if not a charm, at least a little bit better. . .

it wasn't five minutes after writing this in my last post:

"while waiting for the new camera to arrive, i've been tempted to try yet again with this one--well, after creating a new, still smaller-sized pinhole. the main deterrent to this (besides having a book to write and 30-some student projects to grade and not having anything with which to make a smaller size pinhole) is the time involved with carefully uptaping and then carefully retaping the mechanism"

that i went to the shelf where i had placed my matchbook pinhole and began taking it apart, deciding that i would, in fact, attempt to create a new (and i hoped still-smaller) pinhole and then began the process of taping things back up again. i should know better than to think that i won't end up doing what i insist that i would not or should not end up doing.
aside from the presence of what i call "the hangy" thing (see top-right side of image left), i was most pleasantly surprised with test roll three. i almost found myself regretting (albeit briefly) my decision to pay someone else to make a pinhole for me.

as for the "hangy" thing: as the negatives were drying, i thought that the mark might indicate a light leak but noticed that the marks on the negatives were all white. it wasn't till i took the box apart that i realized that a poorly-cut portion of the cardboard must have been pulled down when i loaded the last roll of film. i had to do more cropping than i would have liked to do with these images but, overall, i was pleased with the increased sharpness of images (much less fuzzy and cartoon-like) and i had far fewer exposure problems than i had with the first two rolls. --as a point of comparison, i have paired below an image from the first test roll with a "re-do" shot taken yesterday.

having gotten a good chunk of the grading done, i began another pinhole project yesterday morning about which i will say (perhaps unwisely?): i am not even close to being ready to shoot a test roll with this camera yet. i had purchased some months ago an agfa ansco shur-shot box camera that seemed to be in pretty amazing shape when i received it. problem was that the shutter broke before i could put film in it. (perhaps a good thing as i am glad not to have wasted the roll of film.) i took the camera apart to see what, if anything, might be done to get the shutter working again, realized that there was nothing i could do at that point in time, so i put it in a box marked "if/when you learn more about how shutters work, open this."

i was really bummed about the camera as it has the ability to take half-frame shots--something i had been hoping to try.

though i've not learned much about shutter-fixin' in the past few months, i have found a new appreciation for black boxes and wondered what might be involved with making this camera into a pinhole camera. i did a search on flickr which lead me to a couple of things ansco/pinhole related (though it's not the exact camera i have, i found this and this) and then spent most of the morning taking my camera apart, thinking through what i'd need to do, where the pinhole should be (i.e., in front of the shutter or behind), etc.

i'd never had the occasion to attempt using 35mm with the shur-shot since the shutter went kaput shortly after arriving. otherwise put, if i knew i could, in fact, run 35mm through this camera, it might make testing it more appealing and certainly more cost-efficient. as it is, i'm thinking this one will have to wait till i've done more thinking and researching.

third time's a charm?

cause i definitely didn't have beginner's luck with my pinhole adventure and after this second-go round, i'm thinking that this is the way i'll be going in the near future.

i was feeling decidedly hopeful about the second test roll since i had (at least from my perspective) made the second pinhole at least 1/2 the size of the first. since the images on the first test roll were all over-exposed, i kept with the same exposure/time guide, thinking the images on the second roll would be closer to normal. no dice. problem was that i took a good number of shots outside, around campus, and had little idea of what i was doing since the first test shots were all indoors. so much for controlling one's variables. and i meant to do more by way of bracketing shots with the second roll but, well, ended up not doing that either.

while i love, love, love the perspective one can get with the matchbook pinhole (reason enough to keep revamping and retesting my diy matchbook), i can't help but feel disappointed with what i consider to be the rather cartoon-like quality of the first and second test rolls. i thank goodness i shot color with these since it provides hints to what the image is supposed to be of--more or less.

while waiting for the new camera to arrive, i've been tempted to try yet again with this one--well, after creating a new, still smaller-sized pinhole. the main deterrent to this (besides having a book to write and 30-some student projects to grade and not having anything with which to make a smaller size pinhole) is the time involved with carefully uptaping and then carefully retaping the mechanism. and starting it all again from scratch, cutting up another matchbook, etc. is simply out of the question. but who knows--if it turns out that tomorrow or the next day is one of those crazy sky days (i.e., bright blue with clouds), i might be tempted to get out the electrical tape and load another test roll.

fuji emulsion lift

finally! i finally worked up the courage to try my first emulsion lift and i have to say--i think i'm addicted. i'm not sure why i danced around this for so long. it wasn't about not wanting to waste an image as i had plenty of botched polaroid images to do tests with. maybe it was more a matter of not wanting to be disappointed with the technique or not wanting to mess it up. as ever, i think i made this into a bigger deal than it needed to be.

but i had read a lot on the difference between fuji and polaroid emulsions and it didn't seem like fuji was getting many rave reviews. this, too, made me nervous. but i have to say, when the emulsion lifted right off as soon as the image hit the cold water--wowsa! very, very cool. and being able to mush it around, distorting it. . . i can't wait to do this again.

faux bratz cam pinholes (a sampling)

with the help of this most excellent resource, i tried making my own matchbox pinhole camera, starting it last night, finishing it this morning. i then shot and developed a test roll. hmmm.

okay, to be totally honest, this was the look i was hoping for. very optomistic, i know. but what i ended up getting. . . well, the final images (see below) looked like they might instead have been shot with my modified bratz cam. sigh. i'm guessing that the size of the pinhole was a wee bit too big.

if i had to list the things at which i decidedly do not excel, the list would include driving, taking/making accurate measurements, taping things carefully, cutting things accurately (complicating things is my aversion to using most sharp or dangerous tools, but especially exacto knives). bracketing the driving issue, all of these other skills were needed for a proper pinhole construction. if nothing else, i am hopeful and persistent so after seeing my finished products, i revamped my matchbox pinhole, subbing out the old pinhole for a new, more slimly-pointed version. we'll see how test roll two goes.

iko-iko

i love this camera. sure, like the diana+ it too can be a little quirky and (at the risk of comparing a cheaply-made plastic cam to a really, really heavy, solidly-built tlr) i'd argue that the ikoflex, like diana+, is a fairly high-maintenance camera. that said, it seems that the aspects that make the iko-iko sometimes difficult to work with are opposite of the things that make diana+ difficult to work with. for instance, while i worry about dropping (and breaking) both cameras, diana+ feels like nothing much while you can definitely feel the weight of the ikoflex. and people actually wore these around their necks? yipes. the ikoflex is definitely not a strollable camera--not one you'd (or I'd) grab and take on a nature hike.

















but i do love the photos it takes. i remember vividly when the first batch of negatives came back. i had been used to working with the holga, diana+ and the flipped-lens bhf and the sharpness of the ikoflex images, the way they seemed almost 3-D by comparision, was really jarring--but in a really good way.

. . .and even when the images are not that sharply in focus they are still interesting to me. (in my defense, it was really, really hard to hold this thing above my head while trying to compose, focus, etc. the shot. i tried a second shot but by that time my arms were shaking so much, well, that one was blurrier still.)


i'm not sure how or why i began thinking about the ikoflex since i had been on this russian camera kick at the time. i think i might have been researching lubitels when i came across this most excellent resource --a site that ended up serving (for the better part of the summer anyway) as a shopping/wish list generator of sorts. if i saw an image on flickr that i liked, i'd check to see if the camera was listed on the site and if the feedback was good, i'd go to ebay to see if one could be had and (if so) how much it might be had for.

when i saw the zeiss ikon ikoflex listed on ebay, it was originally listed as a Ia. but it's not--it's an early model IIa from 1950. while waiting for the camera to arrive, i downloaded and began looking at the manual for the Ia--i had been cautioned that this camera can be tricky to load and i wanted to get my mind around what i'd need to do to avoid loading problems and botching rolls of film. once the camera arrived things didn't necessarily translate from the manual to experience and it took a while for me to figure out that the camera i had in my hands was not, in fact, a Ia.

as i tended to spend the summer buying cameras in pairs (the holga and the diana, the zorki 4 and the kiev am), i was, at this same time, hoping to pick up a reasonably-priced yashica-D. i remember vividly hauling both cameras, my tripod and my digital camera (aka "light meter") up to campus on really, really hot day in June, eager to shoot test rolls with both cameras. yipes. definitely not strolling cameras.

the ikoflex is tricky to load--after you've wound the film on, you have to manually position the counter on the side to "1". if you forget this step, iko-iko acts up. problem is, the manual says that you are supposed to move the counter clockwise but i'm not thinking my likes moving in that direction. then again, i had a few botched shots with yesterday's film--times when the film advanced a bit beyond where it should have stopped so maybe i should have insisted we moved in a clockwise direction.

the viewing glass is really, really bright (making the iko more enjoyable to work with than the ysahica) but my ikoflex's duds are a bit worn and ragged in places--it could definitely use a new outfit (maybe something in saddle tan?)--but i find particularly daunting the idea of diy camera recovering. maybe it's something i can work up the courage to attempt next summer.

goop and play

despite promising myself that my next polaroid experiment would be an emulsion lift, i tried goop (gooping?) yesterday with the help of this site. i had read that any films slower than, say, 3000 might not work--all or that well--but i saved the negative part of a color image of the study and tried scanning that in as well. (see below) my original plan--after using up the last of the fuji color pack--was to try some of polaroid film to see how that compared with the fuji color film. instead, i opted to go with fuji b/w 3000 so i could see what a goopable negative looked like. i intentionally underexposed the image above in hopes of having a better negative to work with. i ended up getting more solarization than i wanted/expected/hoped for. (click to see postive image)

striation situation

one more thing: so, i couldn't help noticing the striations marking both batches of diana+ pinhole negatives. the bookcase image to the left is one of the more extreme examples, but i noted that even the images from the first roll (see below) all had single lines running down or across the images.

i'll admit that my care and handling of negatives leaves a lot to be desired but my mishandling rarely results in patterns comprised of more or less straight lines. it looks as though something scratched both rolls of film while they were in the camera. ironically, this was the first time i've used the diana+ when advancing the film didn't feel like a be-all, end-all struggle for advancement. otherwise put, most times when i've used the diana+ there have been stretches during advancement when i've been sure that the film will break. if anything, i'd expect striations when the advancement is tight.

so i'm not sure what's up with this as i've never seen these kinds of marks before. i was using arista edu ultra film (both 100 and 400 speeds) and i've used this film before--though perhaps not in the diana+. i checked the inside of the camera as well, but nothing looked suspect (or potentially scratchifying) there. so maybe it's the camera/film combo? i thought about putting some electrical tape on the edges against which the film passes (i was advised to do this with the holga when running 35mm through it). then again, i might try another round of diana+ pinholes tomorrow using a different kind of film--maybe color?--and see if the situation repeats itself. another diana+ mystery.