Shooting Svema Again

If you have been a follower of the Film Photography Project (FPP), you probably are aware that they are the only seller in the US of "factory fresh" Svema film, which is a Ukrainian-based factory.  The FPP has been buying miles of the film, and you can purchase it from them by the roll, or in bulk rolls. Earlier, I tested a bunch of the Svema films, and really have liked the different stocks that I have tried. The redscale was certainly unique.  The Svema FN64 is another "keeper." Most of the Svema films appear to be on a Polyester base (PET?), which in the case of  Svema 100, is whisper-thin, but tough as nails.  You cannot rip it.  This also makes me wonder what the original application of the film was for.  Traffic or military surveillance? In any event, there are no flashed edge markings in the film sprockets, or other identification.  I obtained a bulk roll of 100 feet from the FPP, and because it is definitely thinner than acetate-based films, the roll seems more compact.  The film is easy to load into cassettes, and I suspect that one could easily fit 48 frames in a standard cassette.  However, I try to be in the 30-35 frame range when I load.

Developers -- I used the standard recommended developer for this film - D-76 1:1 for 11.5 minutes at 20 deg. C.  The Massive Development chart lists HC110 dilution B for 11 minutes for an ISO of 200.  I have enough to experiment with, so I may try Rodinal for 6 min at 1:25 just to see what I get.  Mike Raso uses D-76 full-strength for 6 minutes.

I shot a roll with my Nikkormat EL  and a 45mm 2.8 GN Nikkor (which is quite the "pancake lens") last week, and developed the film the same night.  The film went fairly easily into my plastic  Jobo reel, and I processed as described above in D-76.  It takes only a short time for the film to dry.  I would say that it is totally different from traditional emulsions.   One thing to note -- since this film is so thin, make sure that your take-up spool grabs it positively before you start shooting.

The film lies very flat in the scanning holders with no cupping or curling, and scans beautifully.  I used my Epson V700 scanner at 2400 dpi, 8 bit-gray scale, and below are some of the images that resulted.  Overall, I like the grain and  the tonality of the film, and as I shoot more with it, I'll have more opportunity to tweak it in the development process.

Shooting By the Seat of My Pants

It's not too often that I come across a classic Nikon film camera that I have not already tried out, and rarer still that I find one that I have never seen before.Yesterday, I was in Huron Camera in Dexter to drop off some film, and to have breakfast at Joe and Rosie's with my buddy Marc.   I was looking in their dsiplay cases where the Nikon items are kept, and saw a lens that interested me -- a 100mm Vivitar, Non-AI lens.  Not having a non-AI camera with me to try it on, I asked if it could be attached to one of the Nikkormats in the case.  Cheryl handed me a slightly beat-up Nikkormat, and I was momentarily confused, as it was lacking the metering prong that would allow the lens to couple to the meter.  It was a Nikkormat FS, an "economy" model that lacks the meter and mirror lock-up that is found on all other Nikkormats.  A contemporary of the Nikkormat FT, it was produced from 1965-71.  Since it has no meter, it lacks a battery, as well as the dials and display of the FT and FTN.  It also weighs a bit less.  In other words, it's not too different from a plain-prism Nikon F.  Because it lacks a battery, it is truly a bare-bones, fully manual camera.  When I have a camera with a non-functional meter, I am always thinking that I wish it were working so that I could use it.  With the Nikkormat FS, that is not the case.  Of course, having a separate light meter is helpful, and I have one when I am shooting my medium-format cameras.  Of course, since I had never seen an FS before, I bought it for $39.


Once I got the Nikkormat FS home, I put on a slightly banged-up early version of the 50mm f/2 Nikkor-S lens that has the focal length marked as 5cm and the distance scale in feet.  It is one of the best lenses ever made, and was in production for years.  Later in the afternoon, I took it into town as the sun was low in the sky, and shot a roll of Kodak T-Max 100 that expired in 1999. "Metering" was by my seat of the pants.  Every shot on the roll was acceptable, which must mean that my sunny-16 intuition is pretty good when I decide to use it.

With all of the digital stuff that is being produced today, we take it for granted that any image is usually going to be properly exposed and in focus.  The Nikkormat FS gets one back to the basics of photography, and in that, figuring out the light on one's own becomes a necessity.   That sort of ties in with the "slow photography" movement that has become a news-worthy item.  For many of us, we have always been into "slow photography" we just thought that it was the way it was done.

You don't have to own a Nikkormat FS to go meterless -- there are thousands of cameras that never had meters.  However, it would be hard to find one with a better lens than that 50mm f/2 Nikkor lens.  If you want to go 35mm meterless, look at an Argus C-4 (the most usable Argus made), a Kodak Pony, a plain prism Nikon F, some of the Minolta SR-series SLRs, Pentax S2, a Zorki rangefinder, and for the cream of the crop, any thread-mount Leica.

On Photographing Water

I'm teaching an adult ed class on Sunday and Wednesday, titled "Water Photography." True to my procrastinative self, I have of course, put off getting my presentation ready. I will probably finish my Powerpoint slides today, but most of my effort really goes into deciding how in-depth to cover a subject in a few hours. Any aspect of photography, any subject one can think, undoubtedly has several approaches, and many techniques and tools to consider. In my class, it will be about shooting all three phases and combinations thereof, and the different approaches and aesthetics that each phase may present.

I have always enjoyed photographing water -- some of my earliest shots in the 1970s were of the river and streams behind the house where I grew up, in northern NY. The landscape there is a lot more rugged than the flatness of southern Michigan, but even here, one can savor the sounds of a babbling brook with a little searching around.

Mallet's Creek in Ann Arbor

Water photography is always a challenge in trying to get the best exposure. My long exposures of moving water are a never-ending search for perfection. Sometimes I do it pretty well.

Bond Falls, Paulding, MI

It's always fun getting a class like this together. I enjoy teaching things I am passionate about, and watching students grasp a new concept or be amazed at what a simple filter can do is fun for me.

Canyon Falls Abstract

The class isn't just about shooting waterfalls, though. All three phases of water will be covered, with tips, techniques, and tools for each.

A Tendril Into the Past - Margaret Bourke-White at the Museum

I was looking through some ancient back issues of "The Ark" for some information about a particular expedition. The Ark was a newsletter published by the UM Museum of Zoology back in the 1920s. It's filled with a lot of interesting information about the museum before and shortly after it moved to its present location in 1928. However, I stopped at one page from the March 1923 issue and realized that I had just read an unremarkable statement about a most remarkable photographer.


The Margaret (White) shown here is none other than the woman who would later be known as Margaret Bourke-White, one of the great photographers of the 20th century. Of course, nobody at the Museum would have known that the young woman working in the darkroom would become an extraordinary photojournalist, with iconic images on the cover of Life magazine. At that time, photography was still considered to be pretty much a male domain, and it's a testament to Margaret's talent, vivacity, and audacity that she was able to overcome the barriers to women and reach the highest level of her profession.She was a star, and though it is true that her looks and charm may have gotten her into some assignments -- she came away with the goods and got photographs nobody else could get.

Margaret entered U-M in 1922 (after having spent year at Columbia Univ, where she studied photography under the pictorialist Clarence E. White) and originally wanted to study Herpetology. Alexander G. Ruthven, the Museum Director and herpetologist, offered her a temporary job in the museum darkroom, hence the little blurb in The Ark in 1923. Although studying in the sciences didn't work out for her, Margaret apparently had a life-long interest in reptiles and amphibians.

It was at Michigan where she began photographing and building a portfolio, though she apparently did not regard her early work there as worthy of mentioning in her autobiography, Portrait of Myself. However, Deborah Gilbert's 1987 article in Michigan Today (first page shown here) provides some details on Bourke-White's two years at Michigan. I now know that she lived at 915 East Ann and 1052 Baldwin. While at Michigan, she photographed many of the same structures that I, and many other photographers find of interest. In the 2005 book, Margaret Bourke White: The Early Work, 1922-1930, there are a number of U-M photographs featuring the Cook Law Quadrangle, the Michigan Union, and the campus along South State Street. The old Museum was barely visible in one photograph, and that very classic building was demolished in the 1950s. Gilbert (1987) proposed that the dark and murky photos that Margaret took at that period mirrored her emotional state. It's very likely the emotional scars from her time at U-M stayed with her until she wrote her autobiography, which is perhaps why she didn't mention much about her start at U-M.

Margaret Bourke-White's stay at Michigan might have been longer, but she married engineering student Everett Chapman in 1924 and the two of them went to Purdue in 1925. It was an ill-fated marriage, lasting barely a year. Margaret left for Cornell University and graduated in 1927. From there, she went to Cleveland, operating a small studio, and the rest as they say, is history, as she rose to prominence after working for Henry Luce at Time.

References

Bourke-White, M. 1963. Portrait of Myself. Simon and Schuster, New York. 383 pp.

Bourke-White, M. Ostman, R.E. & H. Littel. 2005. Margaret Bourke-White: The early work, 1922-1930. Godine, Boston, MA. 128 pp.

Gilbert, Deborah. 1987. Margaret Bourke-White: How a U-M yearbook photographer became The Portrayer of This Age. Michigan Today. 19(2):8-10.

Goldberg, V. 1986. Margaret Bourke-White: A Biography. Harper and Row, New York. 427 pp.

Web Sites to Visit
NPR Story on MB-W's Photography of Design

Post on Digital Journalist

Women In History site