I’ve not ordered from them personally, but they’re well regarded within the community. A source for all those crazy filter sizes like 40mm, or 36mm slip on, or Series type filters – all of that stuff, in one spot.
I’m really starting to loathe my film scanner, at this stage I’d be much happier to make some contact prints. But my Darkroom is a mess, so for now this will have to do…
Another test roll for the Mamiya 6 that I’m restoring. Ilford HP5+@400EI, xtol stock, scanned on my film scanner that can’t for the life of it hold the film flat. The negs look like they’ll print well from an enlarger, however, despite the depressing contrast in the scans. Still need to get the shutter serviced (None of the speeds are accurate, these were all shot at 1/250 – which is actually around 1/103), and a new bellows made up. Apart from that, it’s a very nice camera in use.
I picked up two rolls of this today to shoot in my Mamiya 6 (still getting the rangefinder calibrated), and they were both useless. I’ve heard some reasonable reviews in the past, and shot some Shanghai GP3 as well, so didn’t see any risk in it. The problem was that the film detached from the backing paper as it was being loaded, wandered off, and got stuck. Without the film stuck to the backing paper, well, all is lost. When I did find the adhesive tag that was meant to fix the film to the paper, it had no “sticky-ness” left to it at all. It happened with both rolls, which was disappointing.
I grabbed a roll of HP5+ on the way home.
I’d still be interested to shoot some in 35mm, but in 120 I wont risk it again. Just a warning to be wary, hopefully it was just a bad batch.
Something I always did when I first got into polaroid photography – more precisely, peel apart film – was time development exactly. Most colour peel-apart emulsions are designed to develop after 2 minutes in 20 degree ambiant temperature. A bit longer if it’s a bit colder, a bit quicker if it’s a bit warmer. But I always looked at my watch and timed it exactly, and when the time was up, I peeled the film to stop development.
Well, that was all unnecissary. Try it yourself, but it really makes no difference when you peel the film. The development process used for polaroid film is what’s called a monobath. A very very complex and well designed monobath, but a monobath. It means that it contains a very quick acting developer coupled with a quick acting fixer, mixed into one. The image is developed by the developer components, and the fixer takes over not long after, finishing the process. So development is stopped by the chemistry itself. Which means it doesnt matter when you peel the film at all, the times listed are just the minimum development times.
So don’t stress about it.
Okay, so a common problem with Super-8 cameras is their reliance on 1.35v mercury cells (PX625, and variants), as I’ve covered in previous posts. I recently got a Canon Auto-Zoom 814 which suffers from this problem, but it did come with half a dozen old batteries that worked well enough at the time. They’ve now given up, and I’ve had to find some replacements. The 1.35v Wein Cells are the best option, that work on the reaction of zinc with air, but they’re pretty expensive too…You can get them from ebay for around $10AUS a pop, so that’s $20 in batteries plus a wait to get them in (closer to home, Nanolab also sell them).
Another Alternative
Now something I’ve heard around the playground is that these wein cells are simply hearing-aid batteries inside a metal jacket to make up the space, as the old mercury batteries were larger. On the way home today I picked up a pack of four Energizer 675 hearing aid batteries for $5.50, which is $1.37 per battery. The packet says they’re 1.4v, but a peek with my multimeter shows a solid 1.35v.
I taped two together and wrapped a rubber band around them, to make up the space, and popped them in the camera. Meter responds and seems in line with my previous experience, so – works a treat.
$2.75 plus some tape sure beats 20-odd dollars for batteries, so it’s worth a shot.
