Fail... Or Is It??

If you read my last post, you know I am shooting some instant film. Not being one to leave well enough alone, I decided to try and recover the negatives from the Fujifilm FP-100c. This is pretty simple and Google can answer any questions you have about it. I'm writing this to talk about a 'mistake' I made so that you can benefit from my experience and not make it yourself (or do, depending on what you want your scans to look like).

Instead of using strong gaffer's tape as recommended, I used cheap painter's tape. This stuff is purposely not very sticky so that it doesn't remove paint from your walls. Needless to say, the bleach I was using (not a gel type) leaked under the tape and got on the emulsion side of the film. Then I tried to wipe it off. Then I put some water on it and tried to wipe that off.

Here is the result along with the original scan of the print. I think I like what happened to this negative, though I'm not sure I could reproduce it in any consistent way. But that is part of art, right? Experimenting and adding randomness can create beautiful things.

New Life for a Square Shooter

Polaroid made lots of different cameras that used lots of different film formats. There were 2 different types of roll film, 3 types of pack film (peel apart) and 7 different types of integral film. There were also 2 different sheet films for large format cameras. Many of these cameras are still around in closets, attics, and drawers. Many of those make it to auction sites where they are sold (usually) for a fraction of their original price. A while back my father-in-law gave me an old Polaroid Land Camera - Square Shooter. This camera used Type 88 film which went out of production in 2006. So, do I toss the camera? Convert it to a single-shot or a pinhole. Of course not! There is still pack film being produced by Fuji. Unfortunately, it is for 100 series cameras and won't fit in my Square Shooter. But this thing is just made of plastic. Certainly there must be a way to mod the camera so that the Fujifilm FP-100c will fit, right? Right! And it turns out that it is super easy. There is a black plastic holder in the camera that holds the film pack. I wiggled that until it broke free. Toss that. Then there are some ridges or struts that hold the film pack. Those need to be cut, sanded or ground down. I used a rotary tool with a cut-off wheel and in about 90sec. that was done. Now the film fits. Make sure there are fresh batteries in there since the shutter is electronic. Load up the film, close the back, pull the dark slide paper and you are ready to go!! Easy Peasy! One thing to note is that the Type 88 film was iso 75 and the FP-100c is iso 100, so you might want to set the exposure dial on the front of the camera one step toward "Darken" so as not to over expose. Here is an example. Notice that the whole frame is not exposed. Remember, this is a "square" shooter, modified for rectangular film. The mask blocks part of the film so you will end up with black bars on one end of the photo. I like squares, so I am okay with this.

So dig out that old Polaroid Square Shooter or go grab one for cheap and start taking instant photos again. It's super fun!

This one was taken with the exposure compensation dialed down toward "darker".

This one was taken indoors under mostly fluorescent light with the exposure compensation dialed up one step toward "lighter".

New Life for a Polaroid Land

I was given a Polaroid Model 800 Land Camera recently (upper left). It is in very good shape for a camera that was manufactured c. 1957-62. The lens is clean and clear, the bellows are intact and all of the dials and buttons work just like they did 40+ years ago. The only thing that becomes an obstacle to using this camera is that the film is no longer manufactured for it. This particular camera used Polaroid Roll Film which consisted of a 'positive' roll and a 'negative' roll. The camera exposed the negative and then the positive was sandwiched to it and the developer was rolled out between them as they were pulled out of the camera. A minute later you could peel them apart and lacquer your print. Simple, right? Well, even if it was simple, it wasn't profitable for very long. Additionally, if you could find some of this film on say, an auction site, the developer would have long since dried out, rendering it useless for all but a dreary reminder of a wondrous time in photographic history when it only took a minute to get a print.

So what to do with this old beauty? I don't own any shelf queens. All of my cameras are functional and are used. This one should be no exception. I was fiddling around with it, looking at the rollers and how the whole system worked together. It originally made a 3x4 inch image and so that is the size of the mask the the pressure plate sits against. However, there is a larger detent around the mask that just happens to be very close to 4x5 inches! I quickly grabbed a spare sheet of 4x5 film and set it in the back of the camera. A nearly perfect fit!! This could become a nice single shot large format camera. It is smaller than the Speed Graphic (though still plenty big), but a single shot isn't really worth lugging it around town. It could be a nice portrait or still life camera. But first, I should give it a quick test just to see if the focus and shutter are even in the ballpark. I loaded up a sheet of 4x5 Kodak CSG x-ray film in the dark, closed up the back and hoped that the film wouldn't shift. The pressure plate seems a little weak, but it's hard to say what is happening inside once the back is closed. I took it out to the patio where there was a pumpkin sitting on the table with some other sundries. The camera shutter/aperture are linked. You set a dial to the correct EV and the exposure is taken care of by the camera. You don't get any real control over DOF. Focus is with a coupled range finder. Instead of 'snap' or 'click', the shutter goes 'poinnngggg', like you just over-wound your grandfather clock. I took the film out and put it into a 4x5 holder since I don't have any bags that I trust to be light tight, and stored it in the fridge until I had 5 more shots to use with my MOD54 developing rig. A couple of weeks later, I am ready and with fingers crossed, I develop per my usual process with this film:

• Adox Adonal 1:100
• gentle inversions for 30sec
• 10sec inversions every minute for 4min
• rinse
• Ilford Rapid Fixer 1:4 x 4min
• rinse well

Here is the final product. Not an exciting photo, but a successful test of the camera. I am excited to try this out in some different lighting situations. The 3x4 format is pleasing to my eye, so I will probably use it more than I think. I am trying to devise a way to get a few shots loaded with layers of film and opaque paper since there are essentially two compartments inside the camera. More on that later.