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

Developing Film in Coffee

Yes the title is correct, I'm going to show you how to develop an ordinary B&W film with instant coffee granules.
Here is what you need:
1 Jar of instant coffee
1 packet of washing soda crystals
Developing tank, liquid measure and thermometer.


Firstly, when you shoot the film lower the ISO by one stop, in this case I'll be using APX 100 (Jessops pan) rated at 50 ISO.
Load the film in the developing tank in the normal manner.

Next prepare the coffee developer.

5 heaped teaspoons of instant coffee (one per 2fl oz/60ml)
2 level teaspoons of Washing Soda crystals (NOT baking soda).
300ml (10 fl oz) water at roughly 25 deg C

A heaped teaspoon looks just like this

Firstly dissolve the soda crystals in the water, their purpose is to 'unlock' the developer ingredient present in the coffee granules.
Next put in your coffee, stirring well to ensure that the coffee has been dissolved fully.
You will notice that there are a few bubbles in the mixture and bubbles aren't good for development, so leave to stand for a few minutes but no longer than 10 as the mix must be used within 30 Min's.


Pour in the mixture and agitate slowly for the first minute, then tap the tank a couple of times to disloge any air bubbles.
The process time is 30 mins so its handy to have a watch, pen and paper to note the passing time.
Agitation used was one inversion every 30 seconds.

After 30 Minutes, rinse with plain water and fix in the normal manner.
Here are the negatives:

Slightly milky looking and brownish (due to staining action of developer) and also quite low contrast but certainly printable.
If you need further convincing here are some of the images.

Nice tonal detail, good grain and sharpness and although I don't think it will replace Rodinal as my main 'brew' I think you can see for yourselves that coffee is a more than capable developer.
A stimulating thought?

All Pictures and Text © Mark Antony Smith

1930's Voigtländer Bessa

Voigtländer have a long history producing both cameras and lenses. The company were founded in 1756 manufacturing optics and in the 1840's started making Daguerrotype cameras, so they were making cameras at the very start of the photographic industry.
The Bessa 'folding' camera was produced between 1931-49 and took 120 film, giving a negative size of either 6"x9" or with an insert 6"x4.5" there are later Bessa Models, Bessa 1 & 2 I have a review of the Bessa 1 here: Photo Utopia Bessa 1
These cameras also came with different lenses, this one has the cheapest 'Voigtar' 105mm F6.3 the better lenses were the Skopar and colour Skopar.

The framing is done by either a simple folding metal frame (seen on the right in the above photo) or by a small window from waist hight just like the Kodak Brownie.
Focusing is done with a scale, portrait, groups and landscape each marked with a red dot and also distances marked in feet.
The shutter has a very basic range of speeds 1/25 1/50 and 1/125 plus B & T. This was OK in 1930 but in these days of blisteringly fast film of up-to 400 ISO slightly restrictive.
I believe that the models fitted with the Skopar had a better shutter range.
The aperture values are F6.3- F22 which obviously helps with the slow shutter in bright light.


Above is the frame counter window, which is a simple clear red plastic the second window is for the smaller 6x4.5 size.
The film is advanced by turning a metal 'key' and there is no frame locking or winding stop, so you'll have to be careful not to double expose.



In this view we see the back open showing the spool retainer, which is quite neat making the camera pretty easy to load.



The above view is of the camera folded showing on the left the wind on 'key' and at the top right the fold down shutter release.

This type of camera can be found for very little money in thrift shops and jumble sales, and considering how well made they are (it will outlive me I'm sure) they represent a nice project.
They certainly make you slow down and think; wind on- shutter-aperture-focus and are actually great fun to use especially if you have the facility to develop your own negatives.

Above is an image taken from a roll of Fortepan 100 (formal test of that film soon) and as you can see the result is pretty acceptable considering the age of the camera and un-coated lens, certainly the 6x9 neg size helps as does the fact it was shot at F11.
In fact i like the feeling of 'antiquity' that the lens gives as its quite low contrast but detailed.
One other caveat I've found is it takes practise to fire the shutter without blur as the top speed is only 1/125 and the fold down shutter release is quite 'clunky' if I was to use this camera regularly I'd use a cable release.

Images and text © Mark Antony Smith

Found Film:1960's Kodak Tri-x

Next is another iconic film Kodak Tri-x-pan. I know a little more about this film, it came from a professional photographer and was shot in a 1960 Rolleiflex link
Here is the film:



I processed the film in stock ID11/D76 for 9 mins. I had some idea of the content as the photographer has written on the paper seal 'Warrington & snow scenes.



Sure enough on developing the images there were several snow scenes of a house and some shots of a seed factory.


A close up of the people and seed sacks.


The close-up shows the name of the company 'Gartons' and a google search quickly showed me that there was indeed a Gartons of Warrington seed factory, although they are no longer trading.
Here is another shot of the factory



And finally a shot of the house in the snow



Possibly the photographers house?
I think this film was shot between 1960-65, I know the camera was a 1960 F3.5 Rolleiflex and I think (though can't be sure) that Kodak stopped using metal spools for 120 in the mid '60's
© Images and text Mark Antony Smith 2007

More found film: 1950's Adox KB17

After my successful soiree into the world of processing ancient film, a couple of people have given me some more films to try, first up is the iconic roll film Adox R17.
As you can see from the image above Adox still produce film and you can compare 1958 box alongside 2007 packaging.

I have blogged about the history of Adox in a previous post link  so I'll not go over that ground again here.


Inside the box the roll was wrapped in a red foil, I'm not sure if this is original, but it seems to be the correct width and colour, so I have no reason to doubt Adox used foil and the picture above is representative of the product.

Above is the roll taken out of the foil, it has a metal spool and on the backing (not visible) the word 'EXPONIERT' which means exposed in German.

I decided to process the film in Ilford ID11 at the recommended time for KB17 which is 6.5 mins.
Here are the images:


There has obviously been some slight damage from the backing paper over the last 50 years, but overall these images are surprisingly good.

They definitely come from the correct timeframe for the film which was dated AUG 1958, judging from the clothes.

From this shot a calendar can be seen, the date March 1958

A window view, clearly England, I'll try to find out where and who these people are.
More to follow....
© Images and text Mark Antony Smith 2007

Last of the 1940s film

Simply beautiful

This is the second roll, much better than the first with less fogging. One thing is for sure this guy was a very good photographer!
more later...

© Mark Antony Smith

Looking for clues

More images from the 1941 Agfa Ultraspeed bought on ebay.
The reason for the hiatus between developing the next batch was in order to get a more suitable developer, and after seeking advice from a few people (thank you) i settled on Ilford ID11 (Kodak D76) at stock dilution.
The main reason for this was to minimise grain and as it was pointed out to me that it is similar to Agfa 17 the developer recommended on the enclosed data-sheet.
anyhow here's some images:

Cherry eater
and

There are more on my Pbase account (link in sidebar)
Well I think I've found where these images were shot. On the wall under the 'Naval' banner is a smaller banner which says 'Camden Post Office Club' I think it is highly likely that it is Camden NJ that we are seeing as it is only a short distance from Reading PA (where I bought the film)
We know when, what City, who...
I'm digging..
So far I may know one name the man seated in the lower picture, I'm waiting for confirmation from a local historian
keep digging..
© Mark Antony Smith 2007

A Latent Past

It's been nearly twelve hours now since I first saw the images on my 1941 Agfa film, I'll be honest I haven't slept much, so many things going on in my mind.
I have 5 images that I'm guessing date from the period 1938-1941, I've scanned them but haven't really worked on them.
here are those images straight from the scanner:

I call this image "Sons of the Desert"


This one: Gentlemen, There will be no war with Germany

Those are so far my favourite images, if you want to see more then I have a gallery here
One thing is for sure the original photographer was very good at catching the moment, I'd love to know who he was!
Edit:
I've e-mailed the guy who sold me the film to find out how he acquired it, to find out what City or town it was from. I'll then try to contact family history people in that City to find out who the people are.
Its a long shot I know but one I feel I have to take, who are these ghosts?
Further Edit:
According to the seller it was from Reading PA, so if you live in Reading Pennsylvania they might be your ancestors!

All images and text © Mark Antony Smith 2007

Agfa Update

Well, I opened up the tin in order to do a clip-test.

Inside was the film, a corrugated card insert and these instructions on a pamphlet:
Click on the image for a larger view, to make texts readable, here is the other side:

I hope some of the info above will be useful to someone:

I cut off a length of film about 6" and loaded it into my spiral no problem the film felt OK and travelled into the spiral very easily.
I then prepared the developer and fixer. I used Rodinal at 1:25, pre-wet for 1 min at 20 degrees C then developed for 5 mins with gentle agitaion for first 30 sec then every min thereafter.
It was then fixed for 3 mins in fresh Ilford Fix.
No stop bath was used just a small rinse in water.

After a small final rinse about 5 mins, I opened the tank...
At first I was disappointed as the film looked completely fogged, but as I held it to the light I saw to my surprise there are IMAGES.
Badly fogged either by age or light at sometime (who knows when in the last 60+ years) but there are images of people.
The film is drying as I'm typing this and I'll try to scan and post them later....
But for now here is a copy from DSLR and a Macro lens:

and closer crop:

Ghosts...
All images and text © Mark Antony Smith 2007

Agfa Ultra-Speed

If you read this blog regularly you'll know that recently I found a roll of Agfa-Speed Ultra on Ebay. The film is a little out of date.... well it actually expired in 1941 which makes it ancient history film-wise.
It was made by Agfa-Ansco in America, Binghamton N.Y to be exact, and according to my google seaches had a Weston speed of around 80.

Here are a few photos:

Above is the Warranty and Warning
Next a rear view of the tin showing the Agfa logo

Lastly a side view.

I shall atempt to use the film in my Leica with vintage Elmars both 50 & 90 mm, I doubt anthything will come out as the film will probably be fogged, but it will be fun (and it's a lovely old tin even if the film is Kaput).

If anyone has any more information about this film, such as a confirmation of film speed or even development time suggestions for Rodinal, it would be most welcome.

Low Tech Fun

This photo was taken about fifteen years ago, with a Cheap Russian 6x6 camera called a Lubitel 166B.  The Lubitel (Russian for amateur I'm told) has a cheap plastic build and a simple triplet lens that gives a wonderful soft look that is great for portraits.

The idea behind this shot was to give a feel of the 1950's- so film choice was important too, the emulsion used was the now unavailable Agfa Portrait 160. The film was one of my all time favourites with a really nice low contrast natural colour that made it my standard film for weddings and portraits.

Agfa Portrait also had another desirable (for me at least) character, in that if over-exposed by more than 3 stops the film would allow halation to occur softening the highlights and killing contrast (and fine detail).

The picture above was overexposed by guesstimate about 3 stops to give the aforementioned effects and I think it worked pretty well. Today you could use Kodak Portra NC a film that gives a similar natural colour palette.

Cameras like the Lubitel and Holga are considered by some to be toy cameras, but for me they are very important tools that not only are fun to use but can give very satisfying pictures quite unlike anything produced by 'high-tech' cameras.

All images and text © Mark Antony Smith