Monday 20 July 2015

Large Format Once More

  I recall seeing the little room off the dining room for the first time while touring the house where I have lived for the past fifteen plus years with the real estate agent. At the time it evidently served as a sort of basic man cave. Lacking the bay window sized video screen one might associate with the more ideal sort of man cave it never the had been designed to be a place where one would want to go to take a load off at the end of a day, a Three Stooges poster on the wall dispelling any notion that this was the domain of the lady of the house. On taking ownership this became a sort of junk room, a place to put things there seemed no other place for a few years, but when I started a small photography out of the house and needed a base of operations this room was cleared out and spruced up, whereupon it became know as "The Office". Though it retained that title years after I moved on to other things professionally its role had, in reality, reverted to the same sort of man cave it was the first time I saw it, excepting for the general character of the images hanging on the wall. 
When I started giving serious thought to setting up a darkroom in which I could finally do real enlargements again I considered a few possibilities - there's the dungeon-like basement but it's far too dank, an attic but it's like a sauna in summer, and so it was that I settled on the little bathroom off the kitchen. My working space would be the area over the bathtub (that no on had used as a bathtub since we moved in). I figured I could use the tub below for print and negative washing though in practice this has become storage for larger items there seems no alternative for.. The Durst enlarger I picked up from a local ad was just about the best compromise I could come up with - as large as I could possibly make work though it does make things cramped, and though 6x6 is supposed to be its maximum it can just barely handle negatives from the RB67 with the custom carrier I made if I don\t mind losing just a smidge off the sides. With the enlarger and timer in place there's just enough room to the sides for three 8x10 trays though this is cramped at best, especially as there are a growing number of chemistry bottles competing for the space that have no other home. It can all be made to work, but it's not pleasant which to be frank is a major reason I haven't done as much printing as I had hoped by this point. 

The office never got considered in any of this because... well, it was the office. Not only that but the design of the room didn't lend itself to darkroom use, built in work surfaces were too narrow for enlargers, there is no ready access to plumbing and as if that weren't enough it had a louvred door. I would just have to find a way to make do with the space I had, perhaps by finding a way to stack trays or putting in extra shelves somewhere. 

Then came the day I stumbled across a local Kijiji ad for a well seasoned but perfectly functional Beseler 4x5 enlarger along with an array of film carriers and lenses at an affordable price. Aside from having to put up with the cramped quarters, the idea of accepting my lot and making the best of things with my tiny makeshift darkroom came with another cost - it meant that getting back to large format photography would forever be an impracticality for me. Sure my 8x10 pinhole camera should be workable since contact prints would be as large as the biggest enlargements I could do anyway, but that's a bit of a sideline for me. Meanwhile I had 4x5 equipment languishing on the shelf - a working camera and a lens which, thanks to an unexpectedly successful DIY repair once again had a working shutter, along with a full compliment of 4x5 film holders. Now here was this ad to remind me of that whole region of the photographic world, one I used to enjoy, that I was for all practical purposes excluded from for the foreseeable future. 

Then I began to think. Was there a way to section off a part of the basement that could be kept dry, clean and dark? (Answer- not without great effort... and even then.) What about a window mounted air conditioner to keep the attic cool? (Answer- not without a significant increase to my carbon footprint and electric bill.) Could I encourage my teenage son to get a place of his own so I could use his room? (Answer- legally, not for a few more years.) A week went by without a definite answer coming to me, but I could stand it no more and finally I called about the Beseler.

Too late it seemed. The seller informed me that someone had called from out of province expressing an interest. They would be through town in a couple of weeks and the seller had agreed to hold it for them. I left my contact information with them in case their potential buyer didn't go for it. I suppose I could have just shrugged it off and continued with the status quo but the seed had been sown. Maybe it would take a while but it was now set I was going to get back to large format in the darkroom.

Now if you've been following along for a while you might be asking yourself what the big deal is. After all, I must seem positively giddy at times over the medium format kit I own so why not stick with that? The truth is it's not so much the format, meaning the actual physical dimensions of the negatives, that is the big attraction for me. Don't get me wrong, I'll take the bigger negs thank ye very much, but it's really the cameras themselves that are the attraction. Like their smaller 35mm cousins, medium format cameras such as the Mamiyas and Bronicas I have are hard bodied cameras, essentially consisting of a rigid box with a lens attached to the front and film in the back so that film and lens are permanently held square on to each other. With the typical large format camera film and lens are separated by bellows which, due to their flexible nature, permits the two to be shifted and tilted with respect to each other. The whys and where-to-fores of all of this go beyond what I'm willing to delve into today, but in the end this gives the photographer controls that can be used to manipulate perspective and the plane of focus.

One example of a time I really wish I had this kind of control was when I took this shot...


This was taken with a Mamiya RB67 and to be fair it's one of my most successful images from last winter. Scale is a bit ambiguous here and I suppose one could imagine reaching that hill would require an ambitious hike but in truth I could have cleared it and then some by throwing a snowball. The nearest of those windblown dune features then is less than a metre away from the lens. Luckily the lens I used stopped all the way down to f/45 because I needed all the depth of field I could get and the foreground is still not as crisply sharp as I would have liked. That's because with a rigid bodied camera critically sharp focus occurs at a fixed distance from the lens. Imagine everything at that distance forming an imaginary wall, and this wall becomes the plane of focus. A 4x5 camera with even the most basic movements would have allowed me instead to tilt the lens and alter this plane of focus to match the lay of the land rather than that imaginary wall fixed at a certain distance from the lens. I could have stopped down less (stopping down too much actually results in less sharpness due to diffraction effects which is why selecting a middle of the road aperture setting is usually ideal) and achieved better sharpness in the foreground than what I got. 

My bedroom/darkroom circa 1993
Back to our story though it was long about this point when it occurred to me that the office was a viable alternative to the unworkable ideas I had been mulling around with. The idea wouldn't be, at least for the time being, to turn it into a complete darkroom. What I had in mind rather was returning to an idea I had used for my first bachelor pad darkroom, a separate dry room and wet room. Back then I fully blacked out the window of my bedroom (the dry room) where the ancient 4x5 enlarger I owned at the time was permanently set up. There prints were exposed, placed into a dark bag so they could be transferred to the windowless bathroom (the wet room) to be developed in trays. Not ideal to be sure but far superior to my current situation. Converting the office as the dry room and the current darkroom as only a wet room would not only allow me to devote the whole space to develop prints, it would also give me the extra storage space to clear out the bathtub underneath and use it as intended. The whole thing could be a go if I could just get my hands on the enlarger I needed.
I imagined I might have to wait some time before another suitable enlarger became available locally but even finding a bargain online could quickly turn into an expensive proposition when it came time to pay shipping on something as bulky as a 4x5 enlarger, but my luck took a turn for the better when the owner of the Beseler contacted me to say the other buyer was no longer interested. The next evening I was bringing it home. It now sits in its own space in the (former) office where it could be used as is though I'll probably need to build a proper stand for it. Today I blacked out the window and I'm about three quarters of the way to completing the installation of a solid door. I have a little way to go yet but no sense waiting, there are fresh exposures sitting in film holders even as I write, waiting to be developed.

Monday 13 July 2015

My Bellami



Since before the age of the ubiquitous camera phone I have considered it ideal that there never be a time that a camera wasn't within easy reach. A rare opportunity can unexpectedly present itself even when running the most mundane errand. Long held as that notion may be however, finding the camera to serve in that role to my full satisfaction has eluded me for decades. Wile I won't deny the aforementioned camera phones these days can do a surprisingly good job for what they are, at least in full daylight, they are still an option of last resort for me. I can't help thinking I'd feel awfully let down if a once in a lifetime image did present itself to me and all I had for it was the image capture device that inspired the selfie stick. More to the point, I don't even own one really. My cost/benefit table for mobile phones still adds up on the side of not getting one (and only some of those costs are measured in dollars.) Finally, as future episodes will make clear, my workflow is moving further from anything that could easily accommodate the occasional digital image in the mix anyway.

If you've been following for a while you might remember the past episode Medium Format To Go where I discussed using my Iskra folding rangefinder camera as a possible way to have my long sought after take everywhere camera. Back then I had the lovely notion that as the camera tucked away easily into an ordinary backpack I could simply begin taking the backpack I already used to cart lunch and other essentials back and forth to work each day everywhere I went, much like carrying a purse only in a more socially acceptable form for a man in the particular time and place where I live. Socially acceptable to carry perhaps but still a bit strange a thing to carry along for no apparent reason when visiting friends and family, and on one occasion deemed too threatening a thing for a customer to carry with them in a supermarket although at least half the customers seemed to be carrying purses, some large enough to easily accommodate a medium sized pot roast without looking suspiciously full, gaping wide open in the toddler seat of their shopping carts. If I were the sort to make a scene I'm sure I would have. I was sorely tempted as it was. In the end though it was one more strike against the notion of being able to carry that camera everywhere. I do still carry it a lot of places, it's just not the always at hand camera I hoped it would be.

The obvious answer was to look for an ultra-compact 35mm camera. There are some capable models out there that give full size 24x36mm negatives in a package that can be downright pocketable. The problem is that most of the cameras that would have fit the bill are models that would be lumped into the point-and-shoot category. When I was in photo retail in the 80's and 90's and these cameras were in their heyday there were enough lacklustre performers in this category that the term point-and-shoot became shorthand for a camera I just couldn't get excited about. I had become, to put it bluntly, too much of a snob to consider such a camera.


Giving credit where do I have to say it was endless hours listening to The Film Photography Podcast that got me off my high horse, gradually instilling in me a respect for even the humblest of cameras. If people are out there making great images with plastic cameras then who am I to overlook a potentially great little point-and-shoot. And whatever I thought of the category as a whole, there are some great little point-and-shoots out there. Better still, some of the greatest are also some of the littlest. Part of the reason for this is that the smallest cameras don't have zoom lenses. It's hard enough to design a zoom to match the performance of a single focal length lens, but add to this the requirements of keeping everything compact as well as keeping costs reasonable and what you typically get is... meh.

There are, as I was vaguely aware, some truly compact cameras out there that have earned outstanding reputations that those more prone to exaggeration than I often characterize as cult status. Smallest of the bunch, the Minox 35 series certainly has its adorers, though a bit of research revealed they also have a reputation for electronics failures that can render the camera useless. Rollei also made tiny manual 35mm, but these could also be rather pricey. Highest on my list were a pair of Olympus models, the XA or the later Stylus Epic that took its place. Both are sought after models on the used market, bringing their value well above the yard sale prices nearly any other semi-vintage point-and-shoot sells for these days, but still within reason for someone willing to pay for a good little performer.

A shot from my iPad illustrating 1) my Chinon Bellami and 2) why
 I would chose to use it in favour of my iPad's built in camera.
It seemed the only question was whether, when this post eventually appeared, it would be about the older XA or the more recent Stylus Epic. The reason it isn't either is that a bit of frustration set in after a few of what I thought were generous online auction bids failed to take bring home the prize a bit of frustration began to set in. All the while I started doing a little research on a similar camera I found that could be had by the first person willing to pony up about a third of what my failed Olympus bids had been. It was a Chinon Bellami, similar in size to the Olympus's (Olympi?) that were eluding me it boasted a coated 4 elements in 3 groups lens (Tessar type) lens that the few reviewers I was able to find online for this cameras thought rather highly of. I knew Chinon as the maker of a nice little SLR similar to Pentax's K1000 (and also capable of accepting the same Pentax K-mount lenses) with similar quality despite the lower price the low-profile Chinons commanded on the market at the time. The little Bellami seemed to be a similar case. Well built with a metal chassis and a clever tucked away lens that springs open to use from behind its protective barn-doors cover it seemed a fair bet this little camera from the reputable but unheralded manufacturer could be a diamond in the rough.

Like the Olympus XA the Chinon Bellami was sold with a detachable dedicated flash of a type which, over the years often get separated from their companion camera, but with the camera I bought they were still a pair. For the most part I leave the flash at home to keep things small but it's easy to re-attach if I think I'll be doing any shooting indoors or into the dusk. It has a 35mm f/2.8 lens, matching the more sought after members of its class. Exposure is completely automated with a red-light warning in the viewfinder to let you know if low light levels make it necessary to select a shutter speed below 1/60th of a second.

The only real downside in my estimation is that, lacking the Olympus XA's true rangefinder or the Stylus Epic's autofocus it employs a system I affectionately refer to as guess-u-focus. One simply estimates the distance to the subject, dials this estimate into the distance scale on the lens and hopes depth of field exceeds margin of error. This isn't really a problem for landscape type shots as any distance beyond about 10 metres is effectively infinity. At portrait distances the need for accuracy increase as light levels drop off, demanding wider apertures. In early evening light with 400 speed film I find I can still be assured of reasonable results, though tack sharpness may be hit or miss.

So far my Bellami has hosted two rolls of HP5+ in as many weeks since it arrived, due mainly to my desire to put it through its paces. They aren't the sort of gallery destined once in a lifetime images I got this camera vowing never to miss. They're more the photo album destined type that might be a bit of a laugh now but as memories of last week don't mean much now. Last week will be way back when too quickly. I can imagine the famed image this camera may one day capture hanging on the wall, ignored, as yet unborn beloved flip trough pages squealing in laughter, hardly believing that's how their parents really looked at teenagers. Sometimes you just never know where the real treasures will be found.

A fairly close subject in diminishing light challenges one's ability to estimate lens to subject distance, a ncessary skill if one hopes to get good images with the Bellami. I'm sure I'll get more consistent with practice but here I just about nailed it.




Saturday 4 July 2015

A Bridge Too Far

This image of the Peace Bridge is a scan from a print on Ilford MG IV RC after both sepia and selenium tonering. The first bath of the sepia process went to work too quickly for my purposes, leading to a stronger than intended effect.

If this image of the Peace Bridge connecting Buffalo NY to Fort Erie Canada made one misty morning this spring looks familiar it may be because it was featured only last week in Simple Alchemy. If it looks different know that its earlier appearance was a scan from the negative whereas this is a scanned from a darkroom print on Ilford MG IV. If it looks really different it's because this print was the subject of some of my first experiments with print toning since the days of my bachelor pad darkroom. Back then it was mostly about using selenium toner, a simple bath finished prints can be put through that gives the silver grains that make up the image a coating of more stable selenium that not only helps to protect the image against the ravages of time, it affects the colour, altering the tone of the silver image with a modest but noticeable purple/blue while deepening the darkest tones giving the image a richer appearance. Selenium toning typically results in a higher D-max, the density of the darkest possible black, than can otherwise be achieved with the same photo paper untoned. While the name toning implies the object is to achieve a colour shift, with selenium toner this sometimes seems almost secondary to the benefits of increased tonal depth and archival permanence.

Since the process of reclaiming my old wet darkroom capabilities began less than a year ago it's been a given that I would resume the practice of selenium toning sooner or later. I imagined that it would coincide roughly with the return to printing on fibre based stock once I was ready to deal with its extra demands, but although that remains in the works I have been inspired recently with the notion of taking print toning a little further. The inspiration comes from numerous photographers I admire whose work often departs noticeably from the modest tonal shifts typical of results seen selenium toner alone. A leading figure the movement, if it can be called such, is the photographer Tim Rudman whose book "The Master Photographer's Toning Book" has managed to become a classic of traditional darkroom work even though it only first appeared in 2002 at the onset of the digital age. Tim is well spoken, an acknowledged authority on toning as well as many other areas of darkroom craft and a highly regarded writer and instructor. I can't imagine that I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone looking to take their print making skills to the next level... if only I could get my hands on it! This book is in such high demand and, being out of print, such short supply that on the used market this slightly over 200 page softcover book has been known command prices in the $1000 neighbourhood. A quick peek on Amazon while writing this showed 3 copies available through various sellers with prices starting at $400. That's more than can be justified for a guy working out of what is little better than a makeshift closet darkroom. Sadly the obvious demand these prices represent has not been enough to convince publishers that another printing is in order. From the account on Tim's web page one can surmise that this clear objective evidence has not been enough to trump the common "knowledge" that film photography is dead and therefore there's no demand for such a book.

For me at least this means trudging on without this authoritative reference, making the best of my existing experience along with whatever I can glean from the internet or the less comprehensive coverage given to the subject in other books. So be it.

 If there is a saving grace in all of this it's that the effect I'm after is a bit more subtle than the typically more dramatic tones that seem to be popular with so many photographers these days. For the majority of my work I'd want to see a definite departure from the usual scale of neutral greys you get with standard papers straight out of the usual develop stop fix process, but nothing that screams out that toning effects were used. I still want my prints to look black and white, but I would like to see a depth enhancing variation of warm to cool going from highlight to shadow that can be achieved with split toning. Because it works by clinging to the molecules of silver in the print, the rich cool purple effect achieved with selenium toner affects the silver rich shadows most, leaving the highlights untouched. While it's a nice effect in general I like my prints to be on the warm side overall, requiring a different toner. The plan is to combine the cool dark tones of selenium with warm browns that come from sepia toner for a split toned effect.

The word sepia evokes notions of those old timey brown toned images from photography's early days and many are those who regard sepia toner's purpose is to render an effect that evokes a sense of those old days. In truth it can be used to achieve a variety of warming effects and here's how. Sepia toning is a two bath process. The first bath is a bleach based on potassium ferricyanide, which sounds worse than it is though you still want to be careful when mixing it not to inhale any of the dry powder that may become airborne. Immersed in this bleach the print will, to the alarm of many first timers, begin to disappear from the paper, starting with the highlights and progressing towards the darker tones as it is left in the bath for longer periods. The image is still there but invisible, like the latent image on an exposed but undeveloped roll of film. Once bleached to the desired degree the print is rinsed thoroughly in running water then placed into a sodium sulfide bath (which is nastier than it sounds - even when mixing it outdoors I got complaints about the rotten egg smell that managed to waft indoors.) Within about 10 seconds the image that had bleached away is redeveloped, taking on the warm sepia tint as it reappears. The effect can thus be controlled by altering how far into the darker tones the image is bleached.

The Photographers Formulary Sepia Toner kit and my
bottle of Kodak Rapid Selenium Toner
I hadn't really played with sepia toner since photography school days. Back then I was using Kodak's sepia toner kit and trying to achieve the strongest effect I could manage. Bleaching down into the shadows seemed to take forever and I remember wishing Kodak had made this solution stronger. I was never really happy with the effect back then, toning to that degree made the print seem dull and the old fashioned look never seemed particularly genuine to me. Until my recent notions of using it in conjunction with selenium toner for split toning I hadn't given sepia much thought since.

In the intervening years Kodak has discontinued their sepia toner but there is a kit available from Photographer's Formulary which I duly ordered. Like many other Formulary kits of this kind the box contained individual packets containing each individual raw chemical ingredient. Unlike in my photo school days however I was going for just a whiff of warmth in the highlights, meaning I only wanted a slight bleaching. The Formulary bleach solution was a deeper yellow than I remembered and I should have taken a clue from this.

The bleaching started almost immediately and by the time it had a chance to even out across the print it had already gone further than I had wanted. For the second print I diluted the bleach 1_1 but it was still much too fast. As I only made a couple of good prints I experimented a bit with the seconds, the ones I had made prior to figuring out how to get the burning and dodging just right, but ran out of those before concluding there was just no way to keep from going too far without diluting even further. In fact I believe it will need to much further, perhaps 10 to 1 or more. It seems keeping a stock solution and diluting for use may be the thing here and obviously more experimentation is needed. That, unfortunately, will have to wait until next time I have a few prints to work with.