A trip with Trip junior

A few days ago, found an old Olympus Trip junior and decided to try it out. The Olympus Trip Junior is probably the cheapest and simplest camera I have ever used on this blog, I payed the equivalent of about 2 euros for it in so-called unknown condition. My test before buying it was putting batteries in it and listen for the advance and shutter if they both worked. They did and I bought ut.

The Olympus Trip Junior is a very simple camera. It is a point and shoot camera with a fixed focal length of 33mm and a shutter button. It also has a flash and three different ISO-settings 100, 200 and 400 ISO. From my first experiment with this camera the exposures were a bit inconsistent so I am not sure whether the ISO markings are mainly aimed at the flash or if it does indeed have different shutter speeds or apertures. Not having been able to find any manuals for this camera, my guess is that it has a fixed aperture of about f8 or f11 focusing at about 4 meters, and that it has one shutter speed of about 1/80. These are just my guesses, and should not be taken as facts.

My Olympus Trip Junior from this outing.

For my first trip with this camera, I chose to do something along the lines of my most recent project, stopping at locations I usually drive past. Now, I have shot many shoots at the old abandoned train station at Fall in Søndre Land in Norway, however, this abandoned piece of railway has more stations and even a walking path along it. So this time, I went to a different station that I have previously never seen. Trevatn. Not knowing how well the camera worked or how indeed it worked, I decided to go with a film of about 200 ISO. Ilford FP4 shot at 200. I chose this because I just guessed that if it was such at a setting it would likely be at 200, as it was the most popular film speed for hobby users when the camera was new.

Approaching Trevatn Station – Olympus Trip Junior – Ilford FP4+ @200 – Adox FX39 II 1+9

Since I was uncertain how this film would turn out, and if the exposures would be correct, I decided to play it safe and slightly over-develop. I found a time of 7 minutes 30 for FP4+ at 200 on the massive dev chart, and I chose to not make any corrections for it when using a rotary processor. This means that the film was likely pushed to about 320 if not 400 ISO in development. I chose to use Adox FX39 II as my developer as this is a developer I have found to like quite a lot lately. I like how it looks with FP4 as you can see here.

Overall, I think the images turned out very well. I expected the camera to give some severe light leaks, but I couldn’t find any traces of leaking at all. This surprises me, as the film door seemed rather flimsy. But somehow, the light seals must be very good. even when the door isn’t firm.

The lens does what I would expect a point and shoot lens to do, It gives a reasonably sharp image with a bit of character to it. I find it quite good and very much enjoyable to play with. I might bring this camera along with me on some trips in the future just to do some happy-snapping.

The images are camera scanned using the Valoi easy 35-system and a Fujifilm X-T3 camera.

My first encounter with Ilford SFX200

I have tried many different films through my time of experimenting with analog photography, but there is one film that I have looked at at the back of my fridge for quite some years. That film is the two rolls of SFX200, a black and white film with an extended sensitivity to reds. A so-called near infrared film. Now, I do like the look of near-infrared photography, and how it has the potential to lift a sunny day into something more abstract and effect full. In my previous dabbling with this type of photography, I have always defaulted to Rollei IR, but I have had some unfortunate situations with that film having mottling and other imperfections that have sadly ruined quite a few shoots for me. Maybe SFX200 is better?

Löfberg factory in Karlstad Sweden – Olympus OM-1 with 50mm Zuiko f1.8. Ilford SFX200 Ordinal 1+25

I have read a bit about this film and I have understood that it is considered a rather grainy film. I do agree with this assessment, however, I see a vast difference in the graininess of this film between it being correctly exposed or not. A correctly exposed frame has a far more delicate and less clumpy grain feeling than a poorly exposed one. To embrace the grain a bit, I chose to develop these two films using Rodinal 1+25. My development was 5 minutes continuous agitation with the AGO-processor. The films came out perfectly developed and it really highlights how different this film feels at different levels of exposure.

The first of these two rolls were shot last summer in Karlstad. This film was mainly shot at its IR-capacity with a 720-filter. The film was shot with an Olympus OM-1 with a standard 50mm Zuiko lens. I shot different locations, and I did some bracketing to make sure I had a decent exposure. I’ll add one shot here of some metal parts at a water lock in Karlstad. I just love how metal looks on black and white film developed in Rodinal.

Water Lock in Karlstad Sweden – Olympus OM-1 with 50mm Zuiko f1.8. Ilford SFX200 Ordinal 1+25

Here are some other shots from the first roll shot in the Olympus

For the second roll, I decided to try using it more or less as a normal black and white film. I chose to use my Nikon F80 camera with a Tamron zoom lens 70-300mm. This being a lot more modern set-up with a relatively modern lens, I chose to go for photographing birds by the lake Mjøsa. I know a place where there are a lot of seagulls sitting on light posts and guarding their territories. I chose this as my location to test out the second roll as a normal black and white film.

Seagulls by Mjøsa – Nikon F80 with Tamron 70-300 f4 – f5.6 – Ilford SFX200 Rodinal 1+25

To be honest, I don’t really see any difference in these images as to why I would shoot SFX200 as a normal black and white film. I would get the same results with HP5. That said, I do like how it looks and how the image above turned out. The flying seagull makes it work for me.

As a conclusion I can say that I absolutely love this film as a near-infrared film. I think it seems to be a more reliable emulsion than the Rollei films and I don’t see any major imperfections in it. Yes, it is grainy, but I like the way that grain looks and I even like it in Rodinal. As a normal black and white film however, I would rather shoot HP5, which both has a higher speed and is a tad less grainy.

Thank you for reading.

When you mess up development

I haven’t written a post here in a while because of different circumstances. Moving houses and other life changes have taken a lot of time and I had to prioritize those things over blogging. This summer and autumn, however, I have made myself a project called «Stopping where you usually wouldn’t». In this project, I am exploring the places I drive past on a regular basis. Instead of driving past them, I am going to stop and search for something that catches my eye.

Today, I went out for the first round of these trips. I drove towards where my old house was, and stopped about a kilometer before I arrived there, on a little parking place next to the road. A place mainly used by farmers who have grazing sheep in the area. Today, I made my stop. After some searching, I found a composition. A piece of a tiny stream where I saw a fence pole reflecting in the water crossed by a little log that had fallen into the stream. A few rocks in the background. I tried a few shots of the composition and went back to develop the film.

My film om choice this time was a roll of Kentmere 100 that I shot using the Hasselblad. I have not really used Kentmere 100 that much, but I had one in the fridge so I figured why not. When developing, I chose to go with Adox FX39 II. A developer I have used with students in an enrichment course on analog photography. The bottle was opened in late April, and had turned slightly brown-ish, but not worse than I have seen before. I figured it was fine… Which was a mistake. When I took the roll out of the tank I immediately realized that this developer was dead. The negatives were insanely thin and I managed to save only one of the images, the most over exposed one, shot at f2.8, making it a bit soft.

I wish I had used a different developer for this process, but it is a bit too late to change it now, I guess. I’m here presenting you with the result of me completely screwing up the development. Adox FX39 II is a great developer, the Kentmere is a lovely film, this one is 100% on me.

I do like the composition here, but I wish I had more information to go on in making this image. I might have to go and reshoot this location at some point. I am impressed on how much I could retrieve though, the Kentmere 100 must be a pretty decent film with this developer on a regular situation with a functioning developer. My process this time was 8 minutes 30 seconds continuous agitation using the AGO-processor.

I also see that I need to have a look at this film back, as the roll has consistent streaking.

I hope my next entry will show more of a success!

Thank you for reading!

Two rolls of Ferrania Solaris

I have been interested in photography since I was a very young boy. I remember back when I got my first camera, an old Ricoh Point and Shoot camera, how I would walk around and try to find things that I could photograph. Cars, People, animals, buildings… Anything really. In what I think must have been 2002 I got my first own SLR camera as a gift from my uncle who was a journalist. The camera was a Nikon F60. This camera is sadly faulty now, and fixing it would cost more than the camera is worth.

Around the same time, 2003 or 2004, I went to Italy for a summer holiday with my family. Back then, I was a young aspiring photographer who was part of a photography club in my local town of Gjøvik in Norway. On this trip to Italy, I came across a film stock that I had never heard of, and obviously, I bought some rolls and tried it out. The film in question is the Ferrania Solaris 200. A consumer grade film with a lovely lush and vibrant color palette and maybe a bit more grain than other films I had tried. I absolutely loved the results I had on my rolls that I had developed in Italy and on my way home, I picked up a 3pk of Ferrania Solaris 200 on the Airport. I can still remember finding it very cheaply at Ciampino Airport. I bought them without thinking about anything else. Only once I came home, and put one in the camera and went shooting, I figured that the films only had 12 frames. Which to me back then was nothing. I would see that differently today. I was very disappointed and forgot the two last rolls in the basement. I found them when tidying up there this summer. Expired in 2008, stored in a heated basement since 2003 or 2004. What could possibly go wrong here?

Since I had two rolls, I decided to use them differently. One of them, I decided to treat as I would normally with expired film, overexpose by 1 stop pr decade, meaning I shot this one at ISO 50. The camera I chose, the Olympus OM-1, does not have half or thirds of stops as an alternative, so metering at something like 64 doesn’t really make much of a difference to shooting at 50. Since I was already going a trip down memory lane with the choice of film, I also chose to go to a location that to me is filled with memories. The local petrol station that was recently closed down. To me, this was a place to go and buy ice cream as a child, and I do remember being sent there by my father to buy the news paper back in the days. I bought an ice cream that was too expensive and couldn’t afford the news paper and had to go back and beg for more money. A bit embarrassing to say the least. Anyway. This was my choice of location because of its vibrant Circle K colors. The evening was bright and warm and I got those Ferrania colors that I remembered from my rolls in Italy.

I had two frames left and decided to just photograph a tree by the lake, before I went on to the other film. I managed to capture some cyclists passing the tree, which made for some lovely motion blur.

Motion Blur and tree – Olympus OM-1 with Zuiko 50mm f1.8 – Ferrania Solaris 200@50 (expired 2008) Developed by Oslo Foto

For the second film, I decided to experiment a bit. Since the film is rather sensitive to blue and has a relatively light base, I decided to attempt red-scaling it. I mean, when you’re already shooting at ISO 50 with a tripod you can easily compensate three extra stops for red-scaling.

Now, I like the look of red-scaled film. I think it gives a level of abstraction that makes «boring» conditions more interesting. However, I do prefer to compensate three stops because it gives some light to the blue layer, making the blues visible. To me, this gives a more interesting effect than shooting the film for red and black images.

Depending on how well I hit the exposure, the film did really well in red-scale. I like how the warmth of the film shines through and makes it look like a slightly tilted color palette, and not just black and red. The middle photo was slightly under exposed and had more reds in it.

Overall, I find it a bit sad that this film is off the market now. It was a lovely film and I would love to still have it in my arsenal.

Expired slide-film

I am usually not a big user of slide film. I have shot some rolls in the past, but due to both cost and availability, I have not really gone deep into the positive films. In this entry, however, I am shooting slide film. And not just any slide film, I am shooting a roll of Provia 400F that expired in 2002. 23 years ago. I’ve obviously heard the warnings about shooting expired slide film and how temperamental it can be, but the guy I got this film from claimed that it had been stored in a freezer for most of its life. Hence I took the risk.

A Norwegian flag on a very Norwegian location. Hasselblad 500C with 80mm planar – Fujifilm Provia 400F expired 2002

I decided to use a reliable camera which gives me a great deal of control. My Hasselblad 500C. A camera that I absolutely love to use. I chose the most Norwegian of locations I could come up with. Kalven Sæter around Lemonsjø in Vågå Kommune. The day was mainly overcast with some rays of sun, and I chose to double my shots, to make sure I got the best results. I shot one frame at box speed and one shot a stop over. Overall, the box-speed shots came out best.

I’ve heard all those horrible stories about severe color casts etc, but with this roll, I seem to have been lucky. I got a slight cast towards magenta, but nothing I couldn’t deal with in post. The images came out very sharp and slightly green-cold tinted as I would expect from Fujifilm. I do miss Fujifilms colors in the market these days. It was one of my favorite film brands to use.

Overall, I am impressed with how this film turned out. The development in E-6 was done by Stavanger Foto, and they also scanned the film. I have been very happy with them for development before and they did not disappoint this time either. The slides and scans came out great.

Would I recommend anyone shooting old expired slide film? Probably not, but I mean, why not? As an experiment it is good fun to have some slides lying around. They look magical and the new films are far too expensive to shoot a lot of.

Working with long lenses

One of the things I have been working with lately, is familiarizing myself with long super-tele lenses. I recently found and picked up a Vivitar 400mm lens for my Olympus OM-system and I also have a 75-300mm Tamron Zoom lens for my Nikon F-system. I have used the Tamron a little, but I have never explored it on the longest setting. For that reason, I decided to make this a project. I shot three different films. A Kodak ProImage 100, an expired Colorama 200 and a roll of Kentmere 100. The ones in-date were shot in the Olympus and the Colorama in the Nikon.

I first went out on an evening outing with the 400mm Vivitar. I shot a roll of Kodak ProImage that I had lab-developed my OsloFoto. I shot most of the shots on a tripod using a cable release. The lens is so long it cannot be safely hand helt by the camera without risks at the low shutter speeds I had to use. It was inspiring seeing how much was now suddenly a possible picture and seeing how I now had to think composition in a very different way.

Olympus OM-1 + Vivitar 400mm f5.6 – Kodak ProImage 100

I started looking for things that would usually not work as compositions. Like the top of the electrical masts at the location and some people out fishing in the lovely weather.

I then figured that a long lense like this would most likely produce a lovely bokeh and I chose to see if I could get some lovely macroesc shots of plants and flowers. The Bokeh is silky and looks really nice to my eyes.

My next experiment was keeping a roll of expired Colorama 200. A consumer grade film made in the EU. My guess based on the colors is that we are talking about a repackaged Agfa Vista 200, but the film is expired and it is difficult to know what is attributes to the film and what is degradation over time. The film is 20 years expired and was shot at ISO 50. I managed to shoot it decently hand held on my Nikon F80 and I got a few interesting shots from this combination as well. My main focus for this film was some cows grazing in a field next to where I live. I made these shots when I was out strolling with my little daughter trying to get her to nap.

For the last outing I also shot some images with the 50mm f1.8 because I went to an interesting location I have visited a few times before.

The images above are shot with the 50mm lens and a yellow filter for contrast. I didn’t find the same luck on this outing with the longer lens, and I have to go for another outing with black and white. These images are shot with the Olympus OM1 and a roll of Kentmere 100. I developed it myself with Adox Atomal 49. A fine grain developer that I have found to be fantastic. It has a bad reputation for being highly toxic, but so are most developers anyway. Considering that the SDS-sheets we look at are referring to the powder and not the stock of working solutions, I would argue that most developers are stock and working strength are reasonably safe when taking proper precautions. I always use gloves, eye protection and a dust mask when mixing the solutions. I also use gloves and eye protection when developing with a liquid solution.

My favorite image from the 400mm on this trip is this little spruce.

Olympus OM-1 – Kentmere 100 – Adox Atomal 49 1+1

I have truly enjoyed working with this project and I will keep working on my long-lens skills. You might see more here in the coming months.

Playing with lamp posts

Some days ago, while driving home I realized that there are a plethora of different types of lamp posts in my local area. Different both in design, placement and light source. I decided to spend a roll of Kodak Tri-X, a film I rarely use, to play with the lamp post and a red filter for contrast. I had never tried using a red filter in different conditions before, and I decided to just leave it on regardless if the lighting conditions changed from sunny to overcast. This turned out to be a mistake and some of the shots did not come out well. However, the well exposed turned out very nice.

Canon T70 – Kodak Tri-X 400 – 510 Pyro 1+100 semi-stand

To take these images, I had to look up into the sky, hence my idea to use a red filter for the backgrounds. I like how the sky and the contrast to the light post turned out. I see little bit of evidence of dust inside the camera house, which I will have to figure out at a later point.

This roll was also the first roll I developed using 510 Pyro, a developer I had heard so much about but never really tried. I bought a bottle that I will be trying out over the coming months. The concentrate is a bit gloopy, but not anything I haven’t seen from HC110 in earlier developments. All in all, I am very happy with the results. The grain is surprisingly fine on the well exposed negatives, and obviously more prominent on the underexposed negatives. This is my fault entirely.

A seagull started to dive towards me at one point. I like how the grain makes this image more active.

Testing a Minolta X700

First of all, I need to apologize for my long absence from this blog. I have not posted anything since September of 2021 when I tested a beast of an Olympus camera. The reason for my long absence is the loss of a loved one, my dear sister who passed away on October 2021 just 28 years old.

I was a bit unsure on how to reappear on this blog, but the opportunity came to me through a colleague who presented me with a Minolta X700 with three different lenses. She said it had worked when she last used it in the early 2000s, but that it had been sat in a storage somewhere in Canada where she is from. I gave it some new batteries and cleaned some contacts, attached a 24mm lens and off I went.

It was a bright and sunny winters day in the eastern innlands in Norway, and I went to Kråkvika and Fall railway station for the test. In the camera was a bulk rolled Agfa APX 100 film, a film I have struggled with previously, but I figured that it would suffice for the purpose of trying a camera in bright sunshine if I chose subjects that stands our by themselves.

Minolta X700 w 24mm Minolta lens. Agfa APX100 Rodinal 1/100 Stand

The images you see in this entry are unedited. They are just scanned with a Epson V600 scanner and simple Epson software as it is only meant for a test. I chose to go with Rodinal stand development for this outing because I have found it to work the best with the Agfa film I am working with at this point.

The shooting experience with the Minolta is very nice. I like the way it sits in the hand without being too heavy or too light. It seems to be without any light leaks and to be very well kept and maintained. The viewfinder is big and bright and it makes focusing very easy as opposed to other cameras I have tried where the viewfinder is dark and also somewhat scratched from many years of use. I also like the way the lenses attach to the camera and how sharp they are.

Shooting the beast

Sometimes you are really lucky. A few weeks ago, I signed up for the news-letter from a Youtube-channel run by a Canadian photographer named Azreal Knight. If you have not heard about his channel, you should really check it out. A lot of interesting content about analog photography. By signing up to this news letter, I also entered into a little «lottery» or whatever you would call it, and I won. When the price arrived, the box was rather big and I was curious what was in the box.

The content of the box was: One roll of Ilford HP5 plus, one roll of Kodak Gold 200, a selection of stickers, a really cool box-set of darkroom prints of the best Azreal Knight images of 2020… AND… A weird and huge BEAST of a 35mm camera. An Olympus iS-1.

This camera did not make sense to me at all when I first held it in my hand. It was huge and bulky, heavier than my Hasselblad 500C, has a plastic feel to it and the design is best described with the word hideous. At the same time, I am a big fan of Olympus and their lenses never let me down, so I was curious to try it out.

Loading the camera was actually rather fiddly. The take up spool is in the back-door of the camera, in a purpose built box on the back making up most of the bulky design of the back side of the camera. This sounds like a great idea as you would not ruin your whole roll if you should be unlucky and open the back door mid-roll. At the same time, getting the film to load properly is difficult because the motion of closing the door makes the film curl up and away from the take-up spool.

A tree – Olympus iS-1 – Ilford HP5 plus – Ilford ID-11 1+1

In use, the camera is an interesting experience. Even though I don’t really feel that this is a camera for me, I did enjoy using it. Not to be mistaken, there are a lot of small problems with this camera that I find to be very annoying, but using it is very different from using any kind of SLR og PaS-camera I have ever used. This belongs somewhere in the middle from my understanding.

First of all, the camera is heavy and bulky and does not really fit my hand very well. Especially the part about the ergonomics I fear would make me not bring the camera along.

Second, the camera has one of the slowest and least precise AF-systems I have used in a long time, and focusing it manually is fiddly and difficult as well. I ended up doubling and sometimes tripling the shots on many occasions to be sure I had something usable at least.

Third, due to its size and weight, this camera is difficult to hand-hold even at shutter speeds around 1/100, and many of my images shows severe camera shake. Even images I know were shot at 1/100 and above.

On the positive side, I must say that the lens is its Olympus name worthy. It performs very well both on its widest and longest settings and the when the AF hits it seems to be a very sharp lens.

As you can see through the images and their captions, I went for Ilford HP5-plus for my test this time. I actually used the roll that came with the camera. This is a film I use often and that I find works very well with the conditions like what I had on this day. Overcast with a bit of rain. I find that this film adds an extra element of texture to the images in a very nice way with its grain-structure which is visible, but pleasing. Even in 35mm shooting.

Olympus iS-1 – Ilford HP5 plus – Ilford ID-11 1+1

The derelict hut

Over the last year, I have noticed an old wooden hut, standing on its own in a chopping-field a short distance from Gjøvik. The hut in itself is not really that beautiful to look at anymore. The roof has fallen down and the wood looks withered and dry. It would need significantly more than a lick of paint to make it shine once again. All the times I have driven past it or seen it when out walking, it has not worked because of the weather. I have pictured it to work well on a overcast and preferably misty day on black and white film. Today was the day that I would finally go for it and try this old hut, that I for my own amusement has named «Jabba». It is a bit amusing to tell yourself to go out shooting Jabba the Hut.

I rolled up the Hasselblad 500C with a roll of Kodak Tri-X 400 and brought with me a selection of filters, including yellow, orange and red, and I set off into the misty and drizzly morning. I found the hut in its usual condition, rather tatty and derelict, but this time, there was some mist in the background, creating a more interesting atmosphere around it. The scene itself is a bit messy and overgrown after a very lush summer, but the mist made it work.

My first frame of the day – Hasselblad 500C – Kodak Tri-X – No filters – Ilfotec ID-11 1+1

I decided to try the compositions in different ways with different filters, partly just to see what they would do to a scene like this. Especially, I was curious to what the red filter would do in conditions like these, and hence, I tried different approaches to learn a bit more about my filters. My pack of filters is rather inexpensive and are just plastic filters. At some point, I will upgrade my collection of filters, but not for this trip.

Trying again at Jabba – Hasselblad 500C – Kodak Tri-X – Orange filter – Ilfotec ID-11 1+1

Based on my rather limited access to the hut, as it stands in a rather difficult area to move around, I only made two different compositions this time. One straight on and one from the side. I did the latter without filter and with all three colors I brought – Yellow, Orange and red – and I must say that the results were a bit different than I thought. I expected that the red filter would give me deeper contrasts than the yellow, but actually, my results pointed in the different direction. That the yellow filter actually gave me much punchier images than the red, and the one without any filters gave me the best results.

What I see that the red filter does, and also to some extent the orange, is brightening up the greens and making the trees in the background brighter. For future reference, I will probably leave the two darkest filters at home for these days, but I do think it was worth the try.

Yellow – Orange – Red – No filter – Hasselblad 500C – Kodak Tri-X – Ilfotec ID-11 1+1

Another reflection I have after this shoot is that I remember why I have stopped using Tri-X and other Kodak-films for my images. At least to some extent. Their tendency to curl when trying after development is very annoying and makes it very difficult tu both scan and print them in the darkroom. I have not had this issue with ILFORD-films and since I really do not see any difference between Tri-X and HP5 at box speed, I usually save the Tri-X for the difficult lighting conditions where I have to push the film, as I see Tri-X to be a better push-film.