I recently wrote that I had borrowed my friends Rolleiflex TLR (Twin Lens Reflex) camera to take some pictures with it. We would see how it is working after the approximately 66 years since it was manufactured. I sent the roll of film out for developing and last night, after 15 days wait, the scans of the negatives showed up in my in-box.
Film sizes are for comparison, not actual size
The film used was Ilford Delta 100. The camera format takes twelve 6cm. X 6cm. negatives on each roll. This is a much larger negative than a 35mm camera takes. (24mm X 36mm) With the larger negative more detail is obtained and less grain is evident.
I used a standard 18% grey card along with a handheld Luna Pro light meter to determine exposures. Whenever possible, I used a tripod to avoid any movement or blurring. When the tripod wasn’t used, I leaned against a wall for support to help keep the camera steady. I played around with different f-stops and shutter speeds.
After looking at the 12 pictures it was easy to see that the camera was working perfectly. The negatives are sharp, there is no evidence of any type of light leakage and the shutter seems to be producing the correct exposure times.
In the last blog I had written about how exciting it is to see my “still wet” negatives for the first time. I have to say that seeing my pictures for the first time after they come back from the developer, rates right up there with that!
Here are a few of the shots taken on that roll.
RR Bridges crossing over to Washington’s Landing
(Herrs Island)
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3 comments:
Phil,The Bridge photos are particularly telling because of the fineness of the edges of the black lines of the tree branching. Those fine black lines in a print are where you would notice light contamination in a camera.
Of course, looking at the prints with a 10x loop would also reveal the granularity and sharpness of the negative and the print process. It looks like they did a good job and you have a good camera!
I viewed them as digital files in "Image Viewer" using a Linux machine running Ubuntu (far better than a windows viewer and Microsoft engine). These tools are the core engines that drive the Mac graphic world, so they are very good; better I think than the mac world.
The images stayed very sharp (even the edges of the twigs on the trees) until I magnified the image so far that I exceeded the pixel resolution of the Linux/Ubuntu graphic driver.
Congratulations! I'll bet you are having big fun!
I love the pictures. Is the basement shot from your basement?
Dumbledore
Jim, yes the basement shot is in my house!
Still Thinking, These are just scans of the negatives, so I would imagine that pictures printed from the negatives would be even nicer. I have to say that the camera is in very good condition, both photographically and physically, it has been taken care of all of its life. The optics are clean and the camera itself is unmarked and undamaged. It is a pleasure to use!
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