Trichrome


Just another try at the RGB process from B&W film (see previous post)
Shot on a Fuji 6x7 rangefinder using Fuji Neopan 400
If you have a colour aware browser you can see the original here:
correct colours
© Mark Antony Smith 2008

Olympus Trip 35

If any camera can claim to be a 'Volkscamera' then this one has to be fairly high on the list with over 10 million made between 1968 and 1988.
The camera is a very well built, totally automatic exposure (no batteries as it has a selenium cell round lens) and scale focus. The lens is a 40 mm F2,8 Zuiko probably a 4 element Tessar clone. Round the lens is the ASA/ISO ring that is marked 25-400 which should cover most films you'd want to use.
When this camera was a current model, it was very cheap and often came in kits with a flash and a roll of film.
If you get one in good working order today, expect to pay £5-10 (about $10-$20) as a rough price guide slightly more or less depending on condition.


And a 100% crop


A really impressive little performer, not quite up to 50mm prime lens standard but very close all things considered, very sharp 8x12" (A4) prints will be no problem.
The on board auto exposure is remarkably good also, probably good enough to use slide film! (although I've not yet tried)
Certainly this model gives a better image than its price point would suggest and coupled with ease of use would make a great first camera for a child or just for pocket carry everywhere use.


Another shot this time late afternoon:


I bought this camera for my seven year old son, and he loves it. Its sturdy build coupled with ease of use and excellent results make it a bargain.

Just a note:

If you wish to buy a trip this guy has some very nice ones, some with custom leather from £30.00!

Link 'Tripman"
© Mark Smith 2008

Kodak Royal-x-Pan

I recently chanced to come by a roll of this iconic film. The film is out of date by some margin (expired 1976) and also a reject roll given to a Kodak employee.
I believe at the time of release that this was the fastest film produced by Kodak, with an ASA rating of 1250.
Exposing it 32 years after it has expired I really didn't expect much after all fast film generally doesn't keep well and depending on storage could be completely fogged and will certainly have reduced speed and higher base fog.

I decided to rate it at 100 ISO to account for the lost speed and develop it in Rodinal 1:25 for 6 mins one inversion every 30 seconds.
I also exposed it on a nice bright clear day in order to maximize the contrast.
here are a couple of images from the roll.

On the whole i am actually surprised to find that the film could record anyhting at all years after the 'best before' date.
The base of the film had quite a high level of fog and also there were some spots on the emulsion caused probably by storage over the last 30 plus years.
So if you find a roll of out of date film why not give it a try?

© Mark Antony Smith 2008

Ilford Delta 3200

Ilfords Delta 3200 is one of the fastest films available, along with Kodak T-Max 3200 and is a modern tabular (T-grain) emulsion, from Ilfords website:

"Ilford Delta films use a new crystal structure called Core Shell. These new technology crystals capture light more efficiently, offer a smoother tonal range, finer grain and greater sharpness than conventional technology films. The ultra high quality generated by the DELTA PROFESSIONAL films however, requires a bit more care in exposure and processing".

According to Ilford, Delta 3200 has an ISO speed rating of 1000 for daylight exposure when developed in their standard ID 11 developer.
Why call it Delta 3200 if it has an ISO speed of 1000?
Here's a quote from Ilford:

It should be noted that the exposure index (EI)
range recommended for DELTA 3200 Professional
is based on a practical evaluation of film speed
and is not based on foot speed, as is the ISO
standard.
So basically its a 1000ISO film that can be pushed and give good results at EI 3200.

Good image quality can be obtained between EI 400- 6400 and can be pushed to EI 25 000.
One of the huge benefits of Ilfords emulsion over the Kodak T-Max 3200 is that the emulsion is available in 120 size making hand held low light medium format photography a possiblity.
For more info Ilford have a PDF that lists developers and processing times.

So armed with a few rolls I set about taking some low light images at a local night club.

I rated the films at EI3200 which in the conditions I found myself shooting at 1/15- 1/60 at F3,5-4 so it was pretty dark here are some photos.

From memory the above shot was 1/15 wide open at F3,5

This shot was 1/60 at F4
Here is a 100% crop to show grain character.

My first thoughts were Wow look at the tonal range, grain is a little pronounced in the mid tones but pretty good for a film rated at this speed.

Of course these were shot on 120, so tonally they are going to be better than 35mm, ditto grain.

My experiences with the 35mm version are that its is best rated at 800- 1600 EI and developed in Microphen or DD-X where tonally it seems to be ahead of the competition with just slightly more apparent grain, rated at 3200 and processed in Rodinal gives a very gritty look.

I really like this film, especially in 120 where low light hand held portraits are certainly a possibility and as it's the only game in town (please note Kodak and Fuji) at this speed. I can't recommend it more, so if you shoot low light in 120 try this film you won't regret it!

Text and images © Mark Antony Smith

Fuji 6x7 Rangefinder

I have wanted one of these Fuji RF cameras for years, if you have been a reader of my blog you'll know that I also use a Pentax 6x7. As much as I like the the Pentax I've always thought it was a little on the heavy side, and in the year or so I've been using it I've rarely found a need to change lenses and found myself using the 90mm for 80% of shots, so its biggest advantage over the Fuji was negated for me. Being a Leica RF user and very much enjoying shooting with RF cameras the Fuji is an obvious upgrade. So when the above camera came into my dealer with only 38 on the roll counter the Pentax was exchanged.

First Impressions

My camera is a MKIII version, and has the ergonomic plastic cover rather than the more substantial looking metal case of earlier Fuji RF cameras. If you squeeze it a slight creaky sound can be heard, I think this is what makes people feel the later cameras aren't as well built. Personally I feel that its just the plastic grip and the overall feel of the camera in your hand makes it worth the creakiness.

The Fuji 6x7 and 6x9 share the same body and lens (90mm F3,5 EBC) the only difference being (apart from negative size) the frame lines and film advance mehanism. The finder has a gold type focus spot and the viewfinder has a slightly blue tinge to contrast with the spot which helps focus. The frame lines move with focus to correct with parallax athough I'm not sure how accurate they are especially when at closest focus (1 metre) One thing I have noticed is that the hood when extended can be seen in the bottom right hand corner of the viewfinder, which is a slight distraction.

Loading the camera is pretty easy, there are two red buttons inside the back that when pressed allow the film to be placed in the camera very quickly. Advance is double stroke, one full and the second stroke is about half (presumably to cock the shutter)

The lens is fixed with a leaf shutter and a 67mm filter thread. The aperture is at the end of the lens under the built in hood (which must be in the out position to change speed/F numbers) I remeber the Olympus OM system had the aperture ring in a similar place. Stranger still is that the shutter is also positioned there, but when you get used to it it's OK and quite fast in operation.

So far I'm finding the camera to be well balanced and a good all round performer, the optics are very good, operation quick, and size and weight manageable for such a large format.

Here are some shots:

The above was shot on HP5+ developed in Rodinal 1:50 for 9 min

more to follow

Scanning B&W film

Scanning is a bit of a black art, so many different settings, scanning options, scanner types etc.
This blog entry concerns itself with the mechanics of obtaining the best scan from any machine, flatbed or dedicated film scanner.

It is not meant to be the ultimate scan guide, but is just the method I use that gives me what I feel are good results.

Scan software
Whether you use the software that came with your scanner or an after-market solution like Ed Hamricks Vuescan which supports a wide range of scanners here are a few tips.

The settings in your scan software will vary but what you should look for is a dialogue a little like this one:

This is the curves dialogue and should look like a 45° slope with the black and white points away from the centre (the small triangles at the bottom) Below is the same scan but with a histogram.

Note the setting of the black and white points as not to clip the histogram.In other words set the black and white points near but not touching the histogram. Most scanner software even gives a preview and we are looking for a flat image like this one:

Getting the info from the film into the file.
Normally this means scanning with little correction, just getting the whitest point a very light grey and the darkest point almost black it also helps if you scan as 16 bit greyscale as when the time comes to edit the file we need as much info as possible.
The important thing here is to preserve as much information as you can from the film and the resulting histogram will look similar to this.


Above is the levels dialogue, which shows the values in the image as a histogram, that is as if the values have been 'piled up' like bricks.
The most common tones are the highest spikes, but what we are looking for here is the values to be placed in the centre, with nothing 'clipping' from either end.
At the left hand side is the black point and the right is the white, the centre is the grey point which changes the density.
Normally we pull the two extreme ends towards the centre thus setting the black point and the white point.
The image above is exaggerated but what I look for is no clipping of white or black values or from the top of the 'hump' I find this gives a good compromise between clipping info and maximizing the tones in the final image.

Once you have set these three points the flat looking file we started with will now start to look as we envisioned.
The Histogram will now look flatter and wider and if we scanned in 16bit should have no info missing with its tell tale 'comb' effect on the histogram.

This should be the effect on the image, a slightly punchier result with black and white tones in the places they should be

Even though our scan now looks a lot better our next step will consolidate and hopefully add a little 'snap' without clipping too much info.

What I have found is that applying the unsharp mask tool in Photoshop with a high Radius setting and a low amount setting–say amount 30 Radius 60 (although these will vary from image to image) will give a contrast sharpen with pleasing results.

This makes our flat looking image a little more 'dynamic' looking without having to resort to the ordinary contrast tool which is a lot coarser in its action.

The original image is side by side for comparison 

Final 'tweeking' including spotting and final sharpening and in the finished shot below the application of a warm tone duotone created in photoshop to give a chlorobromide paper effect 

© Mark Antony Smith 2008

Fortepan 100

Forte were a Hungarian photo materials manufacturer, I say 'were' because as of last year (2007) they ceased trading.
So rather than this being a test of a going concerns product it will now be only of historical interest after the remaining stocks are used up.
I believe the Forte factory was originally built by Kodak as part of a European expansion program in the early 20th Century. I would imagine that after the war the plant now being in the Eastern Bloc meant that Forte were put under government control, but there doesn't seem to be much about this on the internet (I'll slot info in here as/if I find it).

I can only source the film in 120 Rolls and have no experience with the 35mm so this test was solely shot on 120.
I started by exposing at the box speed of 100ISO and developing the film for 10 mins in Rodinal at 1:50.
The resulting negatives looked pretty high in contrast, and a little low on shadow detail even for the bright lighting conditions.


Looking at the 100% crop, grain seems OK not as good as FP4, APX or Plus-x but acceptable.



You can tell that this film is old technology even compared to 1970's Kodak or Ilford emulsions, I would imagine that the film is similar to films from the 1940's or 50's which is not a bad thing if you want a slightly 'retro' look.
To be fair to this film it was very cheap, and I originally bought it to put in my 1930's Bessa for which it was perfect.
But if I were to use it in a modern camera I would rate it at EI50-64 and drop the development time by 20% (8 mins 1:50 in Rodinal) in order to cut the contrast and improve shadow detail.
I still have a few rolls left so possibly I'll add to this test my results with amended exposure and development times.

OK I've tried about 6-7 rolls of the Fortepan now and I have to say I really like it!

I bought the last 10 rolls from Retrophotographic although they still have some 400 left (at time of writing– Feb 08)

I think the settings that work for me are rating it at EI 64 then developing in Rodinal 1:50 for 8 ½ mins.

Here are some images:

I really a shame this film is no longer in production, try a roll while you can.

Images and text © Mark Antony Smith

Colour Images from B&W Film

Norwich Market– B&W Tri-x-panchromatic film

What? I hear you say, surely thats the wrong way round?

No the title is correct, I'm going to demonstrate how to make your favourite monochrome film into a true colour image.

The whole idea behind this post came in a Eureka moment whilst showing a photographer the channel mixer method for obtaining better black and white from colour images in Adobe Photoshop.
Colour digital camera images are normally made up of three mono images one representing red one blue and one green. When these are combined the information makes up the colour image.

I explained to the photographer, 'each channel is rather like a b&w photo taken with either a red green or blue filter over the lens' and then it struck me I could do it the other way and use a normal mono film like say Tri-X or Ilford Delta and get colour results.

If this all sounds far fetched and you doubt my sanity (don't worry I do too) other photographers have used similar methods over 100 years ago (not with Photoshop though). One particular example is Russian photographer Sergi Prokudin-Gorskii who made some very fine colour images in the period 1905-1915.

So how is it done? how do you make colour Tri-X-Pan?

First of all you will need a red, green and blue filter to put over the lens, your favourite black and white film and possibly a tripod.

Load the film as normal, screw in the red filter and take your first shot (remember to compensate for reduced light if you are using a non TTL camera) then carefully unscrew the red and replace it with green, then repeat for the blue.
I find it easier to do in RGB order so that I can identify the frames later.

Process the film as normal, you should have three slightly different looking negs.
These now need to be scanned in greyscale, saving each image with an R or G, B so that later you can remember which one is which.

Red Filter

Green Filter

Blue Filter

The resulting files should all have exactly the same pixel dimensions i.e 3000x2000.
Next open each one of the 3 in photoshop and then with the red open click on the channels tab and select the merge channels option from the palette
The merge option wont appear if your photos don't have the same pixel dimensions.

Next the RGB option needs to be selected.

After that it will confirm the 3 images you'd like to merge.
My first result looks OK the wind moved the trees during exposure causing some 'off register' colour fringe but I think after a little more practice, possibly a tripod and no wind would yield a better result:
Ladies and gentlemen I give you colour Tri-X

The above 'experiment' just makes me realise how good the work of Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii and others that used this process really is, and I'm pretty sure that armed with a tripod and finer grained film that I'll give this another try.

Here if anyone is interested is my try on a finer grained film (Agfa APX 100) and a tripod.

Taken just after dawn the main problem here is that slow film, little light and filters mean an exposure of 1/2 sec at F2,8
I like the shot anyhow which is of a ship used as a shed by bait diggers, I particularly like the brand new red windows which still have the retailers stickers in the centre!
And a final one closer.

All in all an interesting process and one I shall play with in the future
EDIT: Since drafting this post I've become aware of others who are using similar techniques one such person is Henri Gaud whose blog Le blog de la Trichromie is an interesting read.
All Words and images © Mark Antony Smith

Film Tests

Here is an index of film tests on Photo Utopia, each being a link to the test of that particular film.

Adox (EFKE) CHS 25 Art

Adox (EFKE) CHS 50 Art

Adox (EFKE) CHS 100 Art

Agfapan 100

Agfapan 400

Fomapan 100 'Classic'

Fomapan 200 'Creative'

Fortepan 100

Fuji Across

Fuji Neopan

Fuji Provia 400x

Gigabit film

Ilford FP4

Ilford Delta 3200

Kodak Plus-x-pan

Kodak T-max 3200 (TMZ)

Kodak Ektar 100

Kodak T-Max 3200

When doing the test for this film I had to make a couple of decisions, mainly because I use this film quite often for low light situations, but rarely at the box speed and also because  its one of the few films I don't care for developed in Rodinal due to its grain structure.

I personally feel rated at 1600 and developed in T-Max developer gives the best results overall with respect to shadow detail and grain.

   Above image TMZ rated at EI 1600 processed in T-Max developer

In fact Kodak state in their datasheet that TMZ can be rated between EI400 and EI 25,000 with their developers XTOL and T-Max. I can't imagine what it looks like at 25,000 but rated between 800-1600 it is good enough especially with the T-max developer, which tends to smooth grain and gives the best tonal range.

I decided to rate this film at 3200 ISO (box speed) and process in Rodinal 1:25 for 8 mins.

Below is a shot taken on a very dull day after a storm had brought down a tree:

There was very little light, I can't remember the exposure but I metered for the shadows in the tree on the left and closed down two stops from that reading.

The image below is a 100% crop of the shadow detail on the right hand side, and clearly shows

the cygnet riding on the mother swans back. Grain although quite visible is certainly unobtrusive considering the rated speed and developer choice.

Which brings me to what I feel is the films main weakness – its tonal range.

If I had rated it at a lower EI say 800 I'm pretty sure that both shadow detail and overall tonal graduation would have been a whole lot better, thats not to say that it performs poorly just I feel that unless you really need the extra stop you'll benefit from rating at EI 1600 or even lower, then developing accordingly.

If you need to rate this film higher then use the Kodak developers, rather than Agfa Rodinal which probably isn't the best developer for fast film.

But for those situations where you need speed or the light is low, P3200 (T-Max developer) are a pretty useful combination, although the films real speed is 1250-1600 in my opinion.
© Images and text Mark Antony Smith

Kodak Release New T-Max 400

The Title says it all really, Today Kodak published a press release on their website here confirming the release of the new Tmax 400, according to Kodak it is the finest grain 400 speed film in the world.
T-MAX 400 now stands alone as the world’s finest grained and the world’s sharpest 400-speed black-and-white film, offering photographers a level of clarity normally only available from a 100-speed film.

Soon as I can get my hands on some I'll do a test, I'm not sure how long until the film is at retailers, Kodak seems to say December.

One thing is for sure this is big news, especially for those who like myself love traditional photography.

Rollei 35

As you can see from the image the camera is about as tall as a 35mm film box and just over twice the width, weighs about 12oz (340g) and is of pretty high build quality certainly up there with most of the 1970's 'semi -pro' cameras like the Nikon FM, Canon A1, Olympus OM1 etc.

When the Rollei 35 was introduced in 1966 it was the smallest full frame 35mm camera in the world. However even though it is only roughly the size of two film boxes the designers still manged to design a camera that gives the user complete manual control.

The small size however leads to some design quirks especially with control placement. The film advance lever is on the left, shutter and aperture dials are on the front and the re-wind lever and flash hot-shoe are on the bottom plate.

Loading a film is done by sliding off the back and placing the cartridge in the right hand side, threading and advance are similar to other cameras.

Operation is hardly 'point and shoot' firstly the lens needs to be extended from the body and twisted to lock before use, the focus is not by a range-finder but by scale focus "guesstimate" the lightmeter on this model is always on and only turned off by putting the camera back in its case (rectified on later models) Aperture and shutter dials are twisted until the needle is aligned with a red lever.

The shutter is mechanical, and works without batteries 1/2 sec to 1/500 sec + 'B' (only down to 1/30 on Triotar model) and being a 'leaf' type flash sync is available at all speeds.

Despite its 'Quirkiness' the Rollei has a couple of strengths, firstly all manual control, secondly first rate lenses.

Lens Choices

The Rollei came with three different lenses, in order of increasing quality:

Triotar F3,5 (3 element cooke triplet)

Tessar F3,5 (4 element Zeiss classic)

Sonnar F2,8 (The Classic Zeiss design)

Actually for a short time some had a Schneider lens similar to the Tessar. 

The following are results from the Tessar

Tessar F3,5 at F11 – Fuji Neopan 400

And a 100% crop showing detail

'Yes you can have your cake and eat it Daddy'

The above shot of my daughter was shot at F3,5 and shows the Tessar to be a very good performer, with good contrast and fair sharpness even wide open, they say the Sonnar is better- that must be a very good optic indeed as the results I'm getting from the Tessar are pretty much on par with a SLR lens of the era and certainly better than most compact Point and shoot cameras.

My opinion of this camera after just a week of using is that despite some design quirks it offers a taste of true photography.

That is that it give complete control over settings (and creativity) that P&S cameras rarely give, is a full frame camera in a package that will fit it most peoples pockets, has a build quality that means it will give good service for many years.

All images and Text © Mark Antony Smith

Adox CHS 50 ART

The Adox brand has a very long and slightly complicated history that I've already covered in my CHS 100 ART review.
CHS 50 is basically the same as KB17, I'm informed that the Adox films are the same as the EFKE emulsions that have been available for many years, in fact I have used this film many times over the past 20 years so pretty much knew what to expect. 

The above picture was taken in very bright sunlight mid afternoon and despite the fairly high contrast light the tonal values have held up well. This could be down to rating the film at 32 ISO and developing in Rodinal 1:100 for 18 mins.

The 100% crop shows a fine grain, high accutance much as you would expect from a medium/slow emulsion.


The image above shows how well the film/ developer combination handles a high contrast subject, the water was almost black with a very low reflectance, while the brick and cement was of a very high tonal value, and the film has rendered the subject very well.
I have some caveats to note with this film though, it does not like to be pushed, or under exposed and to some extent doesn't have the latitude of some modern emulsions. Also with the wrong developer can tend to be somewhat contrasty, with less shadow detail and burned out highlights.
But with care this film can deliver lovely tonal range, reasonably fine grain and high accutance overall I'd say it's probably (so far) my favourite film in the Adox range- well worth a try.

Text and Images © Mark Antony Smith