127 Day and the Brownie Bullet

Back in 2012 I bought myself a beautiful Brownie Bullet. This was my very first camera, given to me by my aunt when I was just nine years old. I have no idea what happened to the original but getting another one made it very special.

I have since shot a few rolls of various kinds of 127 film in it and I have been wanting to shoot it again since I discovered Rera Pan 100 black & white film a couple months ago. Rera Pan is a very nice film stock that reminds me of Kodak T-max a bit. 

So with all that in mind I decided to shoot the Rera Pan in my Brownie Bullet for 127 Day (January 27^th) this year.

The photo above testifies to the excellence of the design and construction of this fifty-plus year old camera. It makes one wonder how many of our 21^st century digital marvels will still be working in fifty years.

No super sharp digital image here. The look is true “vintage box camera” which was the original “Toy Camera”/“Instagram” style that is so popular today. With this camera of course no filters or post processing is required. This is what you get right out of the box - camera.

Yashica FR-1, First Shots

I am a weather wimp! I freely admit it. I hate cold weather.  I don’t particularly like rain. I certainly don’t like snow or anything that puts frozen water on the ground or on me. Are you getting my drift?

This is why I haven’t been taking many pictures lately. The weather has been – shall we say, disagreeable.

Fortunately I live in beautiful South Louisiana where such disagreeable weather is less frequent and of shorter duration (when it does occur) than almost anywhere else so I am looking forward to better weather soon.

In the meantime I offer the photo above for your consideration. This one shot with a Yashica FR-1 on Kodak BW400CN film during one of my infrequent winter shooting sprees.

Last year I stumbled upon a deal I couldn’t pass up for a Yashica FR-1. I had been given a bag with various accessories and a couple lenses for another Yashica a few years back and have always wanted to reconcile that bag of goodies by getting a camera to go with it. I resisted the urge mainly because as a dedicated Pentaxian already suffering from GAS (gear acquisition syndrome) I didn't want to over complicate my life by starting another camera system. 

Recently however, my son has become interested in film photography and I saw this as a way to reconcile the Yashica gear and get him started with his own camera bag. So when I saw a FR-1 in great shape available for less than $10 I just had to jump on it.

The Yashica FR-1 is a surprisingly sophisticated 35mm SLR manufactured from 1977 to 1981. The big bright viewfinder has the apertures spread across the top and the shutter speeds arrayed down the right side with the selection indicated by a needle sliding along both scales. It also features a fully automatic aperture priority TTL metering and exposure control system with full manual override.

The “feather touch electromagnetic shutter release” allows seamless shutter control from 4 seconds to 1/1000 of a second and can be used with a number of accessories including wireless remote release (which I do not have).

The Yashica FR-1 design was based on and includes many of the features of the much more expensive Contax RTS. It uses the Contac/Yashica mount and indeed this one has an excellent Carl Zeiss f1.7, 50mm lens.  

I only shot one roll of film with this camera before giving it to my son for Christmas but was really surprised and impressed with it, so much so that I briefly considered keeping it for myself but reason prevailed. This is a really beautiful camera with a great solid feel and perfectly placed and arranged controls. It just feels good! The big bright viewfinder with all the exposure information clearly shown and accurate aperture priority exposure system makes using this camera an amazing experience.

I will try to post some more photos from this camera as my son shoots more with it. 

Looking Back

That’s what we do at this time of year, isn't it? New Year just seems to invite introspection and reflection and so that’s what I’ve been doing, reflecting back to when this “new” film journey began. You might say the photo above started it all. This is a shot of a 150 year old fire hydrant located on the banks of Bayou St. John in New Orleans, taken back in 2010 shortly after buying a new 35mm SLR.

As I relayed in my earliest blog posts I lost all my film camera equipment in Hurricane Katrina back in 2005. If I am honest though, I had been slowly converting over to digital for a few years even before that. When I decided to “get back into” serious photography in 2007 I tried to do it all with digital and became very frustrated. This was probably as much my fault as that of the technology but I was frustrated none-the-less.

In 2010 I decided to buy another film camera. There wasn't much new 35mm equipment available at the time and I ended up with a $150 Promaster 35mm SLR which was a basic, all manual, 35mm SLR. It had a 50mm f1.8 K-mount lens and the picture of the ancient fire hydrant above was from the very first roll of Fugi 200 color film I shot with it. The pictures, including this one, were not that great. Let’s face it, by that time I had not shot an all manual 35mm camera in several years, the film stock was certainly not the greatest and although the processing was first rate, the scanning (by a local lab) left much to be desired.

What this new 35mm camera and this first roll of film did do for me, was remind me of how much fun flim is and how comfortable I was working with the kind of equipment I had used to make pictures for over 50 years.

So my New Year’s blog message for everyone out there is, whether you’re an old fart like me or a newbie discovering film for the very first time – forget all the technical stuff and either remember or discover for yourself that “film is fun!”

Beacon II

This really cool looking 127 roll film camera, the Beacon II, was manufactured by Whitehouse Products Inc. of Brooklyn, New York from 1947 through 1955. Made of Bakelite (a heavy plastic) the camera takes 16 photographs on each roll of 127 film through a 46mm, f11 lens and a 1/50 shutter speed. It also has a “B” setting allowing for extended exposures.

The lens is coated and color corrected so it should do equally well with either color or black & white film. I have thus far shot only one roll and it was Rera Pan 100 black & white so I can’t say much about its capabilities with color film but the black & white images produced by the camera were fantastic.

My November 15^th (2014) blog post shows one of my favorite photographs from my first and only roll of film to date. Although the camera is capable of taking 16 photographs I didn’t understand the way the two red windows on the back of the camera work at first so I messed up and only got 9.

Here’s another from that roll.

Another oddity of this camera’s design is that the lens section on the front to of the camera must be pulled out and locked into position before the shutter will fire.  When I first got it I thought the shutter was broken because it would not fire. Once I pulled the lens section out I realized it worked fine.

Overall my first experience with this camera was very satisfying and I plan to shoot it again and recommend it highly to anyone interested in shooting 127 film.

Rollei Digibase 200 Revisited

In my November 29, 2013 blog post I offered my initial comments on this film stock after shooting my very first roll. The results were beautiful then and a year later I am still really pleased with this film.

The shot above was taken of an abandoned structure overgrown by weeds beside a small pond. Its an interesting structure and I can’t figure out what it was but the light was golden and the reflections in the pond offered an intriguing image that begged to be captured on this warm and colorful film. This one was shot with the Pentax ZX-L but I didn't record and don’t recall the settings.

In my comments last year I compared this film to Fuji Velvia and I still believe there are similarities between the two. The Rollei is faster by a stop and the clear base seems to have been designed for scanning. Both films offer a warm and brilliant color palette that is pure magic for shots taken during the “Golden Hours” and beautiful anytime.

I highly recommend this film and will be using it again.

Rera Pan 100 Rocks!

My last two or three posts have highlighted images shot with a digital camera. Enough already! Its time to get back to film – which is after all, what this blog is supposed to be all about.

Recently I was bemoaning the absence of a good black & white film available for my 127 roll film cameras when I heard about Freestyle Photo starting to carry Rera Pan 100. I had never heard of it but decided to try it anyway. The results from my first roll are spectacular.

I hate to make sweeping endorsements based on only one roll of film but if my results are typical of what to expect,  it is an awesome film. Black “blacks” like my all-time favorite black & white film, Tri-X. Plenty of rich grays with lots of detail everywhere, and all this from a Beacon II which is essentially a really cool looking, 127, bakelite, box camera from the late 1940’s.

I’ll talk more about the Beacon II in a later blog post.

The shot above was taken at the old state capital in Baton Rouge of one of my favorite subjects, a fire hydrant sitting unnoticed right out front. Processing and scanning were done by The Darkroom.

I couldn't find much information on Rera Pan except that is a traditional fine grain black & white film from Japan that can be processed with the usual black & white chemistry but I think I’ve seen what I need to see. I will definitely be shooting this film again!

Sometimes They’re Hidden

New Iberia seems to do a great job decorating their fire hydrants but you really have to hunt for some of them.  Here’s one in colorful camo attire that was discovered next to the St.’s College, Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto. It was off to the side standing guard over the entire Grotto and backed up by an awesome angel.

Sometimes the real attraction is off to the side or behind the what everyone else is seeking.