Film Photography Podcast – Episode 85 – July 1, 2013
The internet radio show for people who love to shoot film! The gang is once again joined again by UK shooters Rebecca and Darren Riley. Listener Letters! Darkroom Developers! Eastman Double-X! Nikon F2! Baby Diana Giveaway! Olympus Pen F! Lots More!
Listen to this episode now
[podbean type=audio-rectangle resource=”episode=itewf-4a1fb6″ skin=”1″ auto=”0″ height=100 ]
- Subscribe on iTunes
Link will immediately open iTunes. - Subscribe on Podbean
Link will immediately open PodBean.com. - Download hi-fi podcast
Large file in MP3 format - Download lo-fi podcast
Small file in MP3 format.
Show Notes
FPP Episode 85 – July 1st, 2013 – Show Notes
Show Notes by: Alex Luyckx
It’s the Internet Radio show for people who love to shoot film! Summer Free-For-All featuring Michael Raso, Mat Marrash, Leslie Lazenby, Mark Dalzell, Dane Johnson, and UK Special Guests Darren and Becky Riley.
On today’s show Music, Listener Letters, Developers, Eastman Double-X, the Nikon F2, a Baby Diana Giveaway care of the Lomographic Society, the Olympus PEN and XA cameras!
Mail Bag! A listener writes in with a Polaroid question. They just got a (corrosion free) Polaroid 420 Land Camera off Ebay along with the needed 3v battery but when they connect the battery there’s no double click from the shutter! Leslie suggests cleaning the contacts with deoxIT or other contact cleaning solution but a better solution is to convert the camera to take AAA batteries or a single CR123. Mike also suggests that the battery itself could be dead, being such an odd size there’s no way to know how long it’s been sitting on a shelf waiting for purchase.
An Australian listener writes in asking about film for his Minox B spy camera, Leslie points in the direction of Blue Moon Camera and Machine, who not only sell the film but process it as well.
Dean shoot Rock! FPP Listener Dean Ryan is putting on a gallery show and writes in to invite anyone to come and see his work. The show runs from July 4th to August 31st at the Art Jericho Gallery (6 King St, Oxford, UK), and features live music photography of bands he photographed at the Jericho Tavern through the 1990s. For more details check out: www.artjericho.com!
Nick Polaprint! A big shout out to FPP super friend Nick Rapak and his new business venture, www.polaprints.net where you can submit your digital image files and have actual Polaroid Prints made from them.
Developers at home! Mat takes us back to square one with home black & white developing with the basics of film developers. So what is a developer? A developer is a solution that reduces the silver halide on film to metallic silver. A typical developer has a reducing agent, a restrainer (to keep the reducer from working too quickly), an anti-oxidation agent (to keep the developer fresh longer). Some of the standard developers that are readily available today and are good starting points for doing your own developing is Kodak D76/Ilford ID-11, Ilford Ilfosol 3 or S, Kodak HC-110, and Rodinal (today sold as Adinol, Agfa R09 OneShot, or Blazinal). When working with most developers you are diluting them down, this allows for cleaner highlights and more shadow details.
Now all developers are not made equal, every developer has their own unique qualities. You have the standard and high contrast developers such as D-76/ID-11 and HC-110, ultra-low contrast developers like Rodinal and Technodol, staining developers such as Pyrocat-HD, and fine grain developers like Kodak Xtol. Just like anything it’s best to try out as many as you can and find the ones that work best for how you want the image to turn out. A great tool for working with dilutions, and times in the Massive Dev Chat, it’s available online and also and an app for the iOS and Android platforms.
FPP Giveaway! Lomography has given the FPP a Baby Diana to give away along with a roll of film! Interested in getting in on the 110 band wagon sign up today in the giveaway section of the website!
Eastman Double-X 5222 – Fuji IT-N Stocks at FPP! The FPP store is on a bulk rolling kick and has some new offerings! The first is FPP Cinema-XX, this is Eastman Double-X 5222 B&W 35mm motion picture film, this ISO-250 (daylight) ISO-200 (tungsten) film can be processed in traditional B&W chemistry (it loves HC-110) yourself or you can send it off to thedarkroom.com.
Eastman 5222 BW stock has been used in such films as Schinder’s List and more recently during the opening sequence of the recent James Bond film Casino Royale. Another new stock in the store is Fuji IT, (Fujifilm ITN) is an ISO-6 copy film that was used to make film negatives from slide images. Head on over to the store to see all the new 35mm offering the FPP has!
above: Casino Royale opening sequence shot on Eastman Double-X 5222! Below: The rugged Nikon F2! Image by Süleyman Demir
Nikon Guy! Rick Paul, the FPP’s new resident Nikon guy introduces the Nikon F2. If you remember back in Episode 83, Leslie introduced the Nikon F, the world’s first professional SLR. The Nikon F2 was its replacement in 1971 and quickly became the most popular system through the 1970s. The Nikon F2 had many improvements over the original Nikon F, it was a much more ergonomic design, featured shutter speeds from 10 seconds to 1/2000 of a second. It could use the new AI (Aperture Index) lenses, as well as the older Non-AI lenses. (Nikkor Auto), this means that even the new AI-S and AF-D lenses will work perfectly with the F2, the light meters could have a film speed range between ISO-6 to 6400.
These cameras are tanks and there’s plenty out on the used market in good condition, and most will come with the DP-11 prism, but as the F2 is a system camera you can always swap out not just the lenses, but prisms, film backs, and motor drives. However due to their age you may need to get yours serviced, Sover Wong over the UK has a massive inventory of still new parts direct from Nikon, and knows the cameras inside out and backwards.
Olympus Pen! It’s camera show and tell time and today it’s all Olympus. Leslie shows off the Olympus Pen F. This little camera (pictured above – Image by Leslie) is a half-frame 35mm SLR that doesn’t look like and SLR. First off there is no traditional pentiprism on top, it’s in the side of the camera, the lenses can be changed out (there were about 20 lenses available for the Pen F system), the camera was designed by Yoshihisa Maitani (also designed the OM-1). The name comes from the fact that the camera is as portable as a pen. If you’re looking into getting one, Leslie suggests the original Pen F, or the Pen FV as both do not have a light meter, but even the ones with light meters can be operated without a battery. Also make sure you get the lens cap as well.
Mark shows off his Olympus Pen EE (pictured above – photo by Mark). Introduced in 1961 this zone-focus point-and-shoot like the name suggests is a half-frame 35mm camera as well with a Selenium cell driven auto-exposure camera with a fixed 1/60th of a second shutter speed, but even with a dead cell, the camera can still be operated manually with an aperture ring. Dane has with him his new XA2, another Olympus camera, the XA2 was the second in the XA series (XA, XA2, XA1, XA3, and XA4) that were popular cameras through the 1980s. The original XA was a range finder with a 35mm f/2.8 lens, the XA2 has the same lens but uses a zone focus system. The XA3, similar to the XA2 but features the ability to read DX codes on film canisters. The XA1 was the ugly cousin of the series and uses a Selenium cell with limited film speed choices. Leslie mentions the XA4 having a nice wide 28mm f/3.5 lens and the ability to focus down to 0.3 meters. Dane loves these cameras, they’re small, compact with a great clamshell design that can easily fit in your pocket and go with you anywhere, and still produces a fantastic image.
As Darren takes us off with an in-studio version of Dead Jennifer (pictured above – photo by Michael Raso – you can get more of his music online here: ballardpop.bandcamp.com)
We’ll be back in TWO WEEKS! Until then keep shooting, writing, calling, and posting.
Super Positive!
Podcast@FilmPhotographyProject.com
Film Photography Podcast PO Box 152, Butler, NJ 07405
The FPP Hotline! (Incoming only – no call backs) 201 850-6330