Medium Format Photography Book Started

I started working on the Medium Format Photography book today. I’m using a Yashicamat 124-G and a crude, bare-bones Holga 120N. Both use 120 film. All of the photographs will be taken with Tri-X. I have to use an external light meter with the 124-G since the original batteries were the mercury type and are no longer available. There’s really no point in using a light meter with the Holga except for reference.

Using the Holga is going to be a challenge. There is really no way to control exposure other than keeping your finger on the shutter release for a longer or shorter time. I shot the first roll about a half hour ago in direct sunlight. The light meter read f8 at 1/250 so I tried to click the shutter pretty fast.

I love this blurb that’s on the Holga box and have it pinned on the cork board above my drawing table.

 

It stretches the truth a bit. It’s going to take some time and a lot of film to dial in the Holga. I hope it’s worth it. I’ll be posting updates along the way.

 

Holga Pinhole Cameras Part 1

In the last few posts I talked about returning to medium format black and white film. I made a homebrew pinhole “lens” from a camera cap and did not get what I wanted. I bought two Holga pinhole cameras, a Holga-120WPC wide angle model and a regular Holga 120 Pinhole. They both take, of course, 120 film. Here they are (shown with the lens caps off):

Holga 120 Pinhole

Holga 120WPC

Holga cameras are made in Hong Kong and have a big worldwide following, both the models with  lenses and without. The wide angle version is a monster, as you can see from the picture above. Since the cameras are built so cheaply, Holgas are notorious for leaking light. This is part of their appeal, a lot of photographers believe. It’s been said that no two Holgas are alike, which makes yours unique and supposedly endears you to it.

Loading the film is easy, and on the Holga 120 pinhole you have a choice of 12 or 16 exposures. Same with the 120WPC. The very first thing you need to do after loading the film is to PUT A PIECE OF TAPE UNDER (OR OVER ON THE 120WPC) THE METAL BACK HOLDERS. It’s ironic. I was just watching this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB4f0femgjE

and laughing at Kai when the back of his Holga kept falling off during his shoot. It’s raining outside today so I thought I would take a shot of the deck through a lower window. I picked up the tripod the Holga sat on to move into position and guess what- the back fell off. I was on the ninth exposure and thought I had a couple good shots. I’ll develop the negatives but I don’t have much hope. Again, tape the back holders so the back doesn’t fall off. It’s only a matter of time until it happens to you.

Holgas are cheap. The basic Holga 144-120N goes for $29.99 on B&H’s website, the 120 Pinhole goes on Amazon for 32.92 and the 120WPC is $49.95. If you plan on using the pinhole versions you will need to use a cable release and tripod. The cable release for the 120 Pinhole is a mechanical contraption that fits over the lens (you can see it on the photo of the 120 Pinhole. The thread size on the cable release is non-standard and does not fit my Canons or Yashica Mat124-G.

I’m going to start shooting with the Holgas today and will soon develop the negatives. I’ll have more about these quirky cameras in later posts. You can check out the whole line of Holga cameras here: http://shop.holgadirect.com

Pinhole Photography

I’ve always admired pinhole photography. I converted a camera cap by drilling a hole in it then cutting out a piece of metal from a pop can, poking a hole in it with a pin and taping it to the camera cap with black electrical tape. Here’s a good tutorial how to do just that:

http://www.howtogeek.com/161794/how-to-take-pinhole-photos-with-a-digital-camera/

Here’s some results with a couple of different hole diameters. The first shot is with a large pinhole and the second with a smaller pinhole.

Big Hole

Little Hole

  

The first thing I noticed was every spec of dust on the sensor, no matter how minute, showed up as a big black spot in the resulting image. This required a lot of work to clean up in Lightroom. I set the camera (Canon 30D) on a tripod and, after each exposure, checked out the histogram. That’s the only way to tell if you’ll get a reasonably exposed shot.

The images were not what I expected or wanted. So, what to do? I read about Holga pinhole cameras. They are made entirely of plastic, leak light and have a big cult following. I bought two of them- the standard pinhole and the panoramic version (Holga-120WPC). Holga’s are essentially toy cameras that are made in China to bring photography to the masses. They use 120 film, which is my preferred film size. I’ll be using Tri-X like in the Yashica Mat 124-G. I’m expecting the cameras any day now and will continue posting after they arrive.

Film: A Slight Return Part II

In the last post I pulled my Yashica Mat 124G and shot a roll of TRI-X (12 exposures) in the old house we rented in Grand Haven, Michigan for a week. Yesterday we went to Camera Mart in Pontiac to pick up some equipment and chemicals to develop the negatives. The Camera Mart people are first rate and always willing to help. Here’s what we bought:

• Kodak TMax developer
• Ilford Rapid Fixer
• IlfoStop Stop Bath
• Kodak Photo-Flo 200
• A Kalt stainless steel developing tank (One 120 reel)
• A Kalt stainless steel reel
• A filmstrip squeegee
• A graduated cylinder
• A thermometer
• Three one quart Delta 1 photochemical containers

 

All of it was around $112, which isn’t too bad. I thought about getting a bag of D-76 and mixing the developer, but TMax seemed to be more convenient since it, like that other chemicals, are in concentration. The mixture is one liter of of TMax to four liters of water, so I will have to figure out a one to four ratio for the quart containers. The fixer is also one to four. The Stop Bath is one to nineteen. The Photo-flo ratio is one to two hundred, which is going to be tricky to measure for a one quart container. I read on the Web somewhere that a guy uses an eye dropper to mix his.

There are two big elements to developing negatives- mixture ratio and time in the tank for each chemical. The critical time, naturally, is for the developer.

So I’ve shot what I think is a pretty decent roll of film and I’m apprehensive about screwing it up. I’ve developed hundreds of negatives, both 120 and 35mm, but that was around thirty years ago. I bought a five pack of TRI-X and have the second roll in the 124-G. I’m going to shoot the second roll on junk and use that as a guinea pig to see if I can get the film threaded correctly on the reel. Before I potentially destroy an exposed roll of film I’m going to sacrifice an unexposed roll and thread it on the reel in the light of day, over and over again until I get the feel back. The worst thing that can happen is the film sticks together on the reel, ruining the exposures. I can’t tell you how many times that happened to me in the past. Practicing with the film in the light (with my eyes closed) will help when I’m doing the real thing.

The next step is to go to the grocery store and buy a few jugs of distilled water and mix the chemicals, then practice, practice, practice loading the reel to prepare for the real thing.

Film: A Sight Return

Last month Barb and I went to the Royal Oak Art Fair at Memorial Park. I was interested in the photographers, what they offered and what equipment they used (Canon, mostly).

One photographer’s work in particular caught my eye, and I’m sorry I didn’t get his card or remember his name otherwise I’d mention it here. His photographs were truly stunning. All of them were black and white, silky, silvery and deeply saturated. I asked him what he used. He said he shot 120 film exclusively on a Mamiya.

I used to shoot film, 35mm on a Canon F1 and 120 (medium format) film on a Yashica Mat-124G. I still own both cameras, so I found my neglected 124G, cleaned it, bought some 120 Tri-X and took it with us on vacation a couple of weeks ago in Grand Haven, Michigan.

The Yashica Mat-124G is a twin lens reflex camera. You look down the the top of the camera and through the top lens. The lower lens exposes the film. Being medium format, the negative size is 2 1/4” by 2 1/4”. The format is square, but if you don’t like that or if the square format doesn’t work for a particular composition a print can always be cropped during development.

Here’s a scanned print from 1980 from Grand Central Station in New York City shot with the 124G using Tri-X developed in Rodinal. Notice the ad for the TV show Barney Miller. The print isn’t square since shot lent itself to more horizontal lines.

The 124G takes a 1.3v battery which was dead on my camera. Luckily I have an old Sekonic light meter that still works, so I depended on that.  I prefer working with a light meter anyway.

I forgot what a delight and a challenge it is shooting with the 124G. I had to find the shots, adjust the tripod, use the light meter, set the apeture and shutter speed (keeping depth of field in mind), and focus using the little magnifier. Time literally slowed down for me. It was great and for the first time in a long time I felt like I was potentially producing art, instead of merely taking a photograph. I shot 12 exposures in the old house we rented.

I don’t have any chemicals or a developing tank for the negatives, but I plan on buying everything within the next week or so. I’m looking forward to developing the negatives and making contract prints, but it may take a while. I will post whatever comes out here.

If you’re thinking about either getting into film photography or going back to it, a used 124G is a great camera to consider. I’ve seen them run between $200 and $300.  Here are some links to check out for more information:

http://istillshootfilm.org/post/66810081483/yashica-mat-124g-medium-format-tlr-camera-review

http://mattsclassiccameras.com/yashicamat_124.html