Making Opalotypes: Part 1 -- The Test Run

For my company's annual employee appreciation party, I was asked to be the volunteer photographer. I accepted and also volunteered to do some alternative process photographs for some raffle winners. I've been looking for a reason to do some alternative photography, so I jumped on this one and decided to make opalotypes.

An opaoltype is a photographic print on milk glass. Over the coming weeks as I make these prints, I'll share the process and results. The first step was to, in a controlled environment, use the camera, lights, and film I would use on the boat for some test shots. Even at 400 ISO, the exposures were very long for pet photography. Think 1/4 second long, even wide open. I used a two-light setup (even though I only had one light on the boat, and at that only for part of the time -- more on that mess when we get to that entry.)

I selected my Rolleiflex Old Standard with Zeiss 3.8 tessar lens. This lens renders exceedingly well. For improved shutter speeds, I decided to push the film (I selected Ilford's HP5+) to 800 ISO, one stop, and reduce my shutter speed slightly.

However, I didn't have any developers that would work for pushing HP5+, so I ordered some Ilfosol-3. I took a test roll with the same lighting and developing conditions as I would use at the real event. MY dogs cooperated very well (they're champs) and let me take their pictures even though they hate being posed for photos. 







Next time: The boat photos.

One Cruddy and One Broken Camera

Today's post has bunches of photos of my dogs. These were test shots I took with a Welmy 6X6 and a Pickwick (toy) bakelite camera. The Welmy needs work as the focusing ring is stuck and the shutter only fires at 1/200th. The Pickwick Camera is an old toy camera that had some odd properties, the number one being the property of suckyness.

The Welmy uses 120 film, but I didn't want to use a roll of 120 on a camera I knew to have issues. The Pickwick uses 127 and I don't have any of that. So I took an empty spool and backing paper from each camera and used 35mm film inside the spools. I'm somewhat torn on the whole full-bleed images thing for cameras. It can yield nice results, or it can be distracting. In both of these cases, though, the film isn't nearly as distracting as the low-quality images (particularly from the Pickwick.) The Welmy will take fine images one it can be focused again.

One frustrating thing about the Welmy, it says it's stuck at four feet for the focus. I was at least four feet from my dogs for each shot, using f16 for maximal depth of field. You'll see in these images that this camera's focus is decided deeper than four feet.






The lens takes great and sharp images, as seen by the high-tension towers and cars in the background. However, the focus is pretty far off of four feet.

The Pickwick presented a much more difficult challenge: the focus. I knew from a review I had read online that the focus was off-center. However, I was surprised by how out of focus the images are. That said, I suspect the issue is not with the lens but with the film back. The film, as the first image will show, seems to have fallen out of flatness.


Were it not for the film's perforations being aligned so well, this first image would look like a fun house mirror  reflection.




There are no words to describe how bad this is.


Look at the ring of focus around this image. Blurry center, focused ring around the image. Odd. I'll try this again with more 35mm film and see if I can obtain better results.

New Camera and New Lens to Test

Last summer I picked up a Focal 80-200mm with macro function at a garage sale for $15. I've listed it on eBay twice, it being far heavier than I can carry, and no one has bought it. So I decided to test it and see if it's any good. Coincidentally, I had a new M42 body to test, my newly repaired Pentax H3v. In short, I'll be keeping the lens. It's fantastic. I'm ecstatic no one bought it. The camera is also great and I'm pleased to have some great shots to share.

One interesting thing, the macro mode changes the way the images appear. This isn't a macro mode where the user simply keeps turning the focusing ring, no, this is a separate, dedicated third ring. And when the macro mode kicks in, the depth of field shrinks and the background becomes a swirling mass. It's a nice effect that, in portraits, could have a good deal of use.


This photo shows the swirling background effect. People pay stupid amounts of money on eBay for Russian-made lenses that have this same effect.


Even at greater depths of field, this would have been deeper than the f3.5 I used for many exposures because her whole profile is in focus, the background is still suitably blurry.


This was not, I don't think, in macro mode.Just a close-focus.


This one likes having his picture taken, unlike the other. That makes getting test shots much simpler.


Here his muzzle was a bit overexposed, so I grabbed a magic wand sample, pasted the sample as a new layer, dropped the gamma, and then made it about 50% transparent before merging the layers. This yielded some detail in his muzzle.

New Film, Change of Plans

Last Thursday I had to visit Concord, California, for work. And, unsuprisingly, got no photos taken with my FTN and 43-86 combo that I'd taken. So that night I tested out a new film I got -- Ilford P4 400 ISO surveillance Film -- in my Pentax K2. I managed to pick up 450 feet of this film, on a lark, and to take a chance that it might be great. It is. This film has a greater tonal range than I had expect and many of the images are so silver that they look like digital monochrome conversions instead of standard monochrome film shots. Also, this film can apparently be shot at up to ISO 800 or 1,000 and push processed to deliver a low-grain, low-light film. I have three shots to share, two of which are of my dogs. Cope. You'll see more of this film next week as I'll use it exclusively.


Dogs make a great film test subject because if the film performs poorly, the fur will be a much or, at best, out of focus. This film performs superbly well with great detail and no white-space blowouts. Normally, Cheever's muzzle is a big white mash in photos, but in reality he still has some dark hair speckled throughout. This is the first film I've used that captures that without additional post processing.


I had read this film has a low glare propensity. This image would seem to confirm that. The sun is in the lower left and this lens (Pentax-A 28-80) has a tendency to glare.


One final shot, looking through a hollow football.

Special Edition: Ektar Lomography

A while back I picked up 15 rolls of Photoworks 400 ISO for crossprocessing experiments this year. The seller kicked in five rolls of Ektar that I didn't expect. So I was pleased and gave him all five stars. I've used three of the Ektar rolls, a 200 and two of the four 400s. The 200 was shot and returned one image that, when converted to monocrhome, wasn't terrible. The 400s have returned some very lomographic images that I've been pleased with. One roll was taken with one of my K2s the other with my F3. No idea which photos came off which rolls.

If you've never explored lomography, it's worth performing a Google image search to look at some results. Characterized by 'technically inferior' results, lomographic-type images are a modern film art form of the highest caliber. Let me pause here to note that Lomography (majuscule case) is a trademarked name belonging to Austrian company Lomographische, AG. The term lomography (diminutive case) is used by many photographers to represent lo-fi photography. I don't, personally, agree with calling lo-fi photography lomography for the same reason that I don't call photocopies Xeroxes and Internet searches Google searches: companies spend a substantial amount of time and money establishing and nurturing a brand. Brand degradation through common parlance denigrates the hours and ingenuity spent by marketing types to develop and coddle their brands. So, henceforth, I will refer to lo-fi photograph by its proper name: lo-fi.

Anyway, so these lo-fi results were generated by using Kodak Ektar 400 slide film that expired in 1983. The storage is, at best, questionable (probably a drawer somewhere.) Slide film degrades as soon as it is warmer than about 35 or 40 degrees (Fahrenheit.) SO this film returned very lo-fi results with poor color rendition, excessive grain, and a distinctly 1950-ish look. Also, I have no idea how these images arrived at this final look, except that the old film played a huge roll. Expired film is pretty cheap on a well known online auction site. Pick up a couple rolls and give it a shot. Any major city, and in fact some minor cities, will have a place that develops slide film. If not, any of a number of online sites can develop your film. I have used and like greatly OldSchoolPhotoLab.com.




Hannah is a fairly rare black Rhodesian Ridgeback. They're about one in 400. Her sister is also black, but her sister's ridge swirls in the other direction.


Hannah is silently judging me for taking her photo. She really, really hates having her picture taken.


I live a parking lot away from a fairly good pizza place. Cheever always perks up when we're outside and someone's ordered sausage or bacon on their pizza.


This is one of Cheever's classic looks: The 'yeah I just nailed that catch with an in-air inversion" look. He takes his fetch very seriously.