That box of old negatives kept me entertained during lock down. For this post, I scanned from two rolls the old man shot at a Vietnam War protest in West Berlin in 1968.
A fair number of shitty cameras have graced the pages of this blog. They will all be under-performed by today’s example: the Miranda Solo Panorama.
The Miranda Solo Panorama is one of these very basic reusable cameras with all the technological sophistication of a disposable one. It sports a 28mm wide angle lens, fixed focus, a single exposure time (probably 1/60-1/125 or thereabouts) and an aperture like f11 or Continue reading “Miranda Solo Panorama Doubleplusungood”
One photography project for this year was to go through old negatives. Having grown up with film, I have plenty. In addition, I inherited a file with old negatives from my father. One set is dated 1967 and contains pictures from Berlin of a guy named Alex.
During this year’s #filmfeb I professed that my projects for the year were to shoot more 4×5 and revisit some old negatives. Shooting 4×5 in a lockdown is a bit of a challenge, but it seems to be the ideal time for digging into old negatives. I shall start by going some 30 years back.
In front of Schöneberg Townhall, 10 November 1989. Schöneberg is a district of Berlin; during the cold war, West-Berlin’s regional parliament met in this district’s townhall.
The good people at Ilford Photo have not only introduced their Ortho-Plus 80 emulsion in 35mm and 120 formats, they also made it available to the market. This alone is a vast improvement over some competitors.
On my most recent visit to Berlin I decided to do something I had so far avoided: take some shots of the usual Tourist motives. I had done this elsewhere of course, but never in Berlin. The obvious starting point for such a mission is the Brandenburg Gate, where I got the standard shot towards the end of the golden hour. The film was 120 format Kodak Portra 160 in a Zenza Bronica SQ-Ai, I brought a 50mm and a 150mm lens.
The East German ORWO products have long appealed to more old fashioned photographers. I shot ORWO black and white films occasionally, when they were still being made and used their photo paper regularly. ORWO paper was actually made of paper, or cardboard, at a point when most modern photo papers were made of some form of plastic or at least resin coated. To those photographers with a bit of a Luddite streak the traditional paper just looked nicer. Continue reading “ORWO Expired?”
They say that shooting film slows you down, because you can’t chimp and have to wait for the roll to be developed. Some tell of the excitement of picking up a film after waiting for a week. I’m normally not that patient and develop myself when I find time. Most of the time, unless chaos takes over and Continue reading “I Forgot Some Film in a Drawer – 28 Years Later, I Saw What’s on it”