6 Decades on a Saturday Morning
The snow was melting. It was time to get out and shoot.
Yesterday morning saw me up early and out of the house to meet 3 fellow photographers - Eric Wright, Doug Brand, and Charles Booker - at Charleston Falls in the hopes of catching some good flow and take advantage of the forecasted warm and cloudy day.
I my bag I packed 3 cameras spanning 6 decades of camera manufacturing and design - from 1939 to 1999. My Rolleicord 2 model IV made in 1939, a Kodak Tourist II thrift store find made in 1951, and my trusty Nikon F100, which was at the near pinnacle of Nikon film camera design when it was made in 1999. I’ve never shot a Tourist before - it has sat on many shelves in my house and office as a cheap $5 display camera, but when I found myself with a roll of Kodak Verichrome Pan in 620 that had expired back in 1968, I figured I’d load it up and shoot it as well.
The Nikon F100
When we arrived at Charleston Falls the water was flowing - better than I’ve seen in a long while but not so bad as to case a layer of mist all over everything in its vicinity. I set up with the Nikon F100 first, and shot a roll of Rollei RP25. RP25 is a fairly low-grain 25 ISO film that allowed me to do some long exposures of the falls without the need for an ND filter or cranking the F-stop to some crazy level. The F100 is a joy to use, and is one of those tools that just does its job and does it well. I walked away with 2 images that I was happy with from that roll, shown below.
The Tourist II and a very old roll of Kodak film
Next out of the bag was the Kodak Tourist II. This Tourist camera was made in 1951 and was NOT the pinnacle of Kodak design. It was a very low-spec’d camera in its day, with a fixed shutter speed and a slow single-element lens. It was designed for tourists as almost a point and shoot camera, and there were thousands made and sold back in its day.
The Tourist in action
I’ve never shot with this camera before, but before using it I did take it apart and give it a thorough cleaning and once-over. Amazingly the bellows were just fine, but the single-element lens was a dirty mess. The shutter was also a bit slow so I cleaned it as well. That really didn’t matter so much because due to the low light and low film speed it spent its time yesterday shooting on bulb mode with a cable release.
The VERY expired film had to be shot at a much lower speed than normal. Due to the general rule of thumb of rating film a stop slower for every decade of expiration, this meant I rated it at ISO 3 for the shoot. So I was getting some long shutter times at f/16 at over a minute in duration. Truthfully I didn’t expect much out of the film or the camera, it was one of those fun “while you are at it” experiments. I made my 8 shots with it knowing it was a crapshoot as to whether I got anything or not.
Having lowered expectations meant that I wasn’t too disappointed when I attempted at home in my dark bathroom to load the film onto the film reels to develop it. Being rolled up for nearly 60 years meant the film was curled badly, and, on top of that - it was brittle. At nearly 2/3rds into getting it onto the reel, it tore into pieces. And I could tell that the film that was in the roll had a few rips in it. Well, it is what it is. Right?
After semi-stand developing the film in Rodinal 1:100 for 60 minutes, and doing my stop, fix, and rinse I pulled it out of the canister to find some images on it. Surprise! Out of the 5 that were on there, 3 were salvageable.
Those aren’t going to win any awards, but I’m happy with them nonetheless. I think its amazing that I got anything at all out of the film. And, I like that it says “KODAK Safety Film” on the rebate edge. For those that don’t know, there was a time that shooting film that didn’t have the habit of spontaneously bursting into flames and burning your entire home or place of business down was a new thing.
After Charleston Falls, we headed to the nearby town of Tipp City, Ohio. I’ve never really spent any time in Tipp City but I was quite taken by its charm, old architecture, antique stores, and a DORA covering most of the downtown. I need to come back when its warmer!
I loaded the Rolleicord with a roll of Ilford FP4+, knowing its 125 film speed would be about perfect on a cloudy day for the old Rollei. This was the first time I’ve actually shot this one - I have another, newer Rolleicord V that I’ve shot with many times, as well as a couple of Rolleiflexes. This one has the f/3.5 “triplet” lens that has a very distinct look and feel to it and is very sought after. I bought it back in December and gave it a thorough cleaning and once-over. While the original ground glass is a little dim when it comes to composing, it still snaps into focus and is a joy to use. Below are a few images from the roll I shot while we walked around town.
After that we parted ways and I headed home to do some developing! Other than the ancient Verichrome film being a pain to get on the reel, the only problem I had was that I dropped my trusty digital thermometer on the floor and it stopped working. Thankfully I have a glass thermometer as a back-up, but man was I spoiled by that digital thermometer. Old glass thermometers are a pain to use!
Unlike old film cameras.
Do you have an old camera or a roll of film just gathering dust? Then get out there and shoot!
Jeremy
