Three Minute Tips #4 – Make yourself a Force Washer

If you’re developing your own black and white film at home in your sink you’ll know that you need to wash your film under running water that is approximately the same temperature as your chemicals.  If you don’t have a mixer tap, a great alternative is one of those push on / pull off shower head attachments that you can buy for your bath taps.  One end goes on the cold tap, one on the hot, cut the shower head off and hey presto you have one of those force film washers for less than a fiver.

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Three Minute Tips #3 – Negative to Positive

There are a few apps available that allow you to preview your film negative as a positive.  A quicker way that I have been using for a long time to do it is to invert the colours on my smart phone.  Im sure most smartphones can do this but i have an iPhone 6s and I know how to do this on iOS.

Settings, General, Accessibility, Display Accommodations.  At the top of the list you will see ‘Invert Colours.’  Click on this and toggle ‘Classic Invert.

It inverts all the colours over the whole of the operating system – including the camera.  When you then hold your camera up to a film negative, preferably on a light box you will see on screen the positive version.

…but thats not quick you say…!?  Well no, thats not, but if you go again to your Accessibility settings, scroll right to the bottom and go to the Accessibility Shortcut tab you can set this up as a shortcut from the iPhones home button.  Three clicks of the button from any screen and the screen will invert.  Three clicks again and its back to normal.

Its no alternative for a scan, but helpful for quick reference.

Are You an APS Shooter…?

So the other afternoon I bumped into friend that I haven’t seen properly in years and the conversation naturally turned to the ‘what are you doing these days’ threa.  It wasn’t long before I was being offered an Olympus Trip. “You know, one of the old ones that takes film…” Sweet. I do like an Olly…

I arranged to pop round and pick it up and was presented with a camera case and immediately opened it up to find…a Kodak advantix F600…

 

It’s certainly no Trip, But cosmetically it looks like it’s barely been used which is good, and it does appear to have a part shot film in it which is always fun. It’s takes a CR123A battery like the Olympus Mju as well so I swapped one into it and it fired up a treat.  It’s got a 30-60mm zoom lens so nothing special there, and comes equipped with the standard run down of flash settings. A chunky little late 1990s beast in that classic ‘1990s space age brushed crappy grey and black’ finish. Even has a tripod mount which I’ve always found a must have for small point and shoot cameras…!

I’ve been after something that takes APS for a while now. A pal of mine on instagram (yes you @londoncameraproject) is forever harping on about APS and how it’s a forgotten gem of a format. I’ve personally never shot it and personally can’t see why it was really ever a thing…but, I now have the F600 and a stack of APS in the fridge I’m going to give it a go once I’ve worked out a satisfactory bodge for developing and scanning it. I know that there are labs around that advertise dev of this format but I’d really like to work out a way of doing it at home. The main issue that I think I’ll face, other that the actual dimensions of the film are that APS isn’t supposed to be released from the cartridge. Well maybe it is for development but certainly afterwards it goes back in the cartridge to keep if clean and safe. I need to hack an old cartridge open really and have a gander at how it works.

Interesting thing about APS is that you can wind it fully back into the cartridge mid roll and swap it out for another. Say colour to black and white or ISO200 to 800, and then when you pop the cartridge back in it automatically advances to the next frame. Just like swapping the backs out on my Bronica… 😂

Anyway because of this feature you can’t open the camera until the film is wound back, the F600 has a lever on the side to open it and I assumed it was jammed…but a quick look at the manual online (available at https://www.manualslib.com/manual/89133/Kodak-Advantix-F600zoom.html?page=16#manual incidently) showed me my error.

Anyway. I’ve shot a few frames with it, and once I find a suitable way to develop and scan the film I’ll post some results. But really don’t hold your breath, you’ll probably pass out…