The idea of developing my own film left me wanting to try out some 35mm as well as messing around with the old Brownie. I mean, if I can develop it myself, and scan it in easily enough, I might as well. So I dug into the closet and pulled out the Vivitar V2000 my parents gave me as a high school graduation gift. This is the camera that served me well through my college Photojournalism class and the camera that took all our pictures of John as a little guy. The negatives I’ve been practicing my camera-based scanning on came from this camera. It’s not fancy, it’s the basic camera from a company that wasn’t at all known for cameras, but it holds a lot of memories for us.
I’m starting out with black and white developing so I ordered two roll so B&W film to try out. I looked on B&H and found the cheapest roll I could find and ordered it up and then found Kodak TMax, a step up in quality from the Tri-X I put in the Brownie.
The cheap film is called Fomapan profi line Action and it’s a 400 speed ISO made by a Czech company called Foma Bohemia Ltd with a history in film going back 100 years. THey claim their film to be fine grain and perfect for all-around uses. The Kodak TMax I got is 100 speed and promises “the finest grain”, so we shall see.
The camera itself is, as I said, very basic. It has a light meter, a little red plus or minus or green circle that light up to tell you if you’re over, under, or properly exposed. I’m not sure how well it works. It’s the only part of the camera dependent on the battery and I can’t remember ever putting a new battery in. It lights up still, though. The lens is a 35-70mm zoom that claims macro capability. The glass is clean and the shutter seems to be working right. LAst I used it it worked just fine and I have no reason to believe anything has changed.
This past weekend we met some friends at Brunswick Town historic site near here and I shoot the roll of Foma since it was a cloudy, overcast day. It took longer than I thought to go through the 24 frames. In the same place under the same circumstances I’d have taken probably more than 50 photos with the digital camera, but knowing i only had 24 frames, i was more choosy and it led me to leaving Brunswick Town with a few shoots left. We went up the road a I shot an old home off the side of the highway and then ran through the rest at the park while walking the dog after we got home.
I apparently hadn’t rolled the film all the way back into its canister so I exposed some of the roll where I opened the camera to take it out. No huge loss as I was just testing the camera and mostly seeing if I could still develop film well. I do need to learn to be more careful and get a better feel for when the film is all rolled up, both on this camera and the Brownie. Thus far, I’m lousy at that part.
Hopefully the developer and PAtterson tank arrive today and I can open my Stites Fotomat soon!
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