Author Archives: stoatly

52 Cameras: # 146 — Utility Mfg. Co. Carlton (Falcon Miniature)

I metered for box speed (ISO 80) even though the film is 44 years old so most of the shots are underexposed. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting anything because of the cross-processing so this is a pleasant surprise.

Goober pining for the fjords

Quite a bit of flare.

Half of the image in the video. Jem approaches Goober.

Dramatic tree.

Is this thing on? Spooky how much I’m looking like my dad.

A minor tear-down to clean it and measure the aperture.

The place to start — there are only two screws.

The whole lens/shutter assembly lifts off to reveal…

… This felt pad which makes it light tight.

I wanted to get to the back of the lens to clean it but I couldn’t figure out how to remove the shutter. It turns out it’s just sitting there. The whole stack, the face-plate, lens, shutter, and felt, are held in place with the screws.

The outer shutter opens & the inner one closes so the aperture is already covered when you let go of the lever.

The time lever (right in the photo above) has a tab that holds the inner shutter open.

The back of the lens board.

The body is just a light-tight box with a knob to turn the spool.

Simple is good. Simple survives. Other than cleaning the lens and a little gunk in the shutter, I didn’t have to do anything. This camera works as well as it did 77 years ago.

Process Kodacolor-X as Black & White

I recently shot with an old Carlton 127 camera. The only film I had was a roll of new-old stock Kodacolor-X.

ASA/ISO 80 — Develop by Feb. 1974.

Kodacolor-X is process C-22 film, extinct except for a couple of specialty labs who mix their own chemicals from scratch. Since I shot the film (not a precious roll of family photos found in a relative’s attic), it’s not worth the price or the wait to send it off. I’ve read here and there about cross-processing old color print film in B&W chemicals and even had some success (-ish) with Kodachrome. Worth a shot so here’s what I did:

I used Kodak HC-110 developer at dilution H. H is an unofficial mix using 1 part developer concentrate to 63 parts water. That’s the US strength developer where dilution B is 1+31.

I used a Yankee plastic tank and lower reel that can adjust for 127 film. For 127, the tank takes 420mL of solution.

Everything was done at 20C/68F. I developed for 10 minutes agitating the first 15 seconds (about 10 inversions) and then 4 inversions every minute for the remainder of the time.

One minute stop bath, using Kodak Indicator Stop at 16mL/liter, inverting the first 15 seconds (10 inversions) and then letting it sit for the remainder of the time.

Ilford Rapid fixer mixed to normal film strength (1+4) for 5 minutes using the same agitation as the developer.

I rinsed using the Ilford method: fill tank & invert 5X; Re-fill & invert 10X; Re-fill & invert 20X. I gave it an extra 20X rinse with some Photo-Flo for good measure and hung it to dry.

The base is really dark orange but Kodacolor-X doesn’t have the nasty, black anti-halation layer that Kodachrome has, and it scanned OK. Boosting the gain on the scanner brings out the noise and grain, but not too bad for what I was working with. I used VueScan software. The Canon software won’t do negatives without the film holder but I don’t have a 127 holder.

I’ll try scanning again after trying a bleaching step, soaking the film in fixer with ascorbic acid (vitamin C) added.

Kodacolor negative.

Inversion of the snapshot.

52 Cameras: # 145 — Olympus XA 3

Developing and scans by The Camera Shop of Santa Fe.

This is from the first roll. I re-scanned on the CanoScan 9000f but it didn’t improve much. I ended up converting to black and white.

Light fixture and shadows.

Autumn vines.

A couple of seriously spoiled cats.

52 Cameras: # 144 — Argus A

I need to start wearing my glasses when I do these videos. I can’t see what I’m doing up close.

A couple of things I thought of after I finished the video:
There’s no rewind release. The same knob you pull to load the cassette is the rewind knob. It’s a good idea to check it to make sure the film tension is OK after you pull it out of your bag.

The shutter is completely uncoupled from the film transport so multiple exposures are easy/easy mistakes to make.

The working bits of the camera were clean even though the body is dusty. I had it in the bag with no lens cap and the lens got crud on it. There is some grain and scanner noise in the darker shots.

This is what happens when I forget to pull out the lens.

Double exposure. 1/25 second wasn’t slow enough so I winged it using ‘B’.

Nice color but the uncoated lens flares if I’m not careful.

Not an exciting subject but good exposure.

Trees hold still while I mess around with an old camera.

Random Post for 28 November 2017

I’ll start with this cartoon and get it out of the way.
I need to get one of those things that helps you make straight text.

I know it’s not nice to make fun of someone’s appearance or name but f__k this guy.

September was safety and security awareness month at work and this is the logo they chose.

Shades of Soviet propaganda posters.

I couldn’t resist. The same words according to an on line translator.

Be Essential, Comrade.

Not to be outdone, a buddy at work pranked me in the same style. He did the spine of a manual on my bookshelf too.

Arm & Hammer & Sickle. I didn’t notice for over a month.

M left this drawing for me.

Looks like Kid from Kid N’ Play. (Wikipedia claims fair use because it’s a promo. I’m using it in a satirical work.)

Soap dispenser is appalled and angered by your lack of hygiene.

Random Post for 2 November 2017

Just playing in Photoshop

Halloween 2017

It’s el Día de los Muertos so time to put up some Halloween images…

Woooo, scary puns! I posted this one to Imgur and it got a “most viral” rating.

The ears didn’t stay long but Trinity was a bat.

I was a punk rocker. I had a cat in the 80s named Den. That's his rabies tag.

I was a punk rocker. I had a cat in the 80s named Den and my choker is his rabies tag.

52 Cameras: # 143 — Vivitar XC-3

More macro fun with the cicada skeleton.

My sister’s St. Francis statue.

A yellow filter makes a HUGE difference in the sky.

Phound Photos Volume 7

There is only one image so far but I’m really excited for a couple of reasons.

I bought a box of old movie films (Super-8 & 16mm) and it also came with boxes of color slides. These aren’t buy-them-at-the-gift-shop slides but photos someone took on various vacations. Inside the big boxes are small plastic Kodak slide boxes with labels written on them. They are somewhat jumbled but the small boxes are labeled with where the photos were taken and the recipient.

It’s a little sad thinking about why the boxes are labeled this way. Was the photographer downsizing in his old age or moving to assisted living (we used to call them “retirement homes”)? Did he die and this is how the slides were to be divided? The movies have extra labels indicating they were digitized. I hope the slides were too before they ended up at a Goodwill.

This is a fairly large collection and from what I can tell, he was a talented photographer. I’m not talking about a Vivian Maier kind of find, but a fascinating puzzle.

The box this slide came from is labeled “Hawaii For Holly”.

“Hawaii For Holly”

It’s a lousy scan but here’s the second reason I’m stoked — I used an old slide duplicator, an “Accura Zoom Duplivar”. I got it when I bought a different lot of equipment. The duplicator had a Minolta SR mount on it so I hadn’t really thought about using it. I was making myself crazy trying to find an M42 to EOS adapter — I have a couple and couldn’t find either — so I used some of my down time while sick this last week to organize the boxes and boxes of stuff in my office. It still looks like a mess but it’s a mess where I can better find things. Any way, putting lens adapters, macro tubes and such into their own bin, I came across the slide duplicator. Checking to see if I could cannibalize parts I realized the Minolta mount is also an adapter. The slide duplicator actually has a T-mount.

I also have, and miraculously found, a T-mount adapter for the Canon. It works but the crop factor (1.6) from the smaller APS-C sensor on the Canon 60D narrows the field of view too much. I’d have to take multiple shots of each slide and stitch them together. I might as well use the flatbed and the whole point is to get away from the cruel tedium of doing slides and negatives on the scanner. The 9000f is a good scanner but the workflow is error-prone and soooooo time consuming omigodjustkillmenow.

Plan C: I have a full frame digital which hasn’t been featured yet on 52 cameras. I also bought a Canon EOS to Sony E-mount adapter.

Voila! Frankenkludge.

It’s made up from these bits plus the Sony: EOS to E-mount adapter, T-Mount to EOS adapter, T-mount slide duplicator.

The bits…

I inserted the slide, held the whole rig up to an LED bulb in the kitchen and pressed the shutter. The focus and light both need a little work but not bad for a quick pass/fail test. The slide duplicator doesn’t really have focusing but it does have settings from 1.0 (life sized) to 2.0 which I haven’t played with yet. Stacking adapters may be introducing some error as well.

I’ll tinker some more and report back here.

52 Cameras: # 142 — Fujica AZ-1

Photoworks color print film, ISO 400, expired 01/06. Developed in marginal Unicolor C-41 chemicals. Scanned on a CanoScan 9000f at 3200DPI. A few tweaks obvious in the file names.

They only come on at night.

M’s niece & nephew got these cool ballons with LEDs & light sensors.

Sunset through the autumn leaves.

Sunflowers at La Montanita Co-op. Not much editing — it just looks like a painting.

Exit 272

Humor, art, photography, and random things I find interesting.