Category: 35mm

Polypan, Rodinal and Minolta

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I was recently gifted with a vintage Minolta SRT 101 35mm SLR camera by my friend Nina. A beautiful camera, in very good working condition: while you can’t get the original batteries anymore because they contained mercury, I used a C.R.I.S. MR-9 adapter to allow the use of a silver 386 battery. For a test roll I used PolyPan F, exposed at E.I. 25, developed in Rodinal 1:50 for 11 minutes @ 20/68 degrees. I am still dialing in the film/developer combination  but the two images below hint a what can be done with this fine camera. Thanks again Nina!

Tracks at Base of Pottery Road

By the banks of the Don River, Toronto

Surprise, Part 3

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It is easy to get spoiled with medium format film when it comes to fine grain: a larger negative means less magnification, and grain is less apparent, even with higher speed films. In 35mm however it is much more of an issue, and in my workflow which ends with a scanned negative, I was just not happy with my results. My friend Mike suggested TMax developer at 1:9, so I gave that a shot with an unlabelled roll of Tri-X I had kicking around. I was pleased with the grain and sharpness, but also pleasantly surprised to find pictures of my good friends Ken and Bryon; it was like opening a present on Christmas morning 🙂

My friend Ken

Surprise Part 2

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Today another image from a forgotten roll of film, which turned out to be from a photowalk in Toronto’s Mount Pleasant Cemetery in 2012. I’m glad I finally got around to developing this roll!

Bench in Cemetery

New Combo

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My good friend Mike gave me a few 35mm rolls of Orwo UN 54 (a German film) quite some time ago, and I never got around to finishing a roll until a few days ago. I finally finished a roll, and developed it using Diafine developer. I love the sharpness and fine grain!!

Orwo Test roll

Surprises

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If one develops his or her own film, eventually you build up a pile of film you just never seem to get around to developing; there is always some other roll that is more pressing. If you leave it long enough, you even forgot what was on these neglected rolls, making for fun surprises when you actually do get around to developing. That is the case with today’s image, from a roll I took during the Transit of Venus event at Varsity Stadium at the University of Toronto last year; I had forgotten I had taken this roll.

Transit of Venus

Wheels

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A number of the restaurants in the Art Deco District in Miami have vintage cars parked in front. I love the lines of these old cars, and using a superwide angle lens heightens this effect.

Classic Wheels

(Voigtlander L 35mm body, 21mm/f4 wide-angle lens, Ilford Pan F+ developed in Rodinal 1:25)

Sneaking a Smoke

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As an ex-smoker I have to feel some sympathy for people who still smoke. I took this picture yesterday in downtown Toronto outside the Eaton Centre. Was he hiding from the wind, or the no smoking sign he was so close to?

Sneaking a smoke

(Nikon F, 50mm f1.4 lens, Ilford Delta 400 at Box speed, developed in HC-110, dilution B)

Miami on Film, #1

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Finally a silver-based image! This image was taken with my Voigtlander 35mm L camera, and Voigtlander 21mm/f4 wide-angle lens, during my photo walk in the South Beach Art Deco district The Voigtlander L does not have a focus mechanism, so focussing is a matter of estimating the distance and setting the lens. Fortunately, wide angle lenses have great depth of field, so just setting the hyperfocal distance assured everything from about 2 feet to infinity would be in focus 🙂

miami025

Rush Hour

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Today’s image is another street shot taken with my Voigtlander Vito B. It was around 5 pm on a weekday at Yonge and Bloor here in Toronto, and a mass of people were going home, like a tide going back out to sea.

Rush Hour

Coming Home

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I think I’ve found the perfect street photography camera for me, and ironically it is one I have had since the early 1970’s: my late father’s late 1950’s Voigtlander Vito B. I have not put a roll of film through it since early 1977, and I am happy to report it still works just fine 🙂

What makes it great for street photography in my mind is a feature it lacks — it has no built in rangefinder, just scale focus. This lack forces me to trust zone focusing and hyperfocal distance, getting it ready ahead of time, and then just bringing the large, bright, unencumbered viewfinder to my eye. For today’s image, it was maybe 2 seconds to see the scene, and quickly fire off the frame.

I have left this camera sit idle for far too long; it’s nice to be home.

Caught in the Act