Industrial Prairie
When one thinks of Minnesota or North Dakota, industry usually isn’t the first thought. All you can see over western North Dakota are canyons, rolling hills, and the occasional oil donkey rising and falling as it pumps ‘black gold’ from the Bakken oil fields. Farms and field spread over the flat prairie of eastern North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota. Quiet county roads carry only a few cars or farm machinery from town to town and field to field. Grain elevators are usually the only buildings higher than an equipment storage shed. City dwellers don’t think ‘industrial’ when they see the prairies. At first glance it looks flat, empty, and very rural.
Running a farm is an industrial operation. Modern tractors are capable of dragging heavy machinery through dense topsoil in swaths thirty feet wide and two feet deep. Combine harvesters cut through thousands of acres of ripened crop and separate the stalks and other foreign material from the grain. Full size semi-tractor trucks haul tons of grain from the fields to terminals where it is loaded into railroad hopper cars for transport to food processing centers or seaports for shipment overseas. The agriculture industry in this region produces soybeans, sugar beets, barley, oats, wheat, potatoes, and corn. All of this must happen during the short growing season before brutally cold winters and blizzards encapsulate the landscape.
The risk is high but the rewards are great. No one can control the weather, pest infestations, market fluctuations, or labor disputes. Different crops require different equipment, moisture and temperature levels, soil quality, and production timing. Agricultural businesses experience production delays from regional flooding, crop disease, drought, excess rainfall, wildfire, and equipment failure. Market price fluctuations make forecasting difficult. Farmers must be skilled businessmen to produce food on large economies of scale. They need to understand the commodity markets and their own production and storage capacities. They have the experience and skill of any industrial plant manager to assure that equipment is properly maintained, capital resources are efficiently utilized, suppliers understand their requirements, and the labor force is trained and ready in sufficient numbers to complete their work on time and on budget from planting to harvest. Farmers need to produce the right mix of crops to reduce their losses should the weather be too cold, too hot, too wet, or too dry, yet provide the greatest yield for the lowest cost to maximize their profit. If commodity prices are too low, they need to sell enough product to satisfy their creditors while storing the rest at the proper moisture and temperature levels until demand improves and commodity prices increase.
Being a film photographer, I need time to harvest my crop, but I brought a digital Fuji Finepix S2 Pro SLR along for those subjects of opportunity. ‘Harvest Ready’ is an image of a Versatile 435 articulated tractor highlighting its two critical features: power and traction. It stands as tall as a two story building and can pull anything from a large cultivator to a sugar beet harvester through knee-deep mud in all kinds of weather. It is a symbol of power and capability. A machine with attitude.
More from my Industrial Prairie assignment will come as I unlock the latent images from exposed film.
Running a farm is an industrial operation. Modern tractors are capable of dragging heavy machinery through dense topsoil in swaths thirty feet wide and two feet deep. Combine harvesters cut through thousands of acres of ripened crop and separate the stalks and other foreign material from the grain. Full size semi-tractor trucks haul tons of grain from the fields to terminals where it is loaded into railroad hopper cars for transport to food processing centers or seaports for shipment overseas. The agriculture industry in this region produces soybeans, sugar beets, barley, oats, wheat, potatoes, and corn. All of this must happen during the short growing season before brutally cold winters and blizzards encapsulate the landscape.
The risk is high but the rewards are great. No one can control the weather, pest infestations, market fluctuations, or labor disputes. Different crops require different equipment, moisture and temperature levels, soil quality, and production timing. Agricultural businesses experience production delays from regional flooding, crop disease, drought, excess rainfall, wildfire, and equipment failure. Market price fluctuations make forecasting difficult. Farmers must be skilled businessmen to produce food on large economies of scale. They need to understand the commodity markets and their own production and storage capacities. They have the experience and skill of any industrial plant manager to assure that equipment is properly maintained, capital resources are efficiently utilized, suppliers understand their requirements, and the labor force is trained and ready in sufficient numbers to complete their work on time and on budget from planting to harvest. Farmers need to produce the right mix of crops to reduce their losses should the weather be too cold, too hot, too wet, or too dry, yet provide the greatest yield for the lowest cost to maximize their profit. If commodity prices are too low, they need to sell enough product to satisfy their creditors while storing the rest at the proper moisture and temperature levels until demand improves and commodity prices increase.
Being a film photographer, I need time to harvest my crop, but I brought a digital Fuji Finepix S2 Pro SLR along for those subjects of opportunity. ‘Harvest Ready’ is an image of a Versatile 435 articulated tractor highlighting its two critical features: power and traction. It stands as tall as a two story building and can pull anything from a large cultivator to a sugar beet harvester through knee-deep mud in all kinds of weather. It is a symbol of power and capability. A machine with attitude.
More from my Industrial Prairie assignment will come as I unlock the latent images from exposed film.
Nikons and Nikkormats
June 25, 2010 - 06:26 Filed in: Equipment
In this age of automation and instant digital gratification, it is hard to imagine anyone still using a purely mechanical camera, unless they have been lured into the Holga niche. Even among film aficionados, most ‘analog’ cameras use autoexposure or autofocus to help the photographer. There are a few of us who still prefer manual methods.
The Nikon F put Nikon on the map. Back in 1959 this camera was a less expensive alternative to the high precision German cameras, which were the ‘gold standard’ of the day. The Nikon featured interchangeable lenses, focusing screens, viewfinders, and even film backs. It did not have a built in light meter, but back in the 50’s most photographers distrusted integral light meters and preferred the more accurate dedicated light meters. The Nikons and Nikkormats later featured more accurate integral light meters and photographers began to appreciate their convenience.
The Nikon F was built like a brick and able to take the usual knocks and drops of professional photojournalism. The Nikkormat series cameras were the ‘poor man’s’ Nikon. They didn’t have all of the features of the Nikon F, but they did use the same interchangeable lenses and were often backup cameras for the working pro. Along with the build quality of a professional camera, it’s the optics that matter. For years, Nikons have been THE cameras to which others were judged.
It’s wonderful that these legendary machines have become so affordable since the rise in popularity of digital photography, but also sad that they are so ‘last century’. The images they produce are as excellent as they have always been, which brings me back to a time when photographers had to instinctively know the optimal combination of lens aperture, shutter speed, and focus for the film they were using, and a bit of luck helped.
‘Pre-Game’, found in the Baseball Gallery, won First Place, Best of Category, and Judge’s Choice at the Kitsap County Fair in 2008. It was shot with a Nikkormat FTn mounted with a 50mm f/1.4 Nikkor-P lens on Fomapan 200 film.
Go Nikon!
The Nikon F put Nikon on the map. Back in 1959 this camera was a less expensive alternative to the high precision German cameras, which were the ‘gold standard’ of the day. The Nikon featured interchangeable lenses, focusing screens, viewfinders, and even film backs. It did not have a built in light meter, but back in the 50’s most photographers distrusted integral light meters and preferred the more accurate dedicated light meters. The Nikons and Nikkormats later featured more accurate integral light meters and photographers began to appreciate their convenience.
The Nikon F was built like a brick and able to take the usual knocks and drops of professional photojournalism. The Nikkormat series cameras were the ‘poor man’s’ Nikon. They didn’t have all of the features of the Nikon F, but they did use the same interchangeable lenses and were often backup cameras for the working pro. Along with the build quality of a professional camera, it’s the optics that matter. For years, Nikons have been THE cameras to which others were judged.
It’s wonderful that these legendary machines have become so affordable since the rise in popularity of digital photography, but also sad that they are so ‘last century’. The images they produce are as excellent as they have always been, which brings me back to a time when photographers had to instinctively know the optimal combination of lens aperture, shutter speed, and focus for the film they were using, and a bit of luck helped.
‘Pre-Game’, found in the Baseball Gallery, won First Place, Best of Category, and Judge’s Choice at the Kitsap County Fair in 2008. It was shot with a Nikkormat FTn mounted with a 50mm f/1.4 Nikkor-P lens on Fomapan 200 film.
Go Nikon!
Government Issue
The Puget Sound was once vulnerable to invasion by sea. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, the timber industry was burgeoning and the Navy had a shipyard established in the deep water seaway protected by mountains and rugged rainforest on all sides. It was a tempting prize for an ambitious conquering nation to blockade the Sound and keep the Navy bottlenecked within. The United States understood this vulnerability, so in 1896 Congress authorized the Secretary of War to fortify and build a complex of artillery emplacements to repel potential attacks of the Puget Sound from the Pacific Ocean.
Fort Flagler, Fort Casey, and Fort Worden were built in a triangle formation to protect Admiralty Inlet. Armed with 10 and 12 inch guns mounted on “disappearing” carriages, these bastions of freedom stood watch over the Straits of San Juan ready for an invasion that would never come. Made obsolete prior to World War II by improved military technologies, these bases were closed in the 1950’s and the land was returned to the State of Washington. They later became state parks that preserve an important part of our nation’s history. They are wonderful to photograph.
I recently visited Fort Flagler on the Olympic Peninsula, located just south of Port Townsend. The concrete bunkers that protected the gun batteries and the military hardware that remain at the site have form and texture that photograph well in monochrome. Ammunition storage bunkers and munitions elevators also remain, hidden deep inside underground chambers protected by these concrete structures.
Random cracks in the thick concrete sections show the power of the Pacific Northwest climate working against man’s best engineering efforts. Monochrome images communicate the form and texture of the iron guns and concrete structures without the distraction of color. The gun mounts that remain are quiet, yet their presence is a powerful reminder of our desire to remain a free nation.
The images of Fort Flagler in the Military and Ancient Industry galleries were shot with a Nikon FM2n camera and 24mm f/2.8 and 50mm f/1.8 Nikkor lenses. I used TMax 400 film exposed at ISO 200 and developed in Microdol-X developer, stock dilution, for 10-1/2 minutes at 20 degrees C.
Fort Flagler, Fort Casey, and Fort Worden were built in a triangle formation to protect Admiralty Inlet. Armed with 10 and 12 inch guns mounted on “disappearing” carriages, these bastions of freedom stood watch over the Straits of San Juan ready for an invasion that would never come. Made obsolete prior to World War II by improved military technologies, these bases were closed in the 1950’s and the land was returned to the State of Washington. They later became state parks that preserve an important part of our nation’s history. They are wonderful to photograph.
I recently visited Fort Flagler on the Olympic Peninsula, located just south of Port Townsend. The concrete bunkers that protected the gun batteries and the military hardware that remain at the site have form and texture that photograph well in monochrome. Ammunition storage bunkers and munitions elevators also remain, hidden deep inside underground chambers protected by these concrete structures.
Random cracks in the thick concrete sections show the power of the Pacific Northwest climate working against man’s best engineering efforts. Monochrome images communicate the form and texture of the iron guns and concrete structures without the distraction of color. The gun mounts that remain are quiet, yet their presence is a powerful reminder of our desire to remain a free nation.
The images of Fort Flagler in the Military and Ancient Industry galleries were shot with a Nikon FM2n camera and 24mm f/2.8 and 50mm f/1.8 Nikkor lenses. I used TMax 400 film exposed at ISO 200 and developed in Microdol-X developer, stock dilution, for 10-1/2 minutes at 20 degrees C.
So What Is Fine Art Anyway?
Before I knew exactly what the term meant, I was always uncomfortable referring to my work as ‘fine art’. I always thought it was arrogant to believe that photographs produced by a rank amateur, such as myself, could be referred to as ‘fine’ anything. The mere mention of ‘fine art’ to me conjures a mental image of George Bellows or John Singer Sargent paintings hung in posh metropolitan art galleries.
The definition of fine art varies as much as the person asking the question. It generally refers to works produced by the artist’s own hand as opposed to copies reproduced by a machine, like a magazine or a sales brochure. Does that mean that your vacation snapshots qualify as ‘fine art’? Of course it does. Fine art merely indicates how the print was made, but not necessarily its artistic quality. The term is frequently used as a marketing tool because it sells art.
There are a few highly acclaimed photographers in the art world. Ansel Adams, Arthur Stieglitz, and Dorothea Lange have certainly made their mark as photographers and artists, but what is a true measure of success? Is it the artist’s ability to immortalize subjects from a bygone age? Is it technical brilliance? Perhaps the size of the prints that an artist has sold or the reputation of the galleries where they exhibit their work. In Internet circles, the aesthetic value of a photograph could be measured by the number of comments it draws on Flickr or Facebook. Are these artists just experiencing their 15 minutes of fame or will their images become recognizable icons of their generation enjoyed by audiences decades, or even centuries later?
Artists who rely on their work to earn a living are at a serious disadvantage over those of us who have a day job. For the professional artist, there are deadlines, fickle clients, deadbeats, unscrupulous agents, and the persistent threat of copyright infringement or outright theft. For those of us who simply enjoy creating photographs, we have the luxury of time and total freedom from market forces. We blithely snap away at subjects that we want to photograph while experimenting with different image developing processes and techniques in our free time. We don’t have to sell art to eat, but selling a print feeds our ego.
Making a respectable living producing ‘fine art’ may be one measure of success, but enjoying what you do and winning a contest or two along the way is another. If you are proud to sign your name to an image, you can claim to be a ‘fine art’ photographer. How successful you are is up to your audience.
The definition of fine art varies as much as the person asking the question. It generally refers to works produced by the artist’s own hand as opposed to copies reproduced by a machine, like a magazine or a sales brochure. Does that mean that your vacation snapshots qualify as ‘fine art’? Of course it does. Fine art merely indicates how the print was made, but not necessarily its artistic quality. The term is frequently used as a marketing tool because it sells art.
There are a few highly acclaimed photographers in the art world. Ansel Adams, Arthur Stieglitz, and Dorothea Lange have certainly made their mark as photographers and artists, but what is a true measure of success? Is it the artist’s ability to immortalize subjects from a bygone age? Is it technical brilliance? Perhaps the size of the prints that an artist has sold or the reputation of the galleries where they exhibit their work. In Internet circles, the aesthetic value of a photograph could be measured by the number of comments it draws on Flickr or Facebook. Are these artists just experiencing their 15 minutes of fame or will their images become recognizable icons of their generation enjoyed by audiences decades, or even centuries later?
Artists who rely on their work to earn a living are at a serious disadvantage over those of us who have a day job. For the professional artist, there are deadlines, fickle clients, deadbeats, unscrupulous agents, and the persistent threat of copyright infringement or outright theft. For those of us who simply enjoy creating photographs, we have the luxury of time and total freedom from market forces. We blithely snap away at subjects that we want to photograph while experimenting with different image developing processes and techniques in our free time. We don’t have to sell art to eat, but selling a print feeds our ego.
Making a respectable living producing ‘fine art’ may be one measure of success, but enjoying what you do and winning a contest or two along the way is another. If you are proud to sign your name to an image, you can claim to be a ‘fine art’ photographer. How successful you are is up to your audience.
Monochrome Is Back!
The monochrome gallery is back. I took it off the website and replaced it with Natural FX earlier this month, but I got more hits on the monochrome gallery in two weeks than I did with the new one. I spend a fair amount of time studying monochrome photographs on the web, so it just makes sense to include a monochrome gallery on Visions of Vocation.
Monochrome processing is easy to do without a lot equipment. It produces images with more natural character than color film or digital photographs. Monochrome images have shape, tone, and grain without a lot of computer post-processing. After scanning the negatives, I simply adjust the contrast, remove the dust spots, and post.
From the cheap and grainy Chinese films to the fine grain and high resolution of Ilford Pan F, each kind has its own character. In combination with different developers, developer dilutions, processing time, and temperature, a photographer has many different options without the distractions of color or the buttons and menu selections found on the camera itself. All you need is a solid 35 mm or medium format camera, a good light meter, a few prime lenses, maybe a red or yellow filter, and an understanding of the zone system. ‘Rolling your own’ with bulk film loader helps keep the costs down.
Monochrome processing is easy to do without a lot equipment. It produces images with more natural character than color film or digital photographs. Monochrome images have shape, tone, and grain without a lot of computer post-processing. After scanning the negatives, I simply adjust the contrast, remove the dust spots, and post.
From the cheap and grainy Chinese films to the fine grain and high resolution of Ilford Pan F, each kind has its own character. In combination with different developers, developer dilutions, processing time, and temperature, a photographer has many different options without the distractions of color or the buttons and menu selections found on the camera itself. All you need is a solid 35 mm or medium format camera, a good light meter, a few prime lenses, maybe a red or yellow filter, and an understanding of the zone system. ‘Rolling your own’ with bulk film loader helps keep the costs down.
Green Photography
Traditional photography, now referred to as analog, uses chemical solutions to change the latent image on film into a printable negative. Hydroquinone is the main active ingredient in black and white film developers. Acetic acid is in stop bath. The ammonium thiosulphate in fixer stabilizes the developed image while washing away excess silver compounds left on the less exposed areas of the film. With all of this chemistry entering our waste water systems, how can traditional chemical photography be considered ‘green’?
In very dilute solutions, the hydroquinone in developer decomposes in minutes. The acetic acid in stop bath is of the same kind found in orange juice or vinegar, just more concentrated. The ammonium thiosulphate and silver compounds in exhausted fixer are a different matter. With use, the silver concentration in fixer increases to the point where the fixer becomes exhausted. The silver can be recovered, refined, and reused. The ammonia thiosulphate is treated in waste water plants to remove excess nitrogen and prevent excessive algae growth in rivers and streams. If ‘analog’ photographers work responsibly, all of these chemicals can be treated and neutralized. Commercial processor technology uses color chemistry to its maximum potential. Modern hazardous waste processing later renders it environmentally safe.
Before digital photography, people kept their cameras longer than they do now. For example, a photographer who bought a Nikon FTn would use the camera for years while building an investment of lenses. New camera models were introduced every five to eight years instead of every year or two as digital cameras are today. Photographers would ‘upgrade’ to a new camera body from time to time, but they usually kept their lenses and older bodies until they wore out. Back then, any Nikon lens worked on any Nikon body. Today, photographers need to watch which lenses work with certain cameras. A Nikkor-P 105 mm f/2.5 lens built in 1968 will not function on a Nikon D200 camera. In fact, older lenses used on newer digital cameras can permanently damage them.
I can’t use my Nikkor-P 105 mm lens on my Fuji S2 Pro digital SLR, but I can use my Nikon AF-D lenses on my Nikon F. Now that’s green!
In very dilute solutions, the hydroquinone in developer decomposes in minutes. The acetic acid in stop bath is of the same kind found in orange juice or vinegar, just more concentrated. The ammonium thiosulphate and silver compounds in exhausted fixer are a different matter. With use, the silver concentration in fixer increases to the point where the fixer becomes exhausted. The silver can be recovered, refined, and reused. The ammonia thiosulphate is treated in waste water plants to remove excess nitrogen and prevent excessive algae growth in rivers and streams. If ‘analog’ photographers work responsibly, all of these chemicals can be treated and neutralized. Commercial processor technology uses color chemistry to its maximum potential. Modern hazardous waste processing later renders it environmentally safe.
Before digital photography, people kept their cameras longer than they do now. For example, a photographer who bought a Nikon FTn would use the camera for years while building an investment of lenses. New camera models were introduced every five to eight years instead of every year or two as digital cameras are today. Photographers would ‘upgrade’ to a new camera body from time to time, but they usually kept their lenses and older bodies until they wore out. Back then, any Nikon lens worked on any Nikon body. Today, photographers need to watch which lenses work with certain cameras. A Nikkor-P 105 mm f/2.5 lens built in 1968 will not function on a Nikon D200 camera. In fact, older lenses used on newer digital cameras can permanently damage them.
I can’t use my Nikkor-P 105 mm lens on my Fuji S2 Pro digital SLR, but I can use my Nikon AF-D lenses on my Nikon F. Now that’s green!
Pre-Photoshop Surrealism
There are times when an artist has to try something a little different to jar the creativity within. Edward Hopper did this often by moving between etching, painting, and sketching. He would paint portraits, landscapes, railroad scenes, restaurant interiors, houses, and even sunlight striking the interior wall in a house using pencil, pen, watercolor, and oil paint.
I am certainly no Ed Hopper, but I am finding that my narrow focus on military subjects, particularly Navy ones, is starting to feel a bit ordinary. Living in a Navy fleet concentration area, there are many military and industrial subjects to photograph, so I try to capture them in a different way.
Many digital photographers are well acquainted with software, like Adobe Photoshop, to manipulate image color, hue, sharpness, and exposure to some degree, but it can also radically change the image until it bears no resemblance to the original photograph. Artistically there is nothing wrong with this, but to me “re-photographing” digital images in this manner is more akin to the montages that I made in kindergarten with white glue and pictures cut from old Sears or Eaton’s catalogs.
I retired the Monochrome and Infrared galleries today and, in their place, created the Natural FX gallery. This is where I can place strange or unusual photographs that I made in a more traditional way. A couple of weeks ago, I took my 35 mm pinhole camera out of the closet, loaded it with a roll of Fuji Velvia 100 slide film, grabbed my tripod and light meter, and trekked out to the Bremerton waterfront.
Photographs made with a pinhole camera have a soft, ethereal quality that is hard to match with a standard lens. The camera, a teakwood box in this case, has been fitted with a thin piece of brass bored with a very small hole where the lens should be. I’m not sure of its size, but the hole is about one-hundredth of an inch in diameter. In 35 mm terms, that would be an aperture of about f/138. In broad daylight, an exposure on 100 ISO film takes about three or four seconds, hence the need for a sturdy tripod.
You never know what you will get with a pinhole camera. Sometimes it is hard to keep the camera stable on the tripod during the very manual exposure. The shutter is my fingertip. Inadvertent double exposures are common. Sometimes if the light is low, there is a significant shift away from the expected “normal” in color or hue of the finished image. Sometimes this failure of the Reciprocity Law leaves only a dark space on the film where an image should be. Exposure variations can create either unexpected beauty or an imperceptible blur. Variability can give a ‘normal’ composition a pleasing surreal quality, or just junk.
Additionally in this gallery, I placed images that I shot using a digital SLR with an R72 filter over the lens. The R72 filter blocks most visible light below the 720 nanometer wavelength and allows more near-infrared (NIR) and infrared (IR) light to strike the camera’s image sensor. This gives us a chance to see the unseen. Foliage glows brightly while concrete and steel, which reflect less infrared light, assume darker tones. The photographer can adjust the color palette of the image post-production for a general cold indigo, warm blue-green, or copper patina appearance. In any case, the image looks very different from those created by the ‘white’ visible light that our eyes see.
I’m not sure what I will try next. Whatever it may be, I’m sure that I can do it without technology getting in the way or making decisions for me.
I am certainly no Ed Hopper, but I am finding that my narrow focus on military subjects, particularly Navy ones, is starting to feel a bit ordinary. Living in a Navy fleet concentration area, there are many military and industrial subjects to photograph, so I try to capture them in a different way.
Many digital photographers are well acquainted with software, like Adobe Photoshop, to manipulate image color, hue, sharpness, and exposure to some degree, but it can also radically change the image until it bears no resemblance to the original photograph. Artistically there is nothing wrong with this, but to me “re-photographing” digital images in this manner is more akin to the montages that I made in kindergarten with white glue and pictures cut from old Sears or Eaton’s catalogs.
I retired the Monochrome and Infrared galleries today and, in their place, created the Natural FX gallery. This is where I can place strange or unusual photographs that I made in a more traditional way. A couple of weeks ago, I took my 35 mm pinhole camera out of the closet, loaded it with a roll of Fuji Velvia 100 slide film, grabbed my tripod and light meter, and trekked out to the Bremerton waterfront.
Photographs made with a pinhole camera have a soft, ethereal quality that is hard to match with a standard lens. The camera, a teakwood box in this case, has been fitted with a thin piece of brass bored with a very small hole where the lens should be. I’m not sure of its size, but the hole is about one-hundredth of an inch in diameter. In 35 mm terms, that would be an aperture of about f/138. In broad daylight, an exposure on 100 ISO film takes about three or four seconds, hence the need for a sturdy tripod.
You never know what you will get with a pinhole camera. Sometimes it is hard to keep the camera stable on the tripod during the very manual exposure. The shutter is my fingertip. Inadvertent double exposures are common. Sometimes if the light is low, there is a significant shift away from the expected “normal” in color or hue of the finished image. Sometimes this failure of the Reciprocity Law leaves only a dark space on the film where an image should be. Exposure variations can create either unexpected beauty or an imperceptible blur. Variability can give a ‘normal’ composition a pleasing surreal quality, or just junk.
Additionally in this gallery, I placed images that I shot using a digital SLR with an R72 filter over the lens. The R72 filter blocks most visible light below the 720 nanometer wavelength and allows more near-infrared (NIR) and infrared (IR) light to strike the camera’s image sensor. This gives us a chance to see the unseen. Foliage glows brightly while concrete and steel, which reflect less infrared light, assume darker tones. The photographer can adjust the color palette of the image post-production for a general cold indigo, warm blue-green, or copper patina appearance. In any case, the image looks very different from those created by the ‘white’ visible light that our eyes see.
I’m not sure what I will try next. Whatever it may be, I’m sure that I can do it without technology getting in the way or making decisions for me.
Like a Kid in a Candy Store
May 02, 2010 - 20:52 Filed in: Equipment
Yesterday, the Puget Sound Photographic Collectors Society (PSPCS) held its annual Photographic Show and Swap Meet in Puyallup, Washington. I look forward to this event all year long. Vendors and private collectors gather to buy, sell, and trade their photographic wares that range from century-old box cameras to modern professional grade digital equipment. It’s like eBay, except buyers get to look at the merchandise before money changes hands, there are no last second bidding wars, and no haggling over ‘postage and handling’. If you’re lucky, you can even win a door prize!
I wasn’t in the building five minutes when I came across a table sporting a pair of Mamiya twin lens reflex cameras. I asked how much the seller was asking for one of them, a well maintained C220f, like I was even interested. I already own a C330 and a model C330f. What on earth would I do with a third body? The camera included an 80mm f/2.8 blue dot lens and a strap. I would need to produce $90 cash to walk away with it.
Up to this point, I had never used either the C220f or the C330s. I performed the usual superficial inspection. Wind the film crank. Look in the viewfinder for cracks and the kind of gunk that can accumulate over a few decades. Cock and trip the shutter. Check out the shutter speeds, especially the slower ones. Open the camera back. Look for damage or corrosion. Check out the condition of the light seals.
But where was the door latch? The usual chrome button-shaped film door catch release wasn’t there! I pulled every knob and moved every slide and protrusion that I could find to release the film door but I just couldn’t open it. The seller was equally baffled. Most Mamiya C series TLRs have an obvious round silver catch on the top edge of the film door, which was conspicuously absent in these two models. Since the vendor was also selling a C330s with a similar film door design, I thought that I could find some leverage with technical information should I decide to take the camera home. With the seller’s permission, I took the camera from vendor to vendor looking for someone with expertise in the Mamiya C220f.
I asked four of them, including someone who looked like George Eastman himself if he were alive today, but no one could pull the sword from the stone. The fifth man was the one I was looking for. After a bit of fiddling, he discovered that by moving a spring loaded slider on the left side of the body next to the film door while depressing the film take-up spool axel knob, the film door would pop open with ease. (He later confessed that he was a camera repairman with over 20 years experience and couldn’t bear the humiliation if word got out that he couldn’t open the film door of a 35 year old camera!)
I approached the original vendor and, armed with confidence and my newfound knowledge of Mamiya TLR film doors, offered her $80 firm. Her best price was $90, but knowing that unless her next customer was profoundly familiar with Mamiya C series cameras, she would be stuck with two unsalable items. A deal was struck, and I am now the proud owner of a THIRD Mamiya TLR body and a second 80mm lens. The lens alone was worth the price!
Since my mission that day was to find 46 mm filters for my two other Mamiya TLRs, I bought a roll of Agfa Isopan ISS 200 black and white film that expired during the Johnson Administration and a roll of Kodacolor 120 film that I simply MUST expose and process. The color shift from film that is more than 30 years outdated will be a spectacle to behold, or an utter failure. I’ll have to shoot it and see for myself. While digging through bins of used filters of all colors and sizes, I bought a lens wrench, a couple of 620 film spools, and a 58mm #29 red filter for my Mamiya M645 150mm portrait lens. You never know when you will shoot a portrait of someone riddled with acne. Besides, a filter THAT red will render clear daylight skies on monochrome film practically black, which will bring out any cumulus clouds rather nicely. This filter also fits my Mamiya M645 55mm wide angle lens so I’ll have to experiment a bit, Puget Sound weather permitting.
As I was about to walk out the door, I found myself in front of a table full of Agfa Isolette viewfinder cameras. If you want the full specifications of this camera, complete with the universe of reviews written by rank amateurs, then I leave you to the Internet to continue your quest. All I can say is that the shutter appeared to open and close at 1/25, 1/50, and 1/200 second as best that my calibrated eyeballs could surmise, and the lens was still transparent. At $15, the worst that could happen was that I would have a non-functional conversation piece on my desk at my day job. This little relic of the ’50s also takes 120 format film, which saves me the step of re-rolling 120 film onto a 620 spool should I have purchased the Kodak Brownie sitting on the next table.
For less than $100, I walked out of the swap meet with a Mamiya twin lens reflex camera, a great lens, a 46mm orange filter, a 52mm R72 infrared filter for my Fuji S2 Pro digital camera, three rolls of practically worthless film, and a piece of German photographic history. I shot a roll of Ultrafine 100 Plus through my ‘new’ Mamiya C220f today and the negatives appear very printable. The film advance works as it should and the body is light-tight. I shot Fujicolor 160C film through the Agfa Isolette, so the results will be a few days forthcoming after I get it back from the processor.
All in all, a good day for someone who just can’t seem to make the great leap into the 21st century, photographically speaking. You just don’t get that kind of fun buying the latest digital gadget from a box store.
I wasn’t in the building five minutes when I came across a table sporting a pair of Mamiya twin lens reflex cameras. I asked how much the seller was asking for one of them, a well maintained C220f, like I was even interested. I already own a C330 and a model C330f. What on earth would I do with a third body? The camera included an 80mm f/2.8 blue dot lens and a strap. I would need to produce $90 cash to walk away with it.
Up to this point, I had never used either the C220f or the C330s. I performed the usual superficial inspection. Wind the film crank. Look in the viewfinder for cracks and the kind of gunk that can accumulate over a few decades. Cock and trip the shutter. Check out the shutter speeds, especially the slower ones. Open the camera back. Look for damage or corrosion. Check out the condition of the light seals.
But where was the door latch? The usual chrome button-shaped film door catch release wasn’t there! I pulled every knob and moved every slide and protrusion that I could find to release the film door but I just couldn’t open it. The seller was equally baffled. Most Mamiya C series TLRs have an obvious round silver catch on the top edge of the film door, which was conspicuously absent in these two models. Since the vendor was also selling a C330s with a similar film door design, I thought that I could find some leverage with technical information should I decide to take the camera home. With the seller’s permission, I took the camera from vendor to vendor looking for someone with expertise in the Mamiya C220f.
I asked four of them, including someone who looked like George Eastman himself if he were alive today, but no one could pull the sword from the stone. The fifth man was the one I was looking for. After a bit of fiddling, he discovered that by moving a spring loaded slider on the left side of the body next to the film door while depressing the film take-up spool axel knob, the film door would pop open with ease. (He later confessed that he was a camera repairman with over 20 years experience and couldn’t bear the humiliation if word got out that he couldn’t open the film door of a 35 year old camera!)
I approached the original vendor and, armed with confidence and my newfound knowledge of Mamiya TLR film doors, offered her $80 firm. Her best price was $90, but knowing that unless her next customer was profoundly familiar with Mamiya C series cameras, she would be stuck with two unsalable items. A deal was struck, and I am now the proud owner of a THIRD Mamiya TLR body and a second 80mm lens. The lens alone was worth the price!
Since my mission that day was to find 46 mm filters for my two other Mamiya TLRs, I bought a roll of Agfa Isopan ISS 200 black and white film that expired during the Johnson Administration and a roll of Kodacolor 120 film that I simply MUST expose and process. The color shift from film that is more than 30 years outdated will be a spectacle to behold, or an utter failure. I’ll have to shoot it and see for myself. While digging through bins of used filters of all colors and sizes, I bought a lens wrench, a couple of 620 film spools, and a 58mm #29 red filter for my Mamiya M645 150mm portrait lens. You never know when you will shoot a portrait of someone riddled with acne. Besides, a filter THAT red will render clear daylight skies on monochrome film practically black, which will bring out any cumulus clouds rather nicely. This filter also fits my Mamiya M645 55mm wide angle lens so I’ll have to experiment a bit, Puget Sound weather permitting.
As I was about to walk out the door, I found myself in front of a table full of Agfa Isolette viewfinder cameras. If you want the full specifications of this camera, complete with the universe of reviews written by rank amateurs, then I leave you to the Internet to continue your quest. All I can say is that the shutter appeared to open and close at 1/25, 1/50, and 1/200 second as best that my calibrated eyeballs could surmise, and the lens was still transparent. At $15, the worst that could happen was that I would have a non-functional conversation piece on my desk at my day job. This little relic of the ’50s also takes 120 format film, which saves me the step of re-rolling 120 film onto a 620 spool should I have purchased the Kodak Brownie sitting on the next table.
For less than $100, I walked out of the swap meet with a Mamiya twin lens reflex camera, a great lens, a 46mm orange filter, a 52mm R72 infrared filter for my Fuji S2 Pro digital camera, three rolls of practically worthless film, and a piece of German photographic history. I shot a roll of Ultrafine 100 Plus through my ‘new’ Mamiya C220f today and the negatives appear very printable. The film advance works as it should and the body is light-tight. I shot Fujicolor 160C film through the Agfa Isolette, so the results will be a few days forthcoming after I get it back from the processor.
All in all, a good day for someone who just can’t seem to make the great leap into the 21st century, photographically speaking. You just don’t get that kind of fun buying the latest digital gadget from a box store.