Ilford Ortho Plus 80 - New Film! (For me)

I've had some rolls of Ilford Ortho Plus 80 in the fridge for the last couple of months. On the mission for the old box camera on January 2nd I finally loaded a roll of 120 into and old Fuji medium format camera in the event the weather turned nice.

Ilford advertises the Ortho Plus as a fine grain, sharp orthochromatic black & white film that can be processed / handled in deep red safelight. They go on to say that the film's lack of red sensitivity also means that reds and oranges in your frame are rendered darker with stronger contrast than standard panchromatic films. You've read this a million other places so I won't go on with what the film is supposed to do.

I would prefer to simply share my initial experience and a few photographs from my first roll of Ortho Plus 80.

The weather was beautiful by the time we reached Ft McLeod. ISO 80 is a little lower than I'm used to. I've got a 43mm equivalent lens on the Fuji so I was pretty comfortable going with a slower shutter speed, 80th of a second and used Sunny 16 for aperture.

I really like the fine grain and tonal ranges this film produces, the sample is a little small, just 15 photographs on the roll, I'll be shooting more of this film to be sure. I haven't had a chance to run the negatives through the darkroom just yet, but I did scan the negatives, I haven't done anything to the scans except some minor dust removal.

Enjoy these!
Dean.

Kodak Brownie # 3 - Paper negatives

Alexandre inherited an old Kodak Brownie #3 camera from his grandfather a while back, so we spent a bit of time experimenting with making photographs with the camera over the holidays. The goal was to make some photographs in the camera and then make some cyanotype prints to show on the shelf next to where the camera is kept in Prince George.

We did a little research and production started in 1908 for the model at hand and was last made in October of 1917. We are working with a camera that is at least 103 years old and perhaps as old as 112 years. So yeah, it's old.

You may be surprised to hear that film is no longer available for a Kodak Brownie #3 made well over a hundred years ago! It uses Kodak 124 film that gives a negative about 3" x 4" in size.

We had a few options available, such as retrofitting to 120 film or cutting 4x5 sheet film to size and loading in the dark 1 sheet at a time. What we landed on what using Ilford RC paper cut to size.

The benefit in our chosen process is that we can cut the paper to size and load the camera under safelights in the dark room. We still need to load one sheet at a time, and have a darkroom close by to change out the paper "film" but the cost is low and the process is pretty easy!!

This whole process can be taken on the road by using a changing bag, pre-cutting a bunch of paper and keeping it in a box, and bringing along a second box to keep the exposed negatives until returning to the dark room. Or alternatively having a portable darkroom on site to develop the negatives. Lots of options!

We spent an afternoon making photographs with the Brownie #3 and came up with some pretty good negatives. We scanned the negatives and made some larger negatives on vellum paper (transparent) to make the 5x7 prints for the display we had set out to make. The paper camera negatives were pretty solid in that we didn't need to make many adjustments to get a decent print. The process is a success!

The mission on January 2 was to locate a similar camera so I can continue this large format experiment into the spring. We found a Rexoette box camera built in 1910, so 110 years old and made completely out of wood. (The Kodak Brownie #3 is a cardboard camera) The Rexoette also has an easier mechanism to load the paper negatives which are similar in size to the Brownie.

These old box cameras are notoriously expensive at the antique stores near Calgary, I managed to pick up the Rexoette for $20 so that was encouraging! More on the Rexoette in a future post once I've had a chance to make some photographs with it. I've included a few shots of the process we used with the Brownie and the results.

Go make some photographs!
Dean.

Deanz Garage

At the junction of Highway 23 and 24 north of Vulcan is an old garage. Deanz Garage to be precise. For obvious reasons this is a favourite spot, although I have other less obvious reasons to like this spot as well.

Arriving at the garage right before sunset gave some great shots on the digital camera, I had run out of film earlier. It was a great way to finish off the first short road trip of 2020!

I suppose now is as good a time as any to explain my position on gear. You’ll notice I don’t reference the specific type of brand of digital camera, I don’t believe any of that matters. I shoot mainly DSLRs and on my iPhone in digital, with a mix of rangefinders and SLR cameras when shooting film. The photographs speak for themselves I think.

I am working on some posts that feature some of the old film cameras I use, these old cameras all have their own personality that I like to use in different situations. The simplicity of the old cameras really speaks to me, there really is nothing else required to make a proper photograph than knowing the ISO (ASA) of the film and having the ability to set a shutter speed and the aperture.

The whole process, from loading the film, exposing the photographs, developing the film and finally making prints in the darkroom, to me that feels real.

I don’t see the same (or any) personality with digital cameras, the process isn’t as real as film, they all kind of handle things the same way in my experience, that’s not a bad thing, they all produce exceptional photographs, I just don’t have any interest in spending time on features that have been covered by other people in a million different ways.

The photographs in this post and many others include photographs taken on digital cameras, so clearly I have nothing specific against them, in fact I believe they help me in my film photography to an extent. Like helping get through a creative dry spell, I can try out a bunch of ideas and without much additional effort see what the look is. The instant gratification we have come to expect in so much of our lives.

Anyways, enough philosophy. Go make some photographs!
Enjoy these.
Dean.