Sunset Surf
Kodak Elitechrome 200 on Vivitar Mariner
We’ve never had any reviews on waterproof cameras or even underwater shots of anything! Luckily May Rodrigo of The Philippines, one of our regular contributors had kindly furnished us with these awesome sunset shots! A consummate surfing lover, May had been contributing shots after shots of the surfing paradise Zambales, always with different cameras & films.
We have 2 more sets from May, and I promise you they’re gorgeous so be sure to check them out!
Well, you know the drill - follow her tumblr at http://mayprodrigo.tumblr.com!
p/s: Here’s the Vivitar Mariner. It accepts any 35mm film, has a built-in flash, needs 1 AA battery and is waterproof upto 10 feet thanks to it’s housing. Also, it has a 28mm lens but according to some reviews it’s so wide that it could have a focal length of 21mm instead.
Apparently this camera shoots well with a 400ISO film if you plan to use it underwater but on land, it’s best to use a slower film ie: 100ISO as it tends to get overexposed with a faster film.
For more reviews, check out this awesome blog http://janneinosaka.blogspot.com/2010/10/vivitar-mariner.html
-delusiana
Up, Up In The Air
Kodak T-Max 400 on Holgamod 120N
Just going through my old scans and found this set of pictures discarded in the ‘No Good’ pile. They are from a crazy trip across the globe on work last year where I was spending 40% of my time in transit or flying across a whole continent, and not enough time shooting on land. Most of the pictures shot on film from my window seat came out super blown-out, as the sun was just too strong up there. I was hoping to be able to capture something good, something better as the shots I randomly snapped on my iPhone turned out lovely. All 5 pictures above were taken in different parts of the world, in the air upon lift off from Kuala Lumpur, over Japan, over California, over Russia, and finally in Mexico. Pretty cool when I see it from that perspective ;)
Next time, I hope for more time on land! Yes, on land where the action really is!
-eleanorrigby236
Colors
Kodak Ektachrome 64T (expired 1996) on Olympus OM-10, Zuiko 50mm f1.8
Check out these beautiful photos by Pia Hagenbach. I’ve always coveted the Ektachrome 64T but never managed to find them online, the only tungsten balanced Ektachromes I’ve ever used was the Ektachrome 160T (which were also beautiful & unique in their own way.)
Here’s what Pia has to say:
I found an old Kodak Ektachrome 64T in a thrift shop in Graz, Austria. It was expired in ‘96 and the price was 2€, which was awesome, because the normal price is about 8-9€ on eBay! I used an Olympus OM-10 with a Zuiko 50mm 1.8 lens. The pictures were taken in Graz and Berlin, Germany.
Both eleanorrigby236 & myself love her photos, especially the subdued tones that brings out the retro in them!
I find that shooting expired films is exciting, of course there’s the risk of having a completely blank roll staring back at you but if you’re lucky (and patient), you’ll get a wondrous, one of a kind palette that no other modern film can match. Just check out this post by eleanorrigby236 and you’ll get my point ;)
Anyway, thank you for sharing your beautiful photos with us Pia! You can check out her photography at http://fraukatze.tumblr.com/ or visit her Flickr stream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/fraukatze.
-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
At the Butterfly Park with the Kodak E100G
Kodak Ektachrome E100G on Kiev 88
As many of us have come to know, Kodak has stopped production of their Ektachrome slide film series. I was reluctant to shoot the roll knowing that I had no way of getting it processed at an E6 lab here, but I thought I’d give it a go anyway. I was shocked to see how the colors didn’t turn out too crazy even after the roll was cross-processed. You definitely still get the yellow and green tinge in the highlights which I see people complain about with this film but it worked out OK in this set as I was shooting a lot of flora to begin with. The E100G is undeniably sharp with very fine grain and is definitely the slide film of choice if you want to shoot and not worry about wild color shifts like what you would get with a cross-processed roll of Velvia film.
You can see in my image of the dead butterfly above my focus was way off and the final image turned out pretty bad. To save it I thought I’d try to convert it into B&W to see if it would make the image look better. In color, your eyes are automatically drawn to the butterfly as it is the object that stands out the most, but then you also see the flaw in the picture. By converting it to B&W I find that your eyes process the image as a whole because it sees it more as a pattern as opposed to a complicated image. Somehow, the focus becomes secondary in the image, as the story becomes the center point now.
So even when you end up with a bad shot, try working with it and converting it to B&W to see if it speaks out to you differently. Of course this will not work with every picture. A bad example of converting to B&W would be this on below!
Sure it looks OK because it is stark black and high in contrast, but can you tell what you’re really looking at? This photo was just too busy to begin with and in between the ripples, the koi, and the reflection off the water, the loss of color does not help. The image definitely looks better in color. So be careful with what you choose to tweak when you feel the need to do something to fix your images and don’t go overboard.
Anyhow, I quite like the E100G and I’m definitely going to grab a few more rolls to chuck into the fridge for another day a few years down the road, when the film is totally extinct!!
-eleanorrigby236
“Metamorphosis” of Worlds Within
Kodak Tri-X 400 on Nikon FM
It is images like this that fuel your imagination. This gorgeous double exposure was shot by photographer Tim Chao as part of a joint project with Luke Bial in an electrifying series of capturing the inner and outer worlds of people on black and white film. You can check out other pictures from “Worlds Within” here.
Golden or broken dreams?
Kodak Gold 200 on Nikon F80D, Lensbaby Composer & Double Glass Optic
I know that I haven’t been shooting with color negatives for a long time, and if you click “Film Index” at the navigation bar, you will realize that the Kodak Gold 200 used to be heavily featured at CGSF by our fellow readers & contributors.
The warm, golden tones compliments your shots really well, especially with careful lighting & composition. I’ve yet to discover a more versatile film, as I find that even the Ektar 100 produced cooler hues compared to this film. I’ll sorely miss the demise of this film, as with the terminated lives of Kodak’s beautiful color positives.
Btw, meet Valentine. She was really fast that I only managed to catch her ghostly blur. She’s 14 years old.
Old is definitely gold.
-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
I found this today. It was on top of a stack of magazines for sale at a thrift shop. I think it’s a sign to me. It’s the back cover of the May 1981 issue of National Geographic. Irony…
Share your Kodak moments
Remember our feature on that amazing lo-fi online mag “Lomo Lovers”? Well, they are gearing up for their next issue and it’s going to be all about Kodak! With the recent news on Kodak discontinuing production of their much loved slide film, Lomo Lovers thought it would be a good idea to pay homage to Kodak. You can submit anything that was shot on Kodak, let it be film or camera and stand a chance to be featured in Vol. 8!
You can enter your submission to their flickr group here or email them at: nicnocnoo@hotmail.co.uk with your details: Shot, name, camera, film, technique etc.
Come on now, share away!!
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On Facebook we share our surprising finds and our latest buys ;) Look what I just found in an Ansco Panda box camera I got a few months back. I am hoping that the previous owner forgot about the roll and left it in there some few decades ago. Stay tuned to find out what’s on the roll.
To be sure you get the latest updates from us LIKE US ON FACEBOOK!! We also love talking and discussing with you so drop in and say hello!
-eleanorrigby236
Meow, if you love Kodak!
Kodak T-Max 400 on Diana 151
(self-developed: Ilford Ilfosol 3, 1+9 at 6 mins)
Even Sora wants you to know that our beloved Kodak is here to stay and that FILM IS NOT DEAD!
-delusiana
Kodak Film is here to stay!
After the initial scare on the Kodaktransforms webpage after doing a search for “film,”
Not Found
Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn’t here.
we contacted a Kodak personnel who told us otherwise telling us that Kodak is still very much in the film business. Here is the excerpt taken from their official Facebook assuring us that they have not given up on the film business,
” Today Kodak announced that we will be phasing out of the market for digital cameras, pocket video cameras and digital picture frames during 2012. Our traditional film capture and photographic paper business will continue to provide high-quality and innovative products and solutions to consumers, photographers, retailers, photofinishers and professional labs. And our Consumer Business will focus on desktop inkjet, online and retail based printing – which offer great opportunities for profitable growth. We will also continue to offer camera accessories which work with other brands.”
Fat rolled, again!
Kodak Portra 400UC (expired) on Diana no. 151
We already know that the Portra is an excellent color negative film, even the expired ones! The 400UC stands for Ultra Color, which gives higher color saturation than the 400VC. It was discontinued however, leaving only the NC & VC variety before Kodak developed the enhanced present emulsion of the coveted Portra 400.
I shot the photos above during my backpacking trip to Penang, Malaysia where I spent the whole day going all shutter crazy. The first photo was the only salvagable shot of the beautiful Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion (or better known as the Blue Mansion), since my precious Portra ended up in a fat roll! I was really disappointed since the whole reason I went to Penang in the first place was to photograph the mansion! *sigh* Oh well, another reason to come back here again in the future. You can read more on Le Maison Blue at its official website here.
The last 3 photos are of the iconic Logan Memorial at the Penang High Court complex, a monument erected in memory of James Richardson Logan - who was the champion of rights of non-Europeans in Penang, where he valiantly fought for the rights of Indian plantation workers against the giant East India Company.
The other shots were taken along my jaunt throughout Georgetown to reach Armenian Street, where Dr. Sun Yat Sen, a Chinese Revolutionary who was also known as the father of Modern China made base, and was the headquarters of Dr. Sun’s political party Tongmenghui. You can read more about 120, Armenian Street here.
As for photos of Dr. Sun’s HQ? That’s for another post on another day. :D
edit: What’s a FAT ROLL you say? Check out this link!
-delusiana
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!!
