The Camera from Dresden part one.

 

This camera was almost an impulse buy, when I saw it in the window of a camera shop at a giveaway price. However, I did not have the cash on me. As I carried on walking down the street I thought it would be snapped up by some lucky individual embarking on a film camera odyssey.

At the time, I did not realize it would be me six weeks later. On inspecting the MTL 3, the body was in mint condition - not a single mark on it that I could see. However it did have some issues, the most obvious one being that it had no lens, the light meter did not work and the foam on the film door had perished. Shouldn’t be too difficult to put right, I thought.

When I got the Praktica home, I tried to remove the battery cover, but it was locked solid. I did not have time to go any further with it at that point and thought that I could always use a hand held meter. With that, I put the camera in the cupboard. 

Some weeks later I found myself going to the camera cupboard and picking up the Praktica. I had it in mind to get to the bottom of the stuck battery cover. I found a set of micro screwdrivers and undid the four screws that held the base plate on. I had no idea what I would find once the cover was removed. Fortunately, there were no springs that pinged out across the room when the base plate was lifted. I picked the battery housing off the base of the camera, only to be presented with a leaking battery - mystery solved.

Removing the aluminium battery cover from the metal insert was going to be a challenge. The battery had leaked into the threads, sticking the two parts together like super glue would. I don’t know what I was thinking when I squirted freeing oil on the thread and left it to sink in. I tried and failed to shift it using a fifty pence piece and a large adjustable spanner. There was no other course of action left to me but the brutality of fire and heat in a blow torch. I wondered if just heat would work?

As I walked across the room to the log stove, it was like walking into the sun. I left the battery housing on top of the log stove for five minutes or so and returned to the tropical room suitably dressed in shorts and, with heat resistant gloves, picked the battery cover off the stove. I placed the housing in the spanner and used the fifty pence piece in the cover and applied increasing amounts of pressure. With the sweat running down my face, it gave all of a sudden flicking the coin out of my fingers across the room. After I found the coin I placed it back in the slot and undid it as normal.

One issue down, three to go. The hunt was on to find a lens, battery and foam. I had forgotten what a waste of time looking for stuff on the net is. Some hours later, I had found a lens and battery (the modern number for it is LR9XP625G - the last three numbers are the most important). From the same place, I bought a Sigma 80-200 zoom lens. Thanks go to Bristol Cameras for their prompt and friendly service. The lens when it arrived was brand new and was the same price as the camera body.

I tracked down the foam to eBay and what a pain the seller was, to put it mildly. In the end I went down to a craft shop and picked up a sheet of foam for a pound - four times cheaper than the eBay seller!

With the light meter now working, the lens attached and the foam in place, it was time to load the camera with some film. I had an out of date roll of Fomapan 200, which is of a similar age to the camera, so that would do nicely.

Let the escapade begin.......It took a bit of time to get the film to wind on properly as I could now work out how the film lead picked up the wind on the cylinder. The sound and vibration from firing the shutter almost shocked it out of my hands. Must remember to grip it more firmly and use ear defenders.

To be fair, I had forgotten how basic the manufacture of this camera is and the sound of the shutter is quite reassuring. I don’t think I will be using it for candid street shots, but then again... It will take me a little time to get used to the way the camera is set up. It is a little chunky when making adjustments, but I will not let that put me off.

In case you missed part two here is the link part two

Mottled prints

The one thing I like about traditional photography is it can be unpredictable. Even though the method you use is tried and tested, guaranteeing to a certain extent, good results, when the unexpected happens there are a lot of questions. Checking the method and chemicals used is great when a clear mistake can be tracked down, but what happens when there isn't?

 Sometime ago I pulled a set of FP4+ 120 format negatives from the processing tank that at first glance looked normal. I was studying the negatives in their sleeve when I noticed that the grain was not as usual.

Anyway, I did no more about it until I printed a number of them, then it became apparent the grain structure was different, so much so that it gave the photographs a mottled affect. I was not impressed, however once the prints where dry I filed them away. 

I went back over the way I processed the negatives, checking everything, but could not find an obvious reason for the way they had turned out. To add to the mystery it was not present on all of them. At the time I had just started using a new batch of PMK Pyro developer. I asked myself a lot questions about: 'did I mix it properly?' 'in the right order?' etc. etc. but could not come to a clear answer. So I shelved the developer metaphorically and literally.

The reason I'm telling you all this is that recently I have been looking through some of my boxes of prints when I came across these pictures again. The funny thing is I now quite like those mottled pictures, so much so that I'm going to print some of the other negatives and do some reprints on different paper. I find it baffling that when revisiting prints or negatives that did not appeal at the time, either compositionally or technically, they have now come into vogue. It is almost as though you are not mentally ready for what your eye is telling you works. In other words you need to keep an open mind even if it is not what you set out to do.

Since writing this I have been reprinting some of the negatives making me question again whether it was a developer fault. There is only one way to find out. 

It is now 2021 and the fault is down to the backing paper in some cases if it is 120 format film.

I have now found the fault. 

 

Paper fixing faults.

This post will be short, a sort of quick guide to paper fixing faults. They are listed in no particular order.

This picture shows the fix is exhausted

•         Brownish areas: fix exhausted.

 

•         Print becomes yellow after a while: Was not fixed for long enough and    or  washed for to short a time.

 

•         Burnt out highlights: acid fix not diluted to the right strength. Left in the fix for to long. Not timed properly.

 

•         Brownish spots, Lilac round the edges: Stop bath exhausted, incomplete fixing, forgotten to wash or use stop after the developer.

 

The blue stain shows that the stop is exhausted.

•         Yellowish fog over the entire paper surface: Exhausted fix, developer contaminated fix, little or no agitation while fixing.

 

It is not unusual to be caught out by some of these faults. Even when you have years of experience.

Light striped prints

Another printing fault is light pollution known as fog. This is assuming it hasn't happened in the camera.

The dark line you see running up this picture
 it the result of light
getting to the light sensitive material. Fogging .

●         It Could be where stray light from a darkroom not properly blacked out has found its way to the light sensitive side of the the paper you're using.

●         Your safe light is too close to the enlarger and or the wrong colour.

●         It can also happen if your enlarger leaks light when being used.

●         Badly stored and out of date paper can also be fogged.

The causes of these faults, also point to ways of curing them. This post suggests a way of detecting light induced fog.

Film Developing faults.

The most common faults that crop up in the course of processing a film.

• Spots on the negative indicate two things: there was dust on the film at the time of exposure and/or fairly large round spots on the negative indicate that air bubbles were trapped against the film during the process and suggests insufficient agitation. This can be avoided by agitating for thirty seconds at the beginning of development and by tapping the tank on the bench. (some developers require longer agitation). It must be stressed that too vigious and lengthy agitation can induce the same problem. A way of helping to reduce air bubbles is to use a pre-soak. Some developers like PMK Pyro and Rollie's R3 require a pre soak as standard.
• Black crescent-shaped kinks and clear patches more common with roll film but can happen with 35 mm cassettes, this happens where the film has been forced into the spiral making the film kink and touching the film beside it.
• Lines are most commonly caused by the film running across a small piece of grit on the cassette opening. It can also happen by over tightening the film in the cassette and bad handling. One of the most common, which has happened to me, is the use of a squeegee to dry the film. I have not used one since.
• Finger marks on negatives are caused by handling the film with wet, dirty and contaminated fingers. This can be eliminated by using disposable gloves during the wet process and cloth cloves when handling dry negatives.
• White marks are caused by grease and fixer before development and dark marks by fingers covered in water or developer. Slight damage can be retouched.
• Reversal of negative image is due in part or total to solarization making the negative into a positive; this happens when light gets to the unprocessed film during development. Care must be taken with the processing tank that the lid is fully secure before inverting.
• Uneven image density is a sign that there is not enough developer in the tank or lack of agitation. A low-level of developer in the tank will show as a dark unprocessed line along the top edge of the film.
• Reticulation is a lot of fine cracks in the emulsion this is caused by washing in too high a temperature or solutions greatly different in temperature. This can be avoided by making sure that the solutions only have a few degrees difference between them.
• Deposits on the negative and discolouration. Hard water may cause a chalky deposit on the negative that cannot be washed away in water. It can be treated with a two percent solution of acetic acid, then washed in clean water. The same sort of problem may be due to the fix losing its acidity. A treatment would be to harden the negative in one percent solution of formalin, then wash in sodium carbonate followed by water. Yellow-white negatives may be due to deposits of sulphur from a decomposing fixer, it can be remedied by hardening in a one percent formalin solution and washing in a ten percent sulphite solution at thirty-eight degrees.

Trouble loading a plastic spiral.

The plastic Paterson type of spool can be difficult to load. A common problem is the little metal balls that grip the film get stuck. Dont try to force the film through, if you do it will kink the negative leaving a half-moon shape. It can make the frame(s) useless. You will need to part the spiral and start again. A pain I know! Be gentle when removing the film, there is a chance of damage.

Damp or wet spool will not load, so make sure it is completely dry before use. Sweaty, damp or sticky fingers will make it difficult as well.

A too tightly rolled up 35mm film in its cassette can take a set that makes it tricky to load. So when rewinding the film back into the case dont over wind it after you hear it has released itself from the camera spool. With practice it is possible to leave a little bit of the leader poking out.