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.

Video: Rolleiflex Old Standard

My Old Standard's serial number, which will be worth noting for later, is 205212. The Old Standard Rolleiflex had three variants. The 620 was a 1:4.5 7.5cm Zeiss taking lens and 1:3.1 Heidoscop viewing lens. The 621 had a 1:3.8 7.5cm Zeiss taking lens and the same viewing lens. Both the 620 and 621 had the Compur T through 1/300th shutters. The 622 had the Zeiss 1:3.8 taking lens and same viewing lens but with a Compur T to 1/500th shutter. The 621 is the rarest with only 4,926 pieces made (January 1932 to January 1934.) The 621 had 38,248 pieces made (February 1932 to January 1935.) The 622 had 51,894 pieces made (November 1932 to May 1938.) The run began at serial number 200,000. So, assuming sequential numbering, 205,212 is a pretty low number.

In fact, on the underside of each Standard's mirror (at least the early ones) was a hand-written date with the day, month, and year of the camera's assembly. I learned this after I filmed the video, though. And I owe a LOT to the folks at www.Rolleiclub.com who helped me piece together this camera's age. The mirror was made on February 29, 1932. Yes -- 81 years ago today. So mine is indeed a VERY old Rolleiflex, dating from the first month the cameras were made.

Here are some other things that happened on February 29, 1932:

There was a failed coup by fascist the Lapua Movement in Finland.
William Murray declared his intention to run for President of the United States.
Racing driver Masten Gregory was born.
Mathematician Gene Golub was born.
Cartoonist Jaguar was born.
Baseball player Paul Giel was born.
Actor Tom Mix married circus performer Abel Ward (24 years his junior -- way to go Tom). Ms. Ward's notable accomplishment was setting the world record for 300 consecutive one-armed high bar revolutions without a net.
It was a Monday and everyone at the factory was a bit groggy, because it was Monday.

Franke & Heidecke built the Rolleiflex Standard from 1932 to 1938. The Standard gained the moniker "Old" in 1939 when Franke & Heidecke introduced the New Standard. Originally, they sold for $150 to $250. I suspect this model with the faster taking glass but slower shutter would have been around $200. $200 USD in 1932 had the same buying power as $2,849.45 USD does in 2012. That's more expensive than many full-frame DSLRs.

I picked this Standard up for $14, but the lenses were both so filthy I couldn't see through them. I couldn't even see if the shutter worked. After I cleaned the kitchen grease off the lenses and shoe polish off the leatherette, I had to take the top apart to clean the mirror and remove the front to re-attach the aperture control arm to the aperture level on the shutter. Not bad for someone who five hours before that had never used a TLR.

But, everything works and it takes some darn-fine images. Note that all those images were just tests, and my goal wasn't to take exciting photos, just ones that proved it works. TO show off the lens' quality a bit, I'll include some 100% image crops following some of the images.