Film Photography Podcast – Episode 177 – December 15th, 2017
Notes By Alex Luyckx
Michael Raso, Leslie Lazenby, Mat Marrash, and Mark O’Brien are all gathered around the fire today to talk on such topics as Polaroid, Bergger Film, Pentax Shift Lens, Noblex Camera, Caffenol, the FPP Store, Listener Letters and much more! So grab an eggnog or a favourite holiday beverage and join us!
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December 15th, 2017 Podcast 177 Chapters
0:00:40 Introductions Michael Raso, Leslie Lazenby, Mat Marrash, and Mark O’Brien
0:01:23 Flying Dutchmen’s Lookin’ For Santa (excerpt)
0:02:23 Letter – copy film processing – film sweats.
0:05:00 Box of…. goodies to eat.
0:07:10 Ad from the archives… and FPP munching… and Pocket Instamatic Ad
0:10:03 Polaroid new film and new cameras. Polaroid tips.
0:15:52 Polaroid film is at FPP store
0:17:00 Yes, Alex has married
0:17:20 Bergger film – B&H, Freestyle available
0:24:22 Tabular vs. regular grain described by Leslie
0:26:45 Bergger has instructions online for developing times.
0:27:50 Letters – donations to the FPP donation for student program
0:30:13 Break
0:31:17 The FPP website store facelift reviewed. New and Exciting section. Leslie covers…
0:41:33 Caffenol at the FPP store.
0:45:04 Film retriever at the store. (lasts forever) No more cassette destruction!
0:50:00 Filters for daylight/tungsten 80/85 filters.
0:52:50 FPP Gift cards!! 7 denominations! Tell your friends and relatives.
0:56:01 Break
0:57:39 Shift lens – premium priced
1:06:04 Camera – Noblex panoramic 6 exposures per 120 roll.
1:12:34 Break
1:13:27 Tape discussion – Gaffers, Artists, Lineco Book Binding tape etc.
1:21:50 Closing comments and Music to close
Return of the Original – Shooting Polaroid Original Film
It’s been a couple of months since the Impossible Project took on the new brand of Polaroid Originals and Michael has just gotten around to shooting some of the new film stocks! The film stock isn’t like the original Polaroid film, and there are some tips that come in a neat little book inside the film box. You’ve got to keep the film cool, both before and during shooting. Keep those rollers clean because any debris will cause a mark in the film when the pod is cracked, and chemicals spread. Give the film some shade after it pops out of the camera, there is still some sensitivity to light, six minutes for colour and a minute for B&W. Give the film lots of light when shooting, use the built-in flash as much as possible or shoot on bright days. Don’t shake the film! If you haven’t shot the new stuff yet, get on it, perfect for the holiday season, and you will be surprised at how far the film has come! The FPP On-Line Store is fully stocked with fresh, new Polaroid Originals film!
Bergger and Fries – B&W From France
Bergger is a French photographic supply company that has been in North America for a couple of years now but has been big in Europe for much longer. It was two years back that they released a brand new film. Bergger Pancro 400 is a beautiful 400-speed traditional grained black & white panchromatic film. It has a wide exposure latitude thanks to two emulsion layers. Mark has been shooting the film in 35mm and loved it. It develops well in HC-110 and D-76, and Mat has done work with the film in Pyrocat-HD. While Mark has shot it mostly at the box speed of ISO/ASA-400 he has seen some good results online from pushing the film to 800 and even 1600. While initially released in sheet film only, when full production started they began producing 35mm and 120. Today you can get it in 35mm, 120, 4×5, 5×7, 8×10, and 13×18! Available through B&H, Freestyle, and in Canada you can get it at Downtown Camera in Toronto!
The FPP Store – Better than Ever
If you haven’t checked out the FPP store since our facelift back in the spring, Leslie is here to walk you through some of the new things that you can get! First off, if you just want to see the newest products in our store, we have a whole section dedicated to what’s new and exciting in our store and Filmtastic Gift Ideas! A great place to see some of the products we talk about on the podcast. Of course, the store isn’t just for film and cameras; we have plenty of accessories for sale. A film leader retriever is recommended by Leslie who has retrieved many leaders from 35mm film canisters with this style! Great if you bulk load because it saves you destroying the film canister with a normal church key. Want to try out Caffenol, we sell Lance Rothstein’s pre-mixed Caffenol package good for 600mL of the home-brew developer! You’ll also notice that now all our FPP Handrolled film comes in fully DX coded canisters with new metallic labels! Shooting some of our Vision3 Tungsten balanced films, well then the Lee filter book is great for those old folders, or if you have threaded lenses you can pick up high-quality Hoya branded 80b and 85a filters of almost every size! Also if you have a 127 camera, yep the FPP carries fresh Rearapan 127 film! And what is making every exciting is FPP Store Gift Cards! These electronic format gift cards are great for the film photographer in your life and come in three denominations from 10$ up to 500$!
Strange Brew – Caffenol Developing
We’ve mentioned this on the show before, but Caffenol is a fun, easily made, (almost) non-toxic developer that you can make using instant coffee! That said, there are still many questions that you have to ask yourself before whipping this brew! Do you use cheap or expensive, do you use Vitamin C or not, where do you get the supplies and how does it all work! Well Caffenol-C that is Caffenol with Vitamin C works with two different developers. The first, from the instant coffee, is Caffeic Acid does most of the heavy lifting, the second from the Vitamin C is Ascorbic Acid and helps to reduce the amount of fogging. Another key part to the whole developer is Sodium Carbonate or Washing Soda, don’t confuse this with Baking Soda or Sodium Bicarbonate. Then add some water and mix up the foul smelling brew and if it smells bad, you’re doing it right! The stuff is great to use with kids because has a low toxicity but we still recommend you don’t drink it. And it lasts for a long time in both a powder and mixed up! If you don’t want to mix up your brew, you can pick up a ready-made powder mix in the FPP store!
Shift Your Perspective
However, you call it, tilt-shift, perspective-control is a great option to have on any camera if you’re shooting architecture. It helps make your straight lines stay straight even if you can’t bring your camera up to the appropriate level. It even helps with removing unwanted elements out of the frame. This function is easy with a large format camera and even some medium format cameras with bellows. But other cameras, namely 35mm and other fixed body medium format requires a special lens. Known as Tilt-Shift or Perspective Control lenses produce a much larger image circle than the average lens that allows for some form of movement. Recently a mint condition SMC Pentax Shift 28mm f/3.5 lens walked into MidWest Photo Exchange on a Pentax K1000. The Pentax Lens, released in the mid-1970s takes some design elements from the Nikon PC-Nikkor 35mm f/3.5 lens from 1962. It provides eight shift points along the diameter allowing, up, down, left, right and some diagonal movements as well, making it a handy lens! The Pentax lens has a couple of useful features including built-in skylight, yellow, and orange filters. But you have to remember to manually stop the lens down before taking the picture as auto-stop down isn’t available on these lenses. Tilt-Shift lenses still command a premium price, even for ones this old, on the used market.
Think Wide
One of the more iconic panoramic cameras is the Noblex brand, made famous both by The Dude, Jeff Bridges, himself and FPP Superfriend Donker Dave. And one has come into MidWest Photo and came along to the FPP HQ with Mat. There seems to be a large number of Noblex Cameras in Columbus, Ohio possibly due to Columbus being twinned with Dresden, Germany and Noblex being based in Dresden. Anyways, the Noblex cameras are swing-lens panoramic cameras. This means that the lens swings in an arch while exposing a wider stretch of the film. The company has both 35mm and 120 formats of cameras. The model Mat has with him is the Pro 6/150-EII. A base medium format model, the camera has a fixed focus Rotar T 50mm f/4.5 lens that exposes a 50mm by 120mm strip of film giving you a 146-degree field of view. Of course this limits you to only 6 shots per roll of film. While the lens is fixed focus, you can adjust the focus by either opening or close the aperture so you can adjust the focus through the hyperfocal distance principle. Mat does recommend using a tripod when shooting this camera because it helps keep your horizon straight and any camera shake is rather noticeable. While you can shoot any film, slide film looks amazing with the format.
Sticking To It!
Being a part of the Ann Arbor Crappy Camera Club, Mark has a nose for good tape. Plastic cameras and photography, in general, you need to have a good take to fix up cameras, cover up light leaks, and hold stuff in place. While many use electrical and duct tape these are ones that you need to stay away from. Electrical tape is hard to work with, and duct tape leaves marks. Mark and the whole gang suggests Gaffer’s tape. Gaffer Tape is a cloth based, light tight tape that is a great tool for any photographer’s bag. The base of the tape is cloth giving it a strong foundation yet flexible. The adhesive is tacky, so it holds but won’t leave any ugly residue behind if you pull it off. Michael uses the paper cousin of gaffer tape, artist tape that uses a paper base rather than cloth and is great for hand rolling film. Mat recommends Lineco Book Binding tape if you need to repair your film holder!
Mike & Johns MEADOWLANDS SHOWCASE Christmas Specials!
Before the Film Photography Podcast there was…Meadowlands Showcase! 1988 – 1990 Meadowlands Showcase Christmas episodes featuring The Hungry Dutchmen, Bite The Wax Godhead, The Trackman and more!
Amazon Prime Streaming HERE
YouTube Streaming HERE
That’s it for this show, from all of us the FPP we wish you and your family a happy holiday season, and we’d love to hear what Santa has left you under the tree (maybe some samples of the new Kodak E100 slide film?) either way, you can drop us a note by email (podcast@filmphotographyproject.com) or by regular post (Film Photography Podcast PO Box 264 Fair Lawn, NJ 07410)! Until then we’ll see you in 2018!
Thank you for reading our SHOW NOTE. You’re “alright in our book” as they say in Jersey. Hey, take 15% off our fabulous Svema Color 35mm film when you use the code: svemacolor at checkout! Buy as much as you like but you can only use the code once. Expired Dec 31, 2017. Happy shooting!