Boot's Contact Sheets

[Boots]

Love that swirl in frame 5 and the gentle curves in 6. It's really nice when you can say you're pleased with the results - especially with film. Gives a real sense of satisfaction.

I am contemplating a folder simply to shoot a bit more MF in a more practical carry-aboutable way. I really should give the TLR a bit more work, but I can't get on with it. I know Roger Lowe (SFLAB on YouTube) shoots the Nettar quite a bit and gets some great results with it. I guess you're pleased?

Frame 5 is my favourite, by some margin.

Which TLR do you have? My Ikoflex is nice, but hasn't wowed me in the way the Nettar has; partly that could be because of the light leaks spooling the results, so I need to take it back out. Need more film first!

My tiny bit of experience with my TLR and folder is that the folder is loads more portable. But the big question I am trying to answer is which MF format. At least I'm trying to answer that from the cheap seats. There is so much choice with the folders, and such a range of quality. What do you think you might look for?

I'll check out that guy on YouTube, and - yes - very pleased.

 

[Harlequin565]

It's a Rolleiflex Automat. The WLF is very dim and with my eyesight I can rarely tell whether it's in focus. It looks pretty though, even if it's unwieldy. I keep wondering whether one of the more expensive ones will be better, but given my disdain for it, I've not been convinced enough to get my wallet out.

I guess with folders focus is even more difficult. Are you zone focussing?

 

[Boots]

It's a Rolleiflex Automat. The WLF is very dim and with my eyesight I can rarely tell whether it's in focus. It looks pretty though, even if it's unwieldy. I keep wondering whether one of the more expensive ones will be better, but given my disdain for it, I've not been convinced enough to get my wallet out.

I guess with folders focus is even more difficult. Are you zone focussing?

There is a lot to be said for a real shop where you can try stuff out, if only you could find such a place.

Does the Automat have a focus magnifier? I found that helped with mine.

Yes, zone focussing with the folder. In fact, thus far I just set it on the "happy snapper" setting, so everything from about 3m to infinity. As for the viewfinder, well you can pretty much forget it. It was tiny to start with, and then I wear glasses.

 

[Harlequin565]

Does the Automat have a focus magnifier? I found that helped with mine.

It does. Sadly I need three pairs of glasses. One for reading, one for screen work and one for driving. And I have no clue which pair works best. It's difficult trying to describe how one's eyes just "don't work" sometimes. I think that's why I quite like using the AF of the Pentax (and the Canon EOS for 35) and the rangefinder patches on my other 35mm cameras. I can just about get by with the mahoosive screen on the RB67 (with the magnifier it's fairly doable even with myopic me). Maybe I should take the camera into the optician and ask them what glasses I should wear. They'll probably sell me another pair of "photography glasses". Just what I need

 

[Boots]

I know Roger Lowe (SFLAB on YouTube) shoots the Nettar quite a bit and gets some great results with it.

Thanks for that tip - I've been watching some of his films and rather like them. It is nice to see someone who is prepared to say something didn't work - he had problems loading a 120 film, and accidental multiple exposures - without trying to cover it up.

 

[Boots]

Back to 35mm with film #9.

EOS 1v, HP5+ @ 400 ISO, DD-X, 9 mins @ 20C

 

[Harlequin565]

I don't have anything better to say than add the like. So many frames look interesting. Great work Paul.

 

[Boots]

I don't have anything better to say than add the like. So many frames look interesting. Great work Paul.

Thanks Ian!

As we have all seen in the past, the small contact sized image covers a multitude of sins - sadly the landscape shots 25-28 suffer from under exposure and are rather thin and grainy. Such a shame as the lighting was great.

 

[Harlequin565]

the small contact sized image covers a multitude of sins

It does, but it also shows the method of working. And I can tell that frame 6 is a winner from my point of view. Really clever framing IMO.

 

[Boots]

Medium Format film #4.

Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex, HP5+ @ 400 ISO, DD-X, 9 mins @ 20C



This film started well, but went downhill fast at the end!

I was using my newly acquired Weston meter, so was much more confident in the exposure settings. I enjoyed taking the images very much, even holding the camera upside down for a couple of shots to add height.

Then after processing I hung the film up to dry and things took a turn for the worse. I felt the film was very milky and cloudy - had I forgotten to fix it? I couldn't recall, but thought the safest thing would be to stick it back in fixer for a second (or first) time. Here is where my problems began. The film was now out of the spiral. I naively thought I could just load it back into the spiral, but (as I learnt) wet film, with soft emulsion doesn't really want to go back in, and my attempts to do so were damaging it.

Time to think again, with my partial loaded spiral, I couldn't use the tank, but decided to dunk it in a jug of fixer. That all worked OK, but probably introducing further scratches on the loose portion of film.

Now rewashed, I hung the film up again. I though it looked better, thought the images were a bit thin - so, maybe I had fixed it the first time, who knows?

There are only 11 images, as there was one blank. I checked out the camera, remembering something I read. Indeed, there is a little "feature", if you gently press the shutter release partly down, there is a little click. This is not the shutter as I had assumed, but the release of the interlock, thereby allowing the film to be wound on, even though the shutter had not yet fired. The shutter release needs to be pushed fully down. Learnt something new.

So, after all this, I still have questions. Why was the film milky? Does the 120 film seem to need more exposure than 35mm? More work required.

 

[Harlequin565]

That last frame looks nice Paul.

No clue why it's milky. Could be a number of reasons. Assume it's not expired film, or stored in an oven or on a radiator, and that previous rolls through the camera were all fine? Is the fix exhausted?

120 needs the same exposure as 135. It's the same emulsion so reacts the same to the developer. There's just more of it. Only issue could be putting a 35mm dose (300ml) into a 120 tank (which needs 500ml). Done that twice and you just end up with a band across the film.

 

[Boots]

That last frame looks nice Paul.

No clue why it's milky. Could be a number of reasons. Assume it's not expired film, or stored in an oven or on a radiator, and that previous rolls through the camera were all fine? Is the fix exhausted?

120 needs the same exposure as 135. It's the same emulsion so reacts the same to the developer. There's just more of it. Only issue could be putting a 35mm dose (300ml) into a 120 tank (which needs 500ml). Done that twice and you just end up with a band across the film.

Thanks Ian!

Here is that last frame (note tiny person in the distance), and a couple of others I rather liked.





The film problem is indeed a mystery - the film is fresh, it was a fresh batch of fixer. I processed three films (2x35mm and the 120) with the same chemicals. This film was the middle one to be processed and the only one with this appearance. All the chemicals were made up and used in the larger 120 film volumes - hang the expense!

Unlikely to ever get to the bottom of this one, let's just move on!

 

[Harlequin565]

This film was the middle one to be processed and the only one with this appearance.

Kinda suggests the camera then... Anyway. Moving swiftly along... You did get some nice frames there.

 

[Boots]

35mm film #12. (this has overtaken films #10 - waiting to be scanned and #11 - still in another camera)

Zeiss Ikon Contina I, HP5+ @ 400 ISO, DD-X, 9 mins @ 20C



Bit of a heavy sigh! Although I get away with this in the contact print size, in proper size, this is all a bit of a mess. It was a rather grey, drab day, but I was keen to test the new Contina. I probably should have waited for a better day.

Half the shots are really very flat and grainy. Shot 13 is fairly presentable. 17 and 20 are OK, in a vintage camera, canal reflection way. Some of the ventilation shaft in the woods ones work quite well (26 perhaps the least bad) with the alien graffiti complementing the strange structure dropped in the woods feel. The stick house is OK.

All in all, a bit meh!

The Contina is really rather soft in the corners until you get up to f/11, and the day was so flat there was no light to go beyond that. I probably would have done a lot better to have pushed the film to 1600 to ease the exposure constraints and introduce a bit more contrast, or picked up a different camera, or stayed in bed!

The camera is nice, in that you can easily pop it in a pocket - it really is tiny. If I had the right film speed for the day and could be up at f/11 or f/16, and not pushing the lowest acceptable shutter speed (there are a few with camera movement) I think it can do a good job. The lack of a working frame counter, and my failure to count, led to thinking I was all done when I had shot 30 frames.

An interesting problem, which I had never expected to have, is that the Contina frames are slightly over-size, and the gaps between frames slightly over as well, so a strip of six negatives doesn't fit in my holder. About a quarter of a frame is lost. This made the scanning a right royal pain.

My plan to address this is to roll my own films for this camera, 25 to 30 frames long. After processing I will cut them into strips of five, which should scan OK.

Shot 22 is almost the same as one I took with the 6x6 TLR. Now admittedly the MF shots was taken on a *much* better day, but the difference is like chalk and cheese. It's a bit harsh on the 35mm camera, and I probably should try and reproduce the shot on a sunny day. But just the fact that the TLR has a waist level finder means I can easily take the shot much lower, giving it much more impact and a more pleasing composition. I think I may be falling under the spell of MF....

 

[Harlequin565]

Really enjoying your diary alongside the sheets Paul. I've felt the same about grey miserable days but it's good to see you're happy with some of the resulting images. The canal reflection ones look pretty good to me, and sometimes a drab sky can really bring out your reflected subject without the clutter of clouds + reflected clouds. Frame 20 looks really nice IMO.

My plan to address this is to roll my own films for this camera, 25 to 30 frames long. After processing I will cut them into strips of five, which should scan OK.

This is one of the huge benefits of rolling your own (aside from the cost saving).

 

[Boots]

Really enjoying your diary alongside the sheets Paul.

Thanks Ian - I find it quite cathartic.

a drab sky can really bring out your reflected subject without the clutter of clouds + reflected clouds. Frame 20 looks really nice IMO.

It also neatly hides the corner softness!

Here's 20, and also my favourite 17

 

[FishyFish]

It does. Sadly I need three pairs of glasses. One for reading, one for screen work and one for driving. And I have no clue which pair works best. It's difficult trying to describe how one's eyes just "don't work" sometimes. I think that's why I quite like using the AF of the Pentax (and the Canon EOS for 35) and the rangefinder patches on my other 35mm cameras. I can just about get by with the mahoosive screen on the RB67 (with the magnifier it's fairly doable even with myopic me). Maybe I should take the camera into the optician and ask them what glasses I should wear. They'll probably sell me another pair of "photography glasses". Just what I need

Have you tried a pair of varifocals Ian? I use those and find I can focus with my cameras pretty well - the only issue being plaine matte screns where I start to second guess which fraction of a turn of the focus ring is really the sharpest.

They can take a week or two to get used to when you first get them, but then your brain just adapts and you get the benefit of close / mid / long distance vision with a single pair.

 

[FishyFish]

Thanks Ian!

Here is that last frame (note tiny person in the distance), and a couple of others I rather liked.

View attachment 311236
View attachment 311237
View attachment 311238

The film problem is indeed a mystery - the film is fresh, it was a fresh batch of fixer. I processed three films (2x35mm and the 120) with the same chemicals. This film was the middle one to be processed and the only one with this appearance. All the chemicals were made up and used in the larger 120 film volumes - hang the expense!

Unlikely to ever get to the bottom of this one, let's just move on!

Is there any haze in the lens that might be causing veiling flare?

 

[Harlequin565]

Have you tried a pair of varifocals Ian? I use those and find I can focus with my cameras pretty well - the only issue being plaine matte screns where I start to second guess which fraction of a turn of the focus ring is really the sharpest.

They can take a week or two to get used to when you first get them, but then your brain just adapts and you get the benefit of close / mid / long distance vision with a single pair.

Last time I went to the opticians (which was admittedly a couple of years ago) they said it wasn't possible to make my prescription as varifocals sadly.

 

[Boots]

Is there any haze in the lens that might be causing veiling flare?

Nige, not so far as I can see, but it's a 70 year old lens and it certainly doesn't like shooting into the sun.

 

[StuartPearson]

I used the film to test a couple of cameras, before finishing it off in the EOS 1v. Needless to say I messed up the frame counting when unloading & reloading

I came across this post by chance, and intrigued by the use of the same film between cameras, how is this achieved?

 

[Boots]

I came across this post by chance, and intrigued by the use of the same film between cameras, how is this achieved?

Well, it is a little bit hit and miss, as I demonstrated. But the process is simple enough.

Put the film in the first camera and take, say, 6 shots. Then rewind the film (carefully making sure you don't wind the leader into the cassette). Load the film into the second camera. With the lens cap on, fire off the first 6 shots (or 7 for safety sake).

 

[Boots]

35mm film #10.

EOS 1v, HP5+ @ 1600 ISO, DD-X, 13 mins @ 20C



Generally I am pleased with this roll. I certainly enjoyed taking them and using the 1v. HP5+ at 1600 ISO in DD-X does seem to be a good combination. I really like the punchy contrast this film/dev gives - I even had to turn down the contrast when scanning a couple of frames.

However, the skies are, almost without exception, horrid grainy messes. I wonder if I am over-exposing them? Not sure. I did try and do some research into the nature of grain and why it should be so prevalent in the sky areas, but nothing very helpful. I'll try some bracketed shots next time I have an image with quite a lot of sky, to see if I can understand it better. The areas of contrast and detail seem to be rendered well, without excessive grain - of course, typically, those are exactly where I am metering. I even tried to read up on the Zone system and "expose for the shadows, develop for the highlights". The net effect of that was three wasted hours and a headache - everyone seems to have their own take on these things, and they all seem to be in conflict.

So, good in parts! As long as I avoid pointing the camera up, I'm on to a winner.

The film that is currently on the go (in the 1v) is rated at 800 ISO - I'm thinking now that might have been a mistake. The weather hasn't changed significantly, and it would probably be better to get to the bottom of the sky problem, without changing too many things. Well, too late to change that now, the film is half shot.

The other thought is that it would be nice to try HP5+ at 1600 ISO in the TLR, where the lens is tending to lack contrast.

 

[FishyFish]

Looks like you have some nice images on there Paul.

I developed a roll of 135 HP5+ recently with similar grain issues. I shot it at 800asa and pushed the development in DD-X. I've done this before with really nice results. On this occasion though there were a few shots near the start of the roll where the grain was very prevalent. The frames in question were fairly low contrast scenes shot on a misty day with a lot of mostly featureless areas. There are a few frames earlier on the roll that don't suffer the same issue, and the ones after the low contrast scenes don't suffer from it either, so it's either the way the development process has worked on these exposures (I don't have a loupe, so can't easily check the negatives themselves) or some issue with how the scanner processes them (I tried Silverfast and Vuescan with similar results). The affected frames also had some feint banding on them, possibly bromide drag - again, not visible on the rest of the roll - maybe I need to be slightly less gentle with my agitation?

 

[Boots]

Thanks Nige (@FishyFish ).

Some good new things for me to check. I have a loupe and will check these 35mm negs and also MF negs at all speeds I have used, paying particular attention to large, low contrast areas. Take some further test images to concentrate on effect of exposure, and also contrast. Maybe think about trialing a new developer (though I won't rush to do that yet).

 

[Boots]

@FishyFish

I was pondering my most peculiar problem of grainy skies in the small hours of the night, trying to think of tests I could run that were feasible. I decided that snipping individual frames from the exposed roll, loading them into film canisters and developing them individually - almost all of this in the dark - was not a practical option!

Then, in preparation for what I had decided I would do, I referred to the data sheet. Oops! It turns out that I was labouring under a mistaken belief. I had it in my head that I could develop up to five films without adjusting the development time. My standard practice for the past few months has been to do a batch run of three films in three tanks in sequence - all using the same dev time. This is wrong! I should have been increasing the times for the second run and again for the third run. It is not quite clear to me yet by how much to increase the times, because the data sheet is written in the assumption that you have mixed up one litre of dev, but I have only been mixing up 500ml. It probably means a +20% increase each time, but I'll need to think on that further.

So it is quite possible that this bit of stinginess on my part is the explanation for my problem. Sadly my records do not entirely help me to recall the exact sequence of film development, to confirm that the grainy skies are always from the second or, perhaps more likely, third film; but I think it fits. So, it is perhaps simply that the highlights in the scene are not fully developing in the time I give them. The graininess is, in fact, work in progress.

What a numpty!

Moral: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing!

 

[FishyFish]

That might be a possibility as you'd effectively be underdeveloping the 2nd and 3rd batches. It doesn't explain my results though, which was a single roll in fresh developer. Maybe i'll buy a loupe and get a closer look at the negs - it's probably not a bad thing to have on hand.

 

[Boots]

That might be a possibility as you'd effectively be underdeveloping the 2nd and 3rd batches. It doesn't explain my results though, which was a single roll in fresh developer. Maybe i'll buy a loupe and get a closer look at the negs - it's probably not a bad thing to have on hand.

Yes, as you say, it doesn't explain your result. Of course, I could be clutching at straws myself - I certainly do not know for sure the position of the affected films in the batch.

I will be paying even more attention to exposure in the coming weeks.

Good game, good game! As Brucey used to say.