Who'd A Thunk It

Morning folks, well, a New Year is upon us, and like all New Years, something new had to be done; so there I was, on a fresh day, looking at my cameras, rubbing my chin and thinking.

This is often a dangerous activity, because it doesn't always result in something necessarily beneficial to said chin-rubber; however in this case your daring hero beat entropy in the following fashion:

Knackered old camera with lens panel that moves every time you advance the film? . . . Check!

Film I have professed to despise? . . . Check!

Developer I bought back in 2008 but still have? . . . Check!

Oh yes, it was going to be a wonderful day.

The Triumvirate Of Hope And Despair

First the camera.

Many many years ago I bought a Minolta Autocord as seen, from a small camera shop, mailorder. Its taking lens had been cleaned by Multiple Polyester Ties and it was quite the worse for wear. 

Worse still, every time you advanced the advance lever, the front lens panel moved. 

This being said, its pot-metal alloy focus lever worked as smooth as a baby's bum and it took rather a decent picture. It was also cheap - well-sub of £50.

So what did I do? Yep, took part of it apart, cleaned shutter, got rid of really ghastly peeling leatherette and ended up with what you see above.

And then the film . . . Ah, Bergger Panchro 400!

Well, we've been there before, however whilst ordering some stuff from Process Supplies, I did come across a little something with regard to 510 Pyro . . not much different from Pyrocat-HD, and it stated this:

510 Pyro, formulated by Jay DeFehr, is an extremely fine grained, high acutance, long shelf-life staining developer giving full film speed with most films and uniquely triple optimised for darkroom

silver gelatine printing, alternative UV based printing and scanning with the same development time.

510 Pyro is specifically designed for both modern T-grain and the conventional emulsions.

510 Pyro is for maximising sharpness with minimal grain – solving the traditional paradox of a tradeoff with sharpness and grain levels – full tonality particularly unrivalled highlight separation given by

the inbuilt variable contrast filter obtained from the stain, high micro-contrast and exceptional enlargements exceeding x20.

510 Pyro is supplied as a liquid concentrate diluted for 1:100 one-shot use. However, it can be further diluted for economy though there will be a reduction in image quality and longer development times.

Note: an acidic stop bath and hypo clear must not be used with 510 Pyro developed negatives as they destroy the stain. A water stop bath is instead recommended. 

This developer is not compatible with Bergger Pancro 400 due to the double emulsion.

Quite why Panchro doesn't get on with staining developers when Bergger make their own . . . hmmmm! I was bewildered.

So I did a bit more chin-rubbing, dismissed un-mixed Perceptol; dismissed mixed Microphen; dismissed FX39II and then looked at the bottle of what looked like an old man's urine sample from about 50 years ago and thought AHA! 

13 year old HC110! 

That will do - what did I care about such things! 

To be honest, I actually still can't believe that it is still active; I have been using it as an adjunct to print developer for years as I had loads left from the original purchase. Apart from decanting it into glass bottles with pippets, I'd done nothing to preserve it.

I think that is remarkable.

Contact

Ah yes, harking back to the golden days of FB - here's another contact print - I've nothing to hide from you lot and as you can see, not only do I take the same photographs, but I also go to the same places. Must be like some great big dog marking his territory or something!

I rated the Bergger at EI 100 and the HC110 was Dilution B (just in case it had lost some potency and the higher dilutions didn't work . . I needn't have worried).

I could have probably printed more, but I was running out of small paper, so curtailed it at two.

Tesco Ken (apparently)

You've probably got these appearing in your town - it's a Greenpeace campaign against Tesco's Heavy Duty, non-organic, intensive sourcing of animal protein fed on Soya produced in Brazil. I have to say I find intensive animal farming pretty awful; I also find the widescale destruction of a finite resource utterly astonishing - why there isn't wider condemnation and international action being taken I have no idea.

Anyway, here's Tesco Ken on a phonebox next to the Hawkhill Pyramid - a largely bizarre object that was placed over a lovely old Victorian sub-street toilet.

The Lens/Film/Developer combo has rendered the scene in a suitably vintage way.

Hopeless print though.

Adobe/Concrete

This is my favourite - it's a proper bit of 1960's concrete brutalist charm. The staircase is leading from a small carpark into the Dundee Uni student accommodation on the Hawkhill. 
I placed that central sunlit bit of concrete on Zone VI and let everything else fall into place. The softness of the shadows reminds me of one of Ansel's Adobe buildings.

And that's it, briefer than a pair of Volvo-Orange 1970's Y-Fronts!

The old (what, about 1957?) Autocord has a very decent lens - it's super-scratchiness leaves a veil of flare, but you can sort of power through it:

Polyester Tie Action

Shocked? Good!! You need something to shake you up after all them mince-pies.

And that as they say is that - more to come soon.

It'll be briefer, more to the point and with less rambling . . Woo-ha!

Take care you lot and thanks as always for reading.

H xx