The Ultra-Wide and Slim travels

Back in August, I drove a 15ft U-Haul truck from Tucson, AZ back to Asheville, NC.  I've already posted on the trip here. Before the trip, I had mailed my film and my RETO Ultra-wide and Slim to my daughter in Tucson.  I hadn't used the UW&S for quite a while, and figured that it would be a fun thing to have with me for the trip back, in addition to my Pentax Spotmatic F and my digital Panasonic GF-1.  It had been several years since I used the RETO camera, and I did review it in 2022.

I put in a roll of expired Agfa APX 400 that my daughter had in her film stash, because I wanted a shorter roll in the UW&S. A 24-exposure roll is recommended for this camera.  It didn't matter if the film was expired - this is all for fun, and toy cameras are perfect for old higher-ISO films.  I didn't start shooting with it until our second day on the road, when I loaded it up in Grants, NM, where we had spent our first night.  

Since the camera has such a wide-angle of view, it's basically just aim and shoot, which I could do one-handed while driving the truck.  But that camera was the one I pulled out when we were refilling at gas stations and pit stops from New Mexico to Tennessee. We were on I-40 most of the way, with the occasional stretch of old Route 66. I think I made the most of my limited photographic opportunities.

Here is a sequence from the trip.

Filling up just E of Grants, NM in the morning of 8/25.

Traffic jam on I-40 in Albuquerque, thanks to a 4-car collision ahead.

At a rest stop E of Albuquerque

NM has some really interesting-looking rest areas.

I bought some souvenirs here in Tucumcari, NM

A little park to stop at and eat our our take-out lunch from Del's in Tucumcari.

A quick partial fill-up in Adrian, TX. 

A fill-up at Buc-ee's in Amarillo, TX. This must have been built since we were there in 2021.

A rest-area in Oklahoma

Oklahoma. It was damned hot AND humid there.

Arkansas

Major Tom, Weatherford, OK  and out-of sequence.

Somewhere in Tennessee. It was a long last day on the road.

Some Old Fujicolor Press 800

Every once in a while, I find a gem among expired films.  When it comes to color emulsions, it's almost always a guessing game, unless I know the history of the film - how it was stored, and when it expired.  While there are general rules of thumb about exposing out-of-date films, some films age better than others (slow black and white films always age the best), and I end up having to estimate the "ideal" or realistic ISO for exposing a particular film.

In this instance, my friend Bill Pivetta handed me a roll of old Fujicolor Press 800 - a color emulsion that is at least 20 years old.  I've shot it before, but it was a long time ago.

Here is the blurb about the film from Fujifilm:

"This is the first ISO 800 film to feature a fourth color-sensitive layer. It also incorporates the Fine Sigma Technology to attain outstanding fine grain quality and sharpness. Other features made possible by the addition of a fourth color-sensitive layer include excellent gray balance, remarkable fluorescent light suitability, and high color fidelity. Boasting wide exposure latitude, it is able to produce prints with high image depth and fidelity even from underexposed negatives." 

That all sounds pretty good, right?  Most 800 ISO color films are a bit grainy and lack some the latitude found in a 400 ISO C-41 film.

But how old is this film?  Bill wasn't sure, so I guessed about 20 years.  It may have been cold-stored for some of that time...or maybe not!  Since color films, especially high ISO color films lose their sensitivity more so than slower emulsions, I decided to shoot it at ISO 100 - that's 3 stops overexposed from 800.

I loaded the Press 800 film in my Vivitar V2000, a very reliable K-mount SLR.  I used several lenses, one of them being a 135mm Sears lens with close focus for up to 1:5 "macro", which has interesting bokeh when wide open, as you will see below.

The film was processed by the Reformed Film lab in Florida.  I scanned the negatives on my Epson V700 scanner.

My first impression is that I probably could have shot this film at ISO 200 with good results.  Some of the images looked overexposed in full sunlight.  Now one typically uses an ISO 800 film in low-light situations, and I did not do that, especially since I was rating it at ISO 100.

Here are some examples from the roll.

Overall, the results were pretty good.  I probably could have had good results at ISO 200, as well. It just goes to show that you can sometimes be surprised in a positive manner by an expired film.  I'd certainly try another roll, Bill!

Eastman 5243 Internegative Film

Sometimes it's fun to just try things and see what happens...

My buddy Bill Pivetta gave me an unopened 1000 ft reel of 35mm motion picture stock last summer, and until recently, it sat in the fridge.  I finally got around to spooling up some of that 1000 ft reel into a 35mm bulk loader, and from that, I loaded up a couple of 35mm cassettes.  The “mystery film” is Eastman 5243 color internegative film.  It’s been really difficult to find much information about it, except that it was used in Star Wars (1977) to produce the final negative for the positive copies for distribution.  The database of film stocks indicates that this film was discontinued in the late 1950s, but that is not the case.  These big reels of film appear to be relatively “recent” - perhaps from the 1980s.  In any case, I was intrigued to see what I might get from this film.  Knowing that similar special-purpose cine films have a low ISO, I decided on an ISO of 1.5, which is 2 stops more exposure than my F4’s lowest ISO setting. So, I just set the exposure compensation dial to +2, giving me an ISO of 1.5 for in-camera metering purposes.  While shooting, I bracketed from +2 to +1 and 0, for an estimated ISO of 1.5, 3.0, and 6.   On a full sunny day, sunny-16 for this film would be about 1 second at f/16, or about 1/15 sec at f/4.  

I shot the roll in the River Arts District, and developed the film in C-41 chemistry along with a roll of Kodak Vision 3 500T.  Before developing, I gave the two rolls a good soak in an alkaline solution of Sodium bicarbonate and Sodium carbonate, and then shook the tank like a cocktail shaker for 4 rinses to get as much remjet off the films as possible - about 99%. I then proceeded to do a typical developer and blix, followed by a series of washes.

before  scanning

The resulting negative has a greenish base, and while the base was rather dense, I could see the negatives, and my eye says the ISO 1.5 was pretty close.  Scanning gave me some interesting results.  For one, it’s obvious that the film has lost some color sensitivity, and I don’t know if the blue-green base color is merely the result of age - which it certainly could be, or a factor of age and storage conditions.  I don’t think the film was refrigerated.  The color matrix in the first image shows how the film now records colors.   The grain is fine, as I would expect from an internegative film.  There is some odd coloration in some frames - and perhaps that’s from age, as this was the beginning of the large roll.  With some post processing in my favorite image editor (Corel Paint Shop Pro), I did some fade correction and exposure correction.  The resulting colors are muted, and some people might find them very appealing.  

5243 color chart after some tweaking

color chart as it's supposed to look (iphone)

I don’t think there would be all that much difference had I developed the film in ECN-2 chemistry.  After all, this is a special purpose, slow cine film that’s probably at least 40 years old.  I may try another roll soon and see how it goes.  However, that’s the beauty of testing a strange film --strange results.   I don’t know if there would be enough interest for me to sell any reloaded 35mm cassettes with the 5243 film at ISO 1.5.  Obviously there’s no guarantee on the results, but if you are interested in acquiring a few rolls of 5243 at a low price, let me know (USA only), as I have almost 1000 feet of it... 

before any corrections

For  comparison, here is a frame from Vision 500T developed in the same tank:

Vision 500T, Nikon FE10.

PhotoWorks 200 film - 20 years later

 

Last year, I picked up a few odd rolls of long-expired color film, and most of it was labeled Seattle Film Works with expiration dates from 2000 to 2002. At one time, Seattle Film Works (SFW) was known for their line of SFW-XL films that were actually Kodak and Agfa cine film with a remjet backing -- and SFW was the only place that would process that film.  I wrote briefly about Seattle Film Works in a previous blog post on ECN-2 process films.  Until the 1990s, SFW films were all ECN-2 stock, but in the mid-late 1990s, the company started switching to C-41 film stocks and did not change the process used on the film canister.  By the year 2000, SFW had morphed into PhotoWorks, with a change in the canister colors and design -- and indicated that the film was C-41. The other change was going from 20 exposure to 24 exposure rolls. Typically, when you sent your "SFW-XL" film to SFW, you received a "free" roll back with your set of prints. In the late 1990s, I used a fair amount of the SFW film and received prints, negatives and slides + the roll of film with every order.  In 2000, a lawsuit claimed that SFW engaged in deceptive practices by claiming the film, now C-41, could only be processed by SFW.  That lawsuit ended with PhotoWorks having to send out thousands of free rolls of the C-41 film to customers.  By 2011, PhotoWorks was gone, its customer list sold to Shutterfly. 

 

The roll of PhotoWorks 200 was manufactured it Italy - hence it's Ferrania (Solaris) 200 film, and its expiration date was 05/2002.  That puts the film as being made around 2000.  Given its age, I figured that I would rate it at ISO 64.  I loaded the roll into my Ricoh ZF which I reviewed previously in my post on the Tucson Police Dept. camera. After I finished the roll, I developed it in the FPP C-41 kit.  Some of the images are presented below. Overall, I was pretty happy with the results, and the 64 ISO rating was really on target.  

One of the unknowns with any long-expired film is how the film was stored for the past 20 years. More than likely, the film was in a camera bag in a closet, which at least means a relatively stable thermal environment. My experience with expired color films is that to never expect perfect results, and the higher the ISO, the less sensitive the film is over time, as dyes oxidize.  Without making a 1 stop loss/decade for adjusting the ISO, you'll definitely end up with poor results.  If this was the 400 ISO SFW, I'd probably shoot it at ISO 80.  

For expired E-6 (slide) films, it's even more critical to test a roll, if possible,  before shooting anything serious. If the film was stored in a freezer or fridge for most of its life, then low ISO films such as Fujifilm Velvia 50 can often be shot at box speed, or at ISO 32-40. Ektachrome 400 should be rated at least at 200 -- if it was cold stored.  Again, part of the fun with long-expired films is to see what you'll get - but don't use them for once-in-a-lifetime shots.  With the access to color film seemingly restricted at this time, expired films are selling for a lot more.  Don't overpay!  

The world’s first auto-focus camera - Konica C35 AF

Introduced in 1977, Konica manufactured the first auto-focus 35mm camera, the C35 AF.  It was followed by the C35 AF2 in 1980, which really only differs cosmetically, with all features being the same.  I picked this camera up from a box of cameras that my brother-in-law gave to me in July.  All of them had been purchased at an estate sale by him for about $25, and he only wanted the Minolta AF lenses.  There was a variety of cameras ranging from a Nikon F to Instamatics, and all had been stored in a garage, with lots of accumulated grime.  This Konica C35AF2 was fairly cruddy, and had a severe battery corrosion problem.  At first I was going to toss it, but after a while I sat down with it, cleaned it up, and was able to remove the corrosion and battery gunk.  I was pretty surprised that it started working, and after a few months, shows no signs of unreliability.  

About the C35 AF and AF2:

Considering that this camera broke new ground in compact 35mm cameras, the price reflected that.  In 1981, B&H listed the Konica C35 AF2 for $115.95 Compare that to a Pentax K1000 with a 50mm f/2 Takumar lens that was listed by B&H for $139.00.  [January 1981 Popular photography]

Specifications

 The Konica C35 AF is an auto-focus auto-exposure 35mm camera with built-in pop-up flash

    • Lens: Hexanon 38mm f/2.8, 4 elements in 3 groups

    • Shutter: Programmed leaf shutter with 3 speeds-- 1/60s, 1/125s & 1/250s

    • Exposure: Fully automatic, 25 - 400 ISO,  ISO set by turning ring around lens.

    • Meter: CdS

    • Sensitivity: EV9 - EV 17 with 100 asa film

    • Viewfinder: Bright Line 0.41 Magnification

    • Underexposure warning light, Parallax Correction Mark, Focus measuring square

    • Flash: GN14,  Exposure determined by range measured by auto-focus

    • Film Winding: Manual lever-wind + rewind crank

    • Dimensions: 132 x 76 x 54mm

    • Weight: 375 grams

In Use

Of the many AF point and shoots that I have used over the years, the Konica C35 AF stands out as bridging the gap between the manual focus automatic exposure cameras such as the Minolta Hi-Matic G, and the auto-wind, auto-focus, auto-exposure cameras such as the Nikon L35 AF.   It was the first AF camera, and focuses from 1.1m to infinity.  It really does fit comfortably in the hand and is very quiet, due to the manual film advance lever.  If you are in a low light situation, a red led lights up in the viewfinder to alert you to use the flash.  I like that the pop-flash requires one to manually select it.  The viewfinder is bright with easy to see frame-lines and parallax correction markings.  I like that the body is sturdy metal and it has a bit of heft to it.  The filter ring on my camera is dented, otherwise I would use a skylight filter or a yellow filter with b&w film.  It normally takes 46mm screw-in filters, and since the CdS photo cell is within the front lens bezel, it would accurately meter with filters in place.  

Okay, so how has this 40 year old camera worked for me?  I’ve shot two rolls of film with it -- a roll of Tasma NK-II 100 ISO b&w film, and a roll of really expired Kodak Royal 400 rated at 80 ISO.  Every image came out quite satisfactory, even the old Kodak Royal 400 (though I had to adjust the color for fade correction).    It’s not as full featured as one might hope, with only 3 shutter speeds, but under most situations it would work just fine, and the 38mm Hexanon lens is quite good. Right now, I have a roll of expired Kodak Plus-X in it.  It’s definitely a camera to have as an extra in the bag, and yes, it could be a pretty good street camera.  The only downside is that there is no automatic override or B setting.   However, it does what it is supposed to do quietly and competently.  

The going eBay price for this camera is fairly low -- from $25-$85, depending on condition and whether or not it’s from Japan sellers.  It’s 40+ years old, so seals may need replacing (I did that, too).  If it comes with the original lens cap which blocks the viewfinder, that’s a plus.  That’ll keep you from shooting with a lens cap still attached.

I am glad that I took the time to get this camera working.  It’s easy to use, images are in focus, and the lens is great.

Images: