Analog EXIF Data

 

EXIF data is, at least in part, the camera settings used when an image was captured. Digital cameras attach this to the photo file so you can always see what f/stop, shutter speed, iso and any number of any settings were used. Film cameras don’t do this, of course, which makes it tricky when you’re trying to test one out to see how the camera is operating or how a certain film stock behaves. I’ve run across this problem lately while trying to rehab some antique cameras, particularly my 75 year old Ansco Titan. 

I’ve found a solution in the Analogbook, a handy notebook printed with spots for all the relevant data but without anything you won’t need. It’s an efficient use of page space. There are blocks for frame number, a short description, aperture, shutter speed, date/time, lens, and a block for notes. The notes block even has little icons you can circle to denote things like flash, double exposure or tripod use. The book fits perfectly in my back pocket, so it’s easy to tote around and always have handy. 

I like the idea of using pen and paper to record this info rather than my phone. It seems to me that it just keeps me in the analog mindset.

Mine is specifically for medium format and I’m probably going to get a second for 35mm.

I found the Analogbook at B&H for only $7.95. Money well spent. 

Jeffrey’s Home For Misfit Cameras

 I’ve taken to looking at Facebook Memories quite a bit lately. Seems the Plague Times have completely thrown my concept of time out the window and the Memories help me sort out what happened when. In any case, a couple weeks ago Memories told me it had been one year since I bought my first antique film camera, the Folding Brownie. And last week, on our trip back from Alabama, I found the latest addition to the collection at an antique shop on the top of a mountain. 

I never intended to be a camera collector, I bought the first one as an office decoration. But seeing how it was really a quite simple machine that should theoretically work, figuring out how to make it capture images again was fun. 

And that’s the best part of the collecting for me. Some people like the challenge of finding old cameras in the best condition and then using them to create amazing art. I’m more interested in the quirky and then finding out how it works and trying to make it the best it can be. 

The Brownie was just a matter of finding a way to make modern film work, the camera itself was performing exactly as intended even after 100 years. The Petri I bought mostly because it was a rangefinder and I wanted to try that out, it’s the least quirky I own and has become my go to if I want to make sure I get the shot. The Canon EXEE is a work in progress. I’m still shooting in different conditions and at different settings to try to noodle out why some images end up a bit foggy. Once I do, I’ll maybe look into how to fix it so it always gets a good image.

The Ansco Titan in all its glory

The latest addition is the second oldest and is another folding camera kind of like the Brownie. It’s nearly 75 years old but is in pretty good shape. With a folding camera, light leaks through the bellows is the most common issue, but this one seems fine there. The shutter seems to be firing correctly and the aperture opens and closes smoothly. But the focus is a bit off, and that needs to be addressed somehow. Thanks to YouTube, I have a plan and the proper tools are on the way. 

I’ve never been a tinker kind of guy, not mechanically inclined at all. But I have always been curious and always interested in how things, especially old things, work. These cameras are right on the edge of my comfort zone, and push it a little which is fun. The oldest ones are simply mechanical, with no electronics at all, and since there are really a limited number of operations that have to happen for a photo to be captured, I’m finding I’m able to figure them out. 

The design of this camera is just so cool. And that case! 

I’m also leaning into my general “glass half full” attitude. When I got the Brownie I was happy all the mechanical parts worked rather than frustrated that it had been decades since they made film to fit it. The Canon is fun to use despite some of the images coming out wonky, and again for a 50 year old camera, it has held up well.

Not the sharpest images, but I think we can fix that

The latest project is, as I said, 75 years old. It was made right after World War Two by an American camera company called Ansco and was the last of their cameras to be designed and produced in New York  before they moved those parts of the business to occupied Germany. So I look at it as a real piece of history, and the fact that everything but the focus is fine makes me happy. 

I’m looking forward to my tool set arriving and trying to bring this relic back to full working order. And I wonder what will have joined the collection by this time next year…..

Nostalgia & Progress: 50 Years of Walt Disney World Photo Project

 This is my first attempt at an organized, thought-out photo project, and I’m super excited to dive into it. To understand this, you’ve got to understand that I’m a Disney Geek. My family went to Disney when I was growing up quite a few times. My parents took the Lovely and Talented Lisa and I to Disney World as a graduation from college present. Lisa and I have taken John as often as we could, and have instilled a love of Disney in him as well. Disney to me is all wrapped up in the best aspects of nostalgia, but at the same time the fun of it still comes from its constant change as they push the boundaries of what is possible in immersive entertainment. But that’s getting away from the point, I was talking nostalgia.

I remember most of the trips we took to Disney well, some less well, and one not at all, because I was not quite two. Some of what has kept these earlier memories so vibrant is the photos my dad captured along the way. I have my dad to thank for much of my love for photography. He always had a camera, and he had it out at not just the “special” times, the birthdays and holidays and vacations, but at the regular times. Looking back on those photos, the ones of just random weekend car rides and everyday stuff mean the most. Most of our life is not holidays and vacations, right? He definitely took the camera on vacation, too, but he took his “regular times” eye with him, I think. There are posed photos in front of things that represent where we were of course, but there are also others that just seem kind of random. And I love them. 

Dad shot on slide film and those early slides of our earliest trips to Walt Disney World have come under my care. I’ve scanned them all, but still have a screen and projector that, as far as I know, still work. The look of slide film, and I think this was specifically Kodachrome, just says “childhood memory” to me. I went looking through these old Disney photos when we decided to make a trip for Walt Disney World’s 50th birthday. I gift to thinking how different it looked then, but at the same time how much the same. Nostalgia and Progress were in those images. 

I got to thinking it might be cool to try to recreate some of those photos, to go to the same places and seek the same angles and framing and see that mix of nostalgia and progress. But I didn’t want to step in too much as the photographer. I think that taking those photos with a modern DSLR would be just jarring, and probably say more about the change in technology over the last 50 years than the story of nostalgia and progress I’m trying to tell. So I bought a 35mm slr film camera that was made in the mid to late 60s, something that might very well have been carried by the tourists during those first years. I can’t get my hands on Kodachrome any longer, it’s not been made in over a decade, but Kodak did re-release another slide film. It’s not the same look, but slide film is distinct from negative film and I thought this would get me closest. 

I’ve gathered 15 images from dad’s collection, only two of which feature me or my mom. They are scenic shots, and some of them a bit random. I asked my dad why he was taking photos of the rest rooms on Tom Sawyer Island and he said he had no idea. But he did, and so will I. I’ve chosen images of places I am fairly certain I can get to and put myself in the same spot as dad. I’ve checked Google Earth and pinpointed as best I can where he was standing. I feel like I’m ready.

A truly epic view of the restrooms on Tom Sawyer Island, from, I think, the fort. 

That’s me in the red overalls and yellow shirt. I may have someone else shoot this and try to ride that horse again. 

I began this thinking it was a tribute to Walt Disney World. But the more I look at these photos and the more I think about it, the more it becomes a tribute to my dad. Thinking about him walking around the Magic Kingdom with my mom and little me, camera swinging on his neck, shooting things that struck him reminds me of just how much he has given to me. And when I think that just a few years before he was walking around the jungles of Southeast Asia armed with much more than a camera, well, I just hope that someday I can grow into the kind of man he is. 

I hope this works out like I’m envisioning it. It’s a little squirrelly working on film and not knowing until you get photos back from a processor what you’ve captured. But I have high hopes. I mean, it’s Walt Disney World, it’s the Magic Kingdom. I feel like Walt would approve.

One big difference will be the missing Sky Ride. 

Pinocchio Village Haus doesn’t really look any different today

Road Trip!!!!!!!

 It’s been soooooo long since we went anywhere for any length of time. We’ve done some fun day trips and we’ve been on a couple overnighters to go see the boy, but we haven’t proper been away since before The Plague Times. Tomorrow morning, though, we drop the News Hound off at Pet Camp and head to a fancy resort in Greensboro for four whole nights! It’s not quite really a vacation, though. It’s the annual conference of the North Carolina Association of Municipal Clerks, during which my lovely bride will become the new president of the Association. I’m very proud. I’m also really happy I get to tag along. Lisa will be in classes all day, so I will actually have a bit of vacation time. Naturally, I’m planning to use it to play with cameras.

We’ve been to Greensboro enough that I have a start of an idea of some things I need to see and hopefully shoot. The city has a fun little downtown area that we’ve mostly just driven through, so exploring that is high on the list. Greensboro prides itself on its green spaces, too, so I have some gardens and parks and trails on my list as well. It’s supposed to be sticky hot, but partly cloudy with just a chance of thunderstorms rolling through, so should be pretty good photography weather. And since Lisa’s classes start early, I can easily get my butt out for morning light and come back to do some magazine when the light is harsh (and it’s super hot.) That’s the plan anyway.

I’ve not been anywhere on photo safari since I began messing about with film photography, so I was’t sure what I wanted to bring. After thinking about it a it, I settled on pretty much everything. I have a good sling camera bag and also a fairly large backpack, so I have the room. I’ll leave the Brownie at home because folding it is a little iffy, but I’m bringing the Holga and the Petri 7 and the Eos R. I have the two RF lenses as well as the telephoto and the wide angle zooms. I figure I can look at the day’s weather and where I’m going and pack the sling with whatever I’ll want for that trip. Or throw the backpack in the car, who knows? But as far as cameras and lenses, I’m pretty well covered.

The Go Bag

Film left me putting in a little more thought. I’m leaving the slide fil at home because that’s for my Disney Project and I’m not confident about being able to replace any that i would use in Greensboro. The medium format film for the Holga was pretty easy as well. I’m taking three rolls each of Tri-X 400 and Lomo 400, that way I’ll have both color and black and white. I’m thinking it might be fun to load the Holga with color and the Petri with B&W or vice versa, so I always have both as options. That means I’m able to bring some pretty funky 35mm film. I have my Washi “S” 50 ISO sound recording film as well as both the 50D and 500T Vision3 Kodak film stocks from Film Photography Project. I’m also packing a couple rolls of the tried and true Gold 200 as well as two rolls of the very normal but new to me ProImage 100. 

I think that gives me a wide variety of film speeds in both color and monochrome for the Petri. I’m expecting lots of light, so the low ISO stuff should work well, especially in the urban areas. I can go to the 200 for the shady spots in the woods if I end up there. That’s the plan anyway. 

I’m hoping to have the chance to branch out a bit with my subject matter. Not only is it a new city, but it’s also much more urban than even Wilmington, so should offer a different style of shooting than I’m used to here at the beach. If there are people around, I could try some street photography. We’ll see if I get up the nerve. Maybe shooting strangers won’t seem so weird in a city. We shall see. 

And I’ll also always have the mirrorless Eos R with all its bells and whistles and options and a  big pile of memory cards to go along with it. 

I’m looking forward to spending some time just focusing on photography (heh, see what I did there). If all goes well, I’ll be busy in Jeff’s FotoMat and on the computer when we get back. And let’s be honest, this is a dry run for the Disney trip, so any lessons learned will be valuable. It’s all very exciting :-)

Funky Film

One of the most fun parts of film photography is getting to try out different films. Traditional films each have their own special look, but with the huge reduction in film production, the film shooter community has gotten creative, using found stashes of expired films and even films not entirely meant to be run through a still camera. I have three of these oddball stocks in my collection now and I’m looking for just the right use for each.

The most normal one is a roll of the Film Photography Project’s Retrochrome 400. This is government surplus 400 speed Kodak Ektachrome color positive (slide) film that expired in 2004. They say it performs perfectly well still so they’re pretty sure it was in some sort of deep freeze for the last 15-some years. I’ll probably save this for my  little project I have coming up in the fall that I’ve not written about yet. Soon. Oh, and those two other rolls of Ektachrome 100? They’re for the project as well. Stuff is becoming hard to come by and I wanted to make sure I had enough.

I’m also sitting on a roll of the Film Photography Project’s X-2, made from Eastman’s Double X black and white motion picture film. This is the film stock used to shoot Raging Bull, but hand-rolled into recycled 35mm film canisters. It’s a 200 ISO film, so it will have a pretty wide latitude. I might try shooting this one inside so I can open up my lens wider than I’m able to outside with 200 speed film. 

The last funky film is, I think, the funkiest. It was also purchased from the Film Photography Project but produced by some folks called Washi. They make a series of films at a variety of ISO’s and this one is called Washi “S” and the “S” is for sound. That’s because it was made to record audio, not images. Apparently, recording on 35mm film was the high fidelity thing back in the day, to the extent that several of Frank Sinatra’s albums bragged about being recording on film. It’s a 50 ISO black and white film, which will be great in my camera outside. The folks at FPP say it’s super high contrast and very low grain. Aside from outside, I’m not sure what I’ll shoot with this one. 

I have my eye on some other non-traditional films, such as a few other motion picture films, a still camera film made for security cameras and one made for high altitude surveillance photography. One of the rewards of getting comfortable developing at home is that I feel confident trying these other stocks, and since the cost of processing is so small, I don’t feel bad spending a few bucks on a film that may or not give me anything worthwhile.