Tag Archives: agfa

Belfountain – December 2012

Ah Belfountain, after finding out about this place through fellow photographer Bill Smith, it soon became a favourite spot of mine to take a nice winter’s walk. Thinking I’d have a nice sunny afternoon I heading out for the hour drive north.

Sadly it was all cloudy by the time I got there, so rather than blow a roll of slide film in such dull light, I only took my trusty Nikon FM2 and one of my last rolls of Agfa APX100. This time I also took a walk up into the village of Belfountain as well to grab some shot there before retiring to the local coffee shop to warm up before heading home. Despite shooting at near wide open aperatures, and slower shutter speeds, I feel good about these shots.

Belfountain - December 2012

Belfountain - December 2012

Belfountain - December 2012

Belfountain - December 2012

Belfountain - December 2012

Belfountain - December 2012

Belfountain - December 2012

Belfountain - December 2012

Nikon FM2 – AI-S Nikkor 50mm 1:1.8 – Agfa APX100
Blaiznal 1+50 13:00 @ 20C

Found Film – Lodge Buddies

One unique thing about using old cameras is sometimes you may just find a roll of film lurking inside the camera, either fully exposed or partly, or not even exposed. I personally believe that the best kind of found film is the ones that is exposed. You’re probably curious to why I’d be interesting to finding someone else’s photos…well it’s not because of some voyeuristic reason, but to see where this camera had been, you know it’s story, who owned it, when was it last used.

I know, it still probably sounds weird to the average person, but I like to know where some of my many cameras have been, and this camera wasn’t even mine. An exploring friend of mine happened across the camera with the roll of film and asked if I could do anything with the film. So I brought it to my usual lab, but they wouldn’t touch it, there wasn’t enough information to know what sort of film it even was. So after some searching online, I took it upon myself to hand develop the film in a darkroom. The film was made by Agfa, so I started searching from there, looking online and eventually finding out it was a b/w film. So I got some Kodak HC-110 developer and took a chance and started the process. Working with this old film I took my time and was very careful, you don’t know what sort of memories could be stored here, a wedding, a birthday, some special anniversary. Or if there were any images on the film anymore. But when I pulled it out from the tank I found six frames that had exposed properly.

It’s odd posting them online, because I don’t know who these men are, or why one was nearly shirtless, but from what I was able to see, it was some sort of hunting/fishing lodge, the images were taken between 1967 and 1971 based on what the 7up can looks like. Anyways, here’s a few of them. Not bad for film that’s been sitting around for at the most 45 years.

So if you, anyone who comes across this post know who these men are or are one of these men, please leave a comment, I’d love to hear the store behind these photos, and I’m also willing to return the negatives to their rightful owner.

Cross Processing

Cross Processing or XPro the act of developing film specifically colour in the wrong chemicals.

Yes, you just read that right, I purposefully got some film developed wrong.

It sounds weird I know, putting your slide film in chemicals made for colour negative film, or colour negative in slide film chemicals. But as of late I’ve been getting into a bit of a lo-fi vibe, so I figured it was about time to try out some cross processing. The Lomographic Society markets film that is designed for cross processing, called aptly XPro. Just between us, it is actually old Agfa slide film stock just re-branded on the canister. Developing the film as slide film (which it is natively) brings out wonderful colour and resolution, so it was the film I was going to try out.

Project:52 - Week 29
Lomography XPro 100 developed as Slide Film

So I loaded in a roll of Lomography’s XPro 100 film into my trusty Nikon FM2 and the 50mm 1.4 lens and hit the streets of Toronto.

Now I had seen XPro photos in the past, and wasn’t really that keen on the look, but I went into the project knowing that the results might be a bit…weird, but I was ready for that. Of course there was a call from the lab making sure that I wasn’t being an idiot for requesting that the slide film be processed in colour negative chemistry, and me reassuring them that yes, I really wanted it done this way and that I wasn’t an idiot.

The results were…much better than I expected, of course there were several shots that really didn’t turn out that well, cross processing is not good when you’re shooting in very low light, but in the bright sun earlier in the day, the results were actually pretty fantastic.

See for yourself!

Toronto - September 2011

Toronto - September 2011

Toronto - September 2011

Toronto - September 2011

Toronto - September 2011

Most of these were shot straight from the hip, very little attention was paid to the settings (Sunny-16 metering). Would I do it again…most definitely.