Friday 21 November 2014

The Road to Pyro



There's an impossible to define point at which a photographer's natural inclination to try new films and developers starts to transform into a phenomenon popularly known as magic bullet chasing, a quest to find that perfect combination that will give our images that balance of grain characteristics, tonality and apparent sharpness that will finally yield that long sought after look, spurred on by the implicit belief that such a combination exists. Over the years I have tried my fair share of combinations myself, but if there was ever a point that this crossed the line into magic bullet chasing it was the first time I tried Pyro developers back in my 20's.

Don't feel too bad if that's a new on you. Pyro developers started falling out of favour as long ago as the early 1900's, a decline that has everything to do with the introduction of developing agents whose stability and convenience characteristics trumped pyro's image characteristics, an area in which few would argue it has ever been surpassed after more than a century.

So what is this stuff and why should it be worth the bother? First to the what: Pyro developer is a general term for black and white film developers that are based on either Pyrogallol (aka Pyrogallic Acid) or Pyrocatechin (aka Pyrocatechol or simply Catechol). These are normally used in combination with other developers such as Phenidone or Metol. When it comes to why, Pyro images have a few desirable characteristics. The most well known is something that at first blush sounds like the last thing you would want - these developers stain the negative. The important detail that turns what sounds like a disaster into a boon is that stain increases with the density of the image so that the final image consists of the regular silver grain image plus the stain image. Because the stain image is continuous it reduces the appearance of grain. Additionally, there is very little bleeding along edges where light borders dark in the image increasing the appearance of sharpness and detail. Normally there is something of a trade-off between fine grain and increased apparent sharpness (high acutance) in developer formulae but Pyro has a reputation for giving you both. 


On the light table a strip of negatives prcessed in Pyrocat HD (top) and a strip processed in a more conventional developer (bottom). The brownish cast in the top example is the Pyro stain. There are many different Pyro developer formulations which may give more or less stain with colour casts that can range from yellowish to brownish to greenish.  

This is the theory at least, and there are other claimed advantages as well. There are those who speak of Pyro developers as though they posses near magical qualities, but still others claim it isn't worth the bother. Next to Sodium Hydroxide (Lye) it is potentially the most hazardous substance you'll encounter in photo chemistry, a powerful skin irritant and toxic if you breathe in airborne powder. (Luckily it's not that powdery but precautions are still in order.) There are a few other considerations related to keeping it chemically stable, but so long as these are kept in mind and you are willing to mix separate solutions that are only combined just before use, something I do with more conventional developers anyway, using Pyro developers isn't really much more involved that what I was already doing.

Still, when it was becoming clear that my default mode of photography had returned to something involving developing film in the kitchen sink I told myself I wasn't going to do anything crazy like get back into Pyro developers. I had HC-110, a fine developer, economical to use and with one shot liquid convenience. By the time the bottle started to run dry though I had a hankering to try something that favoured sharpness over fine grain and decided to try Beutler's formula. Though not commercially available it was simple to mix from just a few ingredients, a sort of undertaking I was no stranger to, and I've been happy using it since. 

That was until there was x-ray film to think about, that marvelous stuff that lets me shoot 8x10 for a per-frame cost that rivals 35mm. Finicky stuff it is though with its double sided emulsion that's more prone to scratching that a wax cylinder phonograph. This shortcoming can be diminished by, as it turns out, Pyro developers that in addition to their staining characteristics also tan and harden the gelatin base of the emulsion making it tougher an more scratch resistant. And if I was going to be getting this stuff to use with x-ray film anyway, wouldn't it simplify things to start using it for my regular work as well? 

And so it was that with my last regular order of supplies was a box from Photographer's Formulary containing all the ingredients needed to make a small batch of Pyrocat HD whcih is probably the most popular Pyro developer formula out there at the moment. I still haven't found the 8x10 tanks I'm looking for to properly develop x-ray negatives but no reason not to start right in the next time I had roll film to develop. A recent optometrists appointment that brought me further down the South Coast (as the Canadian side of the Lake Erie shore is referred to by we locals, or at least our tourist boards) than my usual relaxed photographic sojourns usually go gave me just that chance when I was able to roll in a side trip to the lighthouse that stands at the mouth of the Grand River.

A straight scan from the first two rolls developed in Pyro and a crop from a very small section of the image unsharpened and straight from the scanner. In the crop grain seems all but invisible though I'm wondering whether reducing agitation might have boosted apparent sharpness, which doesn't seem as apparent as I'd hoped here.


For processing information I struck out at the Massive Dev Chart site. They had no information at all for Pyrocat HD with the Fuji Acros I had, but after digging through a few forums I came up with a time of 19 minutes at 20oC with 1:1:100 dilution. As the comparison photo of the negatives on the light box shows this was too much. They're still workable though as the top photo (from the leftmost Pyro negative), possibly in part due to Acros's ability to hold highlight detail. Superficially the middle Pyro neg looks about right but this is because I used the 10 stop ND filter that I'm beginning to realize is denser than its nominal rating and consequently the shot is really underexposed and over developed. I shot at box speed which seems about right but I will have to give it less time and possibly less agitation next time. Pyro developers reputedly require less agitation to maintain even development and reducing agitation, for reasons I hope to discuss in a future episode, increases the apparent sharpness even more. This is my hope anyway as this is one area in which it doesn't seem that results met my expectations. More experimentation is sure to follow. As always I'll keep you posted. 

Saturday 15 November 2014

Old Film

There was a time when it was considered just a general shame if film went past it expiry date. It could still be used of course, but you normally wouldn't take chances by using it for the good family shots during the holidays or on a once in a lifetime vacation. These days there are those who consider a well aged film the photographic equivalent of a well aged wine. I think I can safely assume it hasn't escaped your notice that taking photos that have some sort of vintage look to them is quite a thing these days. There are countless apps and software plug-ins out there made to turn the clean output from DSLRs or the ubiquitous smartphone cameras and transform them into something that, at least on the display screen will look like anything from an 1870s tintype to a 1970s Land camera, complete with simulated peel marks like you get around the edges of pack-film photos.



There are those for whom nothing but the real-deal will do, and while getting the vintage look is hardly a hard-core pursuit of mine that's certainly something that resonates with my way of thinking. Shy of turning to something like a historic wet-plate process (though for the hard-core this has grown into quite a phenomenon itself) the general wisdom out there states that the best way to get this look is to use expired film, a vintage camera, or ideally both together.

Now I own a vintage camera in the Iskra, but as unmistakably vintage as it looks, the vintage look it imparts on images is at best subtle, though I'm sure something like an old box camera would do it. Likewise many a time have I used expired black and white film, some of it decades beyond its best before date, and have found that however fogged and curled the negatives may look, once all is adjusted for in the printing or scanning process there's nothing particularly nostalgia inducing about the final result.

My recent dabblings in home C-41 processing made this the perfect time to finally try something else however. There had been a roll of 120 Kodak Vericolor 160 floating around my freezer since I can't remember when. I last shot Vericolor about eight year ago just before selling the Mamiya 645 system but I'm not sure if this was from that same batch. I don't think it was though and if not it's probably even older. Whatever the case it was separated from its box, and thereby the expiry date, long ago. There is absolutely no doubt however that this roll went beyond its "process before" date long ago.

The question was whether the images shot on this roll would naturally take on any sort of nostalgia inducing look ago all on their own. I have never made a science of understanding what characteristics of an image lend themselves to this. One that I point to happens when the deepest blacks in the photo appear no darker than a light charcoal grey though there is not the loss of shadow detail that would suggest this is due to underexposure. This, or any of the other things that might happen with expired film such as colour shifts or lack of contrast, were entirely within my control. I don't have and have no intention of acquiring the capacity to do traditional colour prints so all of these things should be adjusted for as they are scanned in.

Once processed and dried the negatives did have the expected slightly olive cast to them compared to the Portra negatives I developed the week before, the kind of thing I figured would get corrected out more or less automatically with the usual exposure and colour balance tweaks during scanning. This had worked with the Portra after all without any effort to characterize the film first. I had no intention of treating these negatives any differently.


And yet they were different. To me it there's a nostalgic sense about it, like I'm looking at an image that was taken decades ago. At first blush I'd say it may be the colour saturation is lower than what I'm used to, yet the impression doesn't change when the saturation slider is moved up until the colours start looking unmistakably clownish. It must have something to do with colour though because when I view it as a black and white that vintage feel pretty much disappears, at least to my eye. There does seem to be an earthy quality to the colour rendition that, despite the obviously autumn pallet in the scene. The first shot at the top makes it even harder to say. It's moody, monochromatic and due to the extremes in contrast inherent in the scene the foreground was underexposed to retain detail in as much of the sky as possible near where the sun is trying to burst through. I can't say what this would look like if it were shot on fresher stock. Still, if I hadn't taken it myself and somebody told me it was taken in 1979 I'd see no reason to question that.

Now I know Vericolor enough to say it didn't come out of the factory like this. My wedding photos were shot on it and they haven't (I'm happy to report) taken on a vintage feel, at least not yet. I still have prints I shot on Vericolor in the late 80's or early 90's and they don't strike me as looking vintage. And yes I have to keep in mind that these are scans and I'd dearly love to see what the prints would look like if there was still a lab I could take them to that I know would print them optically, but I somehow doubt the conclusion would be any different. It does seem though that you can get to the vintage stage faster by aging unexposed film stock than aging prints shot when the film was fresh.

I'm sure there are people who have put in a lot of time and effort into figuring out exactly what ways and to what degree a clean fresh image needs to be changed to match the look of a shot that (depending on your age) your parents or grandparents might have taken when they were dating. Luckily we have a short cut available to us, and the results are sure to be far more authentic.








Saturday 8 November 2014

A Close Call

There's a long time running debate among photographers about the use of protection filters, nearly clear screw in filters like a UV or skylight kept permanently affixed to the front of a lens to bear the brunt of scratches and frontal impacts, sparing the lens itself. There are pros and cons to using them, and though back in the old camera store days I saw a reasonable number of lenses spared from disaster by them I remained ambivalent about their use.

Yesterday I had one of those experiences that tend to make people question position in matters like this. I set my tripod mounted RB67 down, removed the lens cap RB67 from my prized 50mm Sekor-C lens that was mounted to it and, turning my back to dig something out of the camera bag, just caught the whole assemblage toppling out of the corner of my eye, the camera nose diving into the ground. It seems the tripod legs weren't spread out as much as I thought. Now I have one UV filter that will fit any of the four lenses I own for the RB system, but though I value the 50mm above all others this isn't the lens I use it on. This is to avoid the possibility of vignetting in the corners of its wide-angle field (equivalent to a 25mm lens on a 35mm camera) if I stack another filter or two on top.

As the title suggests however this isn't a eulogy for my favorite lens. Good fortune intervened on my behalf because, while there was no protection filter on this lens, it so happened that I had left a red contrast filter in place after the previous shot I had taken.


A fallen red-coat who gave its life to save its unit, a sacrifice that will not go unforgotten.

After carefully removing the filter all appeared well with the lens and indeed I went on to use is and the camera for the rest of the day without incident. Better still, this is (was) just a cheapo no-name filter that cost me maybe $6-7 shipping included.

While I'm more than happy this filter was there to play the part of a protection filter that obviously wasn't what I had it for. I got this, along with a yellow and a 10 stop ND filter, more as temporary fill ins until I had the budget to replace them with something that didn't involve such an optical compromise. And it's this that brings us back to the reasons I'm not as religious as some about always having some sort of filter in place for protection.

"It's cheap insurance" is the phrase I've heard countless times from advocates of this practice. In a sense it's usually true, but cheap is part of the problem. A good lens may incorporate from six to fifteen or more precision made multicoated elements. A protection filter that could rightly be called cheap is unlikely to be either precision made or multicoated, but once in place it's just as much a part of the optical system as all the rest. Better filters are available of course but then we are getting out of the realm of what could rightly be considered cheap, and no matter how much money you sink into one you'll never achieve better than not using one at all and taking your chances. It also goes without saying that having a filter in place is only protection from certain kinds of mishaps. As you can see from the photo above the ground this fell on was mostly sand. Had it fallen on something harder or more jagged the filters sacrifice would have been in vain.

Still, the fact it can't protect you from all possible injury is a poor reason not to wear a helmet and the arguably the logic is the same here. It's also possible I'm being a bit unrealistic about how much a moderately priced protection filter will impact the overall optical quality of my lenses. Though I hope to add better quality contrast filters to my kit I don't sweat the fact the ones I have are bargain class when the shot calls for for one.

Has this experience been enough to change my mind then? For now all I can say is I ordered the replacement for the red filter today and, thought I gave it a moments thought to adding a few protection filters to the lot in the end I gave it a pass.

Sunday 2 November 2014

Medium Format To Go

In past episodes I've made casual mention of "The Iskra" once or twice as though everyone knows what I'm talking about, a bit of a foolish assumption given that a year ago it would have meant nothing to me either. It occurs to me therefore that a few words of explanation might be in order.

The story begins early last spring with two things I was wishing I had. One was a proper take-everywhere camera, something I could just tuck away in the backpack I take most everywhere so that I'd never be without a decent camera should the unexpected opportunity arise. Having resisted modern notions that ranks portable telecommunications devices right next to shoes in terms of indispensability I don't even have a camera phone to fall back on in a pinch.  The second thing I was after was a medium format camera that would allow me to be a bit more free-wheeling than what I had. The RB67 is a wonderful tool and will remain my tool of choice, but it's not something you take along unless using it is the sole object of the trip, It's no surprise then that a lot of medium format SLR users have something like a twin-lens reflex for those times they need to go lightweight. In place of a camera bag of the kind that keeps chiropractors in business one can simply sling a lighter camera over the shoulder instead while sacrificing little more than lens interchangeability.

An Iskra photo demonstrating the virtue of procrastination. Can you imagine
 how dull this shot would be if I'd ever bothered to paint that door?
I like the idea of having a TLR at my disposal, but a TLR and a take everywhere camera are two different things for most people. In fact the terms medium format and take everywhere camera don't sound like they belong in the same sentence. There is in fact an option that, given a fairly generous space for totin allow both of these desires to be met with one camera - the medium format folder.

Medium format folders were a popular camera style in the decade or so following WWII, but seemed to lose appeal to consumers faster than other styles of medium format camera in the face of the increasing popularity of 35mm during the 60's. It makes sense I suppose as the appeal of folders is their compactness, and consumers who were looking for that would have been the first to switch to the smaller format. I have to say though that on a strict compactness vs. quality basis I think those who went for 35mm got a raw deal. (Of course there's probably more to it, like 3 times as many exposures on a roll.) Personally, I find it far easier to carry a medium format folder than a 35mm SLR, but I'm getting a bit ahead of myself.

As this style of camera had its day well enough before my time a bit of research was in order. There was a whole world of features, reputations for mechanical and optical quality, and of course prices to acquaint myself with. In term of features the only must-have was a rangefinder. Many cameras of this ilk require the user to guess at the subject distance then dial it in to focus, relying on depth of field to cover for any errors. That may be good enough for grampa's vacation snaps, but there's a difference between in focus and covered by DOF, and I need in focus. Also, my strong preference in terms of format is for 6x6 as this is what I end up cropping to most of the time with 6x7 negs anyway.

Features are features, but it gets trickier when it comes to optics and mechanical reliability. Being vintage cameras much of what one can learn about the various models comes in the form of their reputation, and it's been my experience at any rate that it can be difficult to separate what portion of a reputation is earned and what is brand mystique (or in some cases whatever you'd call its opposite.)

There is some objective information to be had in terms of optical and mechanical design. Laying aside things like quality control, mechanically some choice of materials, ways of putting things together, arrangement of parts that make things happen and so on are better than others. Further, leaving out considerations like how well or consistently lenses are assembled, their optical design itself is just a matter of what glass elements are involved, how their arranged and the types of glass used. In this regard cameras of this design and vintage nearly always have either a 3 element Cooke triplet or a 4 element design that is normally a Tessar variant. No surprise here, other things being equal the four element designs will have the more sought after characteristics. There's also the matter of whether or not the lenses are coated.

Finally there was price. I didn't want to spend too much either in absolute terms or in terms of value per dollar spent. If I just wanted the best there are dealers with unsullied reputations who sell the most sought after models, fully refurbished and warrantied  at a fully worth the price premium if you have it in your budget and just want something that will work with no questions. I could have done that but then I would never have been able to afford the 50mm lens for the RB that I don't know how I lived without and would probably just now be getting 'round to being able to buy film again. Also, where's the fun in that?

Instead I followed my usual instinct to find something that was a bit of a sleeper, a camera that performs well enough to be on the most sought after list but due to whatever oversight isn't. My search ultimately lead me to, well I guess you already know, the Iskra. So what's an Iskra?

The Iskra as it looked shortly after it arrived. I've since made a few cosmetic changes,
reskinning it in blue vinyl and restoring the logo to its original fire-engine red.
I'm sure you've already guessed that it's a medium format folder. It has my favoured square format, coated Tessar design lens and fully coupled rangefinder. Not only does the lens have a reputation as a solid performer, the focus mechanism has a superior helicoid design that moves all the lens elements together rather than just moving the front element with relation to the others. Adding to its sophistication is an advanced (for the time) film detection mechanism that obviates the need to line up start arrows or watch through a little red window as you wind. Best of all the Iskra usually goes for a fraction of what similar models on the sought after list do.

So what gives? Well, let's start with the logo on the camera, which if you can't quite make out the script in the photo above reads "Искра". These are Soviet cameras made from 1960-63 at the KMZ factory in Kiev. As such they come with the default reputation attached to all "Russian" cameras as cheaply constructed, mechanically unsophisticated and subject to spotty quality controls. Whether this reputation in general is deserved or the product of leftover cold-war biases and the "knock-off" stigma based on the fact that, unburdened by international trademark or patent agreements, many of these cameras either heavily borrowed from or outright copied from Western designs. A few things there doesn't seem to be much dispute about include the fact that light leaks in the bellows aren't uncommon, thought this would be true of any camera of this vintage that had bellows, and the fact that frame spacing is typically uneven, though I don't know if this is true of the Agfa model this camera is based on that has the same mechanism.

In this last regard the Iskra is no exception as one look at the functionally and cosmetically nearly identical Agfa Super Isolette of the late 50's should convince you. (The Agfa also sold in the U.S. as the Ansco Super Speedex.) Does this make the Iskra an inferior instrument to the Western model that inspired it, enough to account for the fact that it was selling for about 1/3-1/4 the price of an Agfa or Ansco in comparable condition? Opinions I was able to find online seemed remarkably polarized ranging from the notion if any Iskra out there still manages to function at all it's only been kept going with duct tape and rubber bands to those who contend that they're mechanically equal to and optically a bit superior to their Western counterparts. What to make of this?

I had an hour to kill and was parked right beside an old cemetery - perfect time
to remember I happen to have a medium format camera in the backpack with me.

A bit more digging though was enough to bring some sense to these wildly differing opinions. It came from a piece written by a collector of Soviet cameras (sorry, I couldn't find it again to give you the link) who shed a bit of light on the very different journey an Iskra may have taken to get through the past five decades to arrive in 2014 compared to a camera made in the West around the same time like an Agfa. Unlike, say an Agfa that got used regularly for a few years but otherwise spent most of that time on a shelf or in a box, Iskras were made for Soviet citizens who weren't running out to replace them the moment there was something newer and better on the market, and many of them were still in every-day use long after the Soviet Union dissolved and that Agfa had become a curiosity the original owner's grandson found while rummaging through the attic. How much use a particular Iskra may have seen over the decades could vary, but in the USSR a camera like this could represent a professional photographer's bread and butter. Until not that long ago they many of these cameras were used day in and day out and to be kept going at almost any cost. Not every Iskra out there has this kind of history but there are enough beaten up and barely functional to leave anyone who has seen a few that their condition is the result of poor initial construction rather than the fact they're doing the equivalent of comparing two cars of the same model year without considering the odometer on one reads twenty times higher than the other.

It didn't take too much effort to find a well priced Iskra on eBay from an experienced and highly rated seller who included enough good photos to convince me this one hadn't been run into the ground. The package travelled from the Ukraine to Canada and arrived faster than most things I order from the U.S. and for no higher higher shipping cost. Now here it is more than half a year and a good few rolls of film on and time enough to look back and and ask how well it has fared compared to my expectations. I don't have and have never used one the Agfa or Ansco cameras that would allow me to make that sort of comparison, but let's have a look at my actual experiences.

While loading the first roll into the camera I couldn't help but notice the spiked wheel that allows the camera to detect when film, and not just backing paper, is moving from the camera. It looks like a miniaturized version of a medieval instrument of persuasion. The same mechanism with the same spiky wheel is used on the Agfa Super Isolette. As I found it actually does perforate the backing paper and leaves its impression on the margin of the film. It look bad but I haven't seen any evidence that any light at all gets through to the film at any point.

My real concern when I unloaded that first roll was that it seemed alarmingly loose on the takeup spool, and indeed when developed it was obvious that light had leaked in along the edges, though for the most part it had not intruded into the image area. For the next few rolls I kept the film in camera when the last exposure had been taken, waiting until it could be unloaded and wound right onto the developing reel in one go under complete darkness. After a few rolls it was evident though that my first experience had been an isolated incident and I haven't had problems with film I changed in the field since, though there's always the concern it could happen again.

In the absence of issues like that the camera is the kind of capable performer that I'd hoped. I have no quibbles with the quality of the optics and the focus is accurate. Not quite as accurate is the viewfinder which experience has shown requires me to compensate by aiming up and a little to the right regardless of the subject distance. I've had some otherwise good shots ruined because of this. As for the frame spacing, yes it can vary from frame to frame, but only once have I found two frames actually touch and even here there was no overlap so I can't say I consider this a real practical concern.

Though aside from that one loosely wound roll I had no issues with light leaks for the first several rolls, a problem suddenly appeared a few months on. It traced back to a leak in the bellows which is more or less to be expected in cameras of this vintage. I found it easily enough by shining a light from inside the camera and did a spot repair with a dab of plasti-dip, the goop that's used to put a nice rubbery grip on the bare metal handle of tools. It's likely that once one hole appears others may begin to appear so every roll or two I'll have to remember to do a quick check on the bellows.

For the bulk of the summer the camera went largely unused. It was a surprise then that when the roll that had been sitting in it for a few months was developed it was almost completely done in with an entirely different kind of light leak. It might not be a bad idea to do a future post about diagnosing light leaks, but suffice it to say that unlike the blobby patch of leaked light that stayed within the frame area this roll had the linear stripes extending the entire width of the film that indicated light was coming in along the edges of the door in the back of the camera. The door of the Iskra isn't hinged, it comes right off and needs to be hooked over a protrusion that forms a sort of light trap to be closed. It was possible the door didn't seat quite right and it did have a few months to accumulate leaks, but though the next roll spent less than a week in camera a few leaks were visible in several frames here as well. Though the Iskra isn't really designed to employ the sort of spongy light seals found in more current cameras I decided to address the issue by taking some of the material that was left over after replacing the seals in the RB67 and try to place it strategically to prevent future problems. Results of this to be determined.

And so we've come to the part where it would be customary for me to offer some sort of conclusion. I'll take a pass on anything by way of passing judgement as this always involves some measure of foisting my own preferences and expectations to the foreground. By my count on average I've experienced some sort of operational issue with every other toll of film I've put through the camera. I know many out there wouldn't even consider taking that kind of chance with their photos while others would be overjoyed to be able to get the kind of quality this camera is capable of without paying a premium price for a device that, for its age, could be a whole lot less reliable. I'm sure the same could be said for many cameras of this ilk whether the factory they came from was located in the East or the West. I think the experience owes as much to how I bought it as what I bought. I got as good as could be expected from a reputable eBay dealer who was clear and honest about what he was selling. The camera works, the lens in clean and clear, the shutter fires, the film advances and all the rest but there's the occasional glitch. This is entirely different than purchasing from a highly regarded restorer who tests, calibrates, replaces what's not up to snuff and warranties everything. It may be triple the price, but if that's enough to get rid of the glitches I've run into I can't see where there'd be much else to quibble about with this camera.