Graflex Crown Graphic Camera - Finished! At least for now!

So the Crown Graphic that I have been working on is done. Thanks in no small part due to the rotten winter weather we have had. Being stuck indoors has indirectly encouraged me to spend time in the shop working on this an other projects. When I purchased this camera on EBay the seller had somewhat misrepresented the condition. More omission than commission. They did not say that it likely had been in a flood. They had mentioned that the bellows leaked. The camera has now been cleaned, the leather stripped and the wood refinished, the bellows patched both with cloth tape and with flexible black silicone sealant, the bellows treated to help preserve future flexibility and last but not least the leather handle has been replaced. Some of the metal parts have been repainted. But I opted not to dissasemble the entire door/focusing bed and have not repated the camera interior parts. Now that she is finished I have taken a few with it shots using Fuji instant film and some of my lens/shutter combinations and it seems to be working well. The bellows are for now light tight and should remain so with reasonable care. The lens and shutter that came with the camera have a ton of fungus and wiping scratches. The shutter also sticks and should I decide to keep her I will make an attempt at cleaning and lubrication. The lens on the other hand shows lots of fungus and wiping scratches. The shots I took with it are very soft. They sharpen a bit when stopped down in the middle F stop range. But when I use my other glass the images improve greatly. In short the body of this camera is back but the glass and shutter are still not what I would consider using.

Side View

Front View

Top View

Back View/Film Holder

Front Lens and bellows - Note patching at bellows points

Bellows Patch Details

Film Processing and Printing Resource - Ilford Lab Direct

Ilford Lab Direct









As you know I have an interest in film photography. I have for some time been trying to learn what resources are available to the film photographer especially those working in large format. While I am not going to pine on about the demise of analog photography I have noticed that resources, services and products are still becoming harder to access. The local film lab in my city while still developing C41, E6 and Black and White is doing so on a much less frequent basis causing me some concern about the freshness of chemistry when they do actually do a run. C41 seems to still be getting run more frequently than E6 which is now less than one time a week.

As such I am posting this link to a resource I recently came across. I also put a link in the Information and Inspiration section of this blog which will take you to  to the Ilford Lab Direct. They provide film development and film printing and scanning. As best I can tell while they develop, print and scan roll film sizes, they only develop/process large format film 4x5, 5x7 and 8x10. It does not appear they will scan or print those sizes. They do however process both C41 and E6 along with Black and White using Ilford chemistry. I would assume that anyone going into this business linked to a manufacturer would have reasonable quality standards but I have not yet used them myself. I don't have a dark room and at this time don't have the time or desire to set one up. My work flow is to shoot film, wet scan it with the Epson V700 Pro flat bed scanner and then print photos using various ink jet or laser printers I have at my disposal.

If anyone has used this service please leave comments for me and others.

Vivian Maier - An urban street photography addiction

Photograph by Vivian Maier

For many photogrphy is about capturing "pretty" images. I certainly have not issue with landscape photography, the capturing of natural beauty or at times even the sentimental beauty that one sees in a lot of photographic work. The capturing of every day and urban images however is not so easily understood and I have come across several historical photographers that did so with excessive compulsion. They pursued the capture of these images with seemingly little or no outlet or expecation that someone would ever see their work. Like many of us the capture and production of the images was far more important or compelling than the promotion or marketing of these images.

I recently came upon a photographer Vivian Maier,who seems to be quite the unusual example. For starters she is a woman. Aspinsterish woman who supported herself primarily as a nanny who also photographed her world with excessive compulsion. The fact that she was a woman, this single fact may have meant that she did not stand a chance of ever being noticed by an art culture that focused predominantly on men with a few notable exceptions.  As someone who has an affinity for photographing architecture, the urban environment and the more familiar things of may daily world, things not always thought of a "pretty" her work is extrordinary. What an unusual combination this quiet care giver living much of her life in upscale suburbia making these amazing images of the urban, the poor and the ordinary or our world.  These images have a quality to them that are quite compelling. Clearly she worked at her craft as these are not just snapshots. They come out of a deep knowledge and familarity with her subject, tireless compostion and timing and a relentless pursuit that borders on excessive compulsion. She had caputured thousands of images when she died many of which were on rolls of film which had not been developed as she had become destitute and homeless losing access to her darkroom. Take a look at these amazing images and remember that these images were caught on film when you had to calculate your exposure, depth of field in your head and when there were no autofocus or exposure computers. You could not just shoot 40 frames at rapid fire to get it just right.
http://www.vivianmaier.com

Focusing Screen Success - Cant wait to start taking photos

So the Cambo/Calumet ground glass focusing screen arrived and it works perfectly. It mounts without any additional modification to the revolving section of the Graflex Super Graphic camera back. I shot a couple of instant film images and the Fuji 405 instant film back insets and seats without issue. Something that it will not do with my Sinar F. So I am very happy about that. The Polaroid 4x5 film also inserts and seats without issue but since I am down to my last pack of Fuji FC100c45 film I won't matter. Well unless either the Impossible Project or New 55 starts to make film again that is actually 4x5.  Here are the photos of the new camera. I can't wait to load up some film holders and take it out into the field and take some photos. I will also be posting some photos of the beater Graflex Crown Graphic that I have. I am trying to decide if I am going to restore it or put it up on E-bay and unload it.

On another related front the older Soligor 1 degree Spot meter that I picked on E-bay for $15 is working and appears to be correct when tested against my digital cameras. It took a little creativity to solve the missing battery cover issue. But a little Yankee ingenuity to make a retainer spring clip to hold the hearing aid batteries in place and viola "success". My transportable, low cost (cheap!!!) 4x5 film, field camera set up is almost all together.

Front View Graflex Super Graphic Camera

Side View

View of Cambo Ground Glass focusing back with extra deep spring clips. Mounts perfectly where the missing Graflex back should normally mount.

Front View with camera bellows sliding back ready to be closed up.

All closed up. This makes a nice tidy package compared to my Sinar F. Much easier to put into a back pack.

The Cambo/Calumet focusing back easily mounts and removes without needing to modify the slide clips or other parts of the camera. It has enough depth to accept instant film backs and seems to work perfectly. The Super Graphic has more movements than older versions of the Graflex press camera with a sturdy aluminum box. Not all the bells and whistles that some field cameras have but also not the cost.

Still Waiting for New Instant Film

When will the New 55 project actually have a product? When I began to dabble in analog film photography again after a long 20 year break I quickly realized that the world had changed. In the old days commercial photographers would use instant film to verify that their composition, exposure and camera where as expected. This would give them a high degree of predictability insurance against the human goofs that can and do occur during a photo shoot. Using the "Polaroid test shot" was the way I learned to prep for a shot which could sometimes take hours to compose, focus, light and adjust. As the saying goes time is money and while not the least expensive thing in the world Polaroid film was far cheaper then taking everything down, going home, waiting a couple of days for the lab and then finding out that your shot isn't any good. While I was not shooting for profit or gain this helped prevent the inevitable disappointment from having a lot of bad sheets of film. The products and materials that simply were no longer available in the market became a real obstacle.

So I have been following with some interest the development of "New 55". It is a skunk works project that has been attempting to develop not just a replacement for Polaroid 55 black and while instant 4x5 film but an improved product. One that would produce not only a good posative but also a good working negative. With Fuji leaving the 4x5 instant filme market what choice do we have but hope that some other creative entrepreneur is successful at bringing new and improved products. Unfortunately while they seem to be making good technical progress they are finding funding and capital to launch the actaul production of the new product very difficult. This means that what looked to be just around the corner a few months ago is pushed out even further. I will post a link to their blog here, look to the end and also place it in the resources section so that if you like you can read the actual post by the developers themselves. We can only hope that as the economy improves someone with capital will find this a viable investment. New 55 Instant Film Blog

Stay tuned and keep your fingers crossed.

New55 Film: New55 and 20x24 demonstrate instant color 8x10 wit...

New55 Film: New55 and 20x24 demonstrate instant color 8x10 wit...

So I was googling around the Internet and found this link. It seems these guys are working on a totally new form of instant photographic film material. It produces positive images and negatives at the same time with little or no waist. Wow! Link to Flicker slide show of images

I will be doing more research into this. This would be a fantastic thing for those of us who would like to find a more logistically feasible analog photographic process that allows us to use our large format cameras!!

Working with 4x5 Film Camera





Barge Crane and Abandoned Power Station

Chapel Cornice

Tonight's post is of two subjects that I have photographed before. The first is a barge crane on the Mississippi River. Across the river is an abandoned power station. It is an ethereal place. Quiet and vast. This crane stands tall looming against the vista of the powerful yet mostly silent river. These were  photographed with my 4x5 Sinar  F2 and 150mm Schneider Lens using E100G film. The second is the cornice of a chapel at the Bellefontaine Cemetery. The cemetery provides examples of architecture that are more art than function. Most architecture serves two masters being both art and function. But in these temples, tombs and chapels at the cemetery serve little practical purpose being absent of function. Yes the structure must resist the elements but they are of little use but to serve and express the connection that architecture has with our emotions. These classical structures are so rigid in their execution. Still they are are so sculptural and three dimensional.

Kodak Bankruptcy

Kodak Bankruptcy Announcement

Kodak Retina I -
Image From Ken Rockwell.com
This was my first camera. All manual!!!

Well the long anticipated announcement of Kodak corporation's bankruptcy has become a reality. The above link will take you to the basic facts of the bankruptcy filing. For those of us who grew up with photography and film or still still use film for some of our business or artistic work this is more bad news. How bad this is and what impact it will truly have will shake out over time. Without having any first hand knowledge or detailed announcements yet from the company about product production or availability it is safe to say that it is almost certainly going to mean some future changes. American Airlines, one of the latest bankruptcies is now reducing flights on unprofitable routes. Kodak will do the equivalent. This was likely a long time coming and so many factors have contributed. The radical very real growth of digital imaging, the speed that digital photography transformed into a high quality medium, the Internet, consumer convenience, poor corporate decision making, a global recession and increased capital standards by lenders where likely all factors. Still it is sad to see this iconic brand of a company faced with such a humiliating situation. Kodak, love them or hate them, have been an icon of the photography industry and of the American industrial landscape for all of my 50 plus years of life. My first direct experience with their products was as a junior high school kid shooting my first 35mm film with my father's Kodak Retina camera. A camera he picked up during his time in Germany during WW II. I was hooked and shortly after that my dad and I built a home darkroom developing Tri-X and Plus-X film in the basement of my parents house. Shooting pictures for the high school year book and experimenting in photography all through high school. Then taking photography again during architecture school. Photography and imaging, seemed to be there either as snap shots at family events, of finished projects at work or as art unto itself for its own sake. Kodak was always the primary provider of the consumable materials.

But then digital became all the rage and justifiably so. With the Internet everything changed. Photography transformed but so also did almost everything else from the analog world into new digital. Graphics, music, photography, architecture, banking, medicine, publishing, news they all have seen radical transformation as part of this virtual digital revolution. Ones and zeros. Who would have ever anticipated the impact of these changes 20 years ago. Possibly Nicholas Negroponte at MIT but not most of the rest of us. Certainly not the business leaders of Kodak well or maybe they did (read to the end). The death of the consumer film industry happened suddenly for Kodak and many others. If I am an example one day I was shooting film and taking it to Walgreens. The next day I was taking digital shots with my pocket sized Di Image and printing them from my network printer. I did no look back at all for a long time. For the next 10-15 years my film cameras were in the storage box replaced by several, ever improving versions of digital cameras. Remember the old Sony Mavica which capture images on a CD ROM? Or Minolta's Di Image cameras? Today I still shoot a lot of digital images with Nikon DSLRs. But look at the Sony NEX 7 to see how far, how small and how high quality, 24 mega pixels, consumer digital cameras have come. Today I shoot way more digital photos then I ever did film images, thousands in fact and almost every human with a cell phone has a digital camera at their beck and call. It is convenient and once the camera is paid for the images are free. Yes you still must pay for printing but I know that I print a very small percentage of the images I shoot and hey I can post them out here on my blog for people to see and yet it is.....FREE! Digital is more ubiquitous then ever and digital photography is not going away any time soon. Or until something better comes along. But that is what happened to Kodak. Something better, very much better came along. Not better in quality per say but better in convenience.

But here I was needing something more. Larger images, better quality and after researching it seemed that film might provide an option. We could not afford a professional and I had a long history with photography. I did not have the high end digital equipment but did have the knowledge and experience to go "old school with film. I needed or wanted high quality images, material cost per didn't matter as long as it was less then the cost of renting high end digital equipment shot. I only needed so many shots and could deal with the "inconvenience" as this is not a profit center for our company.

I had only just returned to film photography at the end of last year and for this very specific reason. I was going to start using a large format 4x5 Sinar F2 camera to photograph some of our finished projects, scan them with a flat bed scanner and have an alternative 100 mega pixel set up. Large format film was the standard for architectural photography for decades and it seemed to offer a very real alternative to buying or renting very expensive high end digital cameras/sensors. I have time and knowledge but am limited on money. Large format film is a "huge" capture surface by comparison, even when compared to the largest best professional equipment. It has properties that are still hard to match even today with the best digital equipment. But as I ramped back into the process and relearned techniques, dusting off knowledge that was long before stored away I realized quickly that the film industry had declined far more then I would have every expected. I found this out the first time I went to buy color transparency or "positive" film. Finding that the old standard Ektichrome was not immediately available. After some some work and some waiting I could locate E100g it's new cousin but availability was spotty and limited. Going on line however I quickly realized that Kodak, Fuji and all the film industry and analog products were in a significant state of transformation. Financial problems abounded and product cancellations abounded. Only a few like Kodachrome made the news. Typically the product would just disappear. Information boards are filled with rumors and panic.

The Kodak announcement is no surprise. Those of us who still want to use film as an option can only hope that they will figure out how to scale production down to make it profitable in smaller runs. Or sell the formula to someone else who will. It is unlikely that volume will ever require running whole plants dedicated to single products or product types. If all goes well production by Kodak or someone else will continue for a number of products color, black and white, movie, sheet film, roll film etc. If they don't manage the bankruptcy well they may end up the way of Polaroid with desired and desirable products just dying. Let us hope for a different conclusion. Apparently a Polaroid pissed off employees where shoving equipment out of second floor loading doors of the plant destroying it thus preventing any future buyer from ever being able to realize a value.

Before you basj Kodak too badly you should first remember that from high in the sky the ground is a long way off. The peak year of film production was apparently 2002. Think about that. In only 10 years a whole process became commercially obsolete! Kodak invented, innovated, created, marketed and profited as a giant for a very long time. The decisions that likely lead to bankruptcy where very likely made at the same time GM was making really bad decisions that lead to their, once unimaginable, bankruptcy. If anyone asks you who invented the digital camera sensor you should tell them. Eastman Kodak of Rochester NY in the good old USA The inventor of the digital camera or CCD sensor

See the information boards at Large Format photograpy and Annalog phototgraphy (APHUG) for more infomration on product availablity and alternatives. I hope film remains available but time and change marchs on!!!