goinganalogue

OK, its been a few weeks since my first batch of negatives came back. Being a tight arse at times, I decided that I didn’t want to pay for Vision Image Lab (where I had the films developed) to scan the negatives – $15 to develop a roll, $15 to scan…it was sort of going to add up. So I decided to find a reasonable scanner and scan them myself.

Talk about opening up a can of worms! The whole scanning thing is a whole other world (which I feel I’ll get sucked into)…I’m trying to only dip my toe in it at the moment…just doing what will give me decent results with a minimum of effort.

So the scanner I bought is a Canon CanoScan 9000F, and I’m impressed so far. It has negative/film/slide holders to cater for 35mm and 120 film, and the results are impressive. I toyed with the bundled software for a bit, but instead chose to use VueScan…much more customisable, being able to set levels (black & white point) and adjust curves to get a decent image is a godsend.

So what have I learned from the shots I’ve taken? Shooting with the Brownie is tricky…all the old brownie images I’ve seen which are very soft aren’t necessarily due to the camera, or the film, or the age…holding it at waist level and pushing the button on the side, in effect pushing the camera sideways is going to induce a degree of blur. The best results I got with it were when I sat it down on a stable surface, held it tight and pushed. Waist level was a bit hit and miss, and to be honest, I didn’t use any method to judge exposure, and took a fair few “bulb” mode shots without a tripod and guestimated the shutter speed needed.

Still I’m happy with the results in general.

The Rollei on the other hand produced much more consistent results, and although I’ve still got to fine tune my technique, I can see the potential and am enjoying shooting with it.

I’ve already got another 10 rolls to send off to be developed…

The Brownie shots are the rectangular ones, the Rollei ones are square…no photoshopping done….just levels and curves…haven’t touched any spots or dust…if you want to see the images at full size or any of my digital stuff, my flickr account is here – http://www.flickr.com/photos/spoungeworthy/

Well my Rolleiflex finally arrived…and after taking it out of the box my first impression was “Wow”…it really is a thing of beauty. It’s compact, yet moderately heavy, and just in holding it you know that you’re holding something well made. And considering its almost 70 years old its in remarkably good condition. I’m smitten.

The leather and the aluminium (?) all still look great, and the knobs all turn smoothly and consistently. Upon opening the focussing hood and looking through the viewfinder for the first time, I’m surprised by the sharpness of the screen. Even without using the focussing magnifier it’s easy to tell where the focus is aimed. The image in the  focussing screen is still reversed, as in the Brownie, and will take some getting used to when framing shots.

The aperture and shutter speed knobs are on the front of the camera to the side of the lenses, and the focussing knob is on the left side of the camera. Everything is very well laid out.

There’s a self timer on the front of the camera, as well as a shutter lock and a cable release socket. All good. This model hasn’t got a light meter, so I have to decide on the exposure using my old light meter and/or my iphone app LightMeter (they yield fairly similar results in the tests I’ve done).

Aperture on this model ranges from f3.5 to f22, shutter speeds from B, 1 second to 1/500th of a second.

I’ve shot 2 rolls of TMax 400, and I’m currently halfway through a roll of Provia 100. I’ll send them (along with 7 rolls of Brownie film) off for processing this week – I’ve decided to postpone self developing until after I get back from my holiday to New Zealand in a few weeks.

The only minor issue with it, and it is minor, is that it hasn’t got a standard size tripod socket – its a lot larger than normal tripods, so I’ve been back to eBay to buy the Rolleifix quick release tripod adaptor – $50, thanks very much. But its a necessity. As is the filter kit that came with the camera, consisting of 2 close up lenses, a UV filter, a red, green, yellow and blue filter, along with a lens hood.

In fact for a 70 year old camera, the range of accessories you can buy its quite astounding. Pistol grips, mirrored lens caps (a definite purchase at some point), longer viewing hoods, different focusing screens…the camera is reasonably customisable. New original straps with the alligator clips are very expensive – $200+.

Taking pics with it is very straightforward. The shutter release is on the front at the bottom, and with the strap around your neck and the camera on your chest it feels really stable – I guess the proof will be in the pics when they’re developed.

As soon as I’ve got prints back I’ll post them here.