A Broken Camera During Lockdown

At the start of 2020 I started a personal project of shooting a roll of film each month and then I had the audacity of saying in a blog post 'how hard can it be?' well let me tell you it's definitely not easy!

If I counted up how many times over the years I've used the word 'time' in my blogs then I would use up a lot of it doing so. I'm really like a stuck record when it comes to time. Who thinks there should be a world decision to add, let's say, 6 more hours to the day? Tada! more time!

But seriously it's now the end of July and I'm only now writing about March's roll.

I've got rolls from May to scan and digitise.

And I'm not even working that much because of the...we all know what happened in 2020...but I never seem to be able to put fingers to keyboard to blog or especially film to scanner.

But now I have! It's 6.35am, Florence is crawling around the living room and Charlie is still asleep, let's blog!

March on the film front looked like this; A roll of Konica Centuria ISO 200 in my Canon T70 SLR camera fitted with a 50mm f1.8.

The camera; Canon T70, was made from 1984 (the year before my birth) and is a chunky piece of plastic with some electronic automation, which was pretty new back in 1984. Focusing was an all manual affair.
I shot a few rolls with my copy about 10 years ago when I was crazy into buying and shooting film cameras and ever since it's been waiting it's turn to be brought out of retirement again.

March 2020 was it's time but not for long.........it broke 11 frames in to the roll!
Damn!
It still works but the battery compartment hatch has crumbled and no longer closes and stays shut, not good for a camera that relies on electronics to work!

Early on in the month I thought I'd pick up on my long lost passion of scouting for vintage cameras and on day 1 I picked up a Canon EOS50e for £7.
Now this was meant to be, seriously, the day before I was looking at this camera on the net thinking that this would be good for some experiments and the next day day there's one sitting waiting in a charity shop.

So why did I want one?

Because this camera, like it's big brothers of the era had what was called 'Eye Control AF'.

What this means is that the camera has a sensor in the viewfinder that can see where your eye is looking and will choose 1 (out of 3) of the focus points for you to focus on your chosen subject.

Does that make sense?

Basically, with a pinch of salt, the camera will focus on the thing that you are looking at.

Come on that's cool!!!

So when the T70 bit the dust, I cleaned up the, new to me, 50e and put it into work.

Right that's enough camera talk, now let me bore you with chat about the film but I'll be quick.
I've got a good amount of expired film.
When film goes past it's expiration date it looses it's sensitivity and you have to account for this with your exposures; give it more light.

They say that film loses a stop of light for every decade past it's use by.

And this is where I made a proper face palm moment. My roll of Konica Centuria was UB 02/2002, basically 2 decades out of date.
For some reason in a rush of excitement to get shooting I shot this roll at ISO 100, the roll started off as ISO 200 and this has resulted in a dark set of exposures.......it should have been ISO 50.

When I was unloading the finished roll and looked at the UB to record it for this blog I asked myself 'why did you shoot it at ISO 100???'

Oh such a proper film photographer problem!

Oh well, in the future I promise to use my brain.

Ok let's talk photos.

Dark, under exposed photos!

I'm always trying to shoot a few frames of my day job on film just to compare the shots with my 'proper' digital work.

Lisa & Lucy met me in the woods for a social distanced pre wedding shoot.

I loved using the T70 for these shots, it has a bright viewfinder and manual focusing was easy.

 

Just remember that I screwed up the sensitivity calculations, so these shot's should have been much brighter.

Babies, toddlers and tired tired parents.

The good thing about the EOS 50e is that I can use my new modern decent lenses and flashes.

For a family snapshot!

When we visited Hunstanton I found that the EOS 50e has a common problem; batteries.

It seems that some batteries are a little smaller than others and therefore can move around a little inside the camera and loose connection, making the camera not work.

Don't worry though, a piece of folded paper to the rescue.

 The expressions!

 Charlie is a sod for stepping in front of the camera just at the moment of 'click'

I wanted to shoot some portraits using my studio lights and so what better way to finish off the roll.

And there we have it, another month, a broken camera and loads of dark photos.

Another successful month!

1 roll of film a month, how hard can it be!?

New years resolutions, does anyone stick to them?

I don't know if I ever have before?

But then I can't think of any that I've set before this one.

Shooting a roll of film each month isn't just a new years resolution it's a personal project, something for me to enjoy, something to not worry about, if the shots come out they come out, if the film camera breaks half way through the roll then #*^% it! That's already happened by the way.

I've got a freezer drawer full of film that I've collected over the years. Some of it is the famous AgfaVista aka Poundland film that is no more, some is black and white film long expired and among others are multi packs that stared me in the face in Holbeach Tescos a few years back and I just had to have it.

A mixture of 35mm and 120 medium format, all sitting in the cold and dark all waiting to be pulled out, defrosted and loaded up. All waiting for it's time of glory.

So yeah a roll each month, it shouldn't be too difficult. I just need to get back in the habit of carrying a camera with me where ever I go, something I haven't done for a while, apart from my iPhone, after all the best camera is the one that you have with you!

I need to get back in the habit of just shooting a few frames of things that catch my eye. Something I've not done for a long time. We live in the digital age, information and data is filling up our computers, phones and the internet every minute of the day. Why take pictures of things that aren't going to make me any money..........Why?

For the love!

Seriously, as I sit and type this blog in March I've already had 3 months of this project and on occasion I've gone for a walk and have literally shot pictures of puddles and the sun shining through shapes on the street. Walking along with camera in hand, tunes on in my headphones and a massive smile. I hadn't forgot but it really has felt like I'd forgot how much I love photography!

So back in January I shot my 1st roll, a roll of Kodak BW400CN film, loaded up in my £10 Canon EOS600 SLR.

Actually back in September I shot my 1st roll, that roll above, before I forgot about it and then really kicked my arse in to gear to carry on in January.

So in September I shot 9 frames of this 12/2006 expired black and white, colour negative, film at Richard & Lydia's wedding at The Ffolkes in Kings Lynn, Norfolk.

I remember being excited to pull the camera out and snap away whilst I was shooting their newlywed portraits in the early evening light.

It was literally heavy work as I had 3 cameras hanging off my harness; my 5d3 with 85mm, my X-pro 2 with 23mm and finally my EOS 600 with my 24-70mm, all waiting for their moment.

Then the EOS600 got packed away again, it was taken to weddings afterwards but it was either too cold or too wet to mess about with 'another' camera whilst my couple stood waiting.

Back to January and I committed to doing this, I started to carry the camera around on dog walks, family trips and sometimes just around the house.

This is where this project gets really boring and it looks like your being subjected to my family album.

I'm sorry OK but when you've got kids it's easy to finish a roll of 24 exposures on bath time, play time and bed time.

Sorry, not sorry!

Shooting with an ISO 400 film at ISO 100 makes things a little interesting when shooing in doors. It's wide open aperture or nothing.

Shooting moving children with a wide open aperture on a camera that only has a centre focus point, now that's a challenge.

And on top of that, pressing the shutter when that moving child has their eyes open, sometimes you catch a funny 'drunken' expression!

The film; Kodak BW400CN 14 years out of date, shot at ISO 100, it did great.
I love it!
It's got that film softness and grain and all the imperfections of shooting expired film on a camera made 31 years ago.

I can't wait to develop February's roll.

I'll see you soon.

Don't let images collect virtual dust.

There is a real problem with film for me. Its my usual problem but it seems to really affect my film pursuits.

Time.

That whole magic, 'you don't know what your going to get', thing for me turns into 'you won't ever know what your going to get until you develop the film that's sitting wasting away in the fridge and then collecting dust waiting to be scanned'.

The saying then continues with 'and once you've scanned them, you need to import them into Lightroom and then finally do something with the images that have taken months to materialise'.

I don't see that phrase being famous and used on posters, t-shirts etc. But I'm  sure i can't be the only person in the world who loses images in their ever expanding Lightroom catalogue. I don't lose them their well named and tagged, its more forget. I've got lots of images that i have forgotten about; whole days, whole holidays that i have never shared and have definitely not printed.

All on my lonely hard drive waiting for one big failure to happen and poof........they're gone.


So to get back on track I'm going to start with the remaining shots from a roll of Truprint 35mm.

The box speed was ISO 400 but an unknown expiration date made me think shooting at ISO 100 would be a good idea....it was.

In a previous blog post I'm sure i said how much i liked the vivid colours that i got from this roll. I continue to apart from one shot where the horrible red skin colour is just too overpowering but its important to share a failure now and then;

But now thinking about this guy might of the beetroot persuasion???

For subjects such as a local funfair the vivd colours are very fitting.

What you looking at!? 

The House on the Hill

Kings Lynn Street Art

A little Macro photography with the Tamron 90mm F2.8

 So I'm really going to try and sort my blogging out and really start to share some of the photos that have been collecting virtual dust in my Lightroom catalogue.

Stay tuned.

And i do apologise for the random image content this time. I just really like the colours from this roll.

Truprint Portraits

Occasionally I get given film and cameras.

I love it.

One of the many Kodak Brownies I've been given sits proud in my living room. It makes a great ornament.

This post is about a roll of Truprint 35mm film that was a welcomed gift from an ex work colleague.

Its been stored in my fridge for a year. Im not sure how it was stored previously; likely a kitchen drawer.

I have know idea of the expiry date but I'm guessing it would be in the 90's or the early 00's. It was labelled up as ISO 400 but because I was unsure of the life but also sure it was well beyond I shot it at ISO 100. Besides I sometimes feel that my film images can be a bit under exposed so at ISO 100 I could even be over exposing by a stop....win win!

I loaded it up the last week of March into my Canon EOS 600 SLR and headed out with Laura around Kings Lynn with a Tamron 90mm f2.8 attached. 

Plenty of available light on this bright and fresh day.

All images f/3.5.

Colours!!!

The day after we went for a walk around Sandringham woods.

All images f/4

I wish I had more of this film. Its scanned really well (since this roll I've improved my scans so these images could be better), the colours are really vibrant and all the images have come out really warm.