For this trip, I had my Zeiss Ikon Nettar 515/2, a 6X9 folding camera from the 1930s. I loaded with with Lucky brand 100 ISO film. You may remember back in January I used ShangHai brand film in my Voigtlander Perkeo I and the film recorded the numbers and dots from the paper backing. At that time I thought, because I had used the ShangHai paper backing, that the paper was not light-tight. Basically, ShangHai and Lucky use construction paper instead of actual backing paper. So I re-rolled this lucky in some Fuji Acros paper, which is a very high-quality paper. The same problem occurred as before. Oh, I suspect that Lucky and ShangHai are actually the same film with different names and 'countries of origin.'
Anyway, in reviewing the images I noticed that frame 3 had frame 5's numbers and dots. Frames 7 and 8 had none. Frame 1 had the number 3 across it. So I suspect the problem is not that the paper is letting light in, but that the chemical used to bleach information into the black paper is reacting with the film emulsion and leaving marks. So there's nothing I can do about the marks, it seems. Also, this means that all the ShangHai and Lucky film in the world likely have this problem. And that's unfortunate because I find that this film has a nice tonal range and good image quality with minimal grain.
That said, the photos below will appear to be VERY grainy. That's due to this camera's lens. Lenses, much more than film, affect how an image appears on the film -- grainy or not. Film grain plays a roll, but I submit that a lens that produces a grainy image will do so on any film type. How does this translate into these results? This camera delivery very newsprint-like results with images that look as though they were clipped from old newspapers. For the right subject, it's a great effect.
1/50, f22. The ship's conn, or bird's nest.
1/100th, f19. San Francisco from the flight deck. As you can see, the numbers 5 and 4 are printed along the negative. However, this is frame 2, which means that the numbers came from later in the roll. Therefore, these have to be damage to the emulsion from the paper backing later on the film roll. Very frustrating since I have like eight more rolls of this stuff.
1/100th, f22.
1/100th, f16. Those are cranes from two neighboring ships. I set this at f16 to give a bit of depth and keep the Oakland or Berkeley Hills somewhat blurred.
1/100th, f11. This is what the captain would see from his chair. The captains on the U.S.S. Hornet changed about every 18 months due to the job's high stress level.
1/100th, f22. Looking backward. This shot, taken from near the photographer's box, was where the crew could watch landings. I would have loved to have gotten this shot from inside the photographer's box, but it was padlocked. All aircraft landings on carriers are photographed, this is to help train pilots. So every landing had a photographer in the box capturing images.
Full second, f22. Should have gone with a much wider aperture. This is the mess hall. The Nettar has a built-in stand to allow long-duration shots. So I flipped that down and walked up to the locked door (with an open window) that leads to the galley. I set the camera on a counter and held the shutter for about a second.
Same as above but on the hangar deck.
Primary lesson from today: nice film is worth the money. I can save a few bucks and buy imported film from a dubious supply chain, sure, but using high-quality film will return more consistent and high-quality results more often. Seems logical and straight forward, but nice film is very expensive.
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