It's All Black and White
- Thread starter Pioneer Vato
- Start date
View out front door and back door this AM.
Half a dozen years ago one of my favourite cameras, a Contax IIa suddenly vanished. In the week before Christmas I found it in a box in the basement with those of my seasonal decorations my wife isn't fond of. Happy day! Still one of my favourite cameras, ever. I've put a roll through it and here are a few images from a little walk around the 'hood. Contax IIa/50 f2 Sonnar/HP5.
Yes, I took a pic of the Austin again when I walked by. I find it interesting photographing it with different cameras and lenses (digital and film, B&W and colour) in the varying seasons and light. I like how the Sonnar rendered things. Very different from other lenses at the same f-stop.
I've been tempted by the G-series Contax ever since they came out. I might break down and buy one eventually... I'd like a couple more lenses for my IIa and also to get my pre-war Contax II working. I picked up a 53 f1.8 Helios recently and we'll see how it looks compared to the Sonnar. Very different designs so it will be interesting. I just find shooting with the Contax to be a complete blast in a sort of mechanical/sensual sorta way.
I'm looking forward to getting my darkroom set up and doing my own relearning. There is something really enchanting about the whole process - magic.
I enjoyed it but it’s a pain. The developer at the community darkroom wasn’t getting along well with the type of paper we were using and the equipment was in varying degrees a functionality. A combination of the declining numbers of people they have using it and the pandemic. Hopefully it manages to stick around.
Enjoyment of a darkroom does in large part depend upon the facility. Everyone I knew back when used to work in a blacked-out bathroom. No thanks. I'm looking forward to having a dedicated space of my own. It won't be big, but if I set it up well it should be efficient and enjoyable.
This darkroom is ok but its kind of a mess, the people that run it are kind of slobs. There's junk everywhere, which I don't understand as they recently moved into the space and it seems like they've been there 20 years with how it looks.
We had an excellent dark room in high school. Clean, modern for the time, very organized. It was actually better than the one I used in college. Shame I've almost totally forgotten how to do it, but it starts to come back. My gut feeling for time corrections after test sheets was pretty spot on still.
First off, a caveat. I did not make this image. My father shot this with his Ikoflex IIa probably five years before I was born. I've been busily scanning from his old negatives over the past few weeks, rather an ideal pandemic-stuck-at-home activity. I've scanned stuff he shot with a Detrola (yes, made in Detroit) when he was in high school, the Ikoflex, a Kodak 35 rangefinder (which ended up being my first camera when I was eight) and the the Honeywell Pentax H3v (which I also used later on). I just thought that my father if he were still living would have enjoyed seeing his images posted. He was also into audio, built his own Williamson amplifier in the 40s along with a power supply of his own devising. He would have loved this site...
JoeThePop
Known member
I’m always a little reluctant to post B&W photos here because I cheat using my iPhone filter. But the rather bleak winter months in Michigan just lend themselves to B&W. I say rather bleak because in SE Michigan we just don’t get snow like we used to, so everyday when I’m out walking the pup I look for the beauty outside instead of focusing on the dreariness.
