Part 1

Following the tradition of previous years (ha, doesn’t look like I’ve written a blog recently for my annual drives around the Riverina in NSW in spring) I went out for a drive.

Actually, I went for two drives. It’s been a very busy few months and I wasn’t sure I was going to get a chance between popping down to Melbourne and hopping over to New Zealand.

The goal with this year was to take some photos on film, and I had two ‘new’ (extremely third or fifth hand) cameras to try out.

Medium Format

It seemed inevitable after getting the Franka Solida II that I would eventually pick up something at little more robust and capable, something with interchangeable lenses.

The Bronica ETRS is a 645 (the ‘smallest’ of the medium format, formats) with 15 photos per roll of 120 film. One of the reasons I chose this camera was the interchangeable backs, allowing me to change films between shots. One was loaded with a roll of Kodak 250D cine film, complete with sprocket holes for 65mm film cameras and the remjet layer, branded as Alien 250D. The second back was loaded with Kodak AeroColor IV – an aerial surveillance film, branded as Alien AeroNega.

Spoiler, I really love the colours and the look of the AeroColor.

35mm

My ‘main’ Pentax film camera is a Super Program. It is small, and light, and has an electronically controlled shutter that goes from several seconds up to 1/2000 of a second. I really like it, I think I trust the light meter it in, at least enough not to carry an external meter with me. It has a few limitations, mainly I can’t attach or use any of my ‘modern’ Pentax lenses that don’t have a manual aperture ring. This isn’t an issue most of the time as I love shooting with the 43mm and 77mm lenses so much. But, I do have a 70-200 f/2.8 that I really love, especially for landscapes, and 15-30 that could be really fun to use more often.

So, YouTube had been a bad influence and introduced me to some more of the ‘last of the film cameras’ from some other brands that people have been enjoying and I was wondering what the Pentax equivalent was.

Enter the Pentax Z-1. Not the last, and not the very top of the line, but an extremely fully featured camera that I can attached my modern lenses to.

When I say extremely full featured, I am not exaggerating. Pentax have a 30 minute instructional video for all the features, and it is:

a) of a time; and
b) amazing.

Anyway, this fully electric, and therefore prone to just not working any more ever and being completely unrepairable. But to be fair, so is the Super Program, while a LOT simpler, it has an electronic shutter and could just as easily stop working as well.

I managed to find the Z-1 on Japanese auction site for quite a bit less than my Super Program (or any of my other film cameras, actually. Clearly early 90’s electronic film cameras do not have the same cache as a 70s range finder, or a fully mechanical SLR). When it arrived and I immediately went into the backyard with the 70-200 and shoot a bunch of frames at different apertures and shutter speeds and rapidly developed the film.

Success.

The camera can even do autofocus, though it lacks the support for the motors in the 15-30 and 70-200, it will beep or flash a focus indicator in the viewfinder to let me know it is in focus. Does it seem to find stuff in the frame to focus on that aren’t in the middle where it is supposed to be focusing? Sure. But, it’s the thought that counts. Maybe.

First try

Before going to Melbourne at the end of August I went for a drive around the usual areas to the west of Canberra. I thought I was going to be a bit early for peak yellow fields, but I wasn’t sure if I’d get a chance between Melbourne and New Zealand.

First stop, and first few frames with the Kodak AeroColor IV. When the negatives first came out of the developing tank I was pretty excited, but when I did the first scan and conversion – I was hooked.

I almost immediately ordered several more rolls of the film, and have already shoot one of them.

I didn’t shoot any of the Kodak 250D in the Bronica at the first stop and set off again looking for yellow, or birds, or both.

I found some other trees in some fields and some hints of yellow, but not what I was looking for so I set off again.

Side note – the 35mm roll of Kodak Vision3 250D that I processed in ECN-2 chemicals was probably already one roll too many for those chemicals. The 120 medium format roll came out OK, but the 35mm film could have done with maybe another 30 seconds of development, and me throwing away the chemicals after that. I would later develop a roll of Harmon Phoenix II in ECN-2 and it barely came out at all.

Harden

After not finding basically any yellow I ended up (intentionally) nearly Harden and plugged my car in for a slow top up at one of the AC chargers near the golf club.

Along with the colour film in the Bronica and the Z-1 I also had a roll of Ilford HP5+. I had set the camera’s meter for ISO800 – this would be my first time pushing film. ‘Under exposing’ for the rated ISO of the film, and increasing the development time to compensate. With a max shutter of 1/2000 this would be fine with the Super Program, but shooting in direct sun with something else with a slower max shutter speed, like an old range finder that tops out at 1/500, can be difficult. It can also force you to stop down the aperture, something almost taken for granted with digital cameras is you can basically shoot any aperture in any condition.

After a wander around I decided it was time to go back to the car and continue on my way to find something to eat.

On the way back towards the Hume I took a side road past some fields I hadn’t been down before. From the road I spotted an old brick building sitting in a field. I didn’t immediately stop but kept going down the road before realising I really should have stopped. If I wasn’t going to stop at interesting things to photograph why was I driving around backroads?

While I was looking at it from the behind the fence a ute drove past and slowed down. The owner of the field yelled out to let me know I was welcome to walk up to it and have a look around. The gate had a chain to keep it closed, but no lock.

I figured I’d remember where this place was in case I got the chance to come back again.

Back on the road I spotted a bird of prey circling over a field. I slowed down and managed to get a few shots through the window of the car, but the bird flow off again before I could actually get out for a better look.

I made one more stop before home where there were some hints of yellow, but nothing of note. There were some sheep in a field with some nice clouds in the background.

That was the end of the drive and I headed back home. Turns out the end of August was too early for yellow. Hopefully I’ll have a chance in a few weeks, maybe.