How to Record a Podcast and Enjoy Doing So!

Posted on November 16, 2011 by Alex

Last month while I was on my usual fall vacation at the end of October I once again found myself in New Jersey. I have always been an avid fan of the Film Photography Podcast and have been listening to it since it’s third episode, and have been no stranger to the flickr group, organized a Toronto FPP meetup…the list continues.

So before I left I was sure to email Michael Rasso, the founder of the podcast/project to see about meeting up. The email I got in reply surprised me. I was offered to help guest host the podcast. Nervous could not even begin to describe how I felt, but I accepted the offer anyways.

Marthon session was right, 9am to about 5pm we recorded, I took a break for one of the episodes but still managed to get in at least three maybe four. The first was released yesterday (Nov 15th) with the rest being released over the next couple months. It was a riot, litterally just five guys sitting around a table shooting the breeze about film, cameras, techniques, and other such topics, all while surrounded by a great number of cameras (I personally had my Rolleiflex, Leica, Horizon, and Polaroid 600 CloseUp). And in typical form, at the end of hte day we all went to Mac’s Diner for a great dinner! A very full day, and of course special thanks to Michael Raso, Mat, Dan, and Hunter!

Project:52 – Week 44

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Alex

I’m not often one who will get a new camera and throw it into a project that has been going very well, and hoping that I’ll get something decent. I usually test out the cameras first. But when I was given a Lomo Smena 8m from Michael Raso of The Film Photography Project it must be a good camera. And well the manual was all in Russian so I just launched right into using it. The results were…interesting. I carried it with me over the course of Sunday errands so there’s really no rhyme or reason to the images, they’re shot straight from the hip with little or no looking at focus or settings.

The Smena is as basic as basic can be, it’s plastic (although sporting a glass lens), there’s no focus aid, you just sort of guess, shutter speeds are indicated by pictograms (the actually numerical speeds are listed on the side of the lens barrel), and the aperture settings are on the front of the lens and you seem to pick them by the film speed you have loaded although the scale is none that I had ever seen before. Oh and there’s no light meter or automatic settings.

You shoot from the hip, and pray it turns out.

ЛОМО ϹМЕНА 8M – T-43 4/40 ЛОМО – Kentmere 100

Project:52 – Week 31

Posted on August 15, 2011 by Alex

Going a little crazy for week 31….

In a recent trip to Toronto’s Lomography store I came across their Fisheye camera, a cheap plastic fisheye lens camera, and compared to other cameras they have so I picked it up, having caught the toy camera bug from my Holga (c/o the FPP). The results were well interesting to say the least, I was literally just shooting from the hip, not bothering with any rules or that nonsense, just going out and photographing for the sake of photographing.

Lomography Fisheye (Version 1) – Fuji Superia X-Tra 400

Project:52 – Week 25

Posted on July 3, 2011 by Alex

Before Polaroid stopped making film I picked up one of their 600 type cameras on a whim and bought the last two packs of Polaroid film from Henry’s. I shot one pack and went ‘meh’ then Polaroid stopped making film. Of course at the time I wasn’t too concerned, I was still very much wrapped up in my digital cameras, and I had a few 35mm bodies hanging around that I was more than happy to try out.

Of course then I started listening to The Film Photography Podcast, and they were talking about The Impossible Project, how these men had bought the last Polaroid Factory in the Netherlands to make an attempt at reinventing the instant integral film not only reviving the 600-Type cameras, but SX-70, and Spectra. Well now I was interested again and kicking myself at giving away that last pack of film and 600 camera to a friend. So I started hunting, finding an SX-70 first as the first batch of film was designed for those types of cameras.

So with the release of the PX680 film from Impossible, Week 25 is dedicated to Impossible Films.

PX100 was the first film released by Impossible. This Silver Shade film was designed for the SX-70 type cameras.

Polaroid Land Camera SX-70 Model 2 – PX100

Polaroid Land Camera SX-70 Model 2 – PX100

The PX600/PZ600 silver shade film was the second film released from TIP. UV+ is an enhanced version of the PZ/PX600 line of films.

Polaroid Spectra – PZ600 UV+

Polaroid Spectra – PZ600 UV+

PX70 Push!, was the second released of colour film from Impossible. Personally I could never get this one to work right but I suspect there’s something up with my camera.

Polaroid Land Camera SX-70 Sonar OneStep – PX70 Push!

PX680 First Flush is the first, in my opinion colour film released by Impossible to really give off the look of the original Polaroid Film, both TimeZero and the 600 stuff. I’m actually really impressed.

Polaroid 600 CloseUp – PX680 First Flush

Polaroid 600 CloseUp – PX680 First Flush

Project:52 – Week 18

Posted on May 16, 2011 by Alex

So for the past 17 weeks, each week has been about one camera, and one type of film…so why not celebrate film shooting, and more specifically the April 30th Film Photography Podcast and APUG meet up in Toronto’s Distillery District that I organized.

The meet itself was an amazing success, I was very pleased with the turn out, about 20 people showed up and the weather was spectacular! (I had the sunburn on my face to prove it the next day). I was still recieving compliments this past Sunday at the PHSC fair.

Canon AE-1 Program – Canon FD Lens 50mm 1:1.8 – Kodak Ektar 100

Polaroid Land Camera 240 Automatic – Polaroid 664

Rolleiflex 2.8F – Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm 1:2.8 – Fuji Velvia (RVP)

Rolleiflex 2.8F – Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm 1:2.8 – Fuji Astia 100F (RAP100F)

For the rest of the Meet Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/axle81401/sets/72157626501869889/with/5725599303/
Also Check out the Film Photography Podcast at: http://www.filmphotographypodcast.com

The Last Roll (Of Kodachrome)

Posted on March 11, 2011 by Alex

There are probably a lot of people on here who have much longer and fonder memories of this magically slide film called Kodachrome. Kodak canceled the long running film in 2009 along with all support and additional products needed to run the K-14 process. Introduced in 1935 Kodachrome became the first commercially available colour films. It featured bright colours, and long lasting stability. The reason for this was at its very core Kodachrome was a black and white film, with each emulsion layer sensitive to a different colour. Then during the process the dyes were introduced and stuck to the layers to bring out the colours.

I came into Kodachrome far too late.

At the beginning of 2010 Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, KS announced they would be continuing to process Kodachrome but only will accept orders for processing until December 31st, 2010. The Race was on. Having shot three rolls to this point, those three being major disappointments (poor storage), I went hunting on both Ebay and within the local photographer population and managed to secure myself six more rolls. Living in Canada meant that I had at least a month turn around for my photos.

These photos are from that last roll that I shot on December 18th, 2010. I went along King Street for the most part in Toronto, a street I hadn’t really explored that much with the camera. After I finished the roll, I mailed it off that same day.

This was the very last frame I shot, the building is the City of Toronto’s First Post Office (4th Post office for the City of York) it was shut down after the Rebellions in1837 when the postmaster was framed for aiding the anti-government rebels. It was restored and reopened in 1983 and serves both as a full service Post Office (I mailed the roll off that day from the post office to Dwayne’s) and a museum.

Contax G2 – Carl Zeiss Biogon 2,8/28 T* – Kodachrome 64 (KR)

For all my Kodachrome shots (Including the first failed rolls) you can visit my Last Days of Kodachrome set on Flickr

But fear not! As I mentioned previously, Kodachrome is at it’s core a black and white film, so several people have been experimenting with processing the film in normal b/w chemicals! The results, spectacular! So don’t ditch those spare rolls (if you have any) laying around! Sharp Photo does a good job as does Blue Moon Camera. (If you don’t want/need them, you can always send them to me…)

Polaroid Love

Posted on September 30, 2010 by Alex

Two guys in New Jersey. They’re really the ones to blame for this obsession, this obsession on instant photography.

You might know it better as Polaroid. Now I had already tried out Polaroid a couple years back but never really interested me, and of course the news that Polaroid has gone belly up, and was no longer producing film. As millions of cameras suddenly became useless. I never gave it a second thought.

It was shortly after listening to some of the early episodes of the Film Photography Podcast that I learned about a group called Impossible. This company had purchased from Polaroid the last factory in the Netherlands, their mission, to recreate the integral instant film that made Polaroid big. Yes it truly was a Mission:Impossible for them as much of the chemicals were long expired, and the notes shredded.

Well they did it, producing a first flush of PX100 film designed for the SX70 type Polaroids, and started selling off whatever parts and pieces they could find in the property they now owned. Old Artistic TZ films, Type 100 pack films.

The PX100 film, at least the first version was a rather interesting film to begin with, it suffered from tearing, pulling, and generally being a pain in the ass to use. As you can see from the photo above, it’s not a very good image. But I could take it out of the camera (leave it in the dark for several minutes) and pull out a print.

Let’s see your digital camera do that. Sure you can view the image on the screen, put you still have to take it to either a print shop or home before you can hold that image in your hand.

I decided to wait on getting more film from impossible. And then from the FPP guys I got a Polaroid Colorpack II, this was even older than my SX70 coming out in 1969, and it took…pack film! (Something that Fuji still makes!) and Mike Rasso was even kind enough to include a pack of said Fuji FP-100c film. You take the shot, pull the tab, pull the image, do the count, and crack and peel it open. The chemicals smell awful. But you have a print, a unique shot, never to be captured that way again, in your hand.

How Awesome is that?

Then I noticed that Impossible has some of the “Type 100″ pack film up for sale, so I put in another order, grabbing in addition to the two packs for the Colorpack II, some of the new PX70 colour film for hte SX70 and a pack of the second flush of the PX100. The second round of PX100 seemed to turn out much better than my first.

It was just rather warm that day, so the images really showed it. The colour shots however, those turned out much more interesting. I think the cold and damp really affected them.

Yes, very experimental, but rather interesting at the same time. And I still have two more packs of the stuff to shoot. And recently at a photoshoot I ended up bringing along my ColorPack II as a secret weapon, so that the couple each could have a print right there, in the park. They thought it was a pretty neat idea.

alex luyckx | blog

Explorer, Photographer, Wanderer

Tag Archives: Film Photography Podcast