic camera purchased at Morningstar Flea Market Antique Mall for $10. The tag said "Argus 35mm Camera" on it and came in a bright yellow box with the words "Say Cheese" and "Storer Cable", whatever that means. It also came with a cheaply made pleather carrying case. I did an internet search but could come up with nothing on a plastic Argus 35mm camera, or anything using the other words on the box. I thought at best, it could be a generic Holga or Diana type of camera. It felt quite heavy, probably had a weight in the bottom of the camera.

On the front, the lens reads "Optical Color Lens, Auto Fix Focus 50mm Lens 1:6." It has a tripod socket on the bottom and a rewind release button. I used a roll of FPP EDU 400 Black and White film from the Film Photography Project, as my color chemicals were recently expired. Photos were shot on a morning walk around Hanover, PA and also around Baltimore, MD on my lunch break. I found that the lens was much wider than the viewfinder indicated, I could have gotten closer on some of my shots.

It was very humid on the day I was trying to wind the film onto a developing reel in the changing bag, which resulted in a first failed attempt where in frustration, I shoved the film into the tank to protect it from light. I cooled off a bit and went back in while in a cool air-conditioned room. As a result the film got a little banged up with a few scratches and creases. I don't think it detracts much from the low quality of the photos that I got from this camera, I was hoping for photos with a dreamy quality and a little vignetting. The film was developed in Caffenol and scanned on Epson V500 Photo.

Pentax Auto 110 - 52 Cameras, 52 Weeks

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Week 30 camera - Pentax Auto 110 purchased from Ebay. I originally purchased a body, 3 lenses and a flash, but the body and flash were not functional much to my disappointment. I thought I could still use the lenses on my mirrorless Pentax Q10 camera, but a couple of weeks later, I was able to pick up a working body for $9.00 with free shipping from ebay. I've been wanting to pick up this particular little 110 SLR camera since I first heard about it a few years ago, but the prices were more than I wanted to spend. I have a soft spot for Pentax cameras, as my very first SLR was a Pentax K1000 that I bought for my photography class in college over thirty years ago.

This camera is so small, and the interchangeable lenses are even smaller, its adorably cute. The three lenses that I have - 18mm, 24mm, and 50mm, easily fit in a pocket with the camera body. I mostly used the 24mm, which is the standard lens, while the 18mm is wide angle and the 50mm  closeup. The Auto 110 has an automatic shutter, but you still have to manually focus the f2.8 lenses (the only aperture). The first roll I put in was expired Kodak Gold, but unfortunately it was ruined by my expired C-41 chemicals while developing. I was greatly disappointed but luckily I had just gotten my order of Lomography Orca 110 BW film.

I packed a new fishing vest I just bought to use as a photographer's vest and headed out in my car. (it was unbearably hot and humid) I think the vest will be quite useful when I have just a couple of cameras and don't want to carry a bag - it held 3 small cameras, lenses, pocket watercolors, small sketchbook, snack, and water. Photos were shot around Baltimore County, Maryland and the Mary Ann Furnace Trail observation deck by Lake Marburg.

Processing was with Kodak D-76, 1+1 for 7 minutes using the new Yankee Clipper II tank that I just purchased (it was the only currently available tank system that I knew of that had a 110 film reel). Negatives were scanned using a 110 film adapter purchased from Negative Solutions on ebay that was made for Epson V500 Photo scanners.

Kodak Baby Brownie Special - 52 Cameras, 52 Weeks

Week 29 - Kodak Baby Brownie Special that I've had for many years, not sure where I purchased this camera. A bakelite 127 roll film camera made from the late 1930's to the mid 1950's, it has an optical viewfinder, an improvement over the original Kodak Baby Brownie.

I used a roll of Triple Print film from a lot of expired 127 and 620 roll films purchased from ebay. Triple Print film was only to be processed by the Triple Print lab in Philadelphia, PA and as the name implies, triple prints would be returned to the customer. I took the Baby Brownie Special along on a Sunday drive through Lancaster County, PA, where we went on portion of the covered bridge driving tour.

After finishing the roll, I went on an online search for the best way to process the film. After reading the sparse information that was available, I decided to use Kodak D-76 with the same development time as with the Kodacolor X that I've used before. I found that the July 1970 expired film did pretty well in very bright sun, and I'm pleased with how those photos came out, especially the one of the Lititz fountain.

Negatives were scanned on Epson V500 Photo with a 127 film adapter purchased from ebay.

LoFi Chocolate Milk Box Camera - 52 Cameras, 52 Weeks

Week 26 - LoFi Chocolate Milk Box Camera with RetroChrome 320 from the Film Photography Project Store. The camera was purchased at FiveBelow for $1.99. The shutter button is the straw that sticks out of the top of the box camera. It has a 28mm f/9.5 lens with a photo taking distance of 1.0 and shutter speed of 1/100 sec. The side of the camera states that it is best used with 800 speed film. I maybe should have used the RetroChrome 160, as this roll came out overexposed on the sunny bright days that I used it.

I thought I could discreetly take photos while walking around Gettysburg with Brenda last Saturday, but I felt I looked somewhat conspicuous holding a chocolate milk box to my eye. So I tried just shooting a couple from the hip without really looking through the viewfinder. The camera was easy to carry around but the film counter wasn't working so I wasn't sure how many photos I had taken. I also used the camera on a lunch time walk up to the art supply store with my co-worker earlier this week.

I developed the film with my first ever E6 developing kit, after developing two other rolls first. The first two rolls came out properly exposed (probably because of the auto exposure settings on those two cameras). As you can see, these came out much lighter, I'm happy with the way some of them look though.

The slide film positives were scanned with Epson V500 Photo.

Polaroid Land Camera 360 - 52 Cameras, 52 WeeksWeek

Week 23 Camera - Polaroid Land Camera 360 Electronic Flash model (without the electronic flash) that Brenda bought for me on her birthday! We were poking around in a few antique stores, I saw this camera and I was mulling over whether I wanted to add another pack film camera to my collection in light of the fact that pack film will no longer be produced by Fuji. But the camera was in such good condition and had the flip up Zeiss viewfinder, so Brenda bought it for me (it was only $10). I had trouble figuring out how to get to the battery compartment, but a quick search online provided the answer. As suspected, there were a couple of corroded batteries, but after cleaning with white vinegar, I popped in a battery and the shutter clicked twice - awesome!

On Sunday, I loaded my last pack of Fuji FP-3000b, found my Polaroid 516 Cloud Filter attachment and Brenda and I were off on a car ride up to Peter's Orchards and Pine Grove Furnace State Park, in the Michaux State Forest. I'm so glad that Brenda likes to ride along with me on these little photography excursions - at Peter's Orchards we stocked up on apple butter, honey, and a jar of pumpkin butter to try. To get to Peter's Orchards, it's a straight drive up Route 94 through Cross Keys and York Springs with part of the ride over some roller coaster type hills that can leave your stomach in the air (fun!). It seems an endless drive over the hills surrounded by acres of apple trees until suddenly there is the fruit market in the middle of the orchards. I especially love to drive through the orchards after the leaves have fallen as the bare trees have interesting gnarly branches that I haven't quite been able to capture well on film.

After shooting at the fruit market, we headed north with another stop for a photo and then to Pine Grove Furnace. The Furnace stack is near the Appalachian Trail and the park campgrounds. I love the texture of the rocks that form the furnace and the remains of the walls behind it with the foliage poking through. I made a couple of accidental double exposures here as I wasn't sure I had cocked the shutter. I also took a few iPhone photos for reference to make a sketch or two. 

The Polaroid 360 operated smoothly though the exposures were a little too dark, I probably should have adjusted the exposure more. The photos were scanned on Epson V500 Photo and I also scanned the negative side of the peel apart film, one of the scans is shown above.