my life, my thoughts, my world.

A tripod, cable release, maybe a hair too much beer, and a charged up Vivitar 285HV can yield some interesting results. I may have to do this again in the future with a more clear (read: sober) plan for where I’m going to fire the strobe.

Long exposure at The Ginger Man - Austin

Then there’s my fence, which isn’t really showcasing anything special at all unless you consider I developed this roll in Ilford DD-X I’ve reused way more than a few times and it still came out pretty nice.

Fence

Decided to try out some T-MAX 400 at the dog park today.

Ripples

Running

She's off!

I ran a roll of Ilford Delta 100 Professional through my Isolette III. Here are a few of the results.

Oak, with an orange/red filter

Trunk

Skylar

Larkin and Abbey

Agfa Isolette III

Agfa Isolette III, 85/4.5 Apotar with a Prontor-SV shutter.

This will replace the Agfa Isolette II I successfully broke. Well, it will replace it until I fix the Isolette II and then I’ll have two awesome folding cameras.

The Prontor-SV shutter doesn’t fire as fast as the Synchro-Compur in the Isolette II, but it has two nice advantages. First, there’s actually a cable release port on the shutter body itself. Can you say fun time with double exposures? I can. Second, there’s a self-timer on this shutter. By the second hand on my wristwatch it gives me a 10-second delay.

The Isolette II has the sought-after Solinar lens, and I’ve only got the good-but-not-awesome Apotar in the Isolette III. We’ll see if it makes that much of a difference, but I bet the answer is no. I’ll be going into my closet darkroom right after I click “Publish” to get started on developing the test roll of Ilford Delta 100 Professional I ran through it in my back yard. Scans will be up tonight. I’m excited.

An assortment of film scans from my last trip to my storage unit. One photo from each of my my medium format cameras.

Velvia 100. Mamiya C3 80/2.8

Portra 400NC. Pentax 6x7 150/2.8

Ektar 100. Agfa Isolette II. Solinar 85/4.5

Photos taken with my new-to-me Agfa Isolette II yesterday during a long day on campus at the University of Houston.

Parking Garage

Building

Cougar

Bench

In keeping with my normal habits I’ve purchased yet another medium format film camera. This time I went for the folding viewfinder variety. My ability to kill Canon G9s has left me with no suitable camera to keep with me at all times, at least not one more capable than my cell phone. I wanted something with which I could set off on a motorcycle camping trip and return with high quality images. Medium format film certainly delivers the quality I’m after, and a long time before I was born there were pocket cameras that shot 120 roll film. It didn’t take me long to find one in great condition, so I bought it. Now my German car can be kept company by not only a German pistol but a German camera as well.

Carrying case

Closed

Open

Stay tuned for photos from my test roll of Ilford Delta 400 Professional.

Another cellpic set.

HWY99

Beams

Metal

Everyone’s been posting all sorts of work from Hipstamatic lately, and I needed a study break. I decided to install a similar app (FxCamera) on my HTC Aria and play in the window light for a moment. Now, why on Earth would a man with four SLRs and one TLR in the room bother taking photos with his cell phone? Because I can, mostly.

Right now I’m pondering doing something ridiculous like using my 5D Mark II for nothing but video, taking all of my digital stills with my phone, and any serious stills with one of my medium format film bodies. For now, I’ll leave you with some fake Polariods from my phone.

Blinds

Strings

Pentax 67

Study Break

This film expired (I assume that’s what the date on the box means, anyway) in 2001. A decade ago. It still looks pretty awesome. Since I do not have E-6 chemistry, I took this to AZ Photo Lab and had them develop the film for me. An $11 well spent, I think.

Each scan is straight off of my Canoscan 8800F. No curve adjustments, no levels, nothing – saved as TIFF from the scanner software, exported to smaller JPEGs by Lightroom 3 after I added metadata. I’ll just post the whole roll, since my Pentax 67 gets 10 frames to a roll of 120 film. Not everything is great, but I really like a few of them. Click and press L to see in Flickr’s lightbox.

From the start: My first color slide frame ever. Not quite as saturated as I’d hoped, but it’s overexposed about a stop and a quarter.

Frame 1

Frame 2

Frame 3

Frame 4

Frame 5

Frame 6

Frame 7

Frame 8

Frame 9

Frame 10