Crazy BW Film Soup
Lucky SHD 100 (Film Soup) on Nikon F80
(Ilfosol 3, 1+9, 7.30 mins)
I had the hardest time trying to identify what exactly did I capture on this roll, LOL. I really can’t remember the stuff I added into the soup but whatever it was, clearly it’s too much, heh.
But yeah, I think the smoky swirly effect looked kinda cool.
-delusiana
My Analogue Romance = Film Cameras,Vinyls & Paperbacks!
Fujichrome Provia 100 on Mamiya 645
When it comes to my vices, I have 4 major ones: owning as many Apple products as I can afford (haha) and satiate my ever growing analogue lust -film cameras, vinyls & paperbacks. Nothing makes me happier than listening to good music, shooting film and curling up with a good old book.
The texture of crisp paper in your hands, the clarity of music on black is just incomparable; no matter how much I love my iPod nor constantly toting the iPad everywhere I go.
In that sense, shooting film just gives you the satisfaction that no app in the world can ever emulate. Right? :D
I may be a slave to the capitalistic digital world, buying one product after the other - a neverending race between Achilles & the Tortoise but just remember…it pays to slow down for a while and live your life one frame at a time, the analogue way.
-delusiana
Butterflies & Hurricanes…well, not really.
Kodak Elitechrome 100 (Film Soup) on Nikon F80
Yes, the film soup monster is back! My current project is to try different films with the same standard recipe, exposed in the same camera and document the color shifts.
If you compare this to my previous post using the Tungsten 64, you’ll notice that the Elitechrome gives strong, blinding color shifts compared to the more subtle, pastel palette of the Tungsten. I quite like the effects of a film souped B&W, you can’t really see the “soup stains” per se, but it gives the image a certain vintage like quality, just like this set by eleanorrigby236 and yours truly. So, which is your cup of tea?
Back to the photos, these were taken during our last photowalk at the KL Butterfly Park and double exposed randomly later. Nothing much to write about here, but FYI, the second pic, was that of eleanorrigby236!
-delusiana
Zero Image Solarized
Fuji Neopan Acros w/ Zero Image 2000
(exposure @10mins)
(exposure @38 secs)
(exposure @40mins)
(exposure @1min 15secs)
(exposure @19secs)
Being a huge fan of pinhole photography I knew it was time for me to get a solid camera from Zero Image, famed for their beautiful and sleek looking pinhole cameras. To aid me with getting the proper exposures for my shots I use the useful chart on Mr Pinhole’s webpage keying in the f-stop of the Zero 2000, in this case is at f/138. I used my Sekonic light meter to measure the light and cross-referenced my exposure readings with pinhole exposure chart. Simple as that.
I made sure to always place the camera on a stable and flat surface if not secured with a tripod. The Zero 2000 weighs at a nice 250g, heavier than any of my past plastic pinhole cameras, and this is really convenient to avoid unwanted shakes and blurring (of course it’s not really a problem when photographing moving objects) .
I did everything by the book, exposed each capture at the optimum times indicated but what a shock I got when the negatives came out a little odd, with patches of inverted tones! The blacks are a little white and the whites a little black. That was when I realized something happened unbeknownst to me, I must have somehow somewhere exposed the negatives to light while I was developing the roll creating this effect, also known as solarization. Solarization is a phenomenon in photography in which the image recorded on a negative or on a photographic print is wholly or partially reversed in tone. Dark areas appear light or light areas appear dark. The solarization here is only partial as a 100% solarized image would look just like a B&W negative when scanned.
The outcome of my first roll on the Zero 2000 was a surprise but I think it gave the images a touch of class and elegance which is pretty cool. Not so sure I can achieve the same results in the future, unknowingly at least.
-eleanorrigby236
The Zero 2000 made with polished teak wood with a f-stop of f/138, it looks mighty good and definitely feels good in your hands.
Cross processing is not for all I guess…
Lomography Xpro Chrome 100 on Nikon EM
So it has been black and white for a while now, for me that is - and I’m back to color mode. Went for an outing with the girls a few weeks back and since the subjects were birds & butterflies, I didn’t want to miss out any detail by not shooting in color.
Delusiana bought a box of the Lomography Xpro Chrome 100 so myself + eleanorrigby236 took a roll each for our nature shoot, anticipating the bright colors of our airborne friends.
I stayed at aperture of 5.6, and although it was a bright sunny day, the shadowy foliage of the aviary contributed to an optimal exposure (according to the girls’ newly acquired Sekonics!) but after scanning, the images were washed up with contrasting colors ,the contour of objects/subjects were almost gone, to my utter and complete dismay!
For example the hibiscus look like red-dyed mass of crumpled tissue papers and the white pelican or stork appeared as if it had fur instead of feathers!
I’m not really digging the xpro effects of this set; I think the colors were way too blinding and I especially hate the blown up skies. I guess this film is not suitable for shoots under extreme light, even more so when you’re shooting with an SLR since there wouldn’t be any vignetting to cover up your flaws.
I guess in my next outing if I’m to shoot with this film again, I’ll probably push the exposure to a higher ISO or use B&W/color negatives instead.
-yovie eswark
Sometimes I need color too
Lomography Color Negative on Kiev 88
Having been shooting mainly in B&W these days, I thought I wanted to bring some color back into my pictures. As I am not a fan of cross-processed slide (E6 processing is hard to come by where I am right now) I decided to go back to my roots. I have never tried the Lomography Color Negative on medium format before so I popped it into my Kiev and shot away in the comforts of my living room. It was a warm day with an orange overcast that late morning which contributed to the nice and subdued glow.
I shot these images using my newly obtained light meter to see how accurate it is, and removed the TTL spot prism from my Kiev to shoot with the waist finder. I have to say the Kiev waist finder is super bright and clear that it makes focusing and framing a breeze. I did it hand held, then propped it up on my tripod, and it was all plain fun and easy. 12 frames went by in an instant.
I love how the pictures came out, the tone is right and real albeit a little softer in the pictures than what I saw with my own eyes but close enough. Watching how the light moves and shooting from different angles will result in different color casts on your final image, which is why it’s cool to take a moment, recompose, and shoot your subject twice of even thrice to get that perfect shot. Tomorrow, if the sun is high again, perhaps I’ll try to flip a 120mm color negative film to create a DIY redscale roll.
-eleanorrigby236
Are you bored of the film soup yet?
Lucky BW SHD 100 on Olympus XA2
I decided to crop this photo into a square because I thought the standard panoramic format didn’t do this photo justice. It was really easy getting the pigeons in my backyard to pose for me: I just had to bait them with Sora’s leftover biscuits. Hahah.
So here’s Sora getting really annoyed with me and staring intently at them birds.
Self-dev: Ilford Ilfosol 3 (1+9, 7 minutes)
Recipe:
1/2 cup Persil detergent
I tbsp Clorox
25ml potassium permanganate
25ml apple cider vinegar.
Mix everything in boiling water and dunk the film into the soup and leave it overnight.
Dry the film in a darkroom with a hairdryer & start shooting!
-delusiana
Sunday Tea & Vitamin C
Fuji Neopan Acros 100 on Gevaert Gevabox (Flipped Lens)
At CGSF, we weren’t just busy preparing some tasty soup for colorful film adventures, we’re also brewing some Tea in Vitamin C to develop our black & whites in! Thanks to Paul Gadd of The Print Room KL who’d kindly allowed us to use his space & darkroom to demonstrate how to make your own film soup & develop your BWs in tea, we’ve finally managed to achieve this feat which has been eluding us since we first featured this technique courtesy of the lovely Firda Beka of Many Cameras.com!
Yes, I know the results aren’t that great, the photos look almost like a badly xeroxed version but this set was from one of my experimental phase. I’ve yet to discover the exact developing times & agitation scheme for the Neopan Acros 100 & Kodak TMAX but I’ll be sure to post here once I get that figured out.
So, the first set was taken with my vintage Gevaert Gevabox with flipped lens, which explains the crazy flared out effect & lack of focus.
The recipe: (to make 1000ml of stock solution)
5 bags of black tea (I used Lipton) in 600ml freshly boiled water
10 tsp of washing soda
5g of crushed Vitamin C- Let the tea steep for 30 mins and squeeze every drop out, you should get about 500ml of tea
- Dissolve the washing soda & vitamin C in about 400ml of water and add the two solution together and mix them well,
- The solution should stay usable for about 24 hours
- First minute continuous agitation, then 3 agitations every minute for 30 minutes
- Stop bath, fix & rinse normally.
Kodak T-MAX 400 on Gevaert Gevabox (Flipped Lens)
For this set I used the same recipe but with 8 bags instead of 5 (6 bags of japanese green tea & 2 bags of black tea) to avoid the excessive fogging & staining by the black tea which could hamper your scanning (and printing if you plan to do it traditionally with an enlarger!)
I also cut down the developing time to 15 minutes, with continuous agitation during the first minute and 3 agitations every 30 seconds (that’s an almost continuous agitation scheme!). I found that the negatives are much less foggy but I guess it could still be fine tuned.
This recipe works really well with the cheapo Shanghai GP3 100 though, and I’ll be posting the results from that set in my next post so stay tuned for that.
Oh, and say hi to my lovely Gevaert Gevabox!
-delusiana
The new Holga 120 PAN camera review
Fujichrome Tungsten 64T on Holga 120 PAN
Fujicolor Superia 100 on Holga 120 PAN
My first time ever writing an article about a camera. Ever! Well there is a first time for anything right? Although it is not my first time using a Holga. Been using it since 2004 as it is one of my first real “toy camera”.
The camera that I am writing about now is the new Holga 120PAN (PAN = PANorama). One of its first kind on a plastic toy camera (open for dispute). I got hold of this camera from my supplier in Hong Kong when it was first announced. It might also be one of the first to land here in Malaysia. It was exciting for as the closest to its “wideness” is the uber expensive Linholf Technorama. Try googling it and be in awe.
It has been in my possession for a while before I finally got the opportunity to run a few test rolls on it while I was back in my hometown of Johor Bahru. I was pleasantly surprised at the results. It still maintains the signature effects of a Holga, the vignetting and dreamy soft focus, but the centre focus is quite sharp. The distortions that are evident on most wide panorama toy cameras are also nowhere to be seen. I love that.
The Holga 120PAN takes two 120mm film frames per shot. So a 6x12 shot will give you six photos per roll of film. If you are the kind that prefer quantity over quality, get a Diana Mini and use the half frame mode. The camera comes equipped with a bubble level for shooting landscape straight. I find it useful when shooting my favourite scenes using my el cheapo tripod that does not have a bubble level.
The camera really shines when shooting wide landscape scenes as the resolution of the 120mm captures more details compared to 35mm films. To me, it is not the camera for you to bring along to parties or gigs as a panorama 35mm camera like the Horizon would suit those kind of scenes better.
The Holga 120N is at the top of my all-time favourite camera and this 120PAN is not far below.
-DemanG
Edit: Demang is our friend who owns the super stellar online camera shop ROFLCAM, and he specialises in Holgas & refurbished Russian rangefinders among others. Do check his shop out and just so you know, ROFLCAM ships internationally!
Mirrors and Reflections
Shanghai GP3 100 on Kiev 88CM
I am a huge fan of medium format and as I progressed deeper into my experimentations with plastic cameras like the Holga and German-born Felica, I wanted to take things up one notch. Everyone’s dream medium format camera is the Hasselblad, I know, but before I ventured too far, I wanted to get a feel for the SLRs of this breed and decided to get a Kiev 88, known for producing pictures with a touch of antique obscurity and old-fashioned mystery.
The package arrived from Ukraine no more than 2 weeks ago and I immediately loaded the camera with a test roll (always the Shanghai!) and got down to the gritty. Ok, not really. These vintage beauties are quite a load to carry and I don’t trust my hands for anything below 1/60 (shutter speed), and as my tripod was out on loan, I looked for the only large enough surface I could find in the house.
My coffee table with a cool and clean reflective surface.
It was late evening and the sun was low, but still bright enough. The inside of my house was dark, so I made use of the remaining light to create these moody shots. This is what I would like the call the natural flash effect, where the subject is perfectly lit, with the background enveloped in darkness. The black spots and not-so-fine grain you see is once again courtesy of the Shanghai film, which yet again worked very well in this series of photographs. The faint but sometimes there white fog-like splotches you see behind the subjects are actually part of the background bokeh produced by the Arsat C 80mm lens that came with my Kiev 88.
I like what I got on this first roll and more than excited to set out on procuring other lenses and perhaps another body of another kind. I must say, the 120mm SLR is giving me a different kind of high and I love it ;)
HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY EVERYONE!! …even if the one you love is a cold piece of photo-taking metal/plastic box!!
-eleanorrigby236
Maybe XPro is not the way to go after all
Velvia 100 on Vredebroch Felica
Velvia 100 cross-processed is what happened to these images. At first I liked the pink hues and the somberness it left the pictures, but the more I look at them the least I like them. The first three pictures were shot under fairly bright light, it was no later than possibly 2 in the afternoon, but still the images turned out underexposed. You can see that the last three suffered more as they were shot later in the evening when the clouds started to gather above. And then I came across Niall’s E6 set of the same film on his Flickr stream and swore that I will never cross-process my Velvia 100s ever again. See how the pink hues still linger without fault on the the images processed in E6, leaving a tone that is more realistic in one’s eyes. I would still need to gauge the exposure latitude of this film when shooting on a toycam, but I can’t wait to NOT cross-process my next roll ;) Still, I must admit that cross-processing Velvia does add a lot more drama to photos that may otherwise look plain and boring.
I will be heading back to Germany soon and saw that macodirect.de does E6 processing at a fair price. I will definitely be making use of their mail-in service when I am there.
-eleanorrigby236
Film Soup : B&W roll dunked in detergent
Kentmere 100 on Nikon FG20 w/ Helios M44-2 58mm f2.0
(self-developed with Ilfotec DD-X 1+4, 10:30mins)
The results of this film soup experiment is no way as exciting as those carried out on slide film but you just have to love the old washed out look it produces on the final pictures. I have never had superb results shooting on the Kentmere because it lacks contrast and produces blacks that are not very desirable. I am not sure if the hot water did it, or if the detergent worked its magic on this roll, but I love the tones the film now exhibit, post-dunk. I am going to make sure I dunk my cheap B&W rolls in detergent and hot water from now on, and that means you Sunny and Fomapan!!
Film Soup Recipe
Soak film for 2 days in the following solution, dry thoroughly and expose.
- 1 cup boiling hot water
- 1 tablespoon washing detergent
I also shot some pictures in my little garden using a close-up lens, which turned out pretty cool as well.
The black hairlines you see going across the images are actually scratch marks resulting from me trying to dry the film in my darkroom bag and yanking the film out of the canister forcefully. Even after leaving the canister out in the sun for over 3 days, the insides of the canister can still be damp and wet from the film soup solution. If you do not dry it thoroughly, you will end up breaking your film in your camera or worse, killing the advance reel rendering your camera useless. That is not something you want, so do make sure to dry your film 100% before loading into your camera if you are attempting to try this out. The scratch mark is in the end a small price to pay and can in fact look cool in your image, depending on what you’re shooting. ;)
-eleanorrigby236
Up up and away!
Kodak Gold (expired) on Yashica FX-D
Look at these photos with their lovely soft tones. Kodak Gold has always been a favorite but I just adore the colors on this expired roll. Thanks for sharing your pictures from your trip with us Aman!!
Aman says,
Simply said, I went on a day trip to the San Bernadino Mountains with my trusty Yashica and came out with some pretty cool pictures.
You too can share your photos with us by sending them to us here to be featured on CGSF!!
What the Leica taught me
Fuji Acros 100 on Leica M6, Voigtlander Nokton 35mm f1.4
I’ve always had trouble focusing in photography, having 6 different cameras loaded with film at once and not being able to finish any one of them. Last year I came across an article online encouraging people to shoot with a single camera (a Leica), single lens, and single type of BW film for one entire 365 day year. I kept coming back to the article over and over and finally went looking for a Leica online, found one and purchased it on a whim. I didn’t have money to burn, and I didn’t feel completely comfortable dropping over $1,000 on a camera and lens.
I committed to a Leica M6, Voigtlander Nokton 35mm 1.4, and Fuji Acros 100 shot at 200 and developing in Diafine. The article encourages you to shoot 4-6 rolls per week, but I have come nowhere near that many. In fact over the 4 months I’ve been doing this I’ve only shot 15 rolls. The one thing I love about it so far is that each picture has a purpose; I have not been forcing myself to shoot. When I develop, every single picture on each roll is something I’m excited to see. It’s taken me back to when I had only one camera and it might take me a month to finish a single roll, but each picture was a very unique moment that caught my eye. Part of the process is also recording all of your exposure information, it slows you down and makes you want each photograph. It’s amazing to go back months later and know exactly how you shot every photo.
Leica has a bit of magic in everyone’s mind, but it’s just a tool. Just about everything stated in the article that inspired me is true. It won’t do anything you don’t tell it to, it shows your pictures as they really are without any additional effects that add or detract, it’s nice and sharp but so are many other slr cameras. Nothing extra to get distracted by; shutter speed, wind/rewind, self timer, and shutter. It’s a beautiful and very humbling experience!
Read up and be inspired for yourself:
http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2009/05/a-leica-year.html
http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2009/05/why-it-has-to-be-a-leica.html
-Charlie Wray
edit: FYI, I bought my Ensign Ful-Vue from Charlie on Etsy, and in the package he’d kindly given me a print taken with his M6 and I was immediately in awe and forced him to submit a write-up on his experiences with a Leica. Thanks a lot Charlie! Makes me wanna go and start saving up for one now (though it may take years…*sigh*)
Keep up with Charlie on his tumblr http://goodluckcharles.tumblr.com!!
-delusiana
