Yard Sale Loot

Yard Sale Loot, originally uploaded by LeandroF.

Via Flickr:
City of West Hollywood promoted a city wide yard sale event for the weekend to encourage some spring cleaning and make a little money instead of just throwing items away. Hit about a dozen or so sales. Combined cost for the items above, $27. Both the Polaroid Spectra and Olympus XA were $10 each, plus 4 shots of film left in the Spectra. The Nikon 5005 SLR was $5 and the Polaroid Spectra AF was $2. Supposedly everything works, the Olympus battery check doesn't seem to register anything yet the meter seems to work. I fired off a couple of shots from the Spectra, will post those shots later. The Spectra AF might have a bunch of shots left as well, so that would be a great bonus.

First Flush Bruch

           

A few months back, Impossible had a very special promo deal. A limited supply of 10 packs of various films, deemed not fit quite right by the factory. A factory outlet bruch sale. I think it was $60 bucks with my Pioneer discount. My bag had 6 packs of PX100 FF, 2 PX100, 1 PX600 FF and a PX70 Push! So far I've shot through 4 packs of the PX100 FF. Its been a great learning opportunity to get a better handle on the film. Also just a chance to play a bit more (or destroy). The learning curve was higher with this film when it first came out. Now, a year later, I'm feeling like I know what I'm doing, more or less. Not thinking as much, but doing. One thing that has helped was the new light shielding tip that Impossible had posted to their blog about using a dark slide to run through the exit slot of the camera instead of taping to the front to prevent fogging. Also shooting with the film in the cooler temps of winter/spring really brought out some great, consistent results. More black and white and a little less sepia/warm with good contrast. I did scan these all at different times depending on the tone. Some I waited a few hours others a day or two. During the first 12 hours, you stand a good chance at getting a more neutral tone image, by the next day the yellow/sepia really kicks in. Now I'll need to try out some mobile cooling techniques this summer. As mentioned before, these were flawed factory outlet films so they have been messier due to loose edges of the films. This has also created some interesting side effects since it prevents the chemistry from spreading evenly thus sometimes creating odd unexposed areas at the top or the corners. I personally like it, adds another unique quality, although cleaning the rollers suck.

 

 

  

 

 

Impossible Color

The Impossible Project held true to their commitment to bring a stable color film reminiscent of classic Polaroid 600 film. Coming soon to the line up, PX680 Color Shade. Better temperature range and more light safe. The secret film testers announced and posted their images via Flickr (this is the main PX680 group) and blogs. Lots of samples of beautiful, rich and colorful images. With this announcement came an opportunity for Impossible Pioneer card holders to purchase some of the beta 2 version of the film, of which I ordered two packs (knew I should have made it three). I believe the First Flush edition of this film will be out by early May (maybe sooner) with a Spectra version out in early Summer.

I have only shot through one pack of film so far. My first three shots were duds though. I use a ND filter over the lens of my SX-70 Sonar and what I discovered was that I think this film isn't quite as fast as 600 (or at least in beta form). I normally have to dial the exposure wheel all the way to dark, but when I did that the shots came out very underexposed. If I had been a little patient and waited to see the results I could have corrected instead of firing off another in excitement, oh well. Then at some point I took another, but forgot I had removed the ND filter and so it was way overexposed. Definitely some minor grumbling going on at first. However, what I did learn is that there is some room to play with the exposure which is a good thing to know now.

Once I quit screwing around and took some shots with good light I was pretty happy with the results. Has a little bit of a learning curve to it, but if you're good with the other flavors then this should be similar to get used to, if not easier. Other then giving it a brief cover on eject for the first 7-10 secs, the film holds up really well in shaded areas and indoors, so need to cover. Bright sun, then its advised to cover. Also gives you some creative control to flash the film as well. There is a definite warmth, almost golden quality to this film and fair amount of texture, detailed but still rough. Yellow creamy whites and more intensity in color, but muted just enough that it feels vintage still. The beta batch has some white speckles in the image area that is the result of the hand mixing process for the test film. The First Flush edition should remove most of that according to Impossible.

Pretty happy and amazed with the quality of the film. If its looking and behaving this well already, then the next editions will be fantastic. I'm looking forward to the next batch and just in time for Summer. Congrats to the Impossible team for making it happen.

Auto 100 - Its New To Me!

                                          Auto 100, originally uploaded by LeandroF.

Got some new gear and upgrades recently. My 340 is having both under exposure issues and a droopy bellow thing starting to happen. I figured instead of paying for repairs (I might give it a try myself) I decided to put my resources toward a new camera. I have a pristine 450, but lacks a portrait or close-up kit, I did recently battery mod it though to take 2xAAA batteries. I already have a portrait kit for the 340, so when I came across a good deal for an Auto 100 I went for it. In the process I also picked up a 192 Self Timer and a 583 Close-Up Kit.

The Auto 100 is similar to the 230, 240, 340, 440 models except it has the metal body. The other metal bodied models 250, 350, 360 and 450 have the nicer Zeiss viewfinders instead. Like all the ones I mentioned above, it has scene selectors for indoors/outdoors and film speeds for 75, 150, 300 and 3000.

The camera was in pretty good shape, rollers needed some cleaning as did the viewfinder. Swapped the battery from my 340 and seems to meter ok. The few test shots I've done with a pack of chocolate film shows the exposure is a little off, maybe need to compensate 1 or 2 clicks of the dial to over expose, at least in lower light. The camera also came with the original leather strap with development timer attached. The self timer is pretty neat, it sort of snaps on and is held there by friction. You rotate the dial to any position between 5-20 seconds and the activation and release is long enough to account for longer exposures. Plus there is something really great about the machined metal quality of it.

I tried a couple of shots with the close up kit, which lets you focus 9-15 inches and found it pretty tricky to focus and compose with due the parallax correction. I've read else where that good light really helps as does a tripod. The parallax correction is pretty good as far as composing goes, but the focus part is askew to what you see in the viewfinder.

The shot of the apples for example, I thought I was focused more on the middle of the front one, not just the back one. With the exposure I can't tell if its the camera or the film. I did this one 2 clicks into brighten on the camera, thought it would have been a little brighter then this. I do like the quality of it though, and I'm sure with a little practice I'll have the hang of the it in no time.

Most people seem to go for the 250 due to having the bigger Zeiss viewfinder, but this is a great solid alternative to it. So far I'm happy with it.

Cold and Wet

Its been a strange winter weather wise here in Southern California.
We've had some wonderful summer like days in the middle of January,
but plenty of wet and cold to counter it. I was curious to see how cross
processing the film would translate with dark, wet and dreary days.

  

  

  

  

  

All images shot with a Holga 120CFN with Fuji Provia X400/RXP chrome film,

 cross process C-41 and scanned from negatives.

Polaroid ColorPack II and Polaroid Blue

Recently rescued a few vintage cameras from my mother's house. One of the useable ones is a ColorPack II model that takes type 100 film. The ColorPack II has the following specs.

• Lens: 114mm, f/9.2 3-element glass or plastic.
• Shutter: Electronic; range about 10 sec. - 1/500
• Flash: Built-in flashcube socket; flashcube automatically rotates after each exposure
• Automatic exposure system similar to the folding pack cameras.
• Settings for 75 and 3000 speed films. (fixed aperture for each)
• Has simple "face sizer" focusing aid for 5ft. setting only.
• Has metal "spreader bars" instead of rollers.

specs taken from rwhirled.com/landlist.

I always thought of these hard plastic models as being a cheap, inferior, bulky versions of the range finder pack cameras (250 for example). I found it to be surprisingly light (it is plastic after all) to carry. The exposures seemed to be pretty accurate as well. The lens seems pretty sharp, I think this one has the glass lens. Focusing is a bit difficult since you have to guestimate with a scene selector, but with a little practice I think it would be easy. I would definitely bring this along instead of a regular bellows pack cam for any kind of camping/hiking purpose since its so light weight and simple to operate or for questionable weather conditions.

I've only shot some Polaroid Blue film through it so far. I initially got the Blue as part of the Triple Dip deal from Impossible, one Chocolate, one Blue and one Sepia. I'd been curious about the Blue film for some time and having a now empty and available camera to use it with I loaded it up. The film seems like its missing the yellow portion of color spectrum, but even though its a wonderful blue color (and a nice range at that), other colors due come thru depending on the color balance. Red's come thru as do some greens and skin tones. One of the other unique things about this film is that it has a silk textured surface to it. A blue version of the 125i silk perhaps. Sometimes I really like the look and texture of silk films and other times it really bothers me. Appears to work really well with the blue. Polaroid always seems to have done blue really well. Has a lot of potential, stylized options with it depending on the subject matter. Since this is a expired film and limited, it may soon be difficult to find this film. The Impossible store still has some in stock, but supplies were looking low. I say check it out while you can!

And We're Back!

Not that I was really gone, just been busy and therefore neglected some overdue blogging.

Upcoming blog posts: Instant Blues, Sepia and Chocolate, Instant Slide films, wet/winter Holga images, Instax Goodness, Impossible Factory Outlet Bruch films plus some B&W Yashica Electro 35 images. I'd also love to hear more from you! What would you like to see and read more about? Any interest in tutorials or how to's? Like it just the way it is or something new? Appreciate the input/feedback.