ABOUT ME

I live in a camper van with a West Highland Terrier for company.
My passion is creating images but it is a work in progress.
I am always willing to share what knowledge I have and can be contacted through the comments on this post or e-mail ADRIAN
ALL IMAGES WILL ENLARGE WITH A LEFT CLICK

Wednesday 19 August 2015

LOOK WHAT I FOUND. (19/08/15)

Yesterday whilst the rain rained and drizzled I was looking for some filters and found a pack of Velvia transparency film. It’s a year out of date but should still be fine. I can’t remember where it came from as I don’t buy colour film. I only get HP5.

_MG_1789

I could have done with the amateur stuff as the professional will be less likely to tolerate my exposure guessing. It is a funny thing that digital gives us exposures to within a hundredth of a second and lots of ISOs and yet a RAW file can be pushed and pulled six stops. I have to change heads to work film. I have an incident light meter and take a reading of the ambient light and if there are a lot of light colours in the scene drop the exposure a stop.

I decided to get the Bronica out, give it a good clean and put a battery in it. I loaded up a film back and was ready for business. I even remembered to take the little notebook and a pencil to jot down the settings. It was at this stage I found a beautiful set of dioptre lenses. I got to thinking and decided to pop 5 dioptres onto the 150mm lens. This got my minimum focus distance down from 5’ to about a foot. I went out and baited a Privet flower with some honey and took five shots of Bumblebees. It will be interesting to see how they turn out. The clatter when the mirror goes up frightens me but didn’t seem to bother the bees.

_MG_1787

I don’t know how old these lenses are but they don’t make stuff like this anymore even the dust cap is machined from the solid.

_MG_1786

I am wondering if I could get a used Phase One back machined up to fit this camera as it is a joy to use. The lens focusing is silky smooth and the aperture stops have a nice positive click. The shutter is an electronic leaf but will work at 1/500s without a battery. I did get an old Vivitar strobe out but can’t find a sync wire for it.

_MG_1785

_MG_1784

I really must start using this camera more often as it is a real pleasure just to handle. Tomorrow I will bracket an exposure if I can by pulling the dark slide out a bit at a time. The little lever above the winder disengages the film advance and just allows one to cock the shutter. The only thing this camera is missing is mirror lock up but despite the clang it doesn’t seem to affect the end result.

_MG_1792

Here it is all ready to go. This lens is 75mm so a bit wider than standard for medium format.

_MG_1790

The view through the view finder. I do have a prismatic top for the camera which also gives auto exposure metering but the meter is not in the first flush of youth so not reliable. It is a little odd that it does not meter a stop or two fast or slow but seems a bit random. I don’t bother with it anymore.

I’ll give it a really good clean this afternoon.

24 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. R.Mac, I am only a bit geeky. I know people with dozens of old cameras and I only have five cameras in total.

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  2. That looks like a fine camera. Personally, I have no interest in ever shooting film again, but I can appreciate that some people do.

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    1. John, these are nice cameras but not in Hasselblad country. They are still streets ahead of Canon build.

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  3. I look forward to seeing the results.

    peter

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    1. Peter, I will see if i can get them scanned.

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  4. I'd almost forgotten what a box of film looks like! :) Nice camera! There's a small part of me that misses shooting film.

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    1. Linda, I am not so bothered about the film but do like the quality of older cameras.

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  5. I'm afraid I don't do cameras, but I do do weather, and ours is totally atrocious at the moment. Got soaked again riding this morning.

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    1. Frances, I hope the rain was warm and you dried the horse properly.

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  6. I wouldn't want to go back to film--- and yet... I've made quality scans of 40 year old 35 MM slides that have yielded incredible results after a little editing. But each of us will shoot 150-200 shots every time we go out, and I'd hate to buy the film and processing THAT would take. I very much enjoyed seeing your Bronica.

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    1. Bill, I rarely take more than twenty shots a day even with digital......film is usually about five. I don't really have a preference for analogue but would use film were I printing more than I do.

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  7. HI Adrian I gave up having a camera like that ages ago and like Bill, I would not be able to afford the processing of all the images I take. Often I never some home, even walking through the park nnear me without 100 photographs!

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    1. Margaret it is the pleasure I get from using quality machinery. I thought Olympus were getting a bit tacky but Canon are pretty grim compared to this camera and this one is not in the same league as a Mamiya or Blad.

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  8. It seems amazing to z, on camera to experimenting.

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    1. Bas, it is more re-learning than experimenting.

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  9. Can't remember how many photos on a roll of 120. What I hated with 35mm was normally ending up with half a dozen left to use up as I was too mean to pay for processing blank areas of film. Don' think I would like to go back to colour film but it would be interesting to return to b/w for a while.

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    1. John it varies. 6x6 is usually ten and on this camera at 6x4.5 it is 15 some cameras manage 16.
      Processing is about £10.00p a roll for a process and scan to CD. It isn't a big job to do it at home with B&W or C41 but Reversal film I have never tried.

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  10. Your film was an interesting film that lead to all kinds of memories. I still have a 35 mm with some lens, but I don't use it.

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    1. Red, I like old things. There were some awful film cameras and there still are. The Holgas and the Lomos. I just like the quality old stuff even if the glass is generally a bit inferior.

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  11. Simply wow! That's a truly amazing bit of kit. Can't wait to see the results, probably a bit late now but I'd love to see a comparison ie same scene one digital and one film

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    1. Douglas....I very much doubt there would be any real difference at the resolution on a computer screen. I will run some today as I have plenty of this Velvia. It is beautiful film but expensive to process and print.

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  12. Wow, it's a methuselah :) I'm looking forward to seeing your result.

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