Self critique through scanning

Like a lot of people, I’m at home rather than commuting to work at present. I’m lucky in that I can do a lot of my job from home, so I’ve been spending more time than I’m used to sat in my study. Yep, I call it that. We must maintain standards.

Just to the side of my desk is an old PC that runs my scanners. I didn’t take long for me to realise that I could poke a negative carrier along by one notch and hit scan, with no interruption to the day job.

I have rather a backlog of scanning. There were times past when I didn’t have the kit, the free time or the inclination to sit and feed a scanner. But now I have to sit next to one for eight hours a day.

It turns out there is some joy from discovering photos I knew I’d taken but lost track of. There is also some learning to be had in reviewing what I used to take pictures of. I have noticed that in the early days I used to take two shots of the same scene, from the same viewpoint, with the same exposure: basically two identical shots. I was so unsure of my technique that I was giving myself an extra frame in case of scratches, holes or other disasters. Totally unnecessary – I had quickly got past the stage of physically damaging the film by accident. I wish I had used the second frame to vary the exposure instead. How could I be so worried about damaging the film and yet so sure that I had nailed the exposure?

I can also see my photographic history through scanning. There is the black and white when I first started. It was cheaper to buy and I very quickly learned to develop it myself. Then I got a bit up myself and went all quality. There is a long period of slide film with just a few mono negs. I think these must have been the days when slide film was reasonably affordable. Of course, Real Photographers only shot colour slides, never colour negatives, and I so wanted to be good. It did leave me with an abiding love for Agfachrome 50s though. Then I probably realised just how far I had walked away from sociability and started shooting only colour print. I basically became a best friend of TruPrint. Does anyone remember them? You sent them a film in a plastic envelope, they developed and printed it and sent it back with a new film and envelope. It’s like the scene in Brazil with Sam Lowry and the message transport tubes.

Then we go through a digital period with hundreds, probably thousands, of pictures that only exist in my computer, with a few having made it onto the walls. Then the black and white reappears, but edgy and experimental. Or shite and forgotten how to work it. I never really left film photography, but it dropped back to a minor sideline for a while. One thing I do remember is asking for Agfachrome in a photo shop, to be told that it was no longer made (not since 1984 – eek!). I suppose I should be glad that they had even heard of it. A bit of a Fly Fishing moment. [And I have just realised that all the references here are to the 1980s. Not deliberate and certainly not nostalgic.]

But, unlike some, I don’t think I have ever thrown a set of negatives away. Well, not that had any sort of visible image on them. So I am working my way through boxes of badly-labelled slides and negatives. I can only think that, at the time, it was so obvious to me where and when the pictures were taken that I thought labels were superfluous. I admit to having completely forgotten some of the places I have been. Tunisia was one. I recognised the pictures, but the label on the slide box was a puzzle until it came drifting back. Yugoslavia? I definitely remember going, but I had no idea what it looked like or where I had been. And things keep turning up in the pictures that I thought were in completely different countries. A large stately home turns out to be in Ireland and not Northumbria. A decorated column is in Leningrad, not Rome. The camel was not in a zoo.

But this is not about my focus being much more on the present than the past (a polite phrase for dodgy old memory), or on my former globetrotting (well, stumbling). The pleasure here is looking at the old photos and being mostly very glad I took them. The interesting thing though is how the importance of pictures changes with time. Scenery that was spectacular to be in results in (usually) meaningless pictures with nothing in them. Snapshots of people and places become fascinating. Friends grow old, children grow up, cars become classic. If only hair grew longer and waistlines slimmer.

Fun though. Plus I have discovered some excellent pictures of people that I will use again, especially one of my sister which awaits her next major birthday. The things I shoot have altered a little, probably for the better. There is less of the dull landscape in recent times and more interesting stuff. In the early years I seemed to hose the world with my camera. Since then I have learned (and occasionally practice) that a picture of everything contains nothing, so there is more of the detail or single item that stands for the whole.

The other thing I noticed is that, despite what people say about the archival permanence of film, some of my old colour stuff is not holding up very well. It’s probably a good idea to get some of these old negatives and slides scanned as they are showing some odd colour shifts. The slides seem to be in better shape than some of the old colour negatives, although even some recent (2005) colour negative is showing some strong colour casts. All the better to get them scanned then. And what a good time to be doing it, when I’m locked in and getting distinctly Oscar with the wallpaper.

So here I am, like all of us, making a benefit out of a necessity.

Stay safe.

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Big grain

Just as Edison was reported to have discovered hundreds of ways to not make a light bulb, I have found many ways to make a photograph worse. How about huge, intrusive and detail-wrecking grain? Yep, got that one down real good.

In previous years I have push-processed some expired cine film, not for any other reason than the film was cheap and I wanted to take pictures in the dark. I have also enlarged a small section of a negative because I liked the effect.

This time was a bit different. I was using a film that was meant to be push-processed but I used the ‘wrong’ developer. To explain: I bought a roll of Kodak P3200. This has reportedly got a true ISO of around 1000 but can be push-processed in the recommended TMax developer to 1600, 3200 or beyond (but not beyond infinity, Buzz). What is positively not recommended is to use stand development in Rodinal. So that’s obviously what I did.

Why am I this contrary? Because I had one roll of this film and I didn’t want to buy a bottle of special developer – this stuff is already expensive; why add the cost of a bottle of developer that I couldn’t use for anything else? Besides, if we stuck to what other people say is safe, how would we learn anything?

P3200 is a low contrast film. This helps compensate for the gain in contrast you normally get when push-processing it. I was planning to use semi-stand development, which lowers contrast. There was a likelihood I would end up with golfball grain and two shades of mid grey. But I was also planning to shoot the film in conditions of extreme contrast: under street lamps, at night. What could possibly go wrong?

Metering, for one. How do you expose for a scene that contains its light source and ranges from light enough to read by down to dark enough for murder? My little book of notes says that ‘subject under bright street lamp’ is EV 4. If we say the film is going to be exposed at 1600, that converts to 1/60 at F2. There was going to be a full moon at the time I was playing, and the magic guide says this is around EV -3, or 2 seconds at F2. So I could be looking at a seven-stop range. This is well within the capabilities of a negative film.

But…. what I actually did was meter off a whitewashed wall behind a streetlamp and give it a couple more stops of exposure. And then give it a few more stops for scenes that contained street lights but were not directly lit by them. And after a few more beers, I basically waved the camera about and hoped.

The film got what is now my standard semi-stand development: Rodinal at 1+100, 30 seconds agitation at start then two gentle inversions every 30 minutes for a total of two hours. I was relieved to see exposed frames when I took it out of the tank and even more relieved to see some interesting images when I hung it to dry.

Then I scanned it. Oh boy, but that’s grainy! Metering off the wall behind the streetlight worked quite well. Guessing the exposure wasn’t too bad. Putting the camera on a wall and hoping gave me some ‘variable’ success with framing. But the grain!

So is this a waste of an expensive film or a method I would recommend? Both. If you want to emphasise the grain, try this. If you want to shoot fine detail in the dark, use a different method or a different film. There will be another post along soon that shows what a 100 ISO film can do under the same conditions and with the same development.

No idea

The Fed 2 camera

Have you ever wanted a camera just because of the way it looks? The big old Nikons with the huge photomic pentaprims give me that feeling, even though I could no more fit one into my life than take up yoga. But the Fed 2 has a place and would fit.

It’s that stripped-back-to-basics look of an old Leica, but without the pretensions or prices. What am I thinking? I bang on about the camera being immaterial and the pictures being the thing. I make fun of the rabid acquisition monkeys. I just didn’t know the power of the dark side.

I confess: I succumbed. Of course I did, or this would be about a Nikon F2. So Fleabay delivered what turned out to be a Fed 2 version B from 1958-9. It has a lovely feel, in that the wind-on and shutter feel smooth and quiet. The lens is an Industar 26-m of the same age. It’s a bit worn, as there is some play in the focus thread. But again it feels smooth and has a nice focussing tab. I have the replacement Industar-61 LD version of the lens with the (horrors!) lanthanum glass, but the newer lens feels almost wrong on this camera. (Side note – both lenses are Tessars, but of different construction. That’s why I put links to both.)

The whole camera feels well put together but smooth from use. Could this really be Soviet engineering? The film pressure plate was a bit shiny, but that’s a good sign that the camera has been in use rather than sat in a cupboard. A bit of permanent black marker ought to see things right. That or only ever shoot cine film with remjet backing. The rangefinder needed a bit of recalibration. The horizontal alignment is simple – remove one small screw and use a tiny screwdriver to get the infinity alignment back. The vertical alignment is a little more awkward, as it involves rotating the rangefinder window. The glass is obviously a wedge rather than flat, so rotating it shifts the light passing through it.

The first film through was evenly exposed and the frame spacing was regular. Good signs that the mechanical bits were working as intended.

The lens seems to be low contrast. The glass is clear, so this doesn’t look like a veiling flare from cloudiness. I was shooting with a lens hood, on a fairly overcast day, so I guess that the low contrast is real. It’s going to be interesting to try taking shots under similar conditions with both versions of the Industar and to compare it with my Jupiter 8 lens, which is of a different construction entirely.

Can you see the lion’s face?

Even though this is about the camera more than the lens, the camera did come with this lens on it. It seems reasonably sharp right into the corners at normal working apertures. The bokeh looks a bit busy though, even though you probably can’t see it in the scaled-down picture above. At full size the white bench is a bit choppy. Still, once adjusted the rangefinder seems accurate.

The viewfinder and rangefinder combination are, well, modest. There are no frame lines in the viewfinder so people wearing specs will probably see less than the lens covers. The rangefinder patch is round and not very prominent. The long rangefinder base makes a focusing trick easier though, which is to waggle a finger in front of the rangefinder window. This has the effect of switching the rangefinder patch in the viewfinder on and off, which makes it easier to see if the critical bit of the image wiggles when you do it (meaning it’s out of focus). It also has a common Russian feature of a little lever that alters the diopter of the viewfinder. Brilliant for those of use with ageing eyes. This one is a bit loose though, but a dab of silver gaffer tape holds it in position and matches the camera top plate.

But there is a certain joy to using an old rangefinder. It’s fairly compact and hangs well from one hand with the strap around your wrist. Nice and discrete. Fairly quiet shutter, not like an SLR and my Ricoh in particular (which sounds like you dropped a bag of coins into a bucket). The wind-on, even using the knob rather than a lever, is pretty quick and smooth. The film rewind is a pain though – on my Zorki the rewind knob can be raised to make it easier to rotate. The Fed keeps the rewind knob masked, so you need lots of little twists. I guess that’s why film comes with 36 frames: so you don’t do this too often.

Loading is fairly easy. Unlike some of the Russian rangefinders (and expensive old Leicas), the whole back comes off so access is great. I used to have a bottom-feeding Zorki, and the easiest way to feed the film through was to remove the lens, hold the shutter open on B and wiggle the film around with a finger to clear the pressure plate. On the Fed the take-up spool slides out, so you can hook the end of the film into it and then feed film and spool into the camera together. I was worried at first that the end of the film might hang-up in the take up spool when rewinding, but it slips out easily.

The only potential issue is that the spacing between frames is very close – just 1mm. This makes it possible to squeeze another frame out of the film, but makes cutting the negatives tricky. Luckily, in 1983 Polaroid launched an instant 35mm slide film and with it a film cutter. When the instant film died off, the film cutters could be found cheap in remainder bins. And I cannot resist a bargain. (Bargain no more! I’ve just seen what they fetch on eBay.)

So despite being 60 years old, it works just fine and looks as cool as anything. Perhaps I could hide behind it like it was my good-looking pal?

PS – I have noticed that the links to the SovietCams website are broken. I’ll see what I can do to fix them. Try this one instead.

How to use flash

 

Not the cleaning product; the lighting one. But you knew that.

I’ve written before about my use of flash, but I’ve never written about yours. What made me think about it was an article on Emulsive, plus Em’s own opinions on the unhelpful arses who tend to answer questions on social media.

So here you go: flash 101. That said, this is not about how to light a scene with flash; this is about connecting a flashgun to your camera and getting the exposure about right. You can then learn how to use flash lighting by trying stuff out.

We’re talking here about electronic flash. There may still be the odd bulb or Magicube  around, but they must be rarer than free beer.
Electronic flash – let’s just call it flash – is a very brief and intense pulse of light. Packing even the small amount of energy from a battery into a very short pulse means that the flash can be very bright – the candle that burns half as long burns twice as bright, as they didn’t say in Blade Runner.

Your camera has a connection or method for triggering the flash just at the point the shutter is fully open. Most cameras have a ‘shoe’ bracket that the flash clips into, called a hot shoe because it has an electric contact in it to trigger the flash. Older cameras have a variety of fittings. Without the contact (a cold shoe) or without the shoe, you need to find a little round socket that a flash cable can plug into. Some older flashguns will take a cable connection, some even have a cable fitted, or you can find adapters that take a cable feed into a hotshoe fitting. If you need to find the cable port on your camera, it looks like a miniature version of an old coaxial TV socket. It can be set flush in the camera body or be on the side of the lens like a short stub of pipe. If it is labelled or there are several, use the one marked X or PC. If it’s on the lens, there may be a pointer with X, V and M symbols. Set this to X. Some old Russian cameras have a setting around the shutter speed dial for M or X. Again, set it to X. The X setting fires the flash when the shutter is fully open. The other settings are for flashbulbs. If your camera has a hotshoe and none of this other nonsense, it’s already set up to use flash.

In reading order: cold shoe; hot shoe; cable socket on lens; flash setting on lens; cable sockets in body; flash setting on shutter speed dial. The last one also shows an X on the speed dial, which is the fastest capable speed for flash, in this case 1/30.

A word about putting old film-era flashguns onto digital cameras: care. I’ve heard that some old flashguns can send voltage back down to the connection that triggered them. I hear tell that this can damage some modern digital cameras. If you are worried, buy a cheapo Chinese radio trigger to fire the flash with.

Cheapo radio triggers. Ignore the large plug – I use this on a different type of flash.

So, now what?

Rule 0 – get your hands on at least one flashgun. Ignore the ones that are dedicated to a particular camera. Even ignore the ones that are automatic or have sensors, although they are handy. Old manual flashguns are unloved and cheap. Get some.

Old manual flashes. They have exposure calculators on the back.

Rule 1 – you control the exposure of the flash using the lens aperture. The flash pulse is much shorter than even your fastest shutter speed, so the shutter speed can’t reduce the amount of flash light. In fact you may need a slow shutter speed. Both curtains of a focal plane shutter have to be out of the way, and sometimes this only happens at speeds slower than 1/125 or even 1/60. Check on your shutter speed dial for a speed that’s a different colour or a setting marked X. You should only use this speed or slower.

Rule 2 – the flashgun has a way of telling you what aperture to use. Some flashguns have a distance vs aperture calculator on the back. Or you can try to find the Guide Number (GN) in the manual or online. The GN will be a distance and an ISO, so something like 12 metres (100 ISO) would be typical. If you were shooting at 100 ISO, focus on your subject and read-off the distance. Divide your GN by your subject distance (in the same units) and that’s your aperture. So if my subject was at 3m, with this flashgun I should use 12/3 = f4 as the aperture. At 400 ISO I could close-down by two stops, so f8.

Rule 3 – surfaces. Flashlight bounces and fills like a torch beam. If you are shooting indoors, you might get smoother and rounder light by bouncing the flash off a wall or ceiling rather than pointing it directly at the subject. This is where you really need an automatic or sensor flashgun, as they can sense the right amount of light rather than trying to use the GN.
Be aware that flash bounced off a green wall will light the subject in green.

These have an auto mode, where the flash can control its output to match a defined aperture.

Rule 4 – triggers.  These are little sensors that (usually) clip to the hotshoe fitting of a flashgun. They sense the brief pulse of a flash going off and trigger the flashgun they are attached to. They can do this fast enough that your camera sees both flashes. This is great for any old flashguns you can find (rule 0) – put a trigger cell on them, maybe some coloured cellophane over the light and put them round the back or side of your subject. Or in the next room to shine through the door. Or inside a car or house you are shooting from the outside. Now you get to play with your light balance. To start with, unless you are after an effect, make sure the GN and subject/ backdrop distance for your slave flashes needs a wider aperture than your main flash. Then they will throw less light. Some flashguns will let you reduce their output. Or you can tape a tissue over the light. If you don’t want to set the triggers off with a flash on the camera, fire one of them with a radio trigger or a long cable.
A trigger cell also lets you fire separate flashguns from a simple point and shoot. Tape a bit of tissue over the camera flash if you need to tone it down.

Trigger cells

Rule 5 – fill-in. It’s possible to balance the light from a flash with the daylight on your subject so that the flash fills-in the shadows. Measure your subject distance, refer to your GN and set the aperture one stop smaller/ darker to underexpose the flash. Then adjust the shutter speed to expose the scene correctly as though the flash was absent. If the shutter speed you need is faster than you can use for flash, you need more flash power or to get closer. Cameras with the shutter in the lens can usually work with flash at any shutter speed, so are good at fill-in lighting.
Get this right and it looks like you have used a reflector to fill the shadows (without needing an extra pair of arms). You could also underexpose the background for drama. Or put a blue filter on the lens and a yellow one on the flash to make the background go day-for-night blue.

Rule 6 – play. Flash freezes motion, so follow a moving subject with the shutter held open on B then trigger a flash just before you lift your finger. Try multiple flashes for a strobe effect. Try a flash from one side through an orange filter and one from the other side through blue, to get that modern orange and teal look. Put a flash on the end of a selfie stick, fire it with a trigger and you have instant side-lighting. Get a chum to point a flashgun at the back of a subject at night and fire it with a radio trigger to get backlighting. Put the camera on a tripod at night, lock the shutter open and walk around your subject firing a flash at it. Have fun.

The last resort – a long cable

Want more? Read the Strobist.

See? Nary a snarky comment made. It can be done.