I packed up the Bronica and my handmade wood pinhole camera, both loaded with Kodak 160NC. I wandered around a small industrial village nearby. After shooting the roll in the pinhole, I loaded it with B&W 100 ASA el cheapo film. I’ll send the 160NC to the lab tomorrow. The Bronica only ate 1/2 of its roll.
There is now a page for images from the pinhole.
Quick hint for Graflex roll back users – remember to pull the slide ! I had a few unexposed sections of negative on the B&W roll………..
This is one from the Bronica test roll. I will be using color with this camera from now on.
Update March 2009 – I still haven’t gotten to finishing the color roll.
I started at 6:30pm and finished at 12:10am – 10 rolls. For sure, I am considering either a few more single tanks or one of those biggies that takes 4 120 films at a time. This was too long to spend standing on a concrete floor.
The one from the Bronica looks very good. The pinhole rolls will have to wait on the scanner for judgement. I did see that there are no apparent leaks in the stereo pinhole, that is good news and it will nudge me to finish up the little extras that need to be done on it.
One failure to report tho, I tried one of those stainless steel tank/reel combos and ruined one roll when the film obviously slipped out of the grooves and the chemicals didn’t reach most of the film. I did notice something, the Lucky and Shanghai brand films do not have the nice little oval opening that catches on the stainless reel’s tab as does Kodak. This made it very frustrating to get the end to stay put in the reel. The lack of the opening possibly caused the failure. The Chinese film goes in the plastic from now on.
I went downtown to my favorite camera shop and found a good deal on 10 rolls of Kodak Portra 160NC film (slightly outdated, but professionally stored) for the Bronica.
While the receipt was being written up, the owner found that she had just recently sold a Canon AV-1 I had there on consignment. Armed with some free money, I found a tripod complete with a ball mount that I believe my wife will like for her Canon 300D digital. I also picked up some dry chemicals for my planned foray to the cellar this evening to get those 120’s developed.
After I left the shop, I took the Bronica for a quick walk around the area to shoot up the B&W test roll. There is a creek, underpasses, overpasses and general shop area there. The different lighting themes will give me a good idea of the cameras personality.
Last night I spent a few hours deciding what I was going to try to accomplish during my one day trip to NYC in two weeks. The first trip I took was an eye-opener. The upstate farmboy wasn’t quite ready for the sheer size of it all. Most of the time was spent walking around trying to see as much as possible and taking very few pictures. I found a free 1 1/2 hour walking tour of the Union Square area every Saturday afternoon, so that is the main goal. Perhaps a quick run through Chinatown also.
A few years ago I purchased, entirely on a whim, a Bronica ETRS MF body and f2.8 75mm lens. Last month I happened to run across them, pushed in the back of a drawer. A little searching and I found a roll film back and righting eye-level viewer on an auction site. They arrived and today I found time to put the four together.
First problem was the roll back wouldn’t dismount. Some searching on the web and the problem was solved. A small protrusion on the dark slide that pushed on a pin to allow the body to let go was not centered, thus sliding behind the pin, rather than depressing it. A little twist with pliers and instead of going at 6 o’clock it now goes at 7:05 – reliably pressing the pin. Grabbing a roll of B&W from the freezer, I placed it on the workbench to thaw,
Second problem was the roll back wouldn’t open. I pressed the safety tab and tried to push the slide, but nothing. This is a very complicated system compared to the Graflex roll backs I am used to. After verifying in the PDF file I had from the web, I went back secure in the knowledge that it SHOULD open. Sliding a small jewelers screwdriver alongside the safety catch, I must have moved some grime or dirt aside and it opened. Tomorrow I am going to shoot a roll. This gives me 10 rolls of B&W 120 film to develop. That qualifies them for a place high up in the ‘to do’ list.
The digital pics from the Louden NH race sucked. Very drab and the P&S mini zoom wasn’t enough to get any detail. DELETE ALL/YES
