I walked around Santa Fe while my car was being serviced. This chicken was hanging out in a bush by the sidewalk.
“Brickface Hope” by James Tyler.
Window in downtown Santa Fe.
Beautiful old Pinzgauer.
Bulb and writing with the cats’ laser pointer.
Sleepy Zoe. Mostly shots of the cats on this roll. Handheld at f/1.7 at ~ 1/30.
Goober. Handheld at f/1.7 & ~1/30.
Goober with flash. F/16 & 1/90 at 3 feet*.
F/1.7 = tiny depth of field. I tried to focus on Trinity as she came towards me. With the shutter so slow it’s hard to tell.
I darkened everything but her eyes. Lemonade!
One more of Zoe just because I like it.
I turned on the den light & remembered the camera was on the tripod just outside the window. I thought I’d ruined the shot and stopped the exposure at about 10 minutes.
Not much for images — the shutter still sticks. Here’s the disassembly/attempted repair experiment.
It’s pretty easy to get inside to the shutter. The first tear-down was more thorough — I removed the insert that goes from the back of the shutter to the film plane and disassembled the viewfinder. There are two screws inside the light-tight chamber.
Four screws on the front.
This copper (brass?) provides the friction to hold the Inst/Time selector. It will immediately fall out.
Two screws at the front of the viewfinder.
With the VF hood up, the whole front will tilt upwards.
The four front screws also hold the lens board — it pops right out.
Without the shutter cocked, you can’t really see the part the selector works.
This bit that sticks into the body is the culprit.
The triangular piece coming in at the left selects “instantaneous” or “time”.
Two screws hold the top of the shutter assembly.
One screw at the bottom.
Not sure why but the bottom screw (right) is different.
The side has the rod that cocks the shutter from the wind knob and the flash contacts.
Cocked and pressing the button, you can see the selector doesn’t move up and down but in (Inst) and out (Time).
It’s a two-piece shutter. The red opens followed by the rear that closes. The triangle holds the rear open.
I thought this wasn’t pressing down enough to allow the rear shutter to close.
Bad alignment but I bent it down. It also increased the friction.
It really is one of the brighter viewfinders I’ve seen. L-R reversed.
I included this to show the film edge markings.
Blurry from the shutter sticking but I kind of like it.
Super-blurry but I like this one too.
I did a digital graduated filter on this one to boost the shadows on the bottom.
Serengeti cheetah — photo by Judy
Sandstone mesa near Los Alamos, NM
Jamapa Glacier, Pico de Orizaba
PDA at the Women’s March in Santa Fe
Kodak High Contrast Copy Film
Type 5455 to be more specific
Information is pretty sparse for this film. I found a datasheet for “Recordak Micro-File Film Types 5455 & 7455” that seems to be the stuff.
Not knowing how to properly read a film datasheet yet, I searched around and found some info on Type 5069 and started there. If it’s similar, this film was originally rated for ~ ISO 25 (or less — specs for microfilm film are strange). Bracketing my first 24 exposure roll, this stuff is about ISO 6.
Tree bark. Nikon FA set to ISO 25 and +1 exposure compensation (ISO 12).
Cloudy sky through the trees.
Wormy wood.
I used Kodak HC110 developer dilution ‘B’ at 68F for 6 minutes, agitating the 1st 30 seconds and then 5 seconds every 30 after that. Definitely too much agitation for this film. I got nasty over-development marks at the sprocket holes. Next time I’ll try a much weaker dilution, less agitation, and longer time. I’ve also read that highly dilute Rodinal works well and Photographer’s Formulary makes TD-3 for techpan films. I still have about 97 feet so it will be fun to experiment.
I used Canon Scan Gear for the first two and VueScan for the last one.
Once I learn what I’m doing with this film, I think it will turn out some great exposures.
Emboldened by having two ‘D’ cartridges, I decided to dissect one to see what’s what.
Somewhere, I saw a complete Rapid tab letter to film speed chart but I can’t find it (I hate it when I do that). The charts I can find skip ‘D’.
One camera had CT18 film in it and had a supply side cartridge ‘D’.
This photo shows CT18 as being ISO 50.
The chart I found (A=25, B=25, E = 64, G=100, H=125, J=200, N=400) puts ‘D’ between ISO 25 and 64.
From this, I can be reasonably confident that a ‘D’ tab is ISO 50.
Edit: Found a more complete chart: A=25, B=32, C=40, D=50 E=64, G=100, H=125, J=200, N=400
D-tab cartridge
I used to think the copper fangs helped hold the cartridge together. Once I really started looking at it, I decided they would interfere with the film if that were the case. Maybe they hold the felt in place?
Copper fangs — What do they do?
It took me a while of pretty close examination to figure out that the ends are crimped on over a lip on the body of the cartridge.
Carefully working the end off.
Success and not too mangled!
This is a bit of a surprise.
There is an inner spool.
The spool fits inside these springy bits.
The springy bits are attached to the cartridge by the fangs.
The film is guided by (goes inside) the springy bits and around the outside of the plastic spool. No wonder it was so hard to push in a 24 exposure roll of film.
Speed tab rivets.
The system seems really complex but Rapid film was designed to drop in and wind without having to insert the film leader into the take-up cartridge. The spool/springy bits system would allow the film to exit flat across the feed sprockets and roll up inside the take-up cartridge without binding.
I think I can make a workable cartridge out of plastic.
For Rapid cameras that produce 24mm X 24mm images, this film is 16 exposures. The overall length is 23 7/8″ or ~ 60cm.
The leader is 1 3/8″ or about 3.5cm.
The tail, marked “EXP”, is 2 3/8″ or about 6cm.
The leader and tail are textured to stiffen them. It probably helps the film not slip into the cartridge too.
That’s it for now for my mini-adventure with Rapid film.
The T-shirt is a design by my brother Mike. He did it when Catherine Coulson, best known as the log lady from Twin Peaks, died in 2015.
Since I found the second camera and have 4 Rapid cartridges, I can afford to dissect one and see if it’s practical to duplicate them.
Grainy trash can.
Walk-up window at the Stop & Eat.
I’m using new scanning software, Vuescan. So far, I love it. Its batch processing is kind of weak. You have to be able to give it the frame spacing beforehand and I scan too much weird stuff. Also, including spacing around the negatives throws off the exposure (see images below for the way around it). Still, it’s much better for just about everything than Canon’s software.
Using the Canoscan 9000f film holder.
Same image with the negative directly on the flatbed. I can’t even express how useful this is going to be.
Negative scanned as slide film.
Playing with inversion and contrast boost made something interesting.
Telling the software that negatives are slides removes the correction for the color of the emulsion. It’s pretty easy to do it right but this was fun, learn the software time. The right way: Set it for color negatives (most B&W emulsion is pretty clear), set the crop area to the image, lock the exposure, expand the crop area to include the sprocket holes, and hit the scan button.
My sweetie at Santa Fe Bar & Grill.
Detail of a controversial (and vandalized) mural in progress in Santa Fe.
Interesting morning light on a closed produce stand in Española, NM.
This is in the video but Trinity is so darn cute.
Princess Zoe is not amused by the attention the kitten has been getting.
The velociraptors like that I haven’t raked the leaves — more bugs that way.
Thanks Sonette!
Ansco also made a box camera ca. 1926 called the Craftsman No.2A.
Because the shutter is slow I used a Y2 filter (1 stop) for most of the shots on this roll. The yellow provides a nice contrast boost too.
I’m really impressed by the sharpness of the images. No post-processing other than resizing.
Zoe checking out the new-old rug for my office.
Lousy composition but I love the contrasts in aspen bark.
The neighbor’s goats.
Checking the focal length
I taped the inside edge, where the film insert goes and marked the tape at the film plane.
Marking the film plane
Next I taped the lens inside so I wouldn’t scratch it with the calipers and put a thin piece of card stock along the film plane line.
Card stock to measure against the calipers
The calipers have a post that sticks out as the jaws open allowing depth measurements.
90mm-ish
Checking the aperture
You can see the aperture in front of the lens but behind the shutter.
Aperture
The Play-Doh was covered in plastic food wrap as I held the shutter open with the stem from a cotton swab and pressed it into the aperture. I could have used about five hands for this operation. Thankfully, there isn’t glass in front of the shutter.
7mm-ish
~90mm focal length / ~7mm diameter = ~f/13.
And then I found this ad. I need to re-find it on the web so I can give proper credit.
f/14
Checking the shutter speed
I set the Olympus to 240 frames per second and shot the shutter six times. In Quicktime, I counted frames from closed (pure black) to closed again. From my working notes:
Vid at 240 frames / second = 4.17 ms / frame
1. 14
2. 12
3. 12
4. 14
5. 12
6. 11
——
75 / 6 = 12.5 frames
12.5 x 4.17ms = 0.0521 seconds = ~ 5/100 = ~ 1/20 second avg.
fastest = 11 = ~ 4.6/100 = ~ 1/22
slowest = 14 = ~ 5.8/100 = ~ 1/17
Frame counter window
The red window is bright and easy to read. Maybe too easy. The right edge of the aspen image and the top of the goats have some funky marks. It could be from processing. I’d need to shoot another roll doing frames with the window covered and uncovered to be sure.
Note to self: Cover the window on an old unknown camera unless that’s part of the test.