Tag Archives: monochrome
Brownie Flash III on Fuji Acros 100
There isn’t an outing in this house that doesn’t involve at least four cameras each (per adult) and one each for at least three of the children… That’s a *lot* of cameras…
And there’s a danger with this modus operandi: one tends to forget which camera does or doesn’t contain film.
I had assembled my photographic equipment for our walk the other day: my Halina Paulette, Bencini Comet IIS and my Lomo Lubitel 2, when another appeared on my ‘pile’ – a Brownie Flash III. I asked Jem if he’d put it there and he told me he’d noticed it had a ’4′ in the red window. Eek! That meant it had film in it and I had no recollection whatever of when or where I had loaded it and taken the first four shots. The only thing I did know (because it was another of our ‘live and learn’ moments) is that it was loaded with Fuji Acros 100… because I had put a sticker on the bottom of it saying so.
So, now that we’re up and running with our own developing, it seemed prudent to finish the film as quickly as possible and get it processed.
Of the mere eight shots that a roll of 120 yields from a Box Brownie, only four and a bit really came out. Despite the fact that the camera had been stored in its original canvas case, the film had still deteriorated and there’s serious fogging throughout, totally destroying two shots, making the third unusable, but the other five came out with varying degrees of success.
My lessons for today, then, are:
- Remember which camera is loaded.
- Make sure you use it till it’s done.
- If you store it for a while without using it, make sure you cover the red window with electrical (or similar) tape.
One of them, however, came out beautifully in spite (or maybe because) of the deterioration. One of our favourite photographic spots:
Cathedral Cloisters
Ensign Ful-Vue Super in Monochrome
After the roaring success of the Ful-Vue Super in colour (Ektar, to be precise), I decided to give it a go in black and white. So I filed down a roll of Ilford HP5 120 film to fit (it being a 620 medium format camera), loaded it up and off I went. (Home-developed in Ilford LC29 and home-scanned).
The results can be found here. But here are one or two to be going on with:
My favourite walk
Jem and Juno
Pushchair escapee
The only problem I had is that once again it began sticking and slipping at around exposure 4, and by number 10 I had to give up winding on, so I have lost 2 shots per roll so far. And on a roll of film that only contains 12 exposures anyway, that’s a pricey fault!
I suspect that the culprit is the filed down 120 film. 120 comes on a much thicker spool and I don’t think the more streamlined mechanism is coping with it at all well, so for the next roll, I’m going to have to attempt respooling 120 film onto a 620 spool. I am assured that once you’ve got the hang of it there’s really nothing to it…
*gulp*
Wish me luck!
Edge of Village
‘Edge of Village’
Kodak Duex (1940) / Ilford HP5+ respooled to 620
(see the full spool here)
