Category Archives: adventures in film

Kodachrome Nails

Nails, originally uploaded by lisbokt. – click to see full-size photo

Check this out! I finally had the chance to shoot and develop some old Kodachrome (and by old I mean old- it expired in 1963.)- and they turned out great!

I’m definitely going to play with it again!

Caution

Caution, originally uploaded by lisbokt. – click to see full-size photo

Sorry no self portrait tonight. Lightroom is chugging away at a massive backup (been doing 3 hours now) and looks like it will finish while I sleep.

Instead, I bring you another sprocket photo. I think this is going to be a common theme with my Lubitel photos, too– double exposures! It’s just too easy to do. and by “too easy” I do not mean “simple for the neat effect”, I mean “Be careful or you’ll double expose that!” The camera, just by the way it works, does not care if you take several exposures before winding because it does not track where on the roll of film you are.

Anyway. I love this caution tape. I love the light leaks. I love the weird colour. Just all of it. I love it. I may make it into a poster for my office. It’s available as a print, if you want one for your office too.

Chairs

Chairs, originally uploaded by lisbokt. – click to see full-size photo

This was the film I was holding in yesterday’s shot. (Which at least one astute reader noticed “didn’t look quite right”) It’s what happens when I shoot 35mm through the Lubitel.

One of the reasons I chose the Lubitel over other options was because I wanted to easily shoot on the sprockets. I considered the Blackbird TLR, which is only 35mm, but ultimately went with the good Russian because it meant I could also shoot 120. Information on the internet suggested it would be a bit of a pain to shoot 35mm this way but it was actually super easy. You do need a changing bag to remove the film, or a darkroom, since the camera has no rewind. I don’t mind. One roll of 35mm gets you twelve of these images, same as 120! (There’s a fairly decent gap between them, but without that, there’s some light spilling. Decent trade in my opinion.)

Expired Film

Behind the Fancy Buildings, originally uploaded by lisbokt. – click to see full-size photo

Another from my day of developing – I think this was the first shot of the day.

If you go around to the other side of these buildings, everything is very modern, well-kept and rather fancy. I find it really funny that the back side is much more relaxed.

I had a cool question come across my Tumblr — if you have a photography question, please ask!. Today’s question is from Silver Wolf 52.

When it comes to film, how expired is too expired?

This is not an easy answer… A lot of it depends on how the film was stored before it expired. If you follow all the rules and keep it in the freezer, chances are good it can stay that way for several years and still be as good as new. If it’s been sitting in the back of your car for a few years, going through lots of hot/cold cycles, you should be so lucky that it looks nice before it expired.

The film from the photo above expired in 2006. I was using Ilford Delta 100 (Black and White). Black and white film tends to be significantly more resilient than colour, and lower ISO speeds will be more resilient too.

Most of the photos I’ve taken with the Chaika have been from this giant lot of ISO 400 film I rescued on Ebay. Consumer-grade, general film that had been kept in somebody’s garage since 1996, when they bought it. At some point it had significant flood damage (all of the cardboard boxes for the film were destroyed), but since the film had been kept in canisters, it was just fine. But, the film behaves erratically.

My lesson with expired colour film has taught me that the most important thing is shoot as bright as possible. When I start getting into lower light conditions, the film really starts to show its age (in a bad way).

If you’re developing at home, there’s no reason to change what you’re doing after you’ve shot it. You should be prepared, however, for the significantly older film to feel differently – a little thinner, a little bit more brittle.

I’ve seen some people shoot on film that expired more than 15 years ago, and it gets really hit and miss from there. The emulsion really becomes less sensitive, so your best chance at that point is to shoot as bright as possible – either strong daylight or long exposure.

and most of all, be prepared to accept whatever serendipity the images give you. The worst that can happen? A dud roll.

Skating

Skating, originally uploaded by lisbokt. – click to see full-size photo

While out on my photo walk, I stumbled across the ice skating rink that is installed downtown every winter. Neat! In between snowflakes, I caught this skater.

Shot on Ilford Delta 100 and developed with D76.

No Parking

No Parking, originally uploaded by lisbokt. – click to see full-size photo

My adventures with developing film have been great fun. I shot this yesterday. I’m pretty used to a quick turnaround — my local minilab does C41 processing in an hour. But black and white film has typically been a totally different story — in fact, this past August when I dropped off my film from PhootCamp, the lab was backed up and it took me 13 days to get my film!!

So, I was pretty pleased when I left at noon to take photos and then by 4pm had everything developed and dry.

Washed

Washed, originally uploaded by lisbokt. – click to see full-size photo

As I mentioned yesterday, I scanned some film this week that I developed myself! I’m very excited about this. I really adore the look of black and white, but find it generally expensive to get it done at a lab. And, I have a medium format making its way to me (from Russia!) I thought it would be a good idea… Getting medium format film developed is also more expensive. But now I have a whole pile of 120 BW film waiting for me to use. Woohoo…! (Now I just need the camera!)

One thing that kind of surprised me is after I developed this roll, I was a little dismayed as it looked like I had overexposed/overdeveloped every single image on it (again). Ran it through the scanner anyway and found everything very light and airy, but also perfectly clear. Huh! Now I know.

I really, really love this photo — so much that I made it available as a print!

Canopy

Canopy, originally uploaded by lisbokt. – click to see full-size photo

While touristing around Chicago, I found this. It’s the top of a rather impressive amphitheater in downtown Chicago. I prefer the grid.

Click to see bigger!

This particular image was shot on slide film and then cross-processed straight up in C-41 (normal colour negative processing). I love, love, LOVE! this effect and now wish I had more slide film. In particular, the images I took in bright sunlight with strong architectural details really shined. Cross-processing makes a lot of different situations really explode– I have a few more cross-process images that I will share soon.

Rail

Rail, originally uploaded by lisbokt. – click to see full-size photo

This was shot with my Chaika-2 and some off-brand film that, judging by its sense of graphic design, expired sometime in the 1990s. (Which is to say: very old, but I have no idea how old)

I love this train shot (double shot?) so much that it is part of my train calendar!

So, the Chaika.

I bought this camera on Ebay recently for $20. I’ve been lusting after a half-frame camera after playing with one at Phootcamp, but I really wanted something older and with “charm”, rather than a new pristine plastic camera. I emailed a little bit with the seller of the camera, who said he tested it out (though he admitted film cameras are not something he knows “all too much” about). So I got it…

First roll ended up exposing all frames on the first three inches of the film. Dur. Second roll ended up with all of the frames super under-exposed and useless. (But they were spread across the entire length of film! — Turns out, BY SHEER LUCK)

I took the camera apart and cleaned it quite a bit. It was… murky. We’ll go with murky.

Loading it is QUITE finicky. I ruined three or four rolls of film by loading it and then accidentally rewinding it because the knob on the bottom turns freely. So just by putting it in my pocket or my bag, it would rewind and come completely undone. It would then wind itself around a different component inside and uh well…. I removed those three or four rolls from my camera with a pair of scissors.

Finally got it to stick. Literally: I used a little bit of painter’s tape to attach the leader to the post and then wound it slightly. Worked great!

I got super nervous over the weekend doing my test shots, though. It stopped advancing the numbers (a problem I’ve encountered quite a bit) and then the shutter got stuck. I opened it up in a dark room, though, and discovered the film was advanced almost to the end of the roll — so I gambled and am very happy that those images all turned out, perfectly exposed.

Without knowing how that roll turned out, I shot on it today. It felt like it was misfiring a lot, but it wasn’t. (Consequently, I have a fair amount of coupled images of the same thing — though that’s kind of neat, too) It doesn’t advance the numbers, so you just go until you can’t turn the lever anymore. Or whenever you get nervous. Whichever comes first.

I searched all over the internet and could NOT find a manual for this camera. I finally found a copy – also on Ebay – and it is being sent to me. Should be here in a week or so. My intention is to translate it (it’s in Russian) and post it, in English, to the internet. So if you want an English manual for the Chaika, check this space in a few weeks!

PS: Click the photo to see it in a larger resolution! More hits on my Flickr make me happy.

Some of my favourite other Chaika photos — Trees,  306, Good Morning, Up Up Up…