my life, my thoughts, my world.

I finally got around to developing a few test rolls from my Pentax 67. It works as it should. No light leaks, and it handles both 120 and 220 roll film just fine. Here’s a few samples.

Tree, Kodak Portra 160NC, 220 roll film

Christmas decorations, Kodak Portra 160NC, 220 roll film

Guitar, Fujicolor Pro 400H, 120 roll film

Bottles, Fujicolor Pro 400H, 120 roll film

This is also probably the last color film I develop at home. It may also be the last color film I bother shooting at all. Color film doesn’t do much for me. Digital does just as well there. B&W is a whole different ballgame, especially where shiny things are concerned. I’ll keep shooting B&W as long as they still make it.

Grades are all posted, gifts exchanged, and yummy food consumed. 2010 is pretty much over. I made it through all of my classes well enough to keep going after this engineering degree. Had a great Christmas dinner with my family. Got a pair of Batman PJ pants from my sister and her husband (which I promptly put on). I may now have enough pint glasses to float one of my kegs without cleaning a single glass.

Last night, when my brain would not work any more statics problems, I decided to go ahead and build a camera. A quick sketch, a trip to Wal-Mart, and some foamcore cutting got me where I needed to be. I ended up overshooting a few things, namely my focal length, but everything else works nicely. The exposure area isn’t quite 6x6cm, it’s more like 6×5.5cm but I’m fine with that.

My test roll was just for fun, and proved that if the camera is steady it takes reasonably sharp photos for something made in a single evening for about $7. I turned the take-up spool far too much between shots and only got about 5 frames to the test roll of Ilford HP5+. It seems one full turn (plus maybe a hair after the first three shots or so) is enough to advance the full width of my shooting area. There aren’t any light leaks from the back, or across the edges of my exposure area. Pointing it generally towards the sun does result in some nifty light scattering though.

The beginning of the pinhole camera

The front, with the Pepsi pinhole

Back, w/o film

Back, with film.

One of my test shots

Another test shot

One day these will end. I mean, I have to finish school eventually. Right? Tuesday I face off with Statics. Wednesday it’s Design 1. Thursday is Thermo 1. I had better pass these classes; I’m too damn old to be retaking anything.

Regardless of how my finals go, come Thursday night my cameras are going to get a workout. Lately, it seems I only shoot if I’m on vacation somewhere. I may even drive the Benz to my final on Thursday with one or more of my cameras and a tripod to do some night shots of downtown. Maybe even the new one will come out to play.

Over the break I’ll also be building a set of shelves for my printers/scanners. That’ll free up some more floor space in here, and make it easier to access pretty much everything on all three devices. While I’m at it, I’ll probably also build a pinhole camera or three just for grins.

The book on my Boston adventure has closed. I didn’t realize I’d reached the final chapter, but all good things must come to an end eventually. My previous post about my last trip to Boston had photos, and this one will too. I finished developing and scanning all of my film tonight.

Fall colors

Trees

Books

City

Torn