Kodak Brownie Target Six-16 - 52 Cameras, 52 Weeks

Week 25 Camera - Kodak Brownie Target Six-16 with expired roll of 35mm Kodak Portra 160NC. I thought I would shoot sprocket hole photos with this camera rather than respooling 120 film onto a 616 spool. I like the look of color sprocket hole photos and thought they would be a nice change this week.

I brought the Kodak Brownie Target Six-16 with me on a photo walk around Hanover last weekend. I had a bag with three cameras (the Brownie, Canon AE-1, and Nikon EM), water and a snack when I went on the walk last Sunday morning. It was a beautiful day, but it did start to get a little hot walking around town. Before heading out, I taped the viewfinders of the box camera to limit my view to an approximation of the area that would cover the much thinner 35mm film area in the camera. I had previously calculated how many turns of the film advancing knob would advance the film far enough to not overlap exposures. I managed to get 5 and half sprocket photos out of the 35mm roll. Another thing to consider when shooting is to try to hold the camera level and against your body to stabilize it to make sure the resulting photos are straight. 

I mostly shot some of the old buildings around town, my favorite subjects when walking around Hanover. When finished, I needed to place the whole camera in a changing bag and rewind the film into the canister by hand before opening the film canister and placing the film in the tank. I developed the roll with the Unicolor C-41 home kit from Film Photography Project Store, I'm up to 16 rolls developed with it now, I think the results are still satisfactory to me.

Olympus Stylus Epic Zoom 80 - 52 Cameras, 52 Weeks

Week 19 - Olympus Stylus Epic Zoom 80 purchased at the local Goodwill store for $4.99. I chose Kodak BW400CN from my dwindling stash, developed in Unicolor C-41 home kit. These photos were shot at Maryland Institute of Art in Baltimore, Mount Vernon, and Maytown, PA. 

I really liked the size of the camera and I thought the photos came out really nice, since it's a compact point and shoot camera. There are options for shooting in different modes including an option for turning off the flash. I got nicely exposed no-flash photos from inside the MICA main building on a recent campus tour with my son. The camera is also weather resistant, making it nice to shoot in rainy conditions, like we had on our campus tour. I think it would make a great camera for walking around town or stashing in your backpack for a day hike.

Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day 2016

I had been looking forward to this year's Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day on April 24 for several months and had made plans with a friend to go to Patapsco State Park in Maryland. But as the day approached, I came down with a cold and was not feeling up to a daylong excursion carrying my pinhole gear.  So, I made the best of it, and made it out to the front yard to photograph our blooming Dogwood tree. The featured blog photo here is my entry in the WPPD online gallery this year.

Camera - Holga WPC Wide Pinhole Camera. Film - expired Kodak Portra 160NC. Developed with Unicolor C-41 home kit. Scanned with Epson V500 Photo.

Kodak Brownie Flash 20 - 52 Cameras, 52 Weeks

Week 17 Camera - Kodak Brownie Flash 20 purchased at one of the local antique malls in Hanover. This week's post is a little late as I didn't finish shooting with this camera until yesterday. I was not feeling well last weekend, then it rained for a few days, but I managed to get this week's roll finished.

The film I used was from my batch of expired Kodak Portra 160NC given to me by a friend who found it in an old unused darkroom. The first photo on this roll was of course, one of our house, a frequent subject when trying out a newly acquired camera. I was not up to going out last Sunday though it was gorgeous out (and also Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day!). When Saturday of this week came I was excited to get back out there and decided to hop in my car and drive to a few spots that I had been wanting to photograph. First stop was our lovely Mt. Olivet Cemetery but seeing that there was a funeral about to take place, I quickly drove away. I then remembered that I hadn't seen my son's Eagle Scout project in a while and thought that would make a nice photo. For his project six years ago, he coordinated the efforts to replace the roof and repair an old historic spring house at the retirement village. It looked really nice with fresh landscaping and blooming shrubs, it made nice photos.

I then drove south of Hanover and darted into the parking lot of a pit beef joint and shot a photo of an enormous painted metal chicken that I've driven past many times, hoping the owner wouldn't come chase me away. Whew! I made it. Further south I turned on a country road to see a church and barn. While taking those photos, I noticed a small prayer garden, lush with greenery and dogwood blooms in the background.

I headed back home for a lunch break, then the sun came out! I drove back to Mt. Olivet cemetery and made a few photos and the roll was finished. Now I can concentrate on this week's camera!

Film was developed with Unicolor C-41 kit and scanned with Epson V500 photo.

Kodak Instamatic 500 - 52 Cameres, 52 Weeks

Week 12 - Kodak Instamatic 500, the rolls royce of Instamatic cameras. A metal, solid camera made in Germany, with a button triggered pop out Schneider-Kreuznach f:2.8/38mm lens. A rangefinder camera with bulb to 500 shutter speeds with a built in light meter, though it was  suggested to use a light meter for correct exposure. Most Instamatic cameras feature only fixed focus and shutter speeds.

The Instamatic 500 uses 126 cartridge film with is no longer available, but if you have an empty 126 cartridge, you can refill it with the film of your choice. I watched a youtube video on how to refill the cartridge as well as looking at several websites with instructions. I chose to refill my cartridge with Kodak BW400CN, one of my favorite C-41 films, producing great black and white photographs that can be processed wherever C-41 is still done. In this case, in my kitchen with a Unicolor C-41 kit from Film Photography Project. I gathered my supplies for refilling the cartridge, sat down with my film changing bag and patiently followed the steps to get the film into the camera.

The instructions for shooting with the Instamatic 500 were to take a shot then advance two strokes of the film advance lever and a partial one to get the correct spacing of the frames. After developing the film, I think maybe I should have done just two strokes as there were large gaps between the frames. I think that you could get away with just taking a photo with each stroke as I accidentally shot two frames that way and they came out fine. One cool feature of the cartridge on the negatives is that there are sprockets on the top edge of the negatives. One video I saw, showed the bottom plastic removed from the film frame to produce sprockets on the bottom as well. 

Even though a light meter was suggested, I shot sunny 16 and most of the photos came out properly exposed. For the most part, the photos turned out the way I had framed them in the viewfinder. Focusing is measured in feet on the front of the lens with zone focusing on the bottom of the lens as well. I was on vacation this week, so I was able to take a walk around Hanover on a sunny, warm Wednesday to complete the roll of film. The negatives were scanned on Epson V500 Photo and levels adjusted in Photoshop.

Nikon EM - 52 Cameras, 52 Weeks

Week 10 camera is my newly acquired Nikon EM. I bought this recently from KEH Camera as I wanted to have a small Nikon Film SLR to carry in my bag for upcoming Spring outings to festivals, nature walks, and day hiking. I have a nice Nikon E Series 50mm 1.8 prime lens to use with it, and aside from manual focusing, I should be able to concentrate on framing up my photos instead of fiddling with the settings. The Nikon EM is a battery powered compact film SLR that features aperture priority semi-automatic exposure control. It was designed for beginners wanting to purchase an inexpensive interchangeable lens camera. Though not highly successful in it's time, the Nikon EM and Series E lenses are a good price/performance value in the used market. I purchased this bargain rated camera for $14 from KEH Camera and had previously purchased the Nikon Series E 50mm 1.8 pancake lens for $49 from Ebay. The lens of course, can be used on other Nikon cameras, of which I have two others.

When I pick out a camera for the week, I like to carry it with me and just get random photos of whatever Brenda and I might doing that week. This week was hard, my father passed away and we were having his visitation and memorial services over the weekend. But I needed to try to be doing the things that I enjoy to ease the emotional, exhausting time that our family was going through. Some of these photos will be a reminder of this time when I look at them in the future, as is the case with almost every photo that I take. Most of the photos on this roll were taken on a nature walk at La-Ho trail at Lake Marburg, in Hanover, PA the day after my father's memorial service. It was a beautifully sunny day which was comforting and gave me something to look forward to - the coming warm and sunny weather of Spring and Summer. 

I cross-processed the film in a Unicolor C-41 kit from Film Photography Project and scanned the negatives with an Epson V500 Photo flatbed scanner. I like the amber cast that came through on some of the nature shots and also the coloring on the photos of the abandoned buildings, giving them a sepia antique photo quality. Only minor adjustments were made to the negative scans, using the levels adjustment in Photoshop to pick out the lightest and darkest parts of each scan. I would like to try this camera and lens with the expired Portra 160 NC film that I have and also with black and white film.

Bonus Camera for 52 Cameras, 52 Weeks - Holga WPC 120

A bonus camera for my 52 Cameras project this week - with my birthday cash, I ordered a Holga WPC 120 Camera that I had been wanting to get for a couple of years. I thought I should get one soon as I wasn't sure how long they would still be available at a reasonable price. I bought one from Lomography's online store seeing they still had them in stock at a much lower price than other places where it was still available. I thought I would try another roll of the 2002 expired Kodak Portra 160NC in it and brought it along this past Sunday when we went to Codorus State Park and Glen Rock, PA. The camera is capable of shooting 6x9 or 6x12 photos with two interchangeable masks and has an f/135 pinhole, requiring the use of a tripod and a shutter release cable. I have been very impressed with the ultra wide photos that can be achieved with this camera, with some great examples being found on Flickr. After finally shooting with it myself, I can see that I need to try to come up with more interesting angles and subject matter and get in closer. Next time I will use my old standby, Shanghai GP3 100 Pan film developed in caffenol. 

Film developed in Unicolor C-41 Kit purchased from Film Photography Project store and scanned with Epson V500 Photo.

Imperial Mark XII Flash - 52 Cameras

For week six of 52 Cameras - 52 Weeks, I have a camera that's been on my shelf for a very long time, the Imperial Mark XII 620 film camera. It is a plastic camera made in the 1950's by the Herbert-George Co. in Chicago and was made in various colors. It makes 6x6 photographs using a fixed-focus, single shutter speed, single aperture lens. I respooled Lomography Redscale 100 film as, according to a blog post I read on the Film Photography Project website, February is Redscale Film month. I found that shooting with redscale film with this camera requires lots of light, best to shoot with plentiful sunshine to get the best photos. I shot a few of the photos of favorite subjects on my daily commute home from my job in Baltimore, MD. The Prettyboy Dam is not too far off my journey home, I've made a quick side trip there on many occasions to snap photos with other cameras. The daylight was running out on the day I was there, and the photos I shot didn't turn out as well as they could have. I also have a favorite cemetery angel that is along the roadway at a country church that I pass each day, she has been the subject of many camera and film tests over the years.

For the remainder of the photos, Brenda and I packed a backpack picnic and headed out to Codorus State Park on Sunday with the intention of hiking the La Ho Trail around Lake Marburg, but upon arriving we thought the better of it with the muddy conditions from the recent snow melt. We ate our backpack picnic  by the lake and then drove out to Glen Rock, PA to grab some photos of the town. There is also a place called Ruins Hall with lots of graffiti that I saw previously when we rode through Glen Rock on the Steam Into History train from New Freedom, PA. 

The film was processed using a Unicolor C-41 kit from the Film Photography Project store and scanned with Epson V500 Photo.

Nishika N8000 Quadra Lens 3D Camera - 52 Cameras, 52 Weeks

For this week's camera, I got out an old favorite of mine - the Nishika N8000 Quadra Lens 3D Camera. I had purchased it a few years ago from Amazon because it was such an unusual looking camera, and produced lenticular photos. Lenticular photos have the illusion of depth and appear to change or move when you tilt them back and forth.  I had hoped that it would still be possible to get lenticular prints made when I ordered the camera, but the lab that processed them was no longer in business, and there wasn't another one available at the time. A recent google search indicates that there is a lab that prints these types of photos, so that may be something worth checking into for future reference. 

Even though I wasn't able to get lenticular prints, I still liked the way the camera produced four almost identical photos from two frames, resulting in a total of 12 four frame photos for a roll of 24 exposures, or 17-18 four frame photos from a 36 exposure roll. Each photo is slightly different in that each one is shot at a slightly different angle through each of the four lenses. It's like the way that each of your eyes sees a slightly different angle if you close one or the other. This concept is also used when creating stereo cards that can be viewed with a stereoviewer to see a three-dimensional effect. There is a free software program available for Windows PCs that can create antique looking stereocards called StereoPhoto Maker. I have used this software previously with negatives from a Kodak Stereo Camera and other rolls of film I've shot with the Nishika N8000. I would create the stereocard and then upload it to Walmart Photo to have the stereocards printed, they worked great in my antique Holmes style stereoviewer.

Brenda and I decided to take a ride over to Gettysburg Battlefield to shoot the photos for this week. I thought some of the monuments would make good animated gifs and and the landscape would make interesting stereo cards. I also wanted to ride by the old Distelfink Restaurant outside Gettysburg, on old Route 15, to snap another photo of the aging sign, it has a very Pennsylvania Dutch design. The restaurant has been closed for a long while, a history of it can be found with an internet search.

For this week's roll of film, I used a 2002 expired roll of Kodak Portra 160NC film developed at home with a Unicolor C-41 kit purchased from the Film Photography Project store. The negatives were scanned with Epson V500 Photo flatbed scanner and some were converted to animated gif files in Photoshop.

HolgaGlo 120N with Expired Kodak Portra 160NC - 52 Cameras

For week 3 of 52 Cameras, 52 Weeks, we have the HolgaGlo 120N with expired Kodak Portra 160NC. I had recently been given the expired Kodak Portra 160NC by a close friend after he found it an old darkroom, he thought I might want to try it out to see what I would get with it. I have used the HolgaGlo 120N in my collection before, but only once to shoot a roll of Shanghai GP3 100 black and white film to try it out after I first bought it. I wanted to use color film in the camera, which I developed with a new Unicolor C-41 home developing kit that I bought from the Film Photography Project Store. This is my third kit, I've had good results from the previous kits, but my last one was greatly expired, time for a new kit.

For this week's roll of film, we took a trip down to the Conowingo Dam on the Susquehanna River on the border of Cecil and Harford Counties, Maryland. The Conowingo Dam is known for it's winter Bald Eagle population, as the birds come here to feed off the abundance of fish that are released through the turbines of the dam at times, which according to the visitor center hostess, the eagles anticipate when the warning lights start to flash. I wasn't really thinking that I would capture a Bald Eagle photo on my Holga camera, I just thought it would be fun to take a few shots of the dam and maybe a few things along the drive there and back. The weather was perfect, sunny and not too cold. We packed a picnic lunch, our cameras and binoculars, and had an enjoyable couple of hours watching the birds and talking to fellow photographers while we were there. A nice couple told us about the visitor center, so we stopped in and had a very informative conversation with the visitor center hostess about the construction and history of the dam and surrounding areas, as well as information about the Bald Eagle population.

Back to the Holga - In addition to the Conowingo photos, I also tried a few photos with a flash. I enjoy shooting with it, I just need to remember to set the focus before I take a shot. The film came out pretty nice, some color shifting and blue vignetting, but overall I like the color in these. I had shot another roll of this film with the HolgaGlo at Gettysburg, but that's not in this week's post, you'll have to check out my Flickr page to see those shots.