26 Instax Packs - #10 - Skyblue Instax Mini Frame in Diana F+ with Lomography Instant Back. Wanting to shoot a pack film, but not knowing what to take photos of, I spent and hour or so at Codorus State Park on a pleasant Saturday afternoon with my Diana camera. I still need to work on getting the right expsosure and composition with this camera, but I do like the photos they look pretty sharp when they're right.
26 Instax Packs - #3
26 Instax Packs - #3 - Diana F+ with Instax Back using Fuji Instax Mini Monochrome at Gettysburg National Military Park in early evening. The exposure was a bit unpredictable and hard to get right, but there are interesting effects on the corners of some of the prints.
26 Instax Packs- #2
26 Instax Packs - #2 - Lomo'Instant Automat with Rainbow Instax Mini Frame celebrating the arrival of Spring in Baltimore, Maryland. Most photos made with close-up lens attachment.
Spartus 35
Week 50 - Spartus 35 with leather case purchased at the Black Rose Antique Mall in Hanover, PA for $12. I was drawn to this simple camera with the sans serif font spelling out the name around the lens, on a day that I was hankering to buy another camera. I didn't want to spend much money but wanted to find a nice little usable one to wind down my 2016 film camera project. The Spartus 35 is well, a 35 mm camera, made by the Herold Company of Chicago. It has a lens with focusing from 4 feet to infinity, time and instant lever, and aperture settings of Bright, Hazy, Cloudy, and Dull, with a tripod mount on the bottom.
I loaded the camera with Film Photography Project's FPP EDU 200, but when I turned the film advance knob, it kept turning, so I wasn't sure how many frames had been advanced until I noticed the film counter dial rotating as I was advancing. The film is supposed to advance one frame at time with a sprocket release button being pressed to advance to the next frame. This one apparently was not working, but I correctly observed that the film dial turned one full rotation between frames but unfortunately I had wasted a half a roll of film or so by then. I managed to get 10 frames out of this roll on a nice lunch time walk around my office in Baltimore.
It's getting increasingly difficult to find fresh material to photograph within a lunchtime walking distance around my office, and its too dark by the time I get home in the evenings to go out and shoot. I do still enjoy photography with the various cameras that I've been using this year, but as the year is winding down to a close, I feel that my project will also be closing at the end of the year as well.
I developed the roll in Kodak D-76 stock solution for 9 minutes and scanned the negatives with Epson V500 Photo. I think the photos came out nicely exposed with sharp focus where I correctly guessed the focusing distance.
Konica C35 AF
Week 47 - Konica C35 AF that came in a box of free cameras that my stepfather obtained from a local newspaper listing. Modern Photography from April 1979, touts this as the "First Auto-Focus Still Camera," with a non-interchangeable 38mm f/2.8 Konica Hexanon, with apertures up to f/22, focusing to 3 1/2 ft. It has an electronically programmed shutter, with flash, powered by two AA batteries. Available film speed settings from 25-400. The magazine article lists the original price as $283. An in depth explanation of how the auto-focus feature works from the magazine article below-
“Adjacent to the viewfinder, on either side of the “Konica C35” nameplate, are the windows for the Honeywell patented Visitronic auto-focus System… the Visitronic autofocus Systems can be classified as a dual-image comparator linked to the lens by an electromechanical system. As you cock the shutter the lens moves completely forward to a ready position. When the shutter release is pressed, the lens begins to move backward, under spring tension, toward its infinity- focus position until it receives an electrical signal indicating proper focus. At this instant a claw engages a toothed rack affixed to the internal lens barrel, and the lens is automatically locked in proper focus position.”
I loaded the camera with Fujicolor 200 film and carried it along for a visit to see my mother-in-law. We decided to go to Elizabethtown for the annual Christmas parade, though, my heart was not really in it with my mother's recent passing. I thought I would try to get a few snaps of my great-niece and nephews in the parade, but we were facing the sun, which I think hindered the auto-focusing and auto-exposure on the camera. The close-up shots that I took of Brenda and her mom came out much better, I may want to try this camera with some black and white film with the subjects closer to the lens.
The roll was processed with Film Photography Project C-41 Kit (which I'm hoping will finish out my project before needing replacement) and scanned with Epson V500 Photo.
Agfa Isoflash-Rapid
Week 44 - Agfa Isoflash-Rapid 35 mm film camera purchased at the Westminster Antique Mall for $7. The Agfa Isoflash-Rapid is a German made camera produced in the 1960's that uses two rapid cassettes instead of the standard 35mmh film canister. The film from a rapid cassette is advanced by a gear inside the camera into a second empty rapid cassette. The second cassette was then sent in for processing. This two cassette system was brought back by Agfa to compete with Kodak's 126 film cassette. The Agfa Isoflash-Rapid's shutter will not fire without film in the camera. Fortunately there was film in the camera for me to test out the shutter at the antique store. I tried to develop the film in the camera but it came out blank.
I used an expired 12 exposure roll of Fujicolor 100 as the camera is only able to shoot 16 frames on a regular 12 exposure roll of 35mm film. I had to load the film from the Fuji canister into the empty rapid cassette in a changing bag before loading the film into the camera. I went for a nice walk around Hanover last Saturday morning with the intention of grabbing a few shots of autumn color, but the leaves on the trees were not quite ready. I thought the expired film performed well though, the camera was small and light, easy to shoot with using the fixed focus lens.
I hand processed the roll with Film Photography Project's C-41 kit and scanned the negatives with Epson V500 Photo.
World Toy Camera Day 2016 Results
My "World Toy Camera Day" camera choice for this year was my green HolgaGlo 120N loaded with expired Kodak Portra 160NC. I took the camera along for a visit to my mother-in-law's house just outside of Elizabethtown, PA. Most of the photos were shot on the drive from Harrisburg through Steelton, PA. My favorite shots are of the turnpike underpass and the abandoned Getty gas station.
The roll was developed with Film Photography Project C-41 Kit and scanned with Epson V500 Photo.
Disderi Robot 3
Week 37 - Disderi Robot 3 action sampler plastic toy camera purchased last year from ebay for $10 including shipping. The Disderi Robot 3 has 3 plastic lenses that look like the face of a robot, available in several color combinations. The aperture is f8, shutter speed 1/100th of a second, with each of the three lenses firing sequentially on shutter release. There is no battery required. The resulting photographs have three images per frame, a larger one on top with two smaller ones underneath. The viewfinder is simply a fold up plastic frame, which is really not very accurate, just point in the direction of your subject.
I loaded the Disderi Robot 3 with a recently expired roll of Fuji Superia 400 and shot a few photos around the house. I carried it in my bag all week, it's very light, and used the rest of the roll on a walk around Baltimore on my lunch break. Street photography looks pretty cool in the 3 frame photos, especially with urban landscape patterns. It does make a grinding mechanical noise when firing the shutter, so don't scare anyone when taking a photo! It really is just a fun little camera when you want to get some different photos from your usual routine.
I processed the film in a Film Photography Project C-41 kit, and scanned on Epson V500 Photo with spot dusting in Photoshop.
Retro Slide Show!
Back in March of this year, I purchased an E6 (slide film) home developing kit from the Film Photography Project so that I could try making my own slides from the box of RetroChrome film in my fridge. I'll be honest here, I started developing my own film a while ago because it is much less expensive than mail order. I gradually dipped my toe in home developing when I read about caffenol developing several years ago and have progressed to other types of developing. I previously had a reliable develop-only option available at the local CVS, but they stopped in-store processing last year. The other local option is Walmart, which no longer returns your negatives, which I would scan on my Epson V500 Photo.
After having success with caffenol, Kodak D-76, and a couple of Unicolor C-41 kits, I wanted to try E6 processing at home - the cost of 1 mail order roll of slide film processing is almost as much as the kit costs, but I would be able to develop more rolls myself with the kit. I was really excited when I pulled the first rolls of slide film out of the tank to see beautiful positive images and couldn't wait to get them into slide mounts and project them. I scoured Craigslist for an inexpensive slide projector, finding a Vivitar 3000AF model with two extra trays and an extra bulb for $25. The drive to get the projector was over an hour away, but with the assurance of the owner that it was fully functional, Brenda I drove to Marysville, PA for the purchase. I was a bit annoyed that the owner wouldn't stop talking about the projector, when I had already told her that I wanted to buy it. Just take my money already and let us be on our way!
Now that we had the projector and fresh slides, I invited a friend of mine up for a home slide show and asked her to bring along some slides of her artwork that she had made years ago. Everything was great with the projector and the slides, but our makeshift screen from a large piece of foam board left a little to be desired. So, that evening, I was back on Craigslist looking for a portable projection screen and found one for $20. We picked it up along our Sunday drive around Lancaster County the next day.
The last thing I needed was more slide mounts - I bought a box of 500 Hama DSR one piece plastic mounts, which are very easy to use. I will be able to mount about 20 rolls of film with those, and I plan to be on the lookout for old slides at yard sales and flea markets for future home slide shows.
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.