Analog film photography and cameras

Fantastic photos wombat, really nice use (+brave) of light and contrast.

mechanical vandal, nice blagging work! LPL7700 is a very good enlarger, I got a 6700 and as much kit from a college darkroom facility (other enlargers were spoken for but everything else up for grabs) for £20 and some help clearing up the place (an afternoon & evening basically). But only got a 35mm slide plate for it, been looking for a 6x6, 6x7, 6x9 and a proper 35 neg plate but they are pretty rare to be found on their own. thinking I Might just buy an ebay LPL for its plates then put the remainder on freecycle, let someone else find their own plates :P

You'll soon find yourself needing more and more space in darkroom, seen a book called something liek the 'minimal darkroom' which would be worth a read ;)
give caffenol a whirl, I wouldn't use it for important prints as I have no idea how good it is with coping with UV etc, but good fun and can be a cheap print dev :D

thanks!
kboy - they're jessops scans - don't have access to my scanner atm so will have to do..
film is portra 160nc on the whole, camera is leica m6 w/ voigtlander 35 f2.5

shit, that's some poor scanning quality. Real shame on shots with lots of details, ie the the tombstones / branches.

with that camera and lens, send you films somewhere that can scan them properly

you are not going to get the best out of those negs with scans from jessops or any other high st lab.

I do rescan the negs myself when I have a chance - using a pretty good flatbed - but it takes so long I hardly ever get round to it. I'm beginning to think I should send them to a pro lab and get scans done as well..

Flatbeds can >>>>>
My local independant does pretty good scans, (very good IMO, but would suggest only 'good' to pro film people) £2 a roll for c42 dev & scan to 18mb bmp (used to be tiff but he lost the license for doing that, also can do B&W but not slide, again, license issues) on an AGFA machine (~2006 vintage). Sure .bmp is a joke file type but all my colour 35mm is done on that and people are generally impressed with them.
Still no comparison between that type of scanning and using a proper machine (like 'blad or a high end wet drum scanner).

wow, 2 bob is pretty cheap.

a friend recommended me this place if you need to post. http://www.photos2you.co.uk/

Mind if I ask who your local independent is brickman?!

Its a family owned (mother & son) outfit in Workington, Cumbria. They used to be AGFA franchise I guess but now own & run it themselves.
If anyone wants stuff processed & dev'd for £2 a piece feel free to post them to me and I will take them to him. Obviously with postage (you can get about 8-12 rolls of 35 in a jiffy bag for £2.25 each way) its only worth it for a number of rolls.

my favourite :)

Brickman - very tempting, I have a small bucket of unprocessed films since Darkside moved out of town... last few years I've been getting dev only, thinking I would do my own contacts and scan/print selectively, but inevitably reality has got in the way so I have loads of negs cut+sleeved awaiting the light of day/darkroom. would consider getting some of those scanned - do you think your local would do it, or is pre-cut too much of a hassle?

let us see the results from the new 35RC too, looks like a nice little thing.

He can't put them through once cut, not on the normal machine, only on a domestic machine which as you probably know takes hours.

Olympus AF1 (now figured its a 'super' as f/2.8 lens instead of the normal 3.5) and 35RC will get use this & next weekend.
Going to take the AF1 kayaking in a waterproof phone bag thing and see how it copes, its only weatherproof but the bag will take care of the water, just needs to be condensation proof!

fair enough, as expected.
some films may be winging your way for process+scan though, need to wait for some money in the bank first...

Fantastic photos wombat, really nice use (+brave) of light and contrast.

mechanical vandal, nice blagging work! LPL7700 is a very good enlarger, I got a 6700 and as much kit from a college darkroom facility (other enlargers were spoken for but everything else up for grabs) for £20 and some help clearing up the place (an afternoon & evening basically). But only got a 35mm slide plate for it, been looking for a 6x6, 6x7, 6x9 and a proper 35 neg plate but they are pretty rare to be found on their own. thinking I Might just buy an ebay LPL for its plates then put the remainder on freecycle, let someone else find their own plates :P

You'll soon find yourself needing more and more space in darkroom, seen a book called something liek the 'minimal darkroom' which would be worth a read ;)
give caffenol a whirl, I wouldn't use it for important prints as I have no idea how good it is with coping with UV etc, but good fun and can be a cheap print dev :D

I'll have a look for the book, cheers.
Those LPL plates are ridunkulously expensive if you buy them new!
I thought the enlarger was going to be one of those egg shaped things or something equally as cheap but was well impressed when I turned up and saw that sitting there!
I can see myself re-organising my room around the darkroom stuff although it wasn't bad using it last night.
Realised this morning that while the blackout blind I got does a good enough job at night, there's no way I'll be printing during daylight hours. Bit disappointing but not really much of an issue just now, I can try and sort something else before the days start getting longer again.

what is the lens?
a good enlarging lens is essential. there must be loads of nikkors and schneiders out there for peanuts, much better than the cheap meoptas.

It's got a Rodenstock 80mm in it just now.
I know it should really be a 50mm for doing 35mm (Which is really all I shoot) but set at the height it is in that pic it's almost filling a 10x8 sheet of paper with the projection and giving me around about 15second exposures on RC paper.(Please don't moan at me about FB paper, I have plenty, I've tried it and i prefer the results from RC plus it's much much easier to keep flat and I don't have regular access to a dry mount press to flatten prints)
I'll keep my eyes open for a 50mm but don't see any desperate need to get hold of one.

My recent trip confirmed it all - two cameras in the bag and I keep reaching for my favourite. So my XA is up for sale. I think I picked it up for £70 with the A11 or A16 flash (can't remember which as I never used it) and a canvas case that fits the XA with flash attached. I've got instructions too. £60 delivered, anyone?

For a full fat rf XA? Good price :p
Was only this week I gave up looking for a sensibly priced xa and got a 35rc instead (similar 5 element lens but full manual too).

Yup, full fat XA goodness!

Today picked up a nice 120 folding rangefinder, finally!

Not that exact one, but an Agfa Isolette III with solinar 75mm f/3.5 (best lens) and synchro compur (1sec - 1/500th +B) proper leather bellows and in mint nick, bellows are still light tight and supple (checked with powerful torch).
Seems they are pretty good with B&W but amazing with colour film, not as collectable as voigtlander and Zeiss Ikon folders but build quality is as good if not better and lens is apparently on a par with top/middle top voigtlanders (color heliar/ lanthar).

again not mine, photo from THIS very talented fellow

I had a play with a very early Agfa Isolette in a market in turkey was very nice, i should have made a purchase really its lovely. Have you put any film through it yet Brickman?

While i was in turkey i did some street work, have a look. Im also (slowly) trying to save up for a voigtlander r3m and a mamiya 645 pro. As my hasselblad and lens has broken on me.....im fed up with so im mamiya.

Heres my flickr to view bigger.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/masterofalllemonsyanskie/6221084182/in/photostream

I think isolettes are pretty common, I's & II's certainly (I have a II w/ apotar lens that I'm sorting for someone now) but only a few of those had the leather bellows, the lower end ones had vinyl or some nasty paper stuff that were probably buggered in the 50s let alone 60+ years on!

The super isolette with the 75/3.5 or 85/4.5 solinar is the daddy, if you find one buy it regardless of condition, they are likely worth £250-450 depending on nick. No light meter of any sort, but they are very similar in quality to current bessa's & fuji folders.

Would be taking the isolette III with me this weekend but haven't got any B&W 120 film to hand and don't want to spend colour/slide film on its test run. plastic olympus AF1 is going to get a run out on the hills with some drunken pharmacists :P
Yannis you've got some magic stuff on flickr! The pinhole shots, are they on direct postive paper?

Ah yes this isolette i picked up had vinyl bellows but was in pretty good condition. If i see one to hand i may pick it up and just bump it down to aperture uk, they love that stuff. ah the bessa III is one of my dream cameras, along with it plastic partner the fuji Gw690ii.

I havent had and experience using slide film as of yet, i mainly just shot in black and white, tmax. Post up when you have the developed, looking forward to the outcome. Their very pretty camera's also.

Thank you very much, yep they where direct positive prints. Im currently making a new pinhole with a canon mount and adjustable pinhole lens as well so i will share the results when im done making it.
Loving this one 'Port > Law - Palace de Justice' how was the climb down?

Haha, yes I like climbing things! Its a very important law building but can be climbed with some luck. For us it was not just some fun but also our place to get washed, eat and sleep for the night (hot showers, toilets & free electricity inside), also an amazing view. We slept in and had to come down in daylight as workers were entering the building O_o Film shots from there are lurking on a disc?HD somewhere!

Just back off holiday and payed a visit to http://www.arundel-photographica.co.uk/ to browse the old camera's on display.
Great bloke loves his bikes too had a nice old Rudge outside, I picked up an Exakta VX1000 to re live my youth, stuffed a roll of Ilford HP5 B&W film in and can't wait to see how they come out.

He even threw in a Prism top view finder :)

Nice! Heard about the top finders but never seen one, think early nikon SLR's had them too?

Theres a bloke on ebay at the moment selling his 'modest collection' of early european SLR's. He has about 300 feedback points already and nothing in the current 200+ items he has for sale start under £500 mark (well, a hand full do), probably a few hundred thousands worth!

Found this EOS1 earlier in the week (for less than a round of london priced drinks) barely used with a grip & crappy kit 35-80mm lens, part of me has no interest in modern AF bodies, the other part loves the size, weight, quality and immense viewfinder (only nikon f5/6 and eos1v are probably better). Threw a chinon tomioka 55/1.4 lens on and wow, what a combo.

35mm Genocide by Brick_Man_Photos, on Flickr

35mm Genocide by Brick_Man_Photos, on Flickr