Kodak Vision 3 250D -- in Monochrome!

I picked up a 200-foot spool of Kodak Vision 250D a while back with the intent of developing it as black and white film. A friend on a photo forum I frequent uses this and loves it (and his photos are fabulous, by the way.) He also uses other Vision films, and all have great tonal range.

Anyway, some of the images here aren't perfect as I didn't get the remjet backing off perfectly, but you'll see that this film has a decent tonal range, especially considering that the camera I used was one I pieced together from multiple broken cameras (so it may not be perfect.)

Developing 250D is similar to nut not exactly like developing standard monochrome film. Firstly, there's a carbon black backing which will partially come off in the developer. So you may not want to reuse developer after running this stuff through it. I re-use the developer, though, and it's fine. The remjet settles out at the bottom of the bottle after a few days and as long as I don't use the dregs or agitate the fluid, the developer remains fairly clear.

The only hitch for me is temperature control. Color film needs higher temperatures than monochrome, so when I develop this, after the first full-minute of agitation, I keep it under a light hot water stream during the following three minutes. This works best with a metal film tank. The developer remains warm for the rest of the 10-11 minutes this film needs to develop.

That's my recipe, but you should practice variations. Also, leave a comment if you've home developed this before and have any suggestions.

During the rinse, I rinse the film once and the water comes out grayish. That's the remjet again. Then I fill it about half way and violently shake the film tank. The water comes out nearly black. A second time and the water is mostly clear, indicating that as much remjet as can be removed by water alone has been removed.

A standard fix of 10 minutes and the film is ready to wash. At the end of the wash, I run the film under a water stream and use my fingers to squeegee away the remaining remjet. This works well and if you do it correctly won't leave scratches on the emulsion. Here are some (sub-par) results.

Studying SOMA

Back in May I took my Canon RT out and wanted to document how One Rincon Hill Tower 1 dominates SOMA's landscape. With One Rincon Hill Tower 2 entering construction soon, SOMA is again about to change. Here are my photos from SOMA, each of which somehow capture an aspect of One Rincon Hill Tower 1.

I'm a K Man.

Pentax has a long history of revolutionizing photography. The Asahiflex and Spotmatic cameras were among the most innovative and creative SLRs of their day. The 6X7 remains one of the highest-quality medium format cameras available with an array of high-quality lenses. The MZ-S, LX, and MX also represent the best of Pentax and cameras that rival or out-compete their peers at Olympus, Minolta, Nikon, and Canon. The KM was never a marquis camera. It differs from the K1000 in the number of options, having also a depth of field preview, self timer, second flash sync, and film indicator. Other than that, it's mechanically and functionally about the same as the K1000. The four K series cameras -- K1000, KM, KX, and K2 -- were great for their time and remain highly usable and durable SLRs.

I definitely don't use my KM enough. Here are some reasons why I should use it more -- it sings with the kit 50mm 1:2 lens.


1/1,000th, f5.6
These are vertical concrete bars on a parking garage. At an angle, with lucky lighting, and the fortune of a yellow filter that matched -- exactly -- the wavelength range reflected by the yellow-painted bars, this image became something highly dramatic, very 1950's suspense film-ish.


This is stitched together from three images. Each were taken at 1/1,000th, f22.


1/1,000th, f5.6


Apple is eating the world in 2012. WWDC stands for WorldWide DevourCon.
1/125th, f11


Let's end with a contrast test. Here are the same images at different aperture settings. Notice as we descend that the images become less contrasty. Fascinating.
1/250th, f11


1/60th, f16


1/1,000th, f2.8

Muting Contrast and a Stolen Shot

For fun, I wanted to test my theory that the tobacco mutes contrast. Inford PANF 50 ISO is a highly contrasty film, so it's a great test for muting contrast. The first shots are the clearest example of how the filter works.

1/60th, f3.5, tobacco filter


1/60th, f8, no filter
Notice, also, that the first image has a darker sky. The tobacco filter is basically green and red. The red aspect results in the sky darkening. The green aspect means that green hues are lighter. This means that blues and some yellows will be darker. The net result is flatness. Look at the shadows on the statue's cap brim. Also the buttons of the shirt and the folds. The non-filtered image presents substantially more contrast with deeper shadows and more depth.


1/160th, f3.5
Money may not grow on trees, but cans do. And at about a nickel a pop for the CRV, that's some money.


And let's end here today. I snagged this shot while some pros were flipping through their camera's digital images and their model took a moment's pause. Not all digital advances are for the best. None of them managed to get this shot.

K1000 Noir

I love my K1000. It was my first SLR and together we still work very well. I'm looking forward to sending it off for repair in September, though. I needs a good CLA and a meter calibration. You'll see that some of these shots were a bit over-exposed. The batteries may be a bit weak, too, though.

But the K1000 is a camera I know well and we work together as a fairly effective team, often. It's the simplest SLR that I know of and a reliable, well-built favorite. And with as well as I know this camera, it should be no surprise that I had a pretty good day with it.

1/60th, f5.6
The sculpture 'Annular Eclipse.'

1/60th, f8

1/125th, f2.8
"I'm coming to get you," said the fiberglass grime reaper, in a voice tht sounded of insulation inside a boat hull.

1/125th, f2.8
"Who, me?" asked the bystander. (That's actually me. I'm playing the role of The Bystander in today's play.)

1/30th, f8
"Uh, well, no. Not you by name. You don't work for this company we're here picketing, do you? Well then, no not you. Here's a flier."

I don't get much into labor and union disputes on this blog. I've gotten to hear about them at two of my three career employers, and they're politically charged and this is an art blog, not a politics blog. So, in short, I won't go into details about who was doing the picketing or who was being picketed. I also did not get the guys' card, so I can't help you order one of these.

This was one of those union street displays that the unions use to draw attention to firms that use less-expensive workers. The guy there explained how it's made and how popular it's been across the U.S., requiring that even more be made. If I remember correctly, there are now 30 of these grim reapers around the western U.S. for use in pickets and such. It turns out they originally made these of papier machet, and then one of the other unions liked it and asked for one, so they made a mold and began producing them in fiberglass. The mold, as you might imagine, has to be very complex due to the multiple pieces involved in each component. It's built around a steel frame, but the whole thing comes apart to fit inside a pickup truck bed.

1/1000th, f2.8

1/250th, f2.8
I dig this little Tokina a lot. This lens and my now-fungus-infested Nikon Tokina SZ-X 28-200 give me a great deal of respect for Tokina lenses. My only complaint about this lens is the dramatic light drop-off at the corners. This image is a bit cropped, so that effect isn't so obvious. Wait till the next few images for a better example.

1/60th, f5.6
This image shows, a little, the light drop-off at the corners. That happens with lenses, and wide-angles are very susceptible to it. Typically, that's not really an issue and with this lens it doesn't so much bother me.

This image also shows how incredibly sharp this lens it. Check out the glove's palm and all the cracks in the vinyl.

1/250th, f2.8

Typically, I like to end on a bright, cheery image that will make everyone's day better. Well, no dice this time. Here's a truly sad image that should make most people wail in dismay. I don't often title my pictures, but this one I call "She Ain't Pretty no More."

1/250th, f5.6

Geriatric Film and Poor Results

I need to stop using geriatric film. Old film has consistently yielded poor results for me, so I don't know why I still try. Today's old film -- the last, I think -- came from my Ilford Delta 100 stock that expired in 1989. These results were the best of any of the rolls but are plagues by something that looks like static.As such, only three images were worth even considering to share today. These shots come from the status "Smile", which is at 201 Spear Street in San Francisco.







So, lessons learned for today:

1- Quality results require quality film. I knew this but had to do something with this roll of Ilford.
2- Proper film storage is a must.

Finally, Some Color

Lest you worry that this whole week would be dedicated to statues of religious figures, this post will dissuade you from that notion. We'll return to statues of religious figures tomorrow, an inadvertent theme this week.

On April 3rd I took my SRT 102 out with the Tamron 28-70 and a roll of Fuji Velvia 50. I got it back from the processing lab on Saturday, and here are some results.

"I Gots Teeth."

"View the Back of the Mirror"

"Statues are People, too."

"Left-Right, Blue-Green"

"What a Socking Photo."

"Still Proving I can Balance it the Longest"

Friday Fun Day!

What's the dino saying? Leave your caption as a comment.

San Francisco Giants Opening Day

So last Monday I did not get out to take infrared shots with my K-7. In fact, I didn't get out of the office for more than 12 hours at all. So, today's post will be some late shots from the Voigtlander Perkeo outing on April 13th. I didn't finish that roll then, but did last week. Here are some shots, most of which were taken on opening day around AT&T Park.


Willie Mays Statue, but just the foot.


Waiting for a homerun in a hand-made wooden canoe.


A slightly more comfortable way to wait for a homerun.


Two of San Francisco's finest keeping the stadium safe from photographers.


A few days later, a building reflecting off the Infinity Complex.

K-7 Experimentation

When my K-7 returned from the repair shop the other week the repair team had installed the latest firmware version. At first I was unhappy because it reset all my settings -- which took me about two hours to undo -- but also included a new mode I don't recall my camera having before -- reversal film. It's a setting on the color mode menu. So I gave it a shot and it's cut my editing time by 50%. The colors are deeper, the contrasts improved. In short, this is how I edit my images to be. So I'm pleased. Here are some color results. All shot with my Takumar 50mm 1:1.4 (the other lens given to me for scanning slides.)




Both of these were shot wide-open to test this lens' capabilities at f1.4 Not shabby.


A frog outside of Rainforest Cafe at Fisherman's Wharf. To me it looks like the frog is going to eat children as though they were large flies.


That fence is still locked up tightly.


A sculpture at Foundry Square.


That same sculpture only just its reflection.


A sculpture at MacArthur BART. Looks to me like a pregnant chick about to pop one out.


Few things are lonelier than an abandoned bike.