T. R. Appleton Blog

The same platform on a different medium

After last Friday’s failed experiment, I was anxious to give things another shot. So I slapped my other roll of film into the camera and quickly ran through another 24 exposures that same day, then when I came home, I ran back into the darkroom (bathroom).

One thing that I think will always strike me as feeling strange is performing fairly complex motor functions — cracking open a film canister with a churchkey, cutting the leader off the film, spooling the roll on the reel, cutting the plastic bit off, and securing the whole shebang in the tank — in complete and total darkness. What’s weirder than that is knowing that you’re doing it correctly.

Since I rushed this roll of film a bit, most of them aren’t such great photographs, but it proves a couple of things:

• I do actually know how to load film, and
• I can take 24 photos in a row and, so long as it’s not a weird situation (say, a fireworks show taking place in a broom closet), I’ll nail the exposure within one stop every time without a meter of any kind.

I am perversely proud of that second item. I was very, very satisfied when I took the roll out of the tank that second session so late Friday night — in fact, it was so late, it was almost early. It was worth it though.

Two kids playing around on their silly Nikon D90, with all those bells and whistles

Something which may appear obvious by looking at these is that I do not own a negative scanner. I should probably pick one up at some point! All I did to quickly digitize these was taped them to my computer screen and took a photo of them on my 20D (a camera which sorely needs updating).  Since this means each photo is backlit by a few thousand RGB pixels, it lends  an ironic, low-resolution digital look to each.

Still this is just a hobby, playing with film. Maybe when I have a bit of disposable income, I can throw a few bucks down for a cheap one, but until then, I’ll probably just be happy with shooting, developing, and archiving negatives.

I’ve tossed a few more selects into a gallery, if you’re at all interested in seeing a few more of these. But that’s enough film news for now — I should get back to more serious endeavors!

When I excitedly wrote about my new old film camera, I noted the fact that the film, of course, has to be developed. I had every intention of doing this, even though I haven’t developed a roll of film in about six years. So last night, I headed down to the B&H superstore and bought everything I needed — D-76, stop bath, fixer, a tank and reel, a funnel, and a graduate.

With my arms filled with all this equipment, I was struck by how much photography is chemistry — well, used to be chemistry, anyway. Now I suppose it’s all physics. (But let’s not get too tangled up in that argument.) When I take a photo on a digital camera, I have to admit that it’s not exactly as gratifying as any of this was. A digital photograph only exists as a long, long series of zeroes and ones, precariously stored on a CF card or hard drive somewhere that’s only one accidental format or crash away from never having existed at all. So often, there’s nothing you can actually hold in your hands and appreciate as something you have created.

Film, though… film is different. From the minute you trip the shutter, when you project the image onto the film, wind the roll back up, fumble around in the dark, pour chemicals with esoteric names out of repurposed  milk jugs, and cross your fingers when you look at the negs in between opening the tank and hanging them up to dry, there’s always something there that has been uniquely yours. Even if you can’t have it just yet, you know (or at least hope) that something will come out that you can have and be proud of. Those silver halide crystals are yours.

Not that I hate digital or anything like that. And as I’ve mentioned before, I wouldn’t use a film camera for a professional assignment in this day and age. But for something to do in your spare time, it’s one of the more romantic hobbies. This little jaunt back to film also clearly illustrates why digital is superior — your images are instant in every sense, more easily transported, more easily edited, the advantages are nearly endless.

Anyway, back to this particular session — it was strangely familiar getting back in the darkroom, although this time my darkroom was a bathroom instead of a professional-grade lab. The way the chemicals smelled was kind of like seeing an old friend after a really long time (if you have an old friend who is unfamiliar with hygiene). I was shocked at how easily I was able to spool the film onto the reel. I remember spending what felt like hours trying to get the stuff to track properly, but then again, I always used a steel reel back in the day, and this morning I was playing around with a plastic one with some newfangled ball bearing autoloader doohickey on it. However it works, it worked like a charm. I wasn’t too worried about getting the timing exactly right, either, because you basically have to be trying to screw up when you’re developing Tri-X.

That said, I screwed up.

Hey, there's a hair on this negative!

To be fair, I think my errors were in the “camera” segment of things, not the “darkroom” segment. I found out only later that I had loaded the film in the camera incorrectly, which explains rather a lot. However, I’m still stymied — I’m not entirely sure exactly what happened here. The sprocket hole banding pattern is very odd to me; I’ve never seen anything like this. Remember, those would be bands of light on an otherwise completely dark photograph, this being a negative and all. And this pattern perfectly lines up with every sprocket hole.

So, lesson learned for next time. Hopefully within the next week or two I’ll have shot enough photos to try this again. In the meantime, if you can solve the Mystery of Bad Negatives, please leave a note in the comments! Part of me feels like this is a common problem that I’ve not run into before now.

I was kind of expecting to mess up my first roll of film in more than half a decade, so I’m not distraught. I’m more excited for the next roll!

34th Street - Herald Square Subway Station, NYC

Recently, I posted on Twitter that I was looking to buy an old film camera, if anyone had one they were willing to part with. It’s turned out far better than I could have hoped.

Turns out I didn’t have to look very far — my girlfriend’s father had an old Konica Autoreflex TC that he was willing to part with — for free, even! (I wish I had a photo of it handy that I’ve taken myself, but I’ve just been too busy — for another time, then.) When I thanked him for it, he told me all about the camera: He bought it new in 1976 for $250, at a time when he was earning $100 per week. He’d learned all about how to use a camera, and later I saw some of the photos he’d taken with it.

I’ve shot film before, but my old Sigma body (it was my first SLR) is buried somewhere deep in my parents’ house. Besides, this thing is a classic. Allow me to outline its completely awesome feature set:

• Only weighs about one and a half pounds
• Does not require any batteries — fully mechanical!
• Shutter speeds from 1/8 to 1/1000 in full-stop increments (plus Bulb)
• Single-shot mode only (You have to wind the film after each exposure.)
• I only have one lens, a manual focus 50mm f/1.7
• Since I have no batteries in it, it has no functioning meter
• You can’t view your pictures until you or someone else develops your film

A gearhead who’s only concerned with how the bokeh looks on Canon’s $1,300 EF 70-300 f/4-5.6 DO IS USM would think I’m insane. But the thing is, every one of these things is something I desperately wanted in a camera.

Of course, I wouldn’t use this on a professional job, but I do consider it a tool for professional development. It’s light — I can take it anywhere. It only needs film, and there’s usually a Duane Reade around. I consider the technical limitations, including the single lens and especially the lack of a meter, to be tests of my skill. Over-reliance on chimping leads people to forget, or even never to learn, how to properly expose a photograph. I’ll have to trust my better judgment until I develop the film — a subject for a later post. Since I’m in control of every element, I can’t blame a bad photo on a crappy autofocus system, or a wonky image stabilizer, or an inaccurate meter. Every shot is deliberate in every sense of the word.

I learned how to shoot on a film camera, and I believe that if you really want to learn photography, you have to shoot film sooner or later. I figured it was time to get back to basics.