Going slightly panoramic with Agfa APX 100

Over the last couple of weeks, I have done a lot of testing, trial and error of the cheapest film on the European market. The Agfa APX100. I have tried it for different types of scenes and landscapes and even in some cases some urban stuff. All in all, I am slightly underwhelmed by its performance and I have seen it having a really big tendency to become a grey mesh or insanely contrasty. This made me do something that I figured that I should have done far earlier. I looked into the data sheet for the Agfa APX100 looking for its spectral sensitivity curve. And I must say that this sensitivity curve was something I really did not expect. Compared to the films I have shot before and compared it to, the APX100 is not even similar at all.

The curve is jumping up and down all the way, indicating that this film has a dip both between blue and green, as most panchromatic films tend to have, but also a dip into the yellows. This would explain the difficulty I have in soft light where grass and boggy areas are shifting between greens and yellows. I’ll ad the curves for FP4 plus and Fomapan 100 under for comparison. These films have a much calmer curve and I am much more comfortable with films like that.

I then figured that maybe if I chose to shoot very high contrast scenes with this film and develop with Rodinal, that this would be a better use for its qualities. I therefore broke out the panoramic adapter and rolled a full length film, and went out as a cold-front marched in over the town to take images of trees along the lake.

Trees by the lake – Zeiss Ikon Nettar – Agfa APX100@50 – Rodnial 1+100

This time, I really saw something happen that I liked with this film. Even though my stand development technique gave me some slight maks on the negatives and that I got a weird light leak on one of the frames, I am very happy with how this outing went. The high sensitivity to blue made the sky blow out somewhat but the contrasty clouds made them come back in a really nice way, painting the skies beautifully.

I chose to once again meter my exposures at 50 rather than 100, and I think metering a stop above is a very good idea with this film as it tends to get «inky blacks» very easily. It does also seem that Rodinal is a good choice when working with APX 100. I does really give a nice result. I chose stand-development for this round because I think it is a very relaxing way of developing films giving a very smooth result. And I found it to really get the nice tonality out of the Agfa.

I should have looked into the data-sheet before beginning the work with this film, but now, a little bit wiser, I will use the film for its best use rather than at its weak points. For the rest of the bulk. For my morning soft-light grass-shoots, I will use FP4 or HP5.

Misty Woodland

Spring is an incredible time of year in Norway. This spring has been incredibly cold and slow, and even now, in the middle of May, we are bothered with snow in the forest. The good thing about that is that you, as a photographer isn’t very bothered with other people along the paths and you in most cases have the place to yourself. Today, I went out into some local woodland that I know quite well. Yesterday was a very rainy day, and it rained all night, so I figured that the snow was most probably melted away in the forest by now. I was very wrong, and I was not able to walk further into the forest than about four hundred meters before the snow was too deep. Also, the path looked more or less like a stream, and I had the feeling that most people would go for a swim rather than a walk on a location like this.

Traces of winter – Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex, Ilford HP5 plus, Ilfotec ID-11 1+1

Nevertheless, I went out this morning and waded myself through the soaking wet forest floor searching for nice woodland-compositions. These kind of conditions, grey, wet and misty days, are the conditions that inspire me the most. They makes the location stand out in a very different way than you would see it on sunny days, and you spot details and areas you wouldn’t see if the light was brighter.

On this particular outing, I went for the Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex, a TLR-camera that I have owned for a while, and that I absolute love using. There is something about this camera that inspire me. The world looks very nice through the waist-level viewfinder on the Ikoflex, and there is something about the way the lens renders the images that really suits my eye. I chose to shoot at shallow depths of field in this particular outing for two different reasons.

First of all, I wanted to emphasis the relaxing bokeh-feeling this lens gives and how smooth the sharpness of this lens is at around f3.5 and f4. It gives a very relaxed feeling to the scene. Secondly, my particular Ikoflex has some faults with its slower shutter-speeds and below 1/50th can give a very unpredictable result when used. From no activity at all, to just a random shutter-speed. I should probably have it serviced, but I guess fixing this one would be too expensive compared to its value, and it serves me well as it is at this point.

Scene of melting – Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex, Ilford HP5 plus, Ilfotec ID-11 1+1

For that last reason, I chose to go with a very flexible film to give me some wiggle-room with my exposures. I went for a roll of Ilford HP5 plus that I shot at its box-speed of ISO 400. After seeing the conditions in the forest when I came there, with that layer of mist that I didn’t expect to find there due to the conditions in general, I was very happy about this choice of film for that reason as well. Ilford HP5 plus is fantastic at capturing the mood of a misty forest.

Old mans beard – Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex, Ilford HP5 plus, Ilfotec ID-11 1+1

Even though the walk this time wasn’t that long, and the way there was rather wet and unpleasant; I actually had to jump across a stream of melting-water to reach the path; I got some images that I am very happy with. I also really enjoyed my little adveture into the wet and misty forest, and I will certainly be out again in these kinds of conditions soon.

From a wet and misty day in the woods – Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex, Ilford HP5 plus, Ilfotec ID-11 1+1

The scent of spring

Nothing fills me with such joy and happiness as the day when I for the first time see grass being liberated from the firm fist of the winter-snow. Today was that day, and I immediately decided to go shooting. I loaded the Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex with a roll of Ilford FP4 plus, and went down to Kråkvika by Hov. A location where spring is often present early. And sure enough, there were a lot of spots and spaces where the snow was melted away, leaving the lifeless brownish colour of grass that has been buried for a while under the snowy carpet. The colours weren’t really spectacular, hence the choice of black and white-film.

To me, the Ikoflex is maybe one of the cameras that inspires me the most. There is something about the sensation of using something so brilliantly engineered and with a lens that sharp in a very light and beautiful box that appeals to me. I haven’t used it for a while because the winter was exceptionally cold this year, and I don’t think the Ikoflex would be too fond of the cold weather. Also, my Ikoflex has developed misfiring on lower shutter speeds, so I tend to keep it at 1/100th or 1/300th, which could be too short shutter speeds for winter-time. Whether I will have it repaired remains to be decided, but for my current use, the Ikoflex works well.

Spring landscape with melting snow – Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex – Ilford FP4plus – Adox Atomal 49

I find that filling the roll and finding the right compositions, is a very easy task with the Ikoflex. The inspiration comes naturally when using it, unlike the Zeiss Ikon Nettar, which I find that I can get bored when using. I have heard a lot said in negative ways about the Ikoflex and it being like an «over protective mother» or «insanely difficult and complicated to load», but I cannot understand how any of these can be true. If you read the manual, which I know is a very uncommon thing for people to do today, you will very easily understand that the advance wheel will turn freely when it reaches frame nr 12, and that you have to manually reset it for frame 1. Not at all difficult. I have a video on Youtube showing how it is done.

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*I am a rock – Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex – Ilford FP4plus – Adox Atomal 49*

Walking around on a day where the snow is melting and the landscape comes back into sight, makes you notice objects or shapes that would normally either be removed or invisible in the greens and lush landscapes. There is something «rough and contrasty» about these snow-melting days that really appeals to my way of composing.

*An object – Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex – Ilford FP4plus – Adox Atomal 49*

All in all, I had a very joyful little day out in the sun and I enjoyed every minute of shooting with the Ikoflex again. It is such an amazing little camera and the images really speak for themselves.

*Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex – Ilford FP4plus – Adox Atomal 49*

Going Panoramic in the fog

I have never worked with any kind of panoramic equipment before. I have held a Hasselblad X-pan in my hand at one point, but I never tried shooting it. Even so, panorama photography is interesting, and I have wanted to give it a proper try. Not that I will really try it properly in this entry, but I recently bought some very cheap 3D-printed (I guess) plastic parts off eBay. Specifically, the small plastic parts that you use for using 35mm film in your medium format cameras. To be honest, I didn’t really expect much results from this. My anticipation was the following:

The film will not be kept dark enough after exposure and will be fogged.
The film might not be kept flat enough in the camera.
Composing the image will be difficult not having a proper viewfinder for it.
Unknown amount of images pr film and difficult to know how far to wind.

The plastic-stuff and a canister of film. Not the one I used for this test.

I decided to give it a try in my Zeiss Ikon Nettar. This because it is the only MF camera I have where the film is inserted in the horisontal direction, allowing me to easily shoot landscape without turning my camera into portrait. I decided to go for a roll of Ilford Delta 400 and go for a little walk while the fog was lifting over the lake. I was looking for wide compositions, which was a new experience for me, and I felt that I often reverted back to looking for squares or normal rectangles rather than the super wide compositions that this line-up would allow for.

Didn’t quite nail it with this one. See the light leaks that I got for most of the shots on the roll. Luckily not too bad in this shot.

First of all, I can confirm the first part of my assumption. Using this system, with the 3D-printed parts, will give you severe light leaks between the shots. I know for a fact that it is not the light seals acting up, because I used black tape to ensure no light-leaks would come from that area.

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For the most part, I think that the film stayed flat in the camera, and that the adapter kept it reasonably well aligned throughout the roll. I did; however, notice that the film was not as «in the middle» of the viewfinder as I had thought, and I shot a few of the frames «too high» losing parts of my intended compositions.

Over the rocks – Zeiss Ikon Nettar, Ilford Delta 400 Adox Atomal 49 Stock

Even though I like some of these images and the way they look and how they turned out, I am not certain I would use this adaptor system a lot. I will very likely do some more experiments with it and try it out at different occasions, and maybe I am luckier with my next rounds and avoid some light leaks. I find the system to be functional for shooting only one frame at a time. This would mean a lot of «cutting the film out of the camera» and «developing fragments of a roll». Not that I mind doing that, but it is a hassle.

*Lifting fog – Zeiss Ikon Nettar, Ilford Delta 400 Adox Atomal 49 Stock*

Silky water with Fomapan 100

I have written a lot about Fomapan 100 on this blog. This is a film I absolutely love shooting, and that I have found to have some really nice qualities such as insanely fine grain when developed in Xtol stock, a rich and wide exposure latitude, that makes it very pushable and pullable. An obviously, the fact that this film is an absolute bargain with its low price.

Back in the beginning of May 2020, when Norway woke up from lockdown, I brought my Zeiss Ikon Nettar 6×6 camera out to a location, to test longer exposures with Fomapan 100. To really get the longer exposure times, I brought with me what I thought to be a four stop ND-filter, but what turned out to be a three stop red filter.

My Zeiss Ikon Nettar Medium format 6×6 bellow camera.

Having already made the effort, and trotted myself a path towards the three waterfalls I wanted to shoot, I decided to go with the red filter, and see what results I would get in the darker forests in the early morning in May. The Nettar was placed on a tripod, and I had a cable release to avoid camera shake on longer exposures. I did some metering, and used an app to calculate the correct exposure times. For Fomapan 100, the Schwarzschild effect becomes important from shutter speeds at 1 second. Since I shot most of mine at longer times, I used the cable release all the time.

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I had some happy time shooting this roll, and I struggled my way through tree roots and forestland with threes that had fell down over the winter. But when I went for the last three pictures, on a little view-point above the biggest of the water falls. I noticed a «marked» path around the whole area. At least I got some unusual angles in my shots. I cannot imagine that anyone else have been where I went that morning.

Zeiss Ikon Nettar w three stop red filter, f22, 4 seconds exposure time. Fomapan 100 Xtol Stock 5 minutes

When I pulled the developed negatives out of the tank, I was surprised to see how «normal» they looked. I had pictured a more contrasty result from a red filter than what I got in this shoot, and I did not really think a lot about these images before I started working with them in the darkroom a few days ago.

I realized that they were actually quite interesting, and that the three stop red nearly gave me an «infrared» look in my shots. I have no huge experience with infrared photography, but I do like the effect it gives, and I will most likely do more of that in the future.

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I also love the way the greys and whites create a dramatic scene and that it puts its emphasis on the silky water effect, creating a more dramatic look than I expected. Maybe the misplaced «red filter» was actually a good idea for this shoot. I do at least see this as a happy mistake. And I got to see a side of Fomapan 100 that I did not expect. The Infrared-ish side.

Zeiss Ikon Nettar w red filter, f22, 4 seconds. Fomapan 100, Kodak Xtol 1+0 5 minutes

More with Frida and the Ford

In my last entry I wrote about my vintage-style shoot with Frida and her 1950 Ford Shoebox and I added some black and white shots shot on Ilford FP4 plus. As I mentioned, I also ran a roll of Kodak Portra 160 through the Ikoflex to really get the Vintage colour feel on some of the images.

The Kodak Portra is a low-saturated colour-negative film specifically made for obtaining the absolute most beautiful skin tones, but I also adore the effect it gives on scenery and backgrounds. With its soft greenish pastel tones it gives the true feeling of a vintage colour shot. The current emulsion was launched in 1998 following the professional Vericolor-series, and it was intended to be used in the professional market by wedding photographers and portrait photographers.

Running a colour film through an old camera with an old lens is always interesting. You never know how the old lens will cope with the colour reflections. It can seem as my Ikoflex enhances green somewhat, and gives a nearly «marine» colour palette.

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Again I am very thankful and happy to have a friend like Frida, who is as passionate about vintage and keeping the old alive as I am. Her outfit and car matches this shoot in the most exquisite way, and helps the Ikoflex make the Kodak Portra shine.

Based on the limited shutter speed on the Ikoflex, I had to set my apertures wisely. Because of age, My Ikoflex has only three properly working shutter speeds, 1/300, 1/100 and 1/50. I would also guess that the B-mode works, but I have not yet tried it. Because of this I had to shoot with smart apertures to get the pictures I wanted. The Through the window portrait is shot at maximum aperture F3,5 at 1/100, while the picture next to the car was taken at somewhere between f4 and f5,6 at 1/300 to keep some detail in the background.

No colour corrections are done after scanning. The shots are in colour as the Ikoflex shot them. My only corrections are some contrast correction, and obviously some dust removal.

Thank you for reading. Stay tuned for more fun stuff coming up soon.

Vintage shoot with Frida and her old Ford

Analog photography is has the loveliest tones imaginable for vintage style photography. The special look an old lens gives is an exquisite vibe to your photo that no digital preset can really copy, and the feeling of doing this with vintage equipment adds an extra element. Photography is not just about the picture, but the way to get there and the feeling of the process.

Yesterday I went out to photograph my friend Frida and her lovely 1950 Ford Shoebox. To go with me for this shoot, I chose two cameras. The Weist SL-35 and my lovely TLR, the Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex. Both these cameras are reasonably accurate and has sharp lenses that does really bring out that «vintage feel». I rolled up both cameras with Ilford FP4 Plus, A film that for me is my first choice when I want that «Vintage feel». This film has a really fine cubical grain structure, and has a more visible grain than other films around its speed, and I love how this grain structure affects the images.

My equipment for this shoot. Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex medium format TLR and the Weist SL-35, 35mm M42 SLR.

We met at a lovely location in Kapp just south of Gjøvik. This location used to be a condensed milk factory back in the days, but today it is used for cultural purposes among other things.

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We first set off with the Ikoflex. I shot as close to f4 as I could get, and did some bracketing with f5,6 to be sure not to overexpose too wildly. I shot the Ikoflex at its highest shutter speed around 1/300th of a second, but my guess is that this shutter speed is a bit slower. Probably around 1/250th which is still very good for a 70 year old camera like this.

Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex. Shot at f5,6 shutter speed around 1/250th of a second. Ilford FP4 Plus, developed in Xtol 1+1 for 10 minutes.

I refer to the Ikoflex as «the bird box» and this is one of my absolute favorite camera in use. When I bought it, it came from a Swedish Zeiss collectors house, and the seller did not believe that it worked. Probably because he didn’t really understand how it works. These cameras have their specific way of use, and you will not be able to shoot this camera if you don’t know how to load film in it and how to set it up.

When we were done with the film in the IKOFLEX, I changed it for some Kodak Portra 160, but these images are not included in this entry.

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We then set off with the Weist and its exquisite Weistar 135mm lens. I also shot this one as close to F4 as I could to get that lovely bokeh you get from this lens. This is the first time I tried this camera and lens for a shoot with a model, and I am very happy with how it performed.

Weist SL-35 with Weistar 135mm M42 lens. Ilford FP4 Plus shot at box speed. Kodak Xtol 1+1 – 10 minutes.

These are just quick scans of the negatives. This shoot will be finished as Darkroom prints. Whether the prints and the process of making them will be entered in this blog is yet to be decided.

All in all, I am very happy with how both cameras performed during this shoot and I feel humble and lucky for being allowed to with with people like Frida, who is on board with the analog nerdity.

Photographs open doors into the past, but they also alloq a look into the future
Sally Mann

Zeiss Nettar and color film?

One of my absolute favorite cameras is my Zeiss Ikon Nettar. A little German bellow-camera from very long ago. I am not sure about the real age of this camera, but I know that it is from the late 40’s early 50’s. Being a bellow-camera, the shutter is mounted in the lens, and you have no range-finder or any focus help other than your eyes or some clip-on range finder system if you want to use that. Personally, I don’t use this camera for any work that would require the most precise focus, and I usually go without measuring or using «safe» aperture settings.

My Zeiss Ikon Nettar, and a box of KODAK Ektar

Because of its age, the Novar Astigmat lens was probably never meant to deal with colour films, and especially not high saturation films like the Ektar. I was therefore curious to try it out and see how an old lens and an old camera would perform with a film like this.

To help the camera a bit, I used an UV-filter. The Nettar does not have a filter ring that can support any of my filters, so I used a cheap 52mm UV-filter and held it in place with my fingers while shooting.

The images are taken while waiting for a ferry at Forvik in Vevelstad, Northern Norway in the region Helgeland. It surprises me how well the Nettar deals with colour films, and I find the images to be really high quality.

Results from the roll. KODAK Ektar and Zeiss Ikon Nettar.

Images are developed at home with the Tetenal C41-home system using a Paterson tank and a cheap eBay reel. Since I do not own a medium format scanner, I used my Epson Perfection V370 and scanned them in sections and glued them together in Photoshop.

I have not done any colour corrections here, what you dee is what I got, but I have removed some dust and scratches.

Thanks for reading.

JCH Streetpan 400 for portraits?

A little while ago, I was given a roll of 120mm film from Japan Camera Hunter named the «Streetpan 400». I tried it out and got beautiful results with high contrasts and exquisitely fine grain for a 400 iso film. The deep contrasts got me thinking. How would this film work for portraiture?

I bought a few rolls directly from JCH in Japan, and due to the Covid 19 situation it took a while for them to arrive. When it finally came I put a roll in my Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex, cheap TLR, and decided to bring it to take some portraits with Ada. We met at Kremmerodden, a lovely location in Norway and took some pictures.

The Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex, with a roll of JCH Street Pan 400

I decided to shoot the film at 200 and develop a bit shorter (pull processing) in order to retain some shadow detail. This film is widely discussed online for its ink-black shadows and high contrast, and for portraits in direct sunlight, this was not my biggest wish.

I will not go deep into anything technical about this film, I am no expert on emulsions and films, and there are millions of reviews and opinions about it available online.

I was very uncertain about how this film would handle being pulled a stop, but I am happy to report that it deals well with one stop over exposure.

My process was:

One minute presoak in water to remove the anti-halation layer. This water comes out nearly black.
Development in Kodak Xtol 1+1. Development time for this film at 400 is 17 minutes. Since I pulled it one stop, I reduced the development time by 20% and a total development time at 13 minutes 40 seconds with agitation every minute.
Water-stop and fix as usual
15 minutes under running water for wash.
Final wash with Photoflo

I am happy with the results. What you see here are scanned negatives that have been merged and somewhat cleaned in Photoshop. I will take some of these negatives to the darkroom for printing there later.

Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex – Japan Camera Hunter (JCH) Street Pan 400@200, Xtol.

Do I like this film for portraits? Yes. I would use this film again for portraits and pull it to 200 for certain portraits. Especially portraits where I want to retain some contrast and get a nice palette of grey. However, for portraits at this location, I’ll probably stick with Ilford FP4 box speed or Kodak Tri-X at 200.

Thanks for reading

“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.”
Dorothea Lange