Fun with Film: Agfa 100 HDC

When it comes to color film, there have been Kodak loyalists, Fuji Loyalists, and those who just like shooting film regardless of who made it.  I'm certainly one who falls in the latter camp, but I've long admitted a particular fondness for Agfa color films.  I love Ultra 50, used to shoot a bit of my favorite portfolio shots on Portrait 160, and had also liked using their "general purpose" color films as well.

One of those films, not often found today, was Agfa 100 HDC.  It was a very clean and snappy film, and one that I tended to find more neutral than the warm tones of Kodak Gold or the cool hues of many Fuji stocks.  

I managed to come across a short sample roll of HDC not too long ago, and decided to give it another try.  To get as many images from the roll as I could, I spooled it onto my custom 828 backing and shot it in square format through the Bantam RF for which I had the 24x24mm square mask made.  Here is a look at some of the good and not so good from this roll.  

I was quite pleased at how this long expired film had held up over the decade and change since it was made.  Taken in late afternoon light, this image conveys a look that looks just like the scene taken.  The blue-green color of the street posts is actually the shade they are painted.

Curiously, some of the green tones have picked up some warm rosy undertones, as this image conveys. 

Contrast in my results could tend to be soft in spots, such as in this image. 

When immersed in shadow, the colors were muted, but still rather neutral. 

Unlike many expired films, the grain has held together well in this sample roll. 

I tried zeroing out the saturation in this image to see how it would appear.  Nice tonality, though a true black is missing. 

I wish I had shot more of this film in better light, as the soft overcast tends to take a bit from the rendering of this film stock. 

Overall, I was happy with the results from this roll of 100 HDC, and have managed to find a longer roll to put into use in the not too distant future.  Maybe I'll shoot it in a true 35mm camera, or maybe I'll have a bit more fun with that square format Bantam!    

Univexed: In Color!

When Univex introduced the AF-3 in 1936, it was promoted as having a "Color Corrected Duo Achromatic" Lens.  This is fittingly ironic in quite a few ways.  Keep in mind the year is 1936, a time long before the time of color negative film and C-41 mini-labs.  The first incarnations of Kodachrome color slide film were near to hitting the shelves, but were only suggested for use in cameras with exposure controls and specifications that could work within the confines of their slow speed.  And truth be told, there never was color film offered in Univex's proprietary "00" format, either in 1936, or at any time afterwards.

Perhaps the verbage was a sign of things to come in the mind of the designers at Univex. Perhaps it simply indicated a lens that would portray better images on panchromatic black and white film. Perhaps it was over-inflated hype by the marketing folks.  One can only wonder.

Still, as rare as any shots are taken using Univex cameras of the "00" format, they are all but non-existent in color.  Or at least they were.

Ironically, acquiring the similarly named UniCOLOR (see what I did there?) kit this past Summer became something of an enabler for me.  For now, not only could I develop my own color film in conventional formats, but also in any UNconventional format as well, as long as I could get it into a usable tank.  I'd already determined how to do this with Black and White film cut down to the width of "00" film, so I jumped at the chance to attempt this in color.  I slit a roll of 120 Ektar 100 to provide me stock for both the AF-5 (that presumably should have as good or better "color correction" as its AF-3 predecessor) and the Iris, and took both out on sunny lunch time strolls in Washington, DC, to see just what life looks like in color through the lens of a Univex camera. 

My first shot taken with the AF-5 is a bit subdued in nature, with some slightly muted pastel hues. 

The AF-5 continues to simply stun me at times.  This image snaps with vivid color, crisp contrast, and decent sharpness.  It certainly looks like your typical image shot with a 35mm point and shoot. 

The next image is slightly more washed out, but still portrays well. 

A couple of images taken at McPherson Square shows the often challenging bit of camera movement in the above shot, but excellent sharpness and color in the second image below. 

Light green tones rendered a bit oddly through the lens of the AF-5, as seen here.  This could be color corrected in post processing, but my goal was to portray the portrayal on the film to a greater degree.

A quick grab shot taken in partial shadow actually came out pretty well, if a bit on the blue side.  Reds also rendered quite sharply through the lens of the AF-5, giving off a Kodachrome like hue. 

Another shot in partial shadow shows that the camera and film handle shadow detail fairly well, while still giving off a bit of a cast to the final image. 

My results with the Iris were a bit less successful.  Images on the 100 speed film tended to be overexposed, and required more post-processing to give off a marginally acceptable image.  Again, light hues of green render oddly, while reds are very bold.

Best of the batch on the Iris was this one, still suffering from some movement and sharpness issues, but indicative of the potential this camera has to shoot color in the right conditions.  Fortunately, the Iris allows a modest degree of aperture adjustment. 

Warts and all.  Developing and scanning the oddly sized negatives on my equipment was a challenge enough, so when I see that some of my results are marred by movement and still have some dust, I elected to pass up on retouching.  Still, some very vivid red and blue tones on this image.

Ektar carries less latitude than other color negative films, so this overexposed image results in blown highlights as a result.  In hindsight, Portra 160 would have been a better choice for this experiment based on its wider latitude, but I'm still happy to have given this a try.

Developing these color films in the plastic FR tank was admittedly a challenge and a headache, but I have no regrets whatsoever in trying this.  Given the effort involved, I do wish I had been more discriminating about my subject matter and more careful with the shutter to avoid camera shake, but I wasn't aiming for any award winners from these photos. That said, it may be a while before I load up color into a Univex, but I have a feeling that at some point I will, now seeing some of the possibilities from this combination! 

Fun with Film: Portra 160 Slowed Down

Sometimes a limit of choices is a good thing. 

I've never been terribly good with making quick purchasing decisions when confronted with something unpredictable, particularly that I hate going out to spend money for something only to not find it and having to settle for an alternative. 

Such was the case a few weeks ago, when, as I made my way up to the counter of my favorite Brick and Mortar photo store to buy a couple of rolls of Ektar 100 in 120, one of which I'd hoped to cut down to 127 to shoot through my Bell and Howell Electric Eye camera.  Turns out, they were out of Ektar.  

"I've got Portra 160" stated the shop owner.  Hmm, I figured this trip was a total bust since I try to shoot brighly colored landscapes instead of portraits with restrained saturation, but since time was ticking for me to do my photo run, and since I always like to support my local stores, I elected to pick up a couple of rolls to give it a try anyway.

However, the Bell and Howell is not geared for the speed of 160 and tips the scales at about ISO 80. I knew this going in, but hoped that the one stop speed increase wouldn't present too much of an issue. Upon reading a bit of reviews of Portra, I surprised to see that more than a few people said they had their best results with color saturation with the stuff at speeds between 50 and 100. As it turned out, my gamble might actually pay off.

I cut down the roll of 127 film, loaded up the Bell and Howell and went out shooting during lunch on a photo perfect day of lightly cloudy blue skies.  I didn't spend a great deal of time composing, but rather sought out colorful scenes to put this "saturated Portra" idea to the test.  Upon developing and scanning, I was delighted to see that Portra is indeed a great and colorful film when given a stop of extra exposure.

Under blue skies but shadows, Portra delivered a nice palette of colors, but its real saturated strengths emerged...

...when the sun peeked out from under the clouds.  Illuminated greens began to sparkle, and flowers portrayed more of their natural beauty.

Buildings and monuments only carried a natural amount of saturation, but blue skies were rendered with their full amount of color intensity.

As seen in the truck, red rendered with a significant amount of pop...

...as do fuchsia tones.

Brick colored tones rendered fairly, with some hints of mauve undertone that contrast nicely with the sparkling illuminated green.

And when combined in a lit situation with blue skies, the color rendition was quite nice.  Regrettably, it seems a smudge was marring the center of many of my shots on the Bell and Howell.  

Scenes in shade don't carry quite the pop that sunlit scenes do, but when there are sunlit parts of the same scene, the contrast is not too severe. 

The Bell and Howell does a decent job with scenes like this, both in color rendition and sharpness.

Though I simply had the camera in an urban environment, the results really do beg to be attempted again in a more rustic and colorful environment. 

The greenish verdigris of this monument is rendered well in this scene, and does spotlight this very underrated camera and film.

My interest was certainly piqued, and certainly didn't stop there.  I squeezed another roll into my color film queue and shot some more shots on the Kodak Bantam f/4.5 Special on a pleasant pair of days in late August.  If Portra had already given me a nice surprise on the first roll, this roll, which I effectively rated at ISO 50 was even better!  Colors were realistic yet quite vibrant, while grain was dramatically reduced at this speed.  

A scene at Hagerstown City Park is rendered with a bit more contrast than those shot at higher speed, but the grain and color tones are quite pleasing. 

Yet again, illuminated green foliage sparkles, while red brick tones have a slightly chalky cast to them - nothing unpleasant, but slightly noticeable.

Attempting to focus a but short, this scene doesn't render the best, but the color does well. 

Red, under both shadow and light renders quite vibrantly, much like another long revered Kodak film product. 

Evenly lit scenes under sunlight tend to render the best.  The green appears vibrant but natural, and not restrained as I had expected of Portra.

A classic band stand shows impressive color through the scene, albeit with some accompanying contrast.

A farm scene portrays quite well, and the added contrast really makes the cloud patterns stand out in the backdrop. 

A bit of a cyan cast to the sky in this shot, but nothing bothersome.  Great color otherwise.

As afternoon shadows grow long, the detail in the farm begins to get lost in this scene, yet the overall effect is still both vibrant and nostalgic. 

Two shots taken at the Baker Farm at Monocacy National Battlefield show the capabilities of slow rating this film to maximum effect.  The blue and green renditions of the sky and foliage are exceptional, while the gold of the cannon gleams just as it did in the scene. 

Yes, lack of a desired choice of Ektar 100 was a very good thing in this instance.  I've found a new favorite film as a result.  Overall, I was quite pleased with the rendering of Portra in sunlit conditions rated at ISO 50 in particular.  The results render somewhat similar to the better renderings of Fuji Velvia 100F to me, but without the excessively cyan cast of that film.  

All told, I've picked up several more rolls of this film for similar downrating.  It looks like Fall foliage shooting may be quite fun!  

$20, 21 Rolls. A Color Celebration!

The term "do-it-yourselfer" is pretty much a common part of conversational parlance these days, fueled to a large degree by the abundance of home improvement stores complemented by television networks devoted to featuring all of some of their programming to the "DIY" concepts.  Since moving a year ago, my weekend life has involved a oft-frustratingly expanding "Honeydo" list that only seems to grow as each project is finally completed. 

Given this, the thought of processing my own film had never quite appealed to me.  That was until I began to look at what professional developing was costing me.  Despite being a quirky guy with a camera, I'm also a frugal guy with a family, and thus, I began to develop my own black and white film, which proved to be a particularly simple enough exercise once I adapted my methods to something that works pretty readily around my sometimes involved home life. I'd figured that self-processing of black and white film would be as far as I'd venture, and that was fine, given that I'd expected color to be far less forgiving to my methods.

And then, as luck would have it, this all changed.

While perusing the Film Photography Project store, I stumbled upon an offer so good, I simply couldn't resist considering it.  For the measly sum of $19.99, I could get a Unicolor type color processing kit, in addition to 2 rolls of Vision 50T film.  I had just been considering picking up a couple of rolls of the film as it was, but it seemed the Rem Jet backing made it a tough film for which to find processing.  Not only would this address the need to find processing for such film, but it also tossed in the film I would have bought anyway as a bonus!

After a modest amount of online investigation into home processing with such a kit, in which pretty much every review stated that color processing with this kit was actually far easier than initially expected, and also reading that the stated yield of "8 rolls" from this kit had a great deal of elasticity if rolls were processed within two weeks of mixing, I figured that this small investment was certainly worth a try.  And I also figured that if I planned out my batches smartly. I could do as others had testified, and process at least 16 rolls of film from this 8 roll kit.

Without going into great detail of the process (there are already many resources that very capably detail the procedure far better than I could), I can unquestionably say that this was one of the best investments I've ever made.  Processing the first batch was both exciting and terrifying, but once I saw results from this, I managed to calm down to make slight revisions on future batches to make the process a bit more controlled and predictable.  

The ability to process so much color film so cheaply will enable me to really pick up the pace on postings, and has already enabled me to do things that I'd have been hesitant to do otherwise.  I've managed to test several "new" cameras, do a wider variety of things with many of my existing favorite cameras, try different film brands in a variety of ways, and of course do a quirky thing or two that I'd have likely passed up otherwise if it wasn't so affordable and accessible to process color film.  You'll begin to see some of the results of this vast experiment in the coming week.  

And in the meantime, it is only fitting that I provide some sample images from each roll so that you can see just a small fraction of what is to come!  For now, I'm keeping the film and camera of each a thinly veiled secret until I post the accompanying posts of content. 

Roll 1 

Roll 2

Roll 3

Roll 4

Roll 5

Roll 6

Roll 7

Roll 8

Roll 9

Roll 10

Roll 11

Roll 12

Roll 13

Roll 14

Roll 15

Roll 16

Roll 17

Roll 18

Roll 19

Roll 20

Roll 21

Twelve days after I processed my first rolls in batch #1, I processed the last two rolls in the eighth and final batch.  At a cost of 95 cents per roll, I have no hesitations about doing this again in the Fall, though I don't expect to attempt quite the output that I did in this experiment.  This was only really possible by a significant amount of planning.  All told, I used 28 different cameras in this crazy volley of film rolls, and in the process, I admittedly didn't have quite the time to always enjoy what I was doing.  I certainly want the next batch to be a more enjoyable experience.

My main improvement I hope to achieve on the next batch involves one of the more minor aspects of the process: the stabilizer solution used at the end of the process.  Despite being fully mixed, this solution tended to re-crystallize upon drying and leaving spots.  This was more a problem on 35mm stock than with larger roll film stock.  I have read of others having the same issue, and read there is a product to assist with this.  

Still, I've overcome the color film barrier in a major way, and can now shoot far more freely - with only my E-6 films costing me much at all to develop.   Had I sent all these rolls of film out, they would have cost more than $200 to develop.  As it is, they cost merely a fraction of that to do at home. 

Color - Color me satisfied!