Wandering the shrimp fleets of Georgetown with my Voigtlander Bessa III 120 film camera….

Voigtlander Bessa IIIw 120mm camera system

Yep, early this morning I grabbed the bag with my wide angle 120mm camera system and headed out to Georgetown where I was going to spend a bit of time with the shrimp fleets and some film….  I chose the Voigtlander Bessa IIIw system.  It has a 55mm lens on it which at 6x6mm equates to around 35mm and at 6x7mm to 30mm.  This is pretty wide and allowed me to capture several very wide angle shots of various shrimp boats around the water front.

One of the other things that I do when shooting film is to keep a accurate written record of the exposure data for each and every frame.  This assists in keeping my process the same once I get the proper exposure, contrast and desired grain for each of the film types I use.

I enjoy this camera system very much.  It has a lot going for it specifically its 6x7mm negative size which makes for some pretty big scanned files when all is said and done.  I also like the fact that it is a rangefinder which pretty much defines my youth and what I had learned to use when very young!  It is not too heavy, has a leaf shutter which is totally silent and goes up the 1/500 second for exposures. This could be a little faster but I can work with it.  A 120 roll of B&W film gives me 10 exposures at 6×7 which is the format I like the most. 

Rodinal One Shot

I normally use stand film processing with Rodinal at 1:100 ratio with water, a water bath then the 1 hour processing and normal fixing and a wash, but for these rolls I am going to use Ilford Perceptol ultra fine grain developer in hope of a sharper  image with greater contrast.  So, we will see next week how this new combination works for my finished film!

Stand processing is not dependent upon chemistry temperature, ISO or even Film type!  You put the film in its can, give it a 5 min water wash, then pour the developer in, gently agitating for 1 min then letting it sit for another 60 min!, Water Stop, since and done!     But there are trade offs with Stand processing, namely Bromide Drag which is shown as the slightly darker vertical streaks in the image below.  These come from the developer chemistry being exhausted.

Voigtlander Bessa IIIw with Rollei IR400 120

Jordan and his film camera

So with the Perceptual chemistry (6 min develop time) I will not see Bromide Drag and it is supposed to give sharper smaller grain and higher contrast.   So instead of a 1 hour develop time we are looking at 6 min now, sharper negatives with higher contrast!  We will see….

I will hold of processing these images till the first weekend in May so that my 7 year old grand son come come with me to the studio and process his own 35mm film at the same time!  Yes, I am teaching him how to photograph and process film! You gotta start them young so that they catch the film bug!

Cooking the film!

Come on back in a few weeks to see the results of todays outing!