[52 Rolls] Rolls 24-26: Three Rolls in DC

I have been shooting a lot more than posting in this project (although I am definately behind on the one roll a week goal). Here are three rolls I took this summer while working in Washington D.C.

Roll 24: Kodak TMAX 400, pushed to 1600

This is one of my last rolls of a big TMAX purchase at the beginning of the year. I don’t think I will be going back to it anytime soon, mostly because I don’ t like how it pushes. That said, I decided to lean into the grain with this roll, pushing it to 1600 and stand developing it in Rodinal. There are some pleasing shots here.

 

Roll 25: Kodak Ektar 100 (120 Format) in the Ondu 6×12 Multi-format Pinhole Camera

This roll was taken on my pinhole camera in the panoramic configuration. Very long exposures, but I really like the results. I think Ektar is the definitely the color film for this camera.

 

Roll 26: Portra 400 (Half in DC / Half at Home)

Portra is my go-to, and I think it really captures my aesthetic the best. This roll was partly taken in D.C., but I finished it off at a my son’s birthday party in Santa Cruz. A nice sum-up of my summer.

 

Expect a lot of posts as I catch-up.

[52 Rolls ] Roll 22 – Praktica Super TL / Delta 100

In my recent antique store haul I picked up an East German Praktica Super TL camera, and three M42 mount lenses. The camera was fun to take out for a spin, and I really like the lenses, but I think it is destined for eBay. The main drawback for me was a rather dim viewfinder that made focusing really difficult.

That said, I like the results of the shots I could focus. The film is Ilford Delta 100, stand developed in Rodinal 1:100.

 

[52 Rolls] Roll 22 – Himatic 7s / Delta 100

This roll was taken on my old Himatic 7s during two different trips to local Santa Cruz beaches, Seabright State Beach and Scott Creek.

Seabright SB is a large beach in the city proper, nestled between the San Lorenzo river and the Santa Cruz small craft harbor. The main feature is a jetty composed of strange concrete “quadrapods”which apparently can shift in high seas or earthquakes.

Scott Creek beach is quite a bit north of town on Highway 1. It offers a more remote and less populated option in the crowded summer months.

[52 Rolls] Roll 21 – Minolta/Ektar

I have written before of the slow, sad death of my Canon AE-1, and my need for a new metered SLR for those times when I don’t want to shoot my Canon P rangefinder and use the sunny 16 method. As luck would have it, I was at a local antique store and was able to score a not one but three bodies and seven lenses. Two of the cameras were Minoltas (an X-700 and and XG-1) with four lenses, and an East German Praktica, with three M42 mount prime lenses, which ran me about $60 bucks all together. All-in-all a nice day.

This was my first roll through the X-700, which is a lovely camera to use. Most of it was taken with a Vivitar Series 1, 28-105mm, which is a handy all around lens, but the few shots I took with the Minolta 50mm f/1.8 really got me excited.

I am starting to re-approach Kodak Ektar 100, which I had previously found unsatisfying. The colors on this roll make me think there is more to it than I had given it credit for.

[52 Rolls] Roll 20 – Basics

For my twentieth roll in this project, I went back to the basics and shot a roll of my favorite roll of film, Portra 400, in my main standby camera, the Canon P. This combo always pleases me.

[52 Rolls] Rolls 16, 17, 18, 19 – ONDU 6×12 Multiformat Pinhole Camera

These four rolls represent my first attempts at using the ONDU MK2 pinhole camera I received recently after backing on Kickstarter last year. I will write up a full review in the future, but so far I am really excited by it. It is made of gorgeous wood with strong magnets to hold it together. The version I backed shoots 120 film in 6×6, 6×9, and 6×12 formats. I like the results I have been getting, although I have been struggling a bit with the shutter. Since the camera is made completely of wood, it has a tendency to expand and contract which means the shutter has to be adjusted before you load the film so that it will stay open, and return to the closed position with a minimum of fuss and camera shake. I think I am getting better at it, but in the meantime I think the results are slightly less sharp than they could be.

Roll 16 – Fujifilm Neopan ACROS 100 – 6×9 Format

This first roll had a steep learning curve (that could have probably been avoided by reading the instructions). I had a bit of a problem getting the tension right on the film as I advanced it, resulting in a loosely wound roll of film that wasn’t perfectly light tight when I took it out of the camera. I also ended up making an offset double exposure at the end of the roll. That aside, I really liked the result of stand developed ACROS in the pinhole.

 

Roll 17 – Kodak Ektar 100 – 6×12 Panoramic Format

For color film I usually shoot Portra, but I think Ektar works really well with this camera. The shadow in the upper right hand corner of the second shot is from the shutter slipping down mid exposure and casting a shadow on the pinhole. This panoramic format works really well in the pinhole camera, but the angle is very wide, so in future I will have to get right up close to the subjects of my landscapes.

 

Roll 18 – Kodak Portra 400 – 6×6 Format

I love Portra, but using 400 speed film in bright daylight meant very quick exposures, which actually results in a less sharp picture because you have to touch the camera for most of the exposure.

 

Roll 19 – ACROS 6×9 Again

For this last roll I used ACROS 100 again, and shot for a slight underexposure. This showed off a pretty significant vignette, which I think looks really nice.

 

 

 

 

[52 Rolls] Roll 15 – More Santa Cruz

This was a nice little roll of T-Max 400 that documented my walks around Santa Cruz, both in the residential neighborhoods near where I work downtown, and on lovely West Cliff Drive, overlook the Monterey Bay.

This is also the last roll before I officially gave up on my lovely Canon AE-1. The shutter is just not responsive about half the time, and so I can’t really justify putting any more film in it. I will eventually get it overhauled, as it was my mother’s and it has sentimental value, but in the meantime it is less expensive to get another SLR to fulfill that niche in my camera arsenal.

It was also probably the last time I will be using D-76 for a little while. It gets rather hot in the mountains, and I have a lot of trouble controlling temperature in the summer, so I will be shooting  a lot of 100 speed film and stand developing in Rodinal until the weather cools down. This is becoming my standard way of processing these days anyway.

[52 Rolls] Roll 14 -The Little Cascade

Sometimes I get an idea, spend a lot of time trying to make it work, and end up not quite hitting the mark. That is what happened with this roll.

There is a little stream I drive by most days on the way down the mountain to work. Stream is too generous, it is probably less than a foot and a half wide at its largest, and narrows to just a few inches in some places. Just a trickle most of the time really, probably from an underground spring. As I drove by one day it occurred to me that it would be cool to get a shot of one of the little “waterfalls” that cascades down as the stream works it way into the valley. So after a couple of attempts at remembering to put my camera in the car I finally showed up with my Yashica-Mat LM and a roll of Fujifilm Neopan Acros 100.

I spent 8-9 shots trying to figure out the timing, the lighting and the positioning for the shot. In the end this was the best one I got.

It’s interesting, but somehow not really what I had in my head, alas. I chose a 100 speed film hoping to get a longer exposure and a bit of motion blur, which I did get to some degree, but it may have made more sense to use 400 speed, considering I was shooting on the dark forest floor under giant redwoods.

I finished off the roll in downtown Santa Cruz, where I came upon a couple of xylophone’s that were being loaded into a van by a school group. Around the corner there was a completely unrelated marimba band playing, so my extra two shots were both spent on wooden bar percussion instruments. Weird.

[52 Rolls] Roll 13 – ACROS Portraits

This was a quick roll of portraits I made of family and friends with my Yashica-MAT LM. I think this was my second roll of Fujifilm Neopan ACROS 100, stand developed in Rodinal 1:100.

The more I use the Rodinal stand development method, the less I want to go back to D-76. Not only do I like the contrast and tone in the images, but I also like how simple it is is to just leave the film soaking for an hour, instead of worrying about precise timing and agitations.

The Yashica, which was a gift from a friend to replace the Yashica-MAT 124g I foolishly sold during my all digital years, has been pretty mechanically reliable up to now. This time I ended up with a double expose on the last shot. I can’t quite figure out how it happened, and I haven’t been able to replicate the situation.

Film: Fujifilm Neopan ACROS 100

Camera: Yashica-MAT LM

Developer: Agfa Rodinal 1:100

[52 Rolls] Roll 12 – Back to the Lighthouse

The previous roll was shot at Pigeon Point Lighthouse, and while I really love the results in black and white, I found myself wishing I had brought a long a roll of color to take advantage of the blue sky and flowering iceplant that made the views so powerful. Fortunately, the next week my brother and my sister-in-law came to town from the east coast, so I had a good excuse to drive back up Highway 1 to take in the scenic beauty. I took along my Canon P rangefinder and a roll of Portra 400.

The Canon 50mm 1.8 (Type I) lens I use on the Canon P has a very classic mid-century rendering that I continue to love paired with Porta.

Camera: Canon P Rangefinder

Lens: 50mm 1.8 (Type I)

Film: Kodak Portra 400