First Delivery of 2012 - The Agfa Isoly

My very first Toy of the year!... and I was waiting to put my hands (again) for quite some time, I say again because I had owned this camera before well back in 2006 but sold it. I can't remember exactly why but I guess at the time I was really hooked on the imperfections on my original Diana Camera and Holga that I may have found the Isoly results a bit neat when both compared.

Well... needless to say I'd regreted ever since the camera has gone, especially because It's not so easy to find one cheap nowadays so I'm glad I got this one for a good price.

The Isoly I sold back in 2006 gave me some good sharp pictures with similar results I get from my Kodak Cresta.

The soft focus images are my fault as I may have estimated the distance between camera and subject  uncorrectly. 

The similarities between the Diana camera produced by the Chinese company Great Wall Plastic Factory in the 60s are huge and is well mentioned over the web...pretty sure the Isoly was the inspiration.

As expected the Agfa Isoly is way better built comparing to the Diana, the plastic is much stronger which makes the camera more robust when handling, the top is made of metal and so are the lens barrel. The camera It's fitted with hot shoe for a dedicated flash, cable release and a tripod socket, the lens is made of glass. 

The Diana's locking mechanism is also written in English and in German exactly as it is on the Isoly.

Few models are available and I have the "plain" version with only two speeds (1/30  and 1/100 plus bulb) with f stops of 11 and 6.3, the focus range from 1m to infinity (reading in feet is also available) and a lock mechanism prevents double exposure which may put off some of the toy cameras fanatics. It takes 16 square pictures on a 120 film just like the Diana camera.

Gakken - Japanese Stereo Pinhole

A few pictures taken from my last holidays in Brazil with the Gakken Japanese Pinhole camera using the panoramic mode. The city scapes were taken in São Paulo and the last nine shots were taken in the town of Paraty  Rio de Janeiro, where the Paraty em Foco photography event is held every year.

Films are Jessops Diamond and the Kirkland made by Agfa, they're both expired.

Rolleicord Camera

I really have a thing for TLR cameras. I love composing the picture on the big viewfinder, there's a sense of freedom when you don't have to squeeze one of your eyes behind a camera to take  pictures ( well... a bit like using a compact digital camera isn't it ?)... and let's not forget the square format which is also one of the greatest features on this type of the camera.

Rolleicords were made by Franke & Heidecke, the German company that produces the legendary Rolleiflex. They were made to be  simpler and less expensive, an estrategy at that time to attract the amateur photographer  who couldn't afford the Rolleiflex but wanted a high-quality camera.

The one above is from the late 30's and the resulting pictures below were taken using the Kodak Tri-x 400 Pan expired in 1968, it was then processed with Rodinal 1:50/10 minutes with 5 minutes pre-wash. 

The film and camera are still looking very good after all these years...

From inside the car - Lomo LC-A

One of the few good things when I'm not driving is that I can sit comfortably on the passenger's seat and enjoy the city view without the worry of crashing in someone else's car...

Since my driving license is expired I had no choice but enjoy a good ride, in my case with a good point and shoot camera in hands all the time.

These pictures were taken the last time I went to Sao Paulo using my Lomo LC-A loaded with an expired Fuji Superia 100 ISO

The film haven't lost the ability to produce excellent colours but I found the negatives a bit more granier than normal, some photoshop adjustments were required.

Found Film - Kodak Cresta Camera

Very first time this ever happened to me... I've found a half exposed film inside my newly acquired Kodak Cresta camera! 
Overall, the camera is really clean and  the film was probably the only one ever used...

I was very curious of what could've been photographed with the camera...and here they are!

 

It looks like it was a nice day out in family picking up some oysters...

Well... after some 50 years or so it was down to me to finish with the film...

 

Comparing to the family snaps my shots came out underexposed even though the sun was shining, quite strange because it looks like the weather was pretty bad at that time on the beach …

Since there are no settings on the camera and all the pictures were processed together I wonder why this could happen. Does the image once recorded on film keeps better preserved than the unexposed film itself ?

The film is the Kodak Verichrome and it was processed using Rodinal 10 minutes /1:50 dilution.

Ilford Cine Negative Film

After a long break I'm back in London and working in some of the films I shot while on holidays. From all the films I have used, the one I was most curious to process in particular is  the Ilford Cine Negative Film 35mm made in the 60's.

It's a  bulk roll  film and it comes on a tin containing 200 feet, you need a bulk film loader and some empty cassetes to load the film inside.

I had done some tests before I went on holidays only to find out the film speed since is not labelled on the tin, by the results I had it looks like it's around 100 ISO or maybe a bit slower.

Like the 4x5 film mentioned on my previous post this one also came vac sealed, it was in fact bought from the same seller and I had excellent results with them so I was expecting the same sort of quality.

And here are some of the results... they're taken with my Rolleiflex 35SL and processed with Rodinal 1:200 dilution / 2 hours stand development.

I've compensated one or two stops on my camera since the film is 50 years old expired.

The result are  a bit grainy and  you can see that especially on large plain areas like the sky, but this is  expected for such old film...

It also got scratched  leaving  some bad horizontal lines all over the frames, it probably happended inside the canister... not so sure but at some point it was quite hard to wind  the camera lever as the film would not run properly at the point of breaking inside the camera, I'll try loading 24 frames next time to make it smoother instead of 36.

1961 Ilford FP3

I have recently accquired a couple of boxes of 4x5 sheet film made by Ilford and thought it would fun to try since it's well over expired. The label on the box states the "test date" as december the 5th 1961 and "factory issue" as january the 1st 1962.

The results are really impressive for a near 50 years old expired film... the emulsion is not faded at all and there are no signs of fog or deterioration, the boxes were vacuum sealed when arrived and I believe it helped to keep them in great condition, added to the fact that is a high quality emulsion, the tests below are from the FP3 125 ISO box.

To process the negatives I followed the FP4 instructions, pre-soaked for a couple of minutes and then added Rodinal 1:100 solution. The developing time was increased from 20 to 28 minutes, inverting the tank continuously for the first minute and then one very gently inversion every 30 seconds.

The images were scanned at 1200 dpi and I only adjusted levels and curves, no sharpening or cleaning tool were used at this estage. I enhanced some details so they can be better seen, normally you get to see the grains especially on the sky area but on these ones they're almost unnoticed!