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!

Lomo LC-A

I had this Fuji Superia 100 ISO loaded in my Lomo for almost two years! The camera travelled with me to so many places I had almost forgotten about some of  the locations on the pictures when I got the film back from the lab!

I like the LC-A's performance in low-light conditions...

Yashica 635

I have been playing with my newly acquired Yashica 635 TLR camera and I'm really enjoying, this model is based on the same classic Rolleiflex design but it's a cheaper alternative for those who wants to try a proper TLR camera built on high quality standards.

The lens on my 635 model is the Yashikor (3 elements) and it's supposed to be "less quality" than Yashinon (4 elements) lens that fits other Yashica TLRs models,  nevertheless the results in my opinion are amazing... pretty sharp at f22 and with a very beautiful 19th century style swirl on the backgroung at f3.5 which I really love!

Other interesting feature on the Yashica 635 is that you can also shoot 35mm if you're lucky enough to find a camera that comes already with the kit. A dedicated knob for 35mm film is located opposite to the 120 film knob.

The one I bought came with most parts of the kit missing, which means that I'll have to do some DIY in order to shoot 35mm. I know for some people  it's a sin using a TLR camera to shoot 35mm but for some can be a reason for taking the camera out and use (let's not forget that some places can be hard to find and process 120 film). My reason it's simple: I love shooting with TLRs cameras!

I bought this camera from ebay and the seller listed the camera as "untested sold as spares/repair", it arrived in almost mint condition but indeed in need of some repair as it must had fallen on the floor. The front panel wasn't straight at all and in consequence totally out of focus.

After removing the leatherette (and I could see it was for the first time) I got access to the screws that  opens the front of the camera. Both arms were badly bent and I had bit of hard time to straighten up and align the front panel. The easiest part was getting the focusing correct, I set the camera focusing knob to the infinite and rotated the viewing lens until the image was in focus on the viewfinder. Then I checked the focus again at different distances using a tape measure and everything was matching.

The results tells everything!

Polaroid 779 Instant Film

It had been a very long time since I last used any instant film...I had this film for years in my Polaroid 600, it was an original 779 type expired in 2005. 

So these are my very last two 779 type shots!

Kodak Vest Autographic

I made some pictures with  my Kodak Vest Autographic back few weeks ago for the first time...this is a nice little folding pocket camera that takes the not so wide available 127 film. 

Very compact and beautifully designed  it was once advertised as the "Soldier's Camera" during WWI.

Note the old "Eastman Kodak Company" logo just below the shutter setting...

The camera comes with a stylus that would allow the photographer to write notes onto to the film's back paper through a window located at the back of the camera, the film was especially developed to use with this camera and it was called "The Autographic System".

I ran a test  respooling some 35mm film onto a 127 spool. The procedure is obvioulsly done in the dark and can be tricky to do but it's achievable, I normally practice before with the lights on and a dummy film. 

As a result you have a kind of panoramic format image covering the full 35mm negative including the sprockets, .

Some of the shots are blurry in the midle and I don't know exactly why... I suspect either the camera wasn't opened to it's fully while shooting or the film pressure plate is not well aligned, interesting effect anyway...

Fuji Across 100 ISO processed with Rodinal 1:100 - 1 hour stand development

Here's an excellent source of information about Kodak Vest Cameras:

http://vpk.staff.shef.ac.uk/index.html

Salex Camera

I found this nice camera on ebay with no much information from the seller regarding the condition, apart from "last used in 1966 and was ok then !" . The pictures posted weren't really good either but it was cheap and in need of some work, I thought it could be fun to get it and maybe spend some time trying to rescue...

The outside body is very worn out as I was already expecting but everything is working perfectly including the F Deckel Compur shutter...

But the real bargain I guess are the optics which after some cleaning it's in prime condition... It reads "Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar"!

I've searched information about the camera on the net but nothing came out, a friend at the Filmwasters then gave me the link to the Early Photography website where I could get some of the details:

"The Salex name comes from the name of the British camera company, City Sale and Exchange which was founded in 1881 and their cameras were

marketed  under their brand name of Salex."

This model takes 120 film and you get 16  6x4.5 exposures, it's very compact for a medium format camera and fits nicely in your hands but it's a bit tricky to change speeds since there's no much space. I also find difficult to locate the shutter release while looking through the viewfinder, but nothing that a small cable release won't solve.

The focusing is in feet and if you're not used to (like me) can be a problem as there's no hot shoe adapter to take a dedicated rangefinder, few shots from this roll came out out of focus.

So here are few pictures from the first test roll...

Fuji Across 100 ISO processed in Rodinal 1 hour stand development.

 

Agfa ISO Rapid Camera

This cool little "brick" camera made by the German company Agfa in the 60's, the model shown here it's almost entirely made of plastic apart from the thin metal plate on the base, top of the camera and lens barrel.

The camera is very simple to operate with only the "sunny" and "flash" settings and falls easily into the "point and shoot" category. It has a tripod mount (even though there's no B setting), a mechanism that prevents double exposures and this particular model has the hotshoe for the flash.

Now, in order to use one of those beauty you'll have to find two empty Rapid cassestes made especificaly for the Agfa cameras and in total darkness load you 35mm film of choice. I say two cassetes because the camera has no rewind feature, it basically runs the film from one cartridge to another.

The nicest thing about this camera in my opinion apart from the design, is the 24X24 square format you'll get on standard 35mm film. 

The results below were taken in a bright sunny day with Fuji Across 100 ISO and processed with Rodinal 1:100 dilution 1 hour stand development.