Chaos Colour

Upwell Church and the Well Stream, Norfolk. Taken with Lomo Lubitel 166B camera. AgfaPhoto Vista Plus 200 35mm film, developed in Rollei Digibase C-41 kit.

Well that was a cock up.  Ok, not all of it.  Let me start from the beginning.

The plan was to go crazy, and to load a Poundland 35mm film onto the 120 spindles of a Lomo Lubitel 166B camera, expose it in a day, then develop it using the Rollei Digibase C-41 chemistry kit.  My first ever attempt at C-41 colour film development.  A fun project.

The Lubitel 166B is a TLR (twin lens reflex) camera, built in the Lomo factory of the former USSR during the early 1980s.  It is designed to use 120 medium format roll film, exposing it in 12 frames of 6 cm by 6 cm squares.  It is an entirely manual camera, with no light meter.  They were mass produced in the former Soviet Union as a medium format camera for the masses – but with full exposure controls.  I bought mine at a car boot sale in Cambridgeshire for two quid (GBP £2.00).

I’ve already shot several rolls of Ilford b/w 120 roll film in it, and I’ve been pleased with it, although the Bronica SQ-A has replaced it as my number one medium format film camera.

I placed the camera in my film changing bag, with two empty 120 spindles, a small pair of scissors, and a 35mm cassette of Poundland film.  Later Lubitel’s have been fitted with masks for using 35 mm film – but the 166B was exclusively 120.  I rolled out the film from the 135 cassette, snipped it off, then rolled it back onto the middle of the 120 spindle.  Simple.  No masks or complications so far. I then fitted the spindle into the Lubitel, fed the end of the film into the second spindle, and then pulled it across – fitting the top spindle into the camera (all of this was done in the safe confines of my film changing bag).    I had already taped the red window over in case of light leak.  Shut the back, took out the Lubitel loaded with 35 mm.

In the field, I exposed the film using my usual Sunny F16 Rule of manual guess-timate settings.  I wound the film advance two full rotations between frames.  It turned out to be generous.  Next time I’ll use one and a half rotations, and should get an extra few exposures to my film.  I felt the 135 film release from the bottom spindle on my last exposure.

So far, it had gone very well.  The film had exposed quite well, although some wasted film between frames.  The Lubitel had performed well, and as expected, the whole width of the film, either side of sprocket holes had exposed, to give that sprocket holed

Leverington Church Spire. As above.

film look so beloved of the Lomo school of photography.

Then disaster struck.  I decided to rush into my first ever C-41 film development using the Rollei Digibase C-41 kit.  I did everything wrong.  I tried developing at a high temperature that I couldn’t sustain.  I mucked up solutions.  Last second realised that I hadn’t got a stopwatch in the house.  I dropped my beloved developing log book in water, losing my notes.  It turned into chaos.

I learned lessons, and I wont make certain mistakes again.  I’m not giving up with the C-41 colour film developing yet.  Indeed, I’m determined to do it better.  All of that lovely Poundland film demands it.  I was also quite pleased qith the Lubitel on 35mm.

More patience next time.  I’ll also try to C-41 develop at lower more sustainable temperatures.

This is partly what amateur photography should be about.  Challenges, learning, and improving.

Flickr Explore with a two quid camera

Bonne – Explore. Taken with a USSR made Lubitel 166B TLR camera, loaded with Ilford HP5 400 medium format film. developed in Microphen.

It surprised me, but this quick snap on the Lubitel recently made it into the Flickr Explore charts, and has raised over 11,500 views over the past six days.  Maybe I shouldn’t call it a quick snap – as that would be pretty difficult on the fully manual Lubitel.

Other news:  I think I’ve finally cracked how to successfully transfer 120 film in a changing bag to a Paterson tank.  More on that later, if it continues as a success.  Maybe I should make a Youtube video.

On Medium Format…

It’s a Big World. Taken on Ilford HP5 Plus medium format film, using a two quid Soviet TLR camera – the Lubitel 166B, and developed in Microphen.

I just seem to be increasingly drawn to 1) film photography, 2) home developing, and 3) medium format.  Even though those bloody 120 rolls refuse to smoothly feed onto my Paterson tank spool, and leave me cursing, even though they greedily slurp away at my developer and other chems, even though they give me a measly 8 – 12 exposures per roll, there’s something about them that allures me.  Digital is great when I want a shiny, easy, instant image.  35mm film compacts fit so snug in a pocket, and their sexy sprocket holed 36 exposures just ooze productivity.  But those big negs pull me in.

I’ve been trying to master the Lubitel better, especially it’s focus.  The above photo I quite like, and that below:

Bonnie. Merv’s GSD x Malamute dawg. As above – Lunitel 166B TLR camera and Ilford HP5+ developed in Microphen.

Not bad for the under-rated economy class Lubitel are they?  As the Lubitel were made in the Leningrad Lomo factory, they’ve become associated entirely with the Lomography scene – even with Chinese toy cameras.  It’s an easy mistake, they do have plastic bodies, and they were marketed as cheap medium format cameras for the masses. However, with their glass triplet lenses, they are capable of far more than their low prices (I paid GBP £2.00 for mine) suggest.  Don’t write off the Lube as a toy.  They really are an incredibly cheap route into medium format photography, better than trying to use old folders with leaky bellows, or Chinese toys with plastic lenses.  They are fully manual, with a variety of apertures and shutter speeds.  They do need some effort to operate, they do teach skills to their users.

Rather like professional medium format cameras when you think about it.  The Lubitel has paved the way for my next stage in amateur photography.  I’ve gone and bought a bloody Zenza Bronica SQ-A medium format SLR camera!  Complete with Bronica 80mm f2.8 lens, an SQ-A body, waist height viewfinder, standard focusing screen, and a 120 film back.  I paid a whopping (by my cheapskate standards) GBP £180 for it on Ebay.  Not my normal supply of cameras, nor my usual budget , but I could spend several lifetimes of hunting at local car boot sales to see one of these come along. Ok, spending a whopping 180 quid on a camera, maybe I should give up my title of the tight-fisted photographer.  I couldn’t help myself.  Still, it’s tight fisted compared with those togs that ooze out their hard earned cash on four figure so-called full frame (your sensors are tiny next to my 6 x 6 negs ha hah ha!) Canikon DSLRs.  I bet that they spend as much on their bleeding brand name camera bags.

Here she is, being blessed by a statuette of the Goddess:

The New Member of my Camera Family. My Zenza Bronica SQ-A medium format SLR camera. Taken using my Sony DSLR A200 with Sony DT 50mm f/1.8 lens.

I’m working long shifts, other than RTFM (read the f***ing manual) time, a bit of taking apart, cleaning, putting together, and playing with that clunky sexy reflex mirror, I’ve only had time to load a film.  Made in the 1980s, these cameras were the bread and butter of many professional photographers and studios before the evil DSLR took over – at least for those that couldn’t afford the elite Hasselblads..  The studios are finally dumping them onto the markets, as they switch to full frame DSLRs.  Fully manual, with the usual medium format issues of focus, focal length, and square composition, and like the Lube – no light meter.  First impressions?  It’s a freaking beast!  I’ve never lifted such a heavy and bulky camera.  They are built like a tank.  Honestly, if you’ve never handled a medium format SLR – go and try it.  A beautiful monster.

I can’t bloody wait to shoot with her, my Precious…

The Lubitel 166B Soviet Russian TLR Camera

Photography – putty in a kid’s hands. Taken with Sony DSLR A200 camera, and Sony AF DT 50mm F1.8 SAM lens. B&W conversion via UFRaw open source software.

What a camera!  This one cost me GBP £2.00 (around three US dollars) at a car boot sale with case and lens cover in immaculate condition.  Here is what I’ve learned about the Lubitel 166B so far:

It can trace it’s heritage back to the Pre-war Geman made Voitglander Brilliant camera.  Originally the Voitglander TLR (twin lens reflex) did not couple the two lenses, but introduced a coupled version in 1938. World War II (or if you prefer, the Great Patriotic War) ensued shortly after.  At the end of the War, the Soviets took the plans, factory plant, and perhaps people from Germany, back to Leningrad in the USSR, to be used at their optics factory, the GOMZ plant.  They then launched the line of TLR cameras that was to become known later as the Lubitel, Russian for Amateur.  GOMZ was later replaced by the LOMO brand (The British did a very similar thing with a German motorcycle.  They took the manufacture of a pre-war lightweight two stroke motorcycle from the captured DKW plant in Germany, and shipped it to the BSA plant in England – where they tinkered with the design to produce the BSA Bantam motorcycle lineage, right up until the early 1970s.).

Lubitel TLRs were in production at the Russian factory from between 1949 and 1990.  More recently, manufacture of a new version has been commissioned by the Lomography company.

The 166B was in manufacture throughout the 1980s – 1980 to 1989.  According to Lomo records, almost a million were produced.

Now, that’s an outline of the history behind my Lubitel.  It’s a history of 20th Century central and Eastern Europe.  While in the West, Capitalism produced 35mm SLR cameras with microchips controlling the exposure, the USSR produced a very different kind of technology.  It simply, very slowly, tampered with a design that had worked for many years.  Fine adjustments to the shutter mechanism, a lightweight plastic body – that surprisingly works.  Flash light fittings, and yet somethings they simply didn’t change – the absence of a light meter for example.  The 166B represents the end of the Soviet era.  The USSR was in decay, it had failed to deliver the goods that Capitalism was now delivering in the West.  Afghanistan was a thorn in their side.  Can you imagine a meeting in the 1980s, between an East European, with a plastic TLR, fully manual without even a light meter, using a design going back to 1938, meeting a Westerner with his or her sparkling new Japanese Canon AE1 automatic SLR?  This was not the original intention of Russian Marxism-Leninism, that sought to propel the USSR ahead of Capitalist economies, and provide their proletarians with a better standard of living.  The Revolution had failed in the face of Japanese solid state technologies.  The system was not providing the new demands of consumption.  The Lubitel symbolizes the collapse of Leninism-Marxism.  The economic fall of the brave new world of Lenin’s dreams.

And yet there’s something beautiful about the Lomo Lubitel, something worthwhile.

Fen Killa. Lubitel 166B TLR Camera. Ilford FP4+ 125 film.

Click on either of the above images to enter my young but growing Lubitel photography gallery.

Lubitel Resources

http://www.sovietcams.com/index.php?2146053764

http://cameras.alfredklomp.com/lubitel2/

http://doingphoto.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/cheapskating-on-medium-format-part-3-lubitel-166b/

http://www.heayes.com/lubitel.htm

http://lubitel-resource.tripod.com/

http://www.flickr.com/groups/lomo_lubitel

http://www.flickr.com/photos/trojanllama/sets/72157633623331551/

More Fun with a Two Quid Twin Lens Reflex Camera

The Fen. Lubitel 166B TLR camera. Ilford HP5 Plus 400 120 film. Developed in Microphen.

On the dog walk. Lubitel 166B TLR camera. Ilford HP5+ 400 120 film.

Kings Lynn Customs. Lubitel 166B TLR camera. Ilford HP5+ 400 film (120 format). Developed in Microphen.

Looking through my home developing notebook and log, I’ve already developed ten monochrome films – nine 120 rolls, and one 127 roll.  Including Ilford HP5+, Fomapan Classic 125, and the Kodak Verichrome Pan 127.  I’ve used two developers – Ilford ID-11, and Ilford Microphen.  It’s early days, I’ve got 35mm to tackle next, with two cameras presently loaded with 135 cassettes of HP5+.  I’m really enjoying this learning curve!  I have a few problems to iron out.  The more I transfer 120 film onto the Paterson Tank spools, the more problems that I get.  It’s not become easier.  I watched three YouTube videos this morning on other developer’s techniques at spooling, and I’ve got a few ideas to try out.  The problem has started to affect my films – I’m seeing little crescents where either the film creases or contacts my finger tips as I struggle in the changing bag.  Keeping a notebook was a great idea – I keep setting myself tasks, recording measurements, solutions, and listing my problems to resolve.  The roll with the two top photos above shows a problem that I had with my last film – watermarks.  Not too sure how I did that.

Anyway, back to the subject of this blog post title.  I just want to sing the praise of a spanking budget camera, that I am using to expose most of my medium format films.  The Lubitel 166B.  I bought mine for two quid (GBP £2.00) at a local car boot sale.  Excellent condition, with lens cover and a case.  I suspect, hardly used.  They are common fare on Ebay, where they seem to sell for between GBP £5 and £35.  These are CHEAP cameras that make medium format film photography accessible to us masses.  They were built in the USSR during the 1980s in the Lomo factory.  For some reason, the LOMO badge is missing from mine, and I wonder if it was ever fixed.  The body is plastic.  Yes, plastic.  Lubitel is Russian for Amateur.  This camera was produced in the Soviet Union for amateurs without pretense.

It is a true twin lens reflex – with the two lenses geared together.  However, visual focusing is next to impossible.  It has a pop up magnifier / focusing eye piece, but it really is not much help.  Instead I usually keep a small aperture, and zone focus – estimating distance.  If I wanted more precision or a larger aperture, I could use a measuring tape, or a DSLR to find my distance and exposure value.  Exposure value?  There’s no light meter on this camera.  I just use the old F16 rule, to judge and estimate light for myself.  I’m really pleasantly surprised to see how often it works.  Exposure and focus are… ok, on the majority of my photos.  A lesson in photography.  Use a camera like this for a while, then use a DSLR, and it’s incredible how much more you can understand – and appreciate the exposure controls.

The lens is a Cinesales Corp T-22 Triplet Lens.  1:4.5 75mm.  Ok, it’s not a Carl Zeiss.  It vignettes.  However, it is better than many might expect, much better.  The above photos with my messy developing do not do it justice – click on them to see the full gallery of my meagre efforts to date.  Problems?  Tiny shutter release button is not easy to locate while setting up a take.  The back is clipped with a simple lock.  It’s too easy to knock it open and ruin much of a film.

This camera is so much bloody fun – cheap and easy access to 120 medium format film photography, while still delivering some great results.  If you see one at a car boot sale for under a tenner.  Consider it.

My Lubitel 166B

Motoring in Norfolk

Sunday Service. Lubitel 166B TLR camera. Ilford HP5 Plus 400 (120 roll), developed in ID-11

Taken outside of Emneth village church on Sunday.  Using the Lubitel 166B TLR camera that was built in the Soviet Lomo factory.  I paid two quid for this camera.  Developed at home.

Learning to Develop Part II

120 Negatives – Big Negatives! Drying. Taken with Sony DSLR A200 and Sony DT 50mm F/1.8 lens. Starring Nita.

I once read an old pre-digital treatise, that half of the reward of amateur photography lay in the darkroom.  I can see that now.  Maybe that should read that half of the enjoyment of modern b&w film photography still lays in the development.  It’s hard to explain in the digital age.  Not everyone would get it.  Nita’s nine year old tells me that she likes the cameras that show you the image instantly.  Instant gratification without much effort.  That’s the only failing of digital photography.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to give up the DSLRs.  It’s as I’ve said before, the salt n’ shake phenomena (potato crisps that you have to add salt to and shake yourself).  The more effort that you put into creating an image, the more rewarding it is.  That’s my attraction to film, but it doesn’t or shouldn’t degrade good digital photography.

So far, I’ve developed five 120 films.  I’ve had the pleasure of seeing five wet babes … sorry, developed negatives, swaying from pegs in our bathroom.  One tip for followers in my steps – keep a real ink and paper notebook, and keep recording and perfecting your method.  One of the reason’s I’ve not blogged, is that I’ve been using pen and paper to record my crappy efforts.

So far I’ve only used Ilford ID-11 as a developer.  I’ve developed two types of film – Ilford HP5 Plus 400, and also Foma Fomapan Classic 100.  I’m mean.  I dilute my developer stock to 1:3 stock/water.  This increases developing time.  For the Ilford HP5, 20 minutes at 20C; for the Fomapan 100, 13 minutes at 20C.  That can be a lot of  agitation, with 10 seconds within each minute.  Stopper for up to 100 seconds including agitation.  Fixer for between three and five minutes including agitation.I’ve also started to conserve my tight fisted credentials by re-using both Stop and Fix dilutions.  I’m aiming for between four and five uses per concentrate.

Tasks to complete from my developer diary?  1) develop 35mm b&w.  2) try microphen developer. 3) learn more about pushing and pulling.

Learning is so much fun.  Here is a photo that I took and developed:

Wisbech Moon Market. Lubitel 166B TLR camera. Ilford HP5 400 120 film. Developed in ID-11

 

Discovering B&W Film Developing

On the Naughty Step. Would you believe that I captured this on a Kodak Brownie? The Kodak Brownie Reflex 20 – not so much as a box brownie, so much as one with an identity crisis. It’s sort of between a box brownie, a plastic toy camera, and a TLR! Taken on Ilford HP5 Plus 400. This one developed commercially. Perhaps, the last of my b&w films to be commercially processed.

August was humongously busy with non-photographic work.  Something has to pay for my hobby.  Still, as the last post said, my chemicals arrived, but I was too busy to play.  When I did have a moment or two, I started to read up on what my chemicals were, and what to do with them.  I bought an Ilford B&W film development starter kit that included Ilford ID-11 and Microphen powder developers, IlfoStop, Rapid Fixer, and Ilfotol (wetting agent).

I had already purchased a good new Paterson Tank, a dark or developing bag, and a decent film squeegee.  I went on to buy some cheap measuring jugs and containers from the 99P store.  After my first few attempts (neither that were failures), I discovered that I needed a proper stopwatch, and a good thermometer.  I probably deserve to lose my credentials as tight fisted for overspending on the thermometer, for a space age instant infra red digital thingy.  Still, it gives me rapid temperature readings for my liquids.  The stop watch was a bog standard plastic digital sports watch from Argos – but I had already learned that relying on a piss poor Blackberry phone where the sodding stop watch screen fades away every 20 seconds was not good practice.  The stop watch and thermometer are both good.  There’s a tip for other n00bs.  Get a decent thermometer and stop watch.

I watched a Youtube guide on home developing b&w film.  It was basic, barely mentioned temperatures, different films and agents etc.  None-the-less, much cheaper than paying for private tuition at a local studio, as I once applied for (but was cancelled).  I also read Ilford guides, the instructions on bottles, and … old film photography books.

One evening, I braved it with a roll of 120.  Why 120?  Because I’m attracted to 120 over 35mm.  It’s lovely stuff.  Big negatives – I also I think correctly assumed that it would be easier to spool in the tank than 35mm film.  I had already practiced spooling a 120 film in light and in my dark bag several times using a spoiled film.  My first ever attempt was made on a 120 roll of Ilford HP5 Plus 400, that I had exposed in my Lubitel 166B TLR camera.  There were a few exposures missing, where I had rolled on the film too far in poor light, so I guessed it was sacrificial.

I made a few mistakes on my first attempt.  But the film was forgiving.  More on that in my next post, but for now … a scanned negative from my first ever attempt at developing:

Funny Looking Cameras. Taken using a Lubitel 166B camera. Ilford HP5 400 film (120), developed in ID-11. My first ever develop.

Catching Up from 620 to 120 film

Too Much. Olympus XA2 (cost 50p). AgfaPhoto Vista Plus 200 35mm film from Poundland

 

The Lady of Wisbech Museum. Lubitel 166B. Ilford FP4+ ISO125 120 film

Gawd, what happened to this blog, time to pick things up again.  I bought a cheap scanner.  I have this bloody dream or target, where I concentrate on 120 medium format film, develop my own, scan my own.  At the moment I take my negs to a local processor who hand develops them, then scans them.  He’s very reasonable, but I want to do it – the full experience.  Ok, where have I been heading since my last blog?

I LOVE the Lubitel 166B TLR.  I’ve had some cool results from it on Ilford.  Shit I need to stop tilting it to one side, but I’m really pleased with the exposure settings I’ve made.  The Lubitel has aperture and shutter speed controls, but no light meter.  Sometimes I’ve used a DSLR for readings, other times I’ve used a dodgy old selenium light meter that I’ve ‘repaired’.  Other times I’ve simply guessed.  Surprise is, they work out what ever the method.  It’s about learning to measure light.

I’ve recently bought two beautiful condition, immaculate Kodak Brownies, each for a couple of quid at car boot sales.  Both were designed for Kodak 620 roll film.

The first is a wannabe TLR – a circa 1961 Kodak Brownie Reflex 20.  What a gorgeous reflex top viewfinder, and a very well designed plastic body with an advanced film loader.  It even automatically winds to the next exposure.  I say wannabe TLR because the crappy camera lens is not engaged to the viewfinder lens.  Instead, you have a three-zone-focus. Still – this is a smart old Brownie, but not just a box camera.

The second is of a more classic ‘Box Brownie’ design – although built towards the twilight of box brownie manufacture circa 1959.  It is a Kodak Brownie Flash III.  A pressed metal box, with soft covering.  Two viewfinders (top and side), two levers – one to select a yellow filter, the other for portrait or normal focus (two zone focus).  A fair clip, and a sturdy film loader.  It’ was also fitted with connections for a whopping big flash lamp, which didn’t come with this camera.

Both as I said, were designed for Kodak 620 film, in colour neg, b&w neg, or colour pos slide film.  I think the Kodak film was of a single sensitivity of ASA 125. They stopped making Kodak 620 some thirty years ago.  Does this mean that these Brownies are dead in the water?  No.  It turns out that 120 roll film, still in production by a number of firms, is of the same dimension as 620, but on different spindles.

I bought a developing or dark bag.  Decent anti-static one, not the cheapo this time.  I’ve perfected rolling a 120 film off it’s spindle, then back onto a 620 spindle, in the dark bag.  So far I’ve shot one roll on each of the above Brownies.

The next stop will be to buy a Paterson or developing tank, then the chemicals.  You see, targets can be achieved, just give me time.

Down at the Trailer Park and Medium Format negative film scanning

Down at the Trailer Park. Lubitel 166B medium format TLR camera. Ilford FP4 Plus 125 120 b&w roll film. Scanned negative.

Who says that budget photography can’t be classy?  Unfortunately I couldn’t get the Staffy to pose with them.  Taken with the Lubitel 166B, a twin lens reflex camera, built in the Soviet Lomo factory during the early 1980s.  A medium format film camera that takes 120 roll film, and produces 6 x 6 frames.  It cost me two quid (GBP £2.00) on a car boot sale and I love it.  I’m just having problem resourcing an affordable digital scanner, that will work with my OS, and is capable of scanning 120 film negatives.  I bought a Canoscan 8400f on Ebay, but either 1) I can’t get drivers/software to function correctly on Windows 7 64 bit, or 2) it came without negative masks, so I made my own – but they are somehow causing an issue (I did base it on an image of the orginal mask), or 3) the top lamp is fooked.  I suspect that it’s Number 3.  Pissed off as I feel I’ve wasted money.

So for now I rely on low res scans from my local photo processing shop.  If it wasn’t for this block, I’d really like to move more onto medium format film, starting with my low budget Lubitel.