110 Film Rocks Again!

I always thought that 110 film resulted in pretty crappy pictures going all the way back to my early experiences in the 1970’s but I have been dabbling with it again off and on for the last couple years hoping for better results.

My first try was with the smallest SLR ever produced, the Pentax Auto 110. Unfortunately the first roll of film through this little jewel broke the film advance and so ended my experimenting with 110. The partial roll I tried to take pictures with was developed and while the images were better than I remembered 110 being they were not nearly as good as 35mm.

My second attempt was with a Rollei A110. This robust little camera has thus far has refused to break even when a pesky roll of film got stuck and threatened to do the same thing to it that happened to the Pentax.  Again the images were much better than what I remembered from the 1970’s but still not up to par with 35mm or even current digital point & shoot cameras. My biggest complaint about the Rollei however, is that it is just too small to hold, carry and operate comfortably. I always feel awkward using it for some reason.

Still, I have to confess there is something more than nostalgia that kept me thinking that there was a 110 film camera that could produce reasonably good quality images while maintaining the 110 film mystique that captured a generation of photo enthusiasts and be comfortable and reliable to use.

Enter the Minolta 460Tx! This is a diminutive slab of a camera I stumbled across at Goodwill and picked up for less than $10. Looking like so many of the 1970’s vintage 110’s the Minolta 460Tx has two lenses (one normal and one telephoto), three apertures, one shutter speed, zone focusing and of course a built in flash. The image quality is excellent while still having whatever it is that makes 110, 110.

The image above was shot on Lomo Tiger which, as it turns out, is an excellent color negative film for these little cameras producing sharp and very colorful photos. Maybe I have finally found “MY” 110 camera!  Only time and more rolls of film will tell for sure.

Photo Professional

Here’s a shot of a couple guys hard at work. I don’t generally consider myself a professional photographer although I am occasionally paid for my work. When this happens this is the kind of pictures I am usually taking.

Actually, the one below is more typical. The one above was one I shot because it was just a great shot even though it had no technical value to the project at hand.

I do not want to diminish the value of artistic or creative photography but there is also a practical side of photography. Whether we’re dealing with equipment installation like this or some other more mundane image like damage to a vehicle after an accident or the contents of your house for an insurance claim, the ability to accurately capture an image that documents or records something is an always useful and necessary tool.

B&B through a Pinhole

Above is one of the images shot at the Natchez B&B I mentioned in my last blog post. Shot on Kodak Ektar film with the Holga Pinhole Camera, this was the view of the fountain in the courtyard seen when looking through the window of our suite’s sitting room. I spent a fair amount of time just staring out this window. It was a delightful scene just begging to be immortalized on film so I obliged it.

I did not record the exposure time but I was using the “Light Meter Tools” app on my android phone to determine the correct exposure. I believe it was in the 1 to 2 second range. This little app seems to work perfectly except that it is 1.5 stops off. I determined this by comparing it to the light meter readings in my other cameras. The good news is that the app allows you to make an overriding exposure compensation setting to easily account for this. 

I know a lot of folks make a big deal about pinhole exposure times and bracketing every shot but I have come to trust my little meter app and my own judgement enough that I rarely take more than one shot of each image. If I do end up with any less than desirable images (and I do) it is not because the exposure was incorrect. Of course, the film I generally use in my pinhole cameras (Ektar, Portra & Tri-X) also has a pretty wide latitude.

My goal is to simplify the pinhole photography process to the point where it is easy enough to do it all the time. When I started I was carrying around at least one other camera to use for metering, a clipboard with notebook & pencil and a couple exposure & conversion charts, and the camera mounted on a tripod with a cable release. In those days it would sometimes take me 15 to 20 minutes to get a shot and I would bracket. I was happy if I got two or three images from a roll of film.

Now, with my handy dandy light meter app, I still carry the pinhole camera on a tripod with a cable release although I am just as likely to lock the shutter open and just use the lens cap for longer exposures. I may have another camera with me at times but it is for shooting not just for a second opinion on the exposure times, and I don’t need the notebook and the conversion charts anhymore.

I do miss the notebook and I can never remember my exposures so I may resume bringing it along to record my exposures for each frame.

The good news is that while pinhole photography remains a very contemplative and purposeful version “slow photography” I can now frequently get off shots in just a minute or two making the whole process more fun and productive. Also, I typically get several good shots per roll since I am not having to bracket everything.

“f8 and B&B there”

When asked how he got such great images, Arthur “Weegee” Fellig replied, “Simple, f/8 and be there.” This is both a technical and a philosophical statement and kind of what I did here to get these pictures.

I recently experienced the Bed & Breakfast phenomenon for the very first time. I have no explanation as to why I had to wait so long except to say that over the years most of my travel has been for business rather than pleasure. As such I have come to appreciate the easy convenience of high quality hotels and motels that cater to road warriors with full schedules. The Bed & Breakfast routine seems to be more compatible with the casual schedules of tourists and vacationers.

The photograph above taken with my Pentax K-1 on a lazy afternoon shows the Deveraux Shields House which is the main building of the B&B we stayed at in Natchez, Mississippi.  Our suite was actually in Aunt Clara’s Cottage, another building just down the street shown in the photo below.

I confess the whole B&B experience was delightful and I enjoyed it thoroughly. As a photographer of course, the fact that the B&B and surrounding Natchez area offered ample photo opportunities was an important part of the success of the trip. Not only was I able to capture some great digital images but shot a number of great film images as well.

My July 18^th blog post showing my very first pinhole portrait is an example of the kind of film work that resulted from my B&B vacation weekend. As time permits I will share others.

Ron & Eleanor, our B&B host and hostess for our 30^th anniversary weekend in Natchez were great. The gourmet breakfast every morning was an excellent way to start the day and the helpful hints they and their staff gave as to where to go and what to do made the weekend a guaranteed success.

I am thinking that having local hospitality experts like Ron and Eleanor helping to guide your vacation experiences is one of the greatest advantages to going the B&B route. Plus at breakfast and the “Happy Hour” gatherings it is really kind of nice to get to meet your fellow travelers and share experiences.  

Love that Tri-X

Black & White film photography is a growth industry! Yep, that’s the consensus from a number of sources and although there a number of excellent choices for black & white film stocks my favorite has always been Kodak Tri-X.

Here is a really creepy shot taken in a local cemetery. I guess it would look okay in color but black & white film really creates a whole “other take” on the subject. And yes, I know that digital cameras can also produce black & white images but they do not have the “character” of the images taken on film.

I guess cemeteries and black & white film just kind of go together.

This is another photograph taken with the Beacon 225 medium format camera I blogged about back on May 17^th. A beautiful marvel of the early 20^th century camera manufacturing art, this camera is really a high class version of a simple box camera that looks like more because of its exotic shape and durable features. The simple glass lens produces excellent and reasonably sharp images on 120 film transferred to 620 film spools. Its kind of like shooting with a Holga but with better results and clearly this 60+ year old camera has already outlasted several Holgas.

“The Best Camera”

There are always articles and blogs trying to determine which camera is the best camera. I have even succumbed to this temptation a few times but I confess that when its all done and said I am a firm believer that the best camera is the one you have with you when you need or want to take a picture.

You can have the world’s most expensive camera with the highest resolution and “super-duper” lenses but if its not there when you need or want to take the picture it is less than useless. For this reason I have long advocated for compact and dare I say, point & shoot cameras.

Naturally being an image quality kind of guy I want something that will produce a decent image and I want to be able to override the “Auto” functions and take things into my own hands when the situation demands it. For all those reasons I carry a Nikon Coolpix P-300 with me and that is what I used for the photograph above.

This picture above of me and my new grandson John Michael, was taken by my wife the day after he was born using the little Nikon set on “P” (program) mode with the ISO manually set to 3200 to allow the shot to be taken in a poorly lit hospital room without having to resort to using the built in flash.

Had I used a DSLR or a 35mm SLR the image quality would have been much better but the convenience of the diminutive Nikon point & shoot allowed me to carry it around throughout a lengthy labor and delivery and have it with me at just the right moment.

For more on this amazing little camera see the link to my blog post on it below.

http://istillshootfilmtooalso.blogspot.com/2011/10/perfect-digital-camera-part-2.html

Nikon has released a number of later models of this same camera (like the P-310 & P-330) with bigger, higher resolution sensors and more features but I am still happily shooting the original one I bought back in 2011.

Going for that Vintage Look

The vintage photograph look is all the rage today. That’s probably why Instagram is such a big draw with its various filters and effects making cell phone cameras produce photos that look like something from the early 20^th century.

Its actually a simple matter however, to produce real vintage images by using a real vintage camera, any number of which can be had from thrift stores or garage sales for little or nothing.

The photograph above was made with a Kodak Duaflex IV on Kodak Tri-X black & white film. The light leaks are authentic (no special effects needed) and to be expected from a 60+ year old camera. I used the “warmfly” setting in Picasa to add the sepia coloration because it brings out the gray tones better but the image is otherwise just as it came out of the camera.

Most folks think these old film cameras are obsolete and that you can no longer get film for them but that simply isn’t true. You cannot walk into your local camera store or drug store and get it. That’s true, but you can order both film and processing for almost any of the old film stocks online.

I personally use The Film Photography Project store ( http://filmphotographyproject.com/store ) for buying most of my film and The Darkroom (https://thedarkroom.com/ ) for most of my film processing. These are not the only sources available but are the ones I like and use the most.

Walmart and Target as well as some Walgreens, CVS and other such local stores still sell some film (usually just 35mm and some instant film) and some even offer processing, either in store or sent out.  There are even a few local camera stores carrying film in some areas.

Having hit an all-time low a few years ago, film photography is now growing again. It will never be what it once was because digital photography has pretty much taken over but there is a growing host of young and old film photography hobbyists enjoying once again or learning for the first time the joy of film photography.