Information Links
I've been looking at the stats for visitors to my site and it's occurred to me that a lot of visitors coming from google searches are looking for information that I don't really have on my site. Here, I will try to correct this problem by providing links to sites that might be more useful than mine.
The Shanghai GP3 Flickr Group
Here you can find info on, or ask questions about Shanghai GP3 branded films.
Film Development Times
Select your film and developer type on the left. This will display known good development times for almost any type of film and developer. Specifically, here is the two that usually generate the most interest:
Those are the most sought after according to my stats. As more information becomes available, I will update this post.
(A couple of request through google are closely related to pages I'm working on in the techniques section, most notably "Sprocket Hole Photography" and :120 Film in Kodak Brownie Six-20". They will be up shortly!)
Multiple Exposure Experiment
I had read about film swaps before, and the idea had me interested, but the logistics and time involved put me off. A few weeks back I decided I could do my own film swap, with the added bonus of knowing what was on the film already.
For those that don't know, film swaps are when you shoot a roll of film then rewind it, but not all the way. You have to leave the leader out (some cameras do this, others don't have the option. With manual cameras you can feel when the film leader is released from the opposite spool while rewinding it) so the film is use-able again. You package the film up and send it to the other person, and they shoot it as per normal. When the film is developed you get a roll of double exposures (2 photos taken on top of each other on the film), and you don't know what they will look like until they are developed.
I decided to skip the unpredictable results and sending to someone else parts, and do my own film swap. I set about creating some simple black and white patterns on my computer, then used the whole roll up by taking 6 photos of each pattern. I made them full screen on my laptop, then took a full frame shot on my Konica Autoreflex-T with a 57mm 1.4 lens. here's the patterns I used:
(1280x800, because that's the resolution of my laptop. Feel free to download and use them yourself.)
Once all these were shot (6 shots each on a roll of 36 exposures) I rewound the film until I felt the leader release from the take-up spool, then reloaded it. It was then time to head out and get some shots.
This part took weeks, mostly because of a run of bad weather, then me forgetting about it for a couple of weeks. I looked at the camera last night and only 27 shots were taken. I decided that was enough, as I really wanted to see how it turned out. In the end, it turned out...
Great! Some of the patterns didn't work very well, and most of the shots didn't line up with the pattern frames, but this made the shots all the better. Some of the shots have two different patterns overlapping them, making some strange effects.
Overall, I highly recommend giving this a shot. Experiment with creating patterns (I used various filters and render command in The GIMP) and find out what works.
My only advice would be this: I used 100 iso film, and for most of the shots I exposed bot h frames at 100 iso. Depending on your pattern, this can cause overexposure. I would suggest (if your camera allows it) you underexpose your shots slightly. Only by as much as half a stop, 1 stop would probably be too much.
You can check out the ones that worked on my Double Exposure Experiment flickr set.
Cheap Lenses
When I first started taking photos I often wondered why some lenses cost so much more than others. Sure, they were "faster" (had a wider aperture, allowing more light in), but I couldn't see why some were 3x -4x the cost of others (even with similar apertures). It turns out there's many reasons, but there's one that's easy to see in the end result, it's called chromatic aberration.
Chromatic aberration is a type of distortion where the lens fails to focus all colours to the same point on the film / sensor. What you end up with is parts of your picture having halos of colour. See if you can spot it in the first image here (cropped from a larger picture, taken with a Konica Minolta 5D and Minolta 70-300mm 4.5-5.6 D lens):
It's not easy to spot, especially at this size, so here's a zoomed in shot:
See the blue / violet on the bird's shoulder? That's chromatic aberration. The lens has failed to focus the violet light to the same point as all the other colours to make the white (shade of grey in this case) colouring of the bird.
Most lens manufacturers have ways of dealing with this, but it's not cheap. This is where the more expensive lenses come from. In the Minolta (now Sony) range, these normally have the "APO" badge which stands for Apochromatic. This is the name of a method of using multiple lens elements to reduce chromatic aberrations.
If you would like more information, I can suggest the following Wikipedia links. They are very complicated, but all the info you ever wanted is there.
Serious 6×6
There's something about the 6x6 format that feels more serious and professional than 35mm. This is strange, as a lot of fun toy cameras (the Holga and Diana for eg.) use this same format.
As you may have read a while back, I picked up some Shanghai GP3 film on the cheap recently. I've shot a few rolls, but my developer was dying fast, so I hadn't had the chance to develop them. This past weekend I was invited to Brisbane for drinks. Taking the opportunity I grabbed some developer while I was there.
This is the first time I've used Kodak's D-76 developer. Once it's mixed and ready to go though, it's just as easy as the liquid concentrate Ilford chemicals I had been using (LC29 and Ilfosol 3). Using D-76 in a 1:1 solution (1 part D-76, one part water) and developing for 14min (@ 20 degrees) with intermittent agitation, and there's the result.
I'm very happy with the results, and will surely be using this combination more. These two images were scanned in with my new scanner, and with minimal post processing (levels, no sharpening). There was a couple more shots that turned out OK, but these are the two I'm most happy with. Overall, my experience developing this roll was much better than it had been previously with medium format.
No Stranger To Digital
I'm no stranger to digital. My intrest in photography started with digital a while ago and peaked when I bought a Canon 350D digital SLR. That is when I really started to learn about cameras and photography in general. With it's instant feedback, digital photography is a great way to learn without becoming too discouraged. If I had to wait a couple of days to get film back and spend time scanning it in just to discover I didn't do it right, I probably would have given up a very quickly.
When finances got tight for me, I needed to sell a few things to catch up. First up was the camera, lenses, filters and accessories which I had grown to love. I didn't want to sell them, but surviving does take priority over photography. For a couple of years I wanted to get back into it, but could never justify the expense.
I don't know why it took me so long to realise it, but one day it dawned on me that the skills I had learned on my digital SLR should easily transfer over to a film SLR. I dugg out my father's Canon EOS3000 film SLR, bought myself a roll of Ilford XP2 black and white C41 film and headed to brisbane to se how I went. I was a little rusty, but overall it felt great to be out taking photos again.
This is where my love for film started. With the realisation that film SLR's had now become crazy cheap, I could build up a kit of very good gear for far less than the price of a digital SLR body. I began buying almost any film camera I could get my hands on, the more bizarre, the better.
Recently, older digital SLR cameras have started to come down to reasonable prices, and I have been looking at them again. I still hadn't been tempted to buy one as the price of lenses are still too high. Canon and Nikon bodies still take the same lenses they used to, so the demand is still there and the prices remain high. So I was looking at the cameras in a pawnbroker expecting the usual Canons and Nikons when something caught my eye.
The Konica Minolta 5D is not a common camera, but from what I read and from what I have experience so far, it is a brilliant little digital SLR. Both Konica and Minolta have cemented themselves in my mind as quality manufacturers after using some of their film gear, and knowing that the 5D has the Minolta AF mount, I could use my existing Minolta lenses on it. That's all I needed to know, and a few minutes later, I was the owner of a digital SLR once again.
I'm not giving up film though, far from it. I'm still experimenting, but hopefully I can use both to improve my skills in general. This blog will still concentrate mostly on film photography though.
New Scanner
So I finally got myself a scanner that can take medium format film. Oh, and when I say "new scanner" I mean it's new to me. I picked up Canon 8600F scanner at cash converters on the weekend (a well known pawnbroker / dodgy 2nd hand chain here in Australia). This is the push I needed to start investing more in this amazing format.
I've started scanning in some of the negatives I didn't have the patience to stitch together with my Epson V300 (and it's 35mm width film scanning) and it's becoming quickly apparent that I need a better storage and archiving solution for my negatives. I would be very interested to hear from people how they organise / store their physical and digital copies of photos.
Expect to see a lot more medium format photos over the next few months.
More Bargains
I've talked about this film in an earlier post, but yesterday I was able to pick some up even cheaper than before! My local K-Mart (Maroochydore, QLD) is selling the 4 pack boxes of this stuff for $4. That's right, $1 a roll! I picked up 3 boxes (12 rolls in total), though I wish I ad the money to pick up more.
I'm still curious as to who makes the actual film in these rolls. Making film isn't an easy task, and is usually left up to established factories (these days that means kodak and fuji). Chances are, this film stock is simply un-branded Kodak or Fuji film.
Another piece of good news (and a partial explanation as to why I couldn't buy more film): I finally have a scanner that can do medium format! I picked up a Canon 8600F from a local 2nd pawnbroker for $95. Still getting used to the software and workflow, but it means scanning in my Holga, Agfa Isolette II and Brownie shots has just become a LOT easier.
Winter Photography
I picked up this little book on winter photography a while back at a 2nd hand shop. It's coming into winter here in Australia, but this book isn't exactly helpful to me. We don't get snow here (in QLD), so this book, while interesting, is not all that much help to me.
I thought I'd scan it in and put it up here for everyone to enjoy. I hope you egt some helpful tips out of it. head over to the Galleries page and click the link.
Simplicity
Sometimes I try too hard. Recently I have been so completely unhappy with the photos I've been taking, and in an effort to figure out why, I look back at my photos that "worked". What I'm noticing is how extremely un-complicated they are. The photos I didn't spend ages composing, framing, worrying about light and shadows, the photos where instinct takes over and the right equipment is whatever is in your hands at the time.
I always carry way too much gear, and I can never settle on one brand / make or system. Last time I went to take photos I was carrying no less than 6 cameras and various lenses and filters for them. I have that problem where I think of the shot I'm missing rather than the shot I'm taking. Because of this, I tend to take whatever I can fit in my bag with me, in case I want a toy-camera shot of the same thing I just shot on my SLR (and rangefinder, and 6x6 folder...).
Nothing has been working for me lately. I've been screwing up developing, scratching negs, breaking lenses (my poor 55mm rokkor) and generally losing interest in spending time making things work. This is where I need to simplify, desperately. here's some examples of when I was out and about with just one (maybe 2) camera(s). Usually this is just after I buy them, and I'm all excited about my first roll through them.
This shot was taken with my little Ricoh 500GX rangefinder. This was the first roll through this camera after I bought it for about $20. I was thrilled when everything came out fine. This was also the first time I'd taken photos in this area of Brisbane, everything was new and exciting for me at that time.
As you can see, nothing complicated. Not even perfect composition, just some nice colours and a good general idea of how I wanted it to come out. As a test shot on a new camera, I think it worked out well.
It seems I get so wrapped up in my gear, or lack of gear that I forget it's all about the final image. I do like taking the same shot with multiple cameras from a comparison standpoint, but at this point in time I'm well aware of how all my cameras work and what their output is like. I should just take a camera and have fun.
My mission for the next couple of weeks is to take one camera with me. One camera and a couple of lenses is all I should need to get the photos I want. I need to slow down, take notice and plan. If I see a shot I think would look great on another camera (my Holga for example), I will remember it and come back with my Holga when the light is good.
It seems I like the cameras just as much as I like the photography. I don't need more cameras, I need more focus.
Priced Out
I really want to try some of the new Impossible Project film. I had some fun a while ago with expired film in my Polaroid Autofocus 660, and wouldn't mind having some more fun. The only problem is, the price jsut keeps going up.
The Impossible Project has done an amazing thing, and I really hope they can continue to do so. I love the look and the unpredictability of the film they have produced, but I can not possibly justify the cost. At $21 US ($23.75 for me in Australia) for 8 shots, that's $2.96 per frame. Add to this the shipping costs (which I'm reading some crazy figures for) and I'm looking at possibly $5+ per frame.
I could organise with a few others to order in bulk to save on shipping, but that still won't save me enough to make it worthwhile.
I want to love these guys and their film, but I can't. If they start to distribute it in Australia so I can pick up a pack, I might start to. With news of a colour film coming later in the year, I really hope they can sort something out for folks not in the US.
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