Pushing film in Downtown Montreal.

I set myself a challenge to shoot only film for a week, no digital. Last evening I was setting out for a walk downtown with my buddy and realized that this would be a challenge.

I didn't want to use a flash so I decided to use a Kodak 400TX film and push it to 800 ISO. What you do is load with 400 ISO, set the camera to 800 ISO and add 20% more time when processing the film later on. These would be shot in the fashion of Daido Moriyama. I've been wanting to do this for some time after doing it with a digital camera and this was the perfect occasion.

I'm very happy with the result. 15 pictures from a roll of 24 came out to my liking. This was my first time shooting with this Ricoh 35ZF which I got for $5 at a thrift store. Not a bad buy.

Metro Cowboy

In his own universe

Waiting and texting

Place d'Armes Metro station

Chinatown walkers

St-Laurent and Ste-Catherine

Vacuuming after closing time on Ste-Catherine 

Being photographed, twice!

Young Ladies on a night out

McDonald's, "Can I take your order please?"

Shelter from the rain on Ste-Catherine

Walking by the photo exhibit

1970's photo exhibit of Montreal

Sex Shop on Ste-Catherine

Montreal PD on St-Laurent

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Lomography film sucks!

I'm a sucker. Why? Because I bought Lomography film at Urban Outfitters for $20 a box. In the box there was 3 rolls of made in China 120 black and white 100 ISO film.

If Lomography is truly the art of taking bad pictures, well this film is the best crappy one you can get. I'm not mad, I bought the film out of curiosity because I wanted to see if it was that bad. I had no high hopes since this film is in reality Shanghai GP3 cheap film but I wasn't expecting this bad.

How's this for bad, the numbers and dots printed on the back of the paper has bleeded through on the film! For 100 ISO this film is so grainy it could be sandpaper. No chance of taking a good picture with this even by dumb luck, so I guess that makes it great lomo film. So if you were wondering, Lomography film sucks. Depending on where you are with your photography this could be a bad thing or a good thing.

 

 All pictures taken with a Kodak Tourist II folding camera.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Rebuilding a Kodak Brownie No.2 F

Kodak Brownies are the Grand Daddies of point and shoot cameras. They've been around for more than 100 years, they were made in the millions, plenty of them still around and they are cheap. They are also very easy to use. A set focus, shutter speed of 1/50, bulb mode, 3 aperture settings of f22, f16 and f11, that's it.

"1924-30 Kodak Brownie No.2F as found today."

Most of the Brownies I've come across were made for 116 or 620 film. 116 is not available anymore and 620 is a pain to respool from available 120. Today I came across this sad puppy for $5. It was missing its front face plate but it loads on 120 film, I had to get it. It is a No.2 F model built in Toronto Canada between 1924 and 1930.

Down to its bare bones. 4 tiny nails hold this piece of wood on the aluminum body.

The important stuff on the camera is all there. The front face plate is more of a cosmetic element that can easily be fabricated. I started by taking the camera apart in order to clean and lube the shutter but most importantly, clean the lens.

Shutter plates cleaned in between using folded paper sheet and light oil.

Taking this camera apart is a piece of cake. Everything is held down by nails that must carefully be pulled out and a few screws. The shutter was cleaned using some folded paper and lube in order to get between the plates without taking them apart. They are held by a rivet and I would be hard pressed to reproduce the proper pressure between those 2. I re-installed the spring and it was back to original speed.

The next big step is taking out the lens and cleaning it.

See you there.

Gerry :)

Trooper #2 Day 50

"Let's get cracking!"

Trooper lending a hand with my newest project, a resto/custom job of a 1924 Kodak Brownie 2f. I got it for $5 because it was missing some parts but that's OK, we'll make some.

The project will be documented and posted in black and white to keep it "period" flavored.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Trooper #2 Day 46

"He actually managed to fix this one!"

Yeah I skipped a day but I have a nice post coming up to compensate. See I was out last night on a photo safari downtown. Here's Trooper with my new Kodak Tourist 2 after a clean up and lube job.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Using a $5 Kodak Brownie Hawkeye Flash

The 50's version of a point and shoot.

I got my hands on this beat up 1950 something Kodak Brownie Hawkeye flash this week. A pretty simple little camera that has seen better days. It came with the flash holder but I don't have any bulbs right now, so I used it with film only.

One good thing and one bad thing about this camera. the good thing is altough it was made to use 620 film which is discontinued, if you still have the original 620 spool in the take up position, a 120 film will fit in the feeder side. The bad thing is that it is fixed at aperture f/11 and 1/30th of a second for shutter speed.

I shot a roll of Ilford HP4 125 on a very sunny day, so that meant the entire roll would be over exposed. Normal setting for this type of condition would have been f/16 at 1/125. So I had to reduce the processing time in order to compensate. 3 minutes in the developer instead of 4.

The results are pretty good considering that there is no focus adjustment and you shoot through a plastic lens. It's a good thing that I took the time to clean it.

I don't think I'll be using it much but it's handy to have in the arsenal.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)