Canandaigua Lake

Putting the Weathermatic through its paces once again.  So far all our college reunion trips have included water, so it’s in my camera bag on the majority of my trips.  Actually the first three shots were Cinestill 800T from the SPII but I thought they kept closely enough to the nautical theme.

When I visited the Eastman House, I bought a roll of T-Max 400 at the gift shop just I could shoot it in New York.  It cost me $12 (for a 24 exposure roll), and I won’t be doing that again.

Blackburn Reunion 2018, Pt.II

Part II: with the Minolta Weathermatic Dual 35, which I had along ostensibly to use on the water, but which also came handy for other snapshots when occasioned.

That roll of T-Max cost me $12.00 or so at the Eastman House gift shop (for a 24exp roll).  I’ll never let myself get ripped of like that again, but I felt I wanted to at least buy one roll from there while I was in Upstate New York.  One day we were visiting different wineries around the Finger Lakes

Blackburn Reunion 2018, Pt.I

Every couple of years my college buddies get together around Labor Day Weekend to hang out.  This year we stayed at the house of one of our uncles, on Canandaigua Lake in Upstate New York.  I miss this area quite a lot, we spent some time here when I was a boy and it was great to make it back to such a beautiful spot.  There was some hanging around as you can see, board games, lots of meals, generally stuff that we did together when we all lived in Columbus.  Flying into Rochester, NY and staying around the Finger Lakes I of course left all my Fujifilm stocks at home.

The roll of Cinestill 800T was downright ancient, I think I’d had it in my fridge for almost four years and it looks rather grainy.  It’s also the first roll I’d shot in a while and I did shoot it outside now and again, with my orange filter.  That worked better than the first time I tried.  Strangely, I had to work with the indoor shots much more to find an acceptable color temperature (not my strong suit).  I was anticipating some late nights in near-darkness and the T-Max 3200 definitely came through for me there, this is the second roll of the stuff that I’ve shot.  One of my goals was to take a good portrait of each of my friends, though there was some resistance to that.  I got a pretty good shot of most everybody (and they even turned the camera on me once or twice too).  I also tried a cigar for the first time ever and puked my guts out about half an hour later (then it became a true college party); ironic that one of my buddies had mentioned earlier that he never took whisky and cigars together for just that reason, and I had to learn the hard way too…power of suggestion?

The T-Max 3200 was bought last year (in an order from Cinestill).  I think I’m acquiring a bit of a taste for this film: the grain is certainly pronounced (in fact compare it to the last time I pushed Tri-X to 1600), but I love the moodiness that it gives the pictures.  In fact next time we get together I might just keep it all black & white because I’m a bigger fan of that roll of 3200 than anything else I shot.  Then I could roll out the f/1.4 Yellow 50; this time I knew I wanted to shoot some Cinestill 800T so I brought out the 1.8/55 SMC Takumar.

So is the 3200 really any better than pushing Tri-X to 3200?  I honestly don’t know, I’ve only pushed Tri-X to 1600.  I have heard that the results can be a bit unpredictable to go beyond 1600, but then perhaps I should put that to the test myself.  Or maybe look at T-Max 3200 shot at 1600, to compare the grain.  It does look very grainy, more than I would have thought.  Where does the T-grain have its limitations?  The outside night shots here were T-Max 400 shot at 3200; it might not be the most scientific comparison, but I don’t see much difference.

“Did you just take a picture of me eating my breakfast?”

Yes I did.  Get over it.

DIG’s last party

I have something really special in my group of college friends from Ohio State (excuse me, THE Ohio State University).  A few years back we started getting together on a semi-annual basis and it’s like we’ve never been separated, even though a lot of us live outside Ohio now.  Unfortunately this time the gathering came about because one of our number has fallen.  The last time I saw him was nearly a year previous, the last time we got together (I flew in from Colorado) and not long after that he told us all that he was diagnosed with cancer.  All I knew from then were the Facebook updates posted by him or his family.  He leaves behind a son and a wife who is 8 months pregnant.

It wasn’t the best occasion ever, but it was good to hang out with old friends, some of whom I hadn’t seen in a decade.  For this trip all I took was a roll of Tri-X loaded in the Olympus Trip 35.  I didn’t even worry about the x-ray machine, I figured that I’d test out the assumption that the film would survive just 2 airplane trips, and it seems to be alright.  I haven’t looked too hard at the negatives yet, but for my purposes it came out alright (except that with my scanner in storage I couldn’t really work with them as much as I’d have liked).  Though my focusing could have been better, the Trip 35 performed well inside and out (and fit in my suit jacket pocket), especially shooting the astoundingly versatile Tri-X.

It’s been hard finding a time that works for all of us, but I think that after this we’ll all make time, because the future is promised to no man, and each get-together could be someone’s last.
2016, Cincinnati, OH (Pt.II)
2016, Cincinnati, OH (Pt.I)
2014, Lake Cumberland, KY

RIP Dave DiSilvestro, 1984-2017.

Poolside fun with the Weathermatic

The ice and snow finally came last Thursday.  Then it left again, but now it’s back in full force, having somewhere around 6in on the ground up in Divide.  And since I don’t have easy access to a fireplace and glass of scotch at this precise moment, I can at least look back on a warmer time, 2 1/2 months ago.

Ah, the Minolta Weathermatic Dual 35.  I was glad to dig this camera out of the garage and put it back to work!  Staying at my friend’s house while on vacation, most of what we did during the day was hanging out in his pool.  Most everything else we did is captured here.  Again, there aren’t too many outstanding pictures here (and I wasn’t even wearing my glasses when I took any of these).

Those 223 batteries are getting expensive!  I picked a Duracell-made one at Batteries Plus just before I left, cost me $18…should have bought one online a few weeks before, I guess.  At the cost of a new battery every two years, this camera is costing a lot more than I thought it would.  I guess I need to use the camera a bit more here and there (and it does well outside of the pool as well) before the battery runs out by itself.

Knowing that the Weathermatic handles slide film well, I took along a roll of AGFAPhoto Precisa CT 100 (AKA Fuji Provia 100F), as well as a roll of Kodak Gold 200.  The C-41 was scanned at my local shop using the Pakon F235, the Provia was shipped to Mike’s in Boulder and scanned using their Noritsu.  I still have it in my head to gather up all my slide film and do a comparison between the Noritsu, Fuji Frontier used at Mike’s in Colorado Springs, and my own Pakon F335.  Maybe someday…

The Kodak Gold looks pretty good to me, especially when overexposed one stop, looks like lots of detail in the shadows, but I didn’t bother with dodging and burning.  I’ve shot other rolls of Kodak Gold, but they’re still waiting to be developed.  What I’ve seen of Kodak Gold so far made me want to try it out, and I’m glad I did.  I’m still in love with Fuji’s colors though!  At least I remembered to make sure that the lens didn’t have water droplets on it when taking pictures.  I wonder if being in a private pool helped (chemicals, I assume), as last time we were in a lake.  In any event, the water seemed to pour off of its own volition and wasn’t a problem.

If one looks close enough, a little motion blur can be occasionally seen, something I noticed last time I used it as well, and knowing that the camera only shoots at ASA100 and 400, I should have loaded up some 400 speed film in it, but forgot.  Even in bright sunlight, there can be motion blur from me holding the camera, and other times the motion is quite frozen.  I can’t quite say I understand it.  One thing else I found out is that occasionally, the Weathermatic’s exposure isn’t quite spot on, like below.  Of course it had to happen when shooting the Provia:

…

On vacation with a roll of JCH Streetpan 400

It seems like it’ll be every two years now, that my Ohio State friends from Blackburn House (now sadly demolished) get together for a weekend of shenanigans and nostalgic activity.  I’ve sort of appointed myself official weekend photographer (can’t trust anyone else anyway so why not?) and took more pictures with the SLR this time.  Not that they’re anything special, but it’s good to have some output to post here.

This roll of film is courtesy of my fellow blogger/film shooter (and really nice guy) Mark Ewanchuk. We were having some discussion over problems scanning it with the Pakon F135.  I’ve asked the Pakon group on Facebook, and they tell me that it has to do with being a polyester base, and that only machines with a true black & white mode can handle it (there are workarounds and patches to PSI for the F135, I’m told).  Well, my F335 is currently in storage while I try to thread my way through a housing crisis, but since the local camera store uses an F235, I wanted to see if they’d have problems with it.  I didn’t talk to them about it, but evidently it turned out fine.  They run the machine on automatic so the scans (especially those where the exposure isn’t quite on) probably aren’t quite as good as they’d be if I were doing them myself, but still good.  Mark, whatever problem you’re having with getting your F135 to scan it, I’m sorry, if you care enough to ask on Facebook, I’m sure that they could help you out.

JCH Streetpan 400 is an AGFA traffic surveillance film from the ’90s that has been brought back to life, not a brand-new film emulsion.  And in reality, we’ve probably reached the end of technological progression in chemical imaging with Kodak Portra 400 and Ektar 100.  No new R&D is being conducted so I don’t expect that there will be any more advances now.  I don’t necessarily consider this a bad thing, however: we have over a century of different films that have been gone for a long time, that my generation never got to shoot with, and the possibility of delving back in time with long-discontinued emulsions is an enticing thought for me.  That’s what JCH is, that’s what Ferrania will be.  The possibility exists of a Kodak Etkachrome revival (I hope this happens, I’ve never shot Ektachrome).  It’s interesting times we live in.  The Resurrected Camera meets The Resurrected Film.

My first thoughts are that it doesn’t handle incorrect exposures all too well, seems to be pretty high-contrast (at least in D-76 1:1 which is what the local camera store processes), and while occasionally grainy, is quite sharp.  Not unlike Double-X, but faster–a good film to shoot with older lenses.  The newest film on the market right now, JCH Streetpan 400 is lovingly brought to us by Bellamy Hunt of Japan Camera Hunter.  I’ve had thoughts about this film before, and that mostly revolves around the question of competition.  Off the top of my head, we already have: Tri-X, T-Max 400, Delta 400, HP5, Bergger Panchro 400 (on its way in 135 size), Bergger BRF400, ORWO N74, Kentmere 400, Ultrafine Xtreme 400, Rollei RPX 400, Rollei Retro 400, Fomapan 400.  Maybe more that I don’t know about.  Did we really, really, need another 35mm 400 speed black & white film?  Was that really what the majority of photographers expressed a need for?  I don’t know a lot about AGFA films, maybe there weren’t a whole lot of choices available, but I’d think something more toward the high or low end of the speed spectrum would do better and be more relevant, where there are much fewer choices.  Maybe a native-1600ASA film?  Or how about AGFA Scala?  Something more unique.  Something that fills an empty niche.

Maybe I don’t want to judge too quickly having only shot one roll of the stuff, but it’s not going to replace Tri-X in my camera.  And that’s the main problem.  I think it’s an uphill battle to convince people that they need this film, and with the rising exchange rate of the Yen, it’s going to get more expensive to buy.  Right now, expect to pay somewhere around $8.50 a roll.  I’m not saying it’s not worth it to buy, it’s just that I don’t see why we needed it in the first place.  So why should you buy it?  Because it’s there.  Because it’s there at all.  Because someone cared enough to pull a long-discontinued film out of the pages of history and give it another chance at life.  I plan on buying a few rolls soon and putting them away, just to have them, and also because I want to support Bellamy in his efforts.  I hope he is successful, and that more emulsions follow.  I just hope that next time, it’s a film that’s actually worth making is a bit more unique.

On the water with the Minolta Weathermatic Dual 35

It’s been a bit wintry here in Colorado these last few days, and makes me want my sunburn back for just a little while longer…so here are my vacation pictures (Labor Day weekend) while on Lake Cumberland in southern Kentucky, with (most of) my college friends from Ohio State.

note: I apologize for the Bud Light cans marring a few of the images.  It was later in the day and evidently some of my friends have no taste.  In compensation, here’s a (somewhat blurry) picture of me drinking my Magic Hat No. 9:

Life’s too short to drink cheap beer.

Speaking of being just a bit blurry, that’s probably my only real gripe with this camera; I suppose something like a Nikonos would give me just a little bit more control.  I used 100 speed film that day, and I think next time I’ll be sure to bring along some 400 speed as well.  I’m sure ASA100 works fine most of the time, but unfortunately you’ll need that extra stop or two if it clouds over:

(or maybe I could have used the flash?)

On the other hand, I have 2 focal lengths, 50mm and 35mm, and that’s nice to have occasionally.  The only other problem I had with the Weathermatic was with the water spots on the lens (it can be seen in a few of the color shots).  I suppose there is some sort of substance that you can rub on the glass to help keep water off of it, I just didn’t think about it until it was too late.

I’m really pleased with how the camera performed out of water (the black & white pictures) and I think that in a pinch I could go on vacation taking only this camera, as long as everything I was shooting was outdoors.  The shutter is extremely silent (and the auto-winder isn’t all too loud either), to the point that I actually wasted a frame or two making sure it was actually working.  It doesn’t waste all of the leader, either.  On one roll I got 38 exposures, pretty respectable.  While being made sometime in the late ’80s, it’s still water-tight (I didn’t test just how deep I could push it), and amazingly, it floats!  The camera cost me a whole $7.00 from a thrift store, though the 6V lithium battery was probably twice that.  Thankfully I have another camera or two that can use that battery…  I just learned today from reading a few other online reviews that while the camera only shoots at ASA100 and 400, it will accept anything up to ASA1000.  Shooting 800-speed negative film at 400 isn’t such a bad idea anyway, so I might give that a try next time.

The black & white film is AGFAPhoto APX 100, the color is Fuji Provia 100F.  It was a bit risky I suppose to shoot slide film in a camera I’d never used before, but I think that’s the true test of performance, and the results speak for themselves.  AGFAPhoto doesn’t make its own film.  I’ve read that APX 100 is repackaged Kentmere 100 made by Ilford.  I paid around $8.00 for that film (more than I paid for the camera) and it’s really not worth it when one could buy Kentmere-branded film for under $5.00 a roll–it’s the same problem with how much Precisa CT 100 costs now.  Whatever this company is that has bought the rights to the AGFAPhoto brand, I don’t know what they’re trying to accomplish by rebranding other companies’ films and marking the prices up.  Sooner or later people will wise up; they’re not likely to get any more of my money, that’s for sure.  If you want real AGFA film, it’s labelled Rollei now.  The Kentmere 100 film, which I’d never shot before, looks very pleasing to me most of the time, but it is pretty grainy.  I’m not normally one to whine about a bit of grain, but it’s really noticeable for a 100-speed film, so be prepared.  Again, I’m not complaining (except for how much I paid), I think it has a great look to it that reminds me of what film looked like back in the ’60s and ’70s.  That said, it’s grainier than my beloved Tri-X (at least with whatever developer my camera lab is using, and maybe I should ask just what that is) and two stops slower, which makes it hard for me to find reasons to use it right now.

I wish I didn’t live so far away from my friends now, but then a lot of them have moved away as well.  This is the first time I’d seen some of them in 7 years.  It’s hard to know where the time went, but this marked the 10th anniversary of us all being in the dorms together.  It’s scary thinking that there are legal adults now an entire decade younger than me, or to think that I’m in classes with some of them.  I’m thinking about mortality more these days; perhaps still a bit humorous in someone only 28 years old, I’m sure.

My apologies if you don’t like to look at pictures of half-naked hairy fat guys.  We can’t all of us shoot nothing but gorgeous female models, though a lot of people do get away with it (and get paid for their trouble).  I’m just not that lucky I guess…