Dupont Superior 2 test

Chris spotted this canister of film--Dupont Superior 2--online last week and since the price was right, I had to try it. It's been hard to find much online about this film. What intrigued us from the get-go was the military expiration date on the film--June, 1966. That and the fact that it was made by Dupont--not a name I've been accustomed to associating with film.

The canister arrived Wednesday. Since the film is packaged on a motion picture reel, I couldn't just put the whole thing in the bulk loader as I normally would. Rather, I cut off a portion of film--enough for 30 exposures or so--and loaded that into the film loader and spooled up one test cartridge.

The film has an asa of 125, but since it was long expired, I decided to meter the first test roll at 100. Turns out, I might have gone 64 or so instead. As luck would have it, the weather on Thursday and Friday was pretty drab and rainy, so I had to do most of the test roll indoors which meant I had to contend with pretty low-light conditions. Not a good choice for this film. The good news, however, is that the film can still take/make an image.

Besides having to contend with low-light conditions, I made the less-than-brilliant choice to couple the Holga fisheye lens with the regular wide-angle lens I had on the Canon AE-1 Program. I'm guessing this messed up the metering while making the job of focusing a real challenge. Most of the shots on the test roll were out of focus and unexposed and the negatives were very thick or dense--lacking in contrast.
The best shots on the test roll were those that I didn't use the extra fisheye lens with and/or those that I took outdoors. This office shot, for example, and the one below of my brand new (to me) bun steamer!

















Since the weather is looking much better for this weekend, I've decided to run another test roll--this time using one of my Pentax Spotmatics, and taking shots outdoors. I've lost the fisheye lens and will meter the next roll at 64 and just hope for the best--or at least hope for better results than I had the first go-round. Speaking of which, I did a Diafine dev with the first test roll, but might try something else--HC-110 or a Rodinal stand.

A sampling of some of the other test shots appears below:

well, that's more like it!

Meet the new Kowa. In light (no pun intended) of the problems I had been having with the first Kowa I bought--the Kowa/Six--I decided to return that one for a refund and purchased the Kowa Super 66 instead. It wasn't that I necessarily preferred the Super 66 over the Six or SixMM, it was more a matter of price, availability, and whether or not the seller had a return option.

As soon as the new Kowa arrived, I did a black and white test roll and I tried, best as I could, to switch up the lighting conditions. The test roll looked pretty good. I'm thinking this is a keeper. I still need to do a color test roll with the 85mm lens--the sampling below was taken with a 55 mm wide angle lens.

infra-ready (already!)

Finally. After spending the whole summer prepping for this event (perhaps I exaggerate? could it have only been 1/2 of the summer?), I finally got to take some Holga infrared shots! My plans were delayed by my inability to find and successfully purchase a Holga camera that was compatible with the cable/shutter release I had. [Long story short, I ended up buying a new Holga and a new cable release attachment.]

So yesterday, I reviewed my print out of this handy Holga/IR guide once again, loaded up the Holga with a roll of Efke IR 820 (non-aura version), my Visico IR 720 filter and headed to the park. As an aside: I am deeply bummed to learn that B & H has discontinued this film. They still carry the aura at 10 bucks a roll, but I liked the regular 820--it could be had when it could be had for about 6-7 bucks a roll if I recall. I had been tempted to develop these images with PMK Pyro but decided that I'd rather not confuse things. In other words, as this would be my first time using this film, using the Holga for infrared shots, etc. I wanted a kind of base-line for things. (Of course this was all before I realized that the film had been discontinued.) Instead, I used Diafine, using these guidelines for developing infrared--see entry to posting from eye of wally. The last (or first or only other) time I shot infrared, I did a Rodinal stand.

I was pretty pleased with the results--a sampling of which appears below. [I was super-duper pleased that the trip resulted in my finding a portion of the park I'd not visited before--yeah!]

As anyone will tell you, determining exposure times for infrared can be tough, so for most of these I went about 4 seconds, 2 seconds if the sun happened to be directly shining on the scene. (In so doing, I counted "1-2-3-4" and not "1-one thousand, 2-one thousand," etc. so my exposures might not have been true 4 second ones.) Generally speaking, the sky was bright with direct sun appearing only occasionally. Again, overall, I was pretty pleased with the results. I was very, very pleased, on the other hand, that I was finally able to get out and take IR images with the Holga before the summer ended. The only kinda quirky-annoying thing that happened--and it happened with most of the images on the roll--was that a light band appeared at the top left of each image. This band of lightness can be seen in the first image below. In some cases, the band didn't bother me, in other cases (as with the second image below), I felt the image was much improved when the section of the image was cropped out. Not sure what caused this, but it doesn't strike me as a typical Holga light leak--the banding seems to consistent and uniform for that. I had the camera taped pretty well but forgot to remove the 6x6 mask inside. I mention the mask, not because I think it played a role in this, but because I prefer to use the Holga without the mask--I like the rougher edges.

I've currently got the Canon AE1 Program loaded with Ilford SFX 200 film (I'm metering it at 25--might be too high?) and after seeing these results on flickr, I'm thinking that maybe I'll try a PMK Pyro dev on the Ilford. I'm eager to see what the fall light has in store for my new, infrared-dedicated Holga. I'm also eager to try the efke aura film. I just can't decide whether I want to try that first in a 35mm camera or buy some 120 to test in the Holga.

a small, good quirky thing

What a quirky little camera. It's been a while since a newly acquired camera has given me pause--made me think, "hmmm. what have we here?" Maybe it's because it has been a while since I've tested a new camera and the whole testing process seems somewhat new and novel again--like there's something to appreciate with each and every new acquisition. (and believe me, this has not always been the case. . .far from it!) Or maybe it is the case that the Wirgin Junior folding camera is actually pretty cool, pretty quirky.

A bit of background: I saw this item listed on ebay when I was searching for exposed film. It was about the time when I told myself that I wouldn't be buying any new (new to me, anyway) cameras unless they were tlr's. I should have known that once I made this commitment, I'd find a way to break it. Anyhoot. I was intrigued with the camera cause I could find so little specifically on or about this camera--not even on flickr. There is some info there on Wirgin cameras generally, but not really much of anything on the Wirgin Junior. What little I found seems to be incorrect. This fixed focused camera has two shutter settings, 1/50 and B. And it takes 12 6x6 shots, not, as indicated elsewhere, 6x9 shots. The camera itself is in great shape. I got it [the camera] along with the box, manual (both in minty condition) and the exposed roll of film for 20 bucks. [As an aside: The exposed roll of film was pretty much a bust--only three or four exposures had been made, and none of these were particularly interesting. . .didn't really do much by way of making me eager to test this one.]

The camera had been loaded (with artista edu 100 speed film) and ready to test for the past month or so. I just never got around to testing it. Till yesterday, that is.

Images like this make me think the Wirgin might actually out-Holga the Holga. . .or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it might out-Diana the Diana. Well, almost. I was a little surprised that the images came out as underexposed (or dark) as they did. I worried that even 100 speed film might be too fast for the 1/50 shutter setting. I'm thinking next time around, I definitely want to go with 400 if not something higher. The images of the Thomas Viaduct below where also among my favorites on the test roll. They don't suggest Holga to me in the way the guard rail image here does, but I'm pretty fond of them.




































Here's my main complaint: The lens appears to be way too soft to handle distance combined with lots of detail very well. Things get fuzzy, bunchy, blurry. Contrast, for instance, the image of Lost Lake left with the one below. The rail and cattails in the foreground of the image below help me make sense of the composition as a whole--gives me something(s) upon which to focus/anchor my understanding of the scene. I still have to do some more experimenting with distance here but I'm thinking that this camera might work best at greater distances with simple/singular subjects (like the viaduct) but will likely do the best job when I'm about 5 feet from whatever I'm attempting to photograph. Another complaint, albeit a minor one, is that it's hard to tell--based on the sound the shutter makes, how it feels when I depress the shutter button, etc.--if the shutter has actually fired. Although I had made sure it worked before loading the camera with film, I had this worrisome feeling while working with the camera that all my shots would be blank. They weren't of course. A small, good quirk: When I began scanning these negatives, I realized that it appears as though I have created my own jagged mask for the film plane. I haven't. I realized that I cropped the jagged parts out of most of the shots here, but you can see a little of what I'm talking about at the bottom of the guard rail image above.

I've included a number of other images from the test roll here as well. As I try to do with every new camera I acquire and test, I had to get the Wirgin Junior's take on the bend as well as the swinging bridge. I was, on this same outing, taking infrared images with my Twilight Zone Holga, so the second to last image below depicts the moments before I took some Holga infrared shots of the bend. [Note: Images were developed with Diafine]

settling in

I've spent the past couple weeks moving from one space to another, considerably larger, space. As a housewarming present to myself, I decided to purchase a small, dedicated film fridge. I had grown really tired of not being able to fit groceries in my fridge and vowed that if/when I moved to a bigger space, this would be among the first purchases I would make for the new place.

The other nice thing about the new space is that even though it lacks most of the storage/closet space the old place had (yes, the living space proper was quite tiny but it had three 4x5 storage closets and a larger attic space), it has a fairly good-sized pantry. Given that this place has much, much higher ceilings than my old attic apartment did, I can get more stuff in the pantry than I could in either of the other old 4x5 storage spaces. At this point, I've dedicated the whole of the middle shelf to photo stuff: chemicals, reels, clips, etc. Everything but film and cameras. I might adjust things a bit as time goes on--only 1/2 the space of the top shelf is taken up, but I wanted to make sure that I could reach the things I need. As it is, the middle shelf might prove a little trying in this respect. Unless things are located at the front of the shelf, I need a footstool to reach them.

I have to say, the desire to develop a roll of film--never mind being able to do so, to work out my new process in a new place--has become quite pronounced over the past few days. Prior to beginning to move stuff from one place to another I had loaded up my zero image 135 pinhole and shot half a roll of tmax 3200 film. My plan was to finish up the rest of the roll once the new place was set up and good to go. I ended up finishing up the roll last Thursday. Cognizant that this would be the first roll of film I'd be developing in the new place (this, was/is, for some reason, a big deal to me) I thought long and hard about which chemicals/process I'd use for this roll of film. Problem was, I guess with all the long and hard thinking I did, I forgot to think sensibly about things. I had ruled out using the pyro pmk I bought right before the move, reasoning that I didn't want to try something brand new and risk messing it up. I still hadn't had time to mix up a new batch of Diafine, so I decided to go with a Rodinal stand. This would allow me to continue moving stuff in, cleaning stuff up, organizing it, etc. while the film developed. So far, so good. Where the plan began to fall apart was in my thinking that it made sense to use the last of a small bottle of Rodinal. My first sign that maybe something wasn't right was when I rinsed the film after the development--the color was strange. The second sign had to do with realizing that the fixer had become quite pink when I poured it back in the container. I checked the film and it was blank, clear. It looked just like the films did back a couple months ago when I used (and for some reason continued to use) the expired Diafine. I was frustrated, in part, because the pinhole shots take much longer to set up and take. I had also tried a new exposure technique--one that I hoped would make up for not having sprung for the accessory shutter release on the 135. What bummed me out the most, however, was that this was the first roll of film I'd be developing in my new space. That it turned out so horribly seemed to me to be a really bad sign. I briefly thought about springing for the snazzy red Pentax K-x I've had my eye on lately and just shooting mainly/only digital, doing film now and again, as a special treat. This thought (i.e., shooting only/mainly digital), in turn, made me feel really sad (and somewhat hostile) so I rejected it fairly quickly.

I ended up deciding to run another roll of film through the zero 135, but it seems that I wasn't finished with my run of less-than-fortunate photo luck in this new place. At a certain point, the film refused to advance in the camera, leading me to believe that there were no more exposures left to make on the roll. I ended up with 16 exposures on the roll. Not sure what the deal was with the film advance but it once again brought to mind the similarities between my experiences with Diana cameras and my Zero Image cameras. I've had similar problems with the film advance mechanism on the Diana mini--my sense in both instances is that I'm surely not finished with the roll of film but I worry about breaking the film or the camera by forcing the advance. Another irksome similarity between the Zero 135 and the Diana+ is the tendency for both cameras to scratch the film plane. With the Diana+, the problem seems to have to do with the tension and position of the film during the initial wind-on. Not sure what the deal is with the Zero 135. In most instances where scratching is (or might be) involved (i.e., when I'm using a Holga without the mask inserts), I've put electric tape along the sides of the camera where the film passes from one spool/cartridge to the other. This is especially helpful if the plastic of the camera seems rough. Problem is, the inside of the Zero seems pretty smooth.

Despite the advancing/scratching problems, I was relieved to see that the 16 exposures I had made all came out. This time around, I decided to use the newer bottle of Rodinal for the stand and I had also mixed up some new fixer after the last batch went all pink. I had been tempted to try out the new batch of Diafine I had (finally) gotten around to mixing the day after the failed Rodinal stand but since I'd not been having the best photo luck in the new place, I decided not to tempt fate. While on the subject of teh new place and my less-than-great photo luck, get this: I open the new box of Diafine and see that each can is marked with a paper tag. Fine. Nothing new or surprising here. Each tag has a letter and series of numbers. The letter on each paper tag identifies whether the can is the powder for the A solution or the B solution. (It's crucial that none of the B solution mixes with, or gets into, the A solution.) Where things get confusing for me is that I happen to notice that the can with the paper tag marked B has two A's embossed in the metal of the can. The can with the paper tag marked A has (you guessed it) two B's on the can. Sigh. Noting that one can is much heavier than the other, I attempt an online search to determine whether the A or B can of Diafine is typically heavier. I find nothing. So I call freestyle and try to explain the problem. The woman I spoke to there was extremely helpful. She pulled some Diafine from the shelf there and said that the product she was looking at was, in fact, properly marked. That is to say, the can embossed with the A's had the A sticker and the B can had the B sticker. She also confirmed for me that the B can was the heavier of the two. In the end, I decided to trust the paper tags. I mixed the new batch but, still not convinced that my run of less-than-great photo luck has run its course, I have not yet tested it.

Here's to hoping that things that begin in such a wacky way actually end up working out really well. I'd really hate to have to move again.

on process: the worst-case scenario

So the second Diana 151 arrives the other day (I highly recommend bidding on items during holidays) and the surprise bonus is that there is a roll of film inside. The roll is on exposure #2 and I'm a little bummed because it would have been great to get the mint diana, the box (in what I'd call good condition as there is a small tear starting in one corner of the box) AND a fully exposed roll of film for 19.95.

Here's where I messed things up and why I'm ultra-bummed today: While I've researched how to go about developing old b/w films, it never occurred to me to do the same with color films. Maybe part of this is that my experience using the Tetenal C-41 kit has me on auto-pilot in that I develop every color film for the same amount of time, no matter what. Another (more embarrassing) part of the problem is my not even stopping to think that anything preceded C-41 development. Blast! Double-duh! The roll of film inside was Kodacolor-X, a film that used C-22 processing. I read on one forum that a b/w developer like Diafine or Rodinal can work, but obviously, it's too late to try that with this roll. It was, needless to say, fried after its bout in C41 chemicals. Seriously, yellow stuff was dripping off the roll. So sad. Such a learning opportunity missed. Of course, this is not to diminish the much harder lesson learned today: Research everything first--don't assume! That said, I would have rather learned more about what this particular film could do. The one thing I give thanks for is that they were all (save for the first frame) all images I took. And having no idea if the camera back had been off or if the film had been exposed to light, I didn't shoot anything that couldn't be shot again. Still, the sky today was amazing. Blah. I guess I always know when it's time to get back to the job I'm paid to do and leave the hobby aside for a bit. . .between this gaff and the polaroid woes, I feel like someone or something is telling me to get back to work.