Spidersnaps: My second roll
Apr. 2nd, 2022 07:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spiderbraidsI found my dad's old film camera in a drawer next to his side of the bed in my parents' bedroom (he probably won't have noticed since he sleeps in a different room these days; I'm sure he has his reasons) It was a Canon AF35ML, a model that turns out to actually be older than me by a couple years, though I remember daddy using it to take pictures of me in my earlier life (and during a rummage through old photo albums, I managed to find a photo of him wearing the camera on a family cruise we took in 1991 :-)) After inserting batteries (thankfully taking the common AA instead of the more niche CR types), it looked like it was working fine... According to a manual I found online, one should be able to adjust the target ISO using a ring on the lens; however, I found that on this particular specimen, it was pretty much stuck at ISO 200... So I just bought myself an ISO 200 B/W film for testing, in this case Astrum's Svema Foto 200 (price: USD 5)... Most B/W film sold here is the usual Foma, Kentmere, and Ilford, but hey, if you have a chance to try out an exotic film at a reasonable price, then why not? ;-) Svema is a Ukrainian brand, and according this review, Svema Foto 200 is a contrasty film, and my pictures bear this out :-)
And even before their current situation, it already seemed unlikely I'd ever have a chance to try it again, since the reseller I got it from ran out by late January, and I wasn't exactly keen on trying to buy directly from Astrum (our house doesn't do online shopping unless it comes with a COD option, and it's more common in this part of the world than elsewhere)... but I also bought a ISO 400 roll to use with the Kodak M35, so look out for that one :-)
Sent alongside the Kodak Ultramax, it cost more to develop than the C-41 film (USD 4+ vs USD 3), due to the economies of scale that C-41 has that plain old B/W doesn't...
The camera and the film (smartphone pic)
It should be noted that the AF35ML apparently is not exactly one of the best-reviewed cameras of the era: At 35MMC, Torsten Kathke called it a "wannabe VCR of a point and shoot" (for the whirr it makes when automatically advancing the film, and it beeps too... yeah, I'm old enough to know what a VCR is :-)) and wrote "The Canon AF35ML is a good camera to shoot and own if you already have one and no other. ... The Canon AF35ML is mostly one thing: puzzling. A 'what were they thinking?' kind of puzzling." Mike Eckman noted that his AF35ML more often than not produced out-of-focus pictures, only managing 6 good shots out of his test roll... Mine seems to have been somewhat more successful, but even here, the AF35ML doesn't always nail autofocus, especially with close-up shots and low light situations (also, I was reluctant to try using the flash, simply because it's an antique camera)
My first picture to come out: A different road near my house than the Ultramax
A good example of the contrastiness of the Svema film: A nearby apartment building, taken when the sun was low enough at midday to be obscured by the building
The plants in my front yard that I'd intended for my first pic on the Ultramax (they're roughly where the mini-greenhouse in the last post was)
River view of the new congress building, and the Rama VIII bridge in the far distance
(And here's a 100% PNG crop of congress to show off the graininess, as well as minor imperfections in the film... Just another way film adds flavor to pictures ;-))
Kitty near the river pier
A restaurant we used to frequent in pre-pandemic times (and still get takeout from every now and then)
Birds perched on the roof (I've taken plenty of bird pics with film)
Just visible in the sky: Not a comet, but the trails from an airplane (also, note the contrast with the buildings against the sky)
And now, some not very well-focused shots (to put it mildly):
The same road near my house I showed in the Ultramax
Flowers: Nice thematic contrast between the fresh and wilted, but seems like focus was behind the intended target (Note the sharpness through the holes in the "fence")
Sidewalk pigeons
My only indoor pic: Shopping mall mannequins (the cam's low-light warning sounded for this one, but it managed to expose it well; focus OTOH...)
And one final sidenote: Due to a different film base, this particular film likes to stay curled... Check out how my Ultramax negs looked when I got them back from the lab... (smartphone pics)
And now the Svema :-) The strip in the bottom sleeve was at the end of the roll, and look how curled it is...
And even before their current situation, it already seemed unlikely I'd ever have a chance to try it again, since the reseller I got it from ran out by late January, and I wasn't exactly keen on trying to buy directly from Astrum (our house doesn't do online shopping unless it comes with a COD option, and it's more common in this part of the world than elsewhere)... but I also bought a ISO 400 roll to use with the Kodak M35, so look out for that one :-)
Sent alongside the Kodak Ultramax, it cost more to develop than the C-41 film (USD 4+ vs USD 3), due to the economies of scale that C-41 has that plain old B/W doesn't...
The camera and the film (smartphone pic)
It should be noted that the AF35ML apparently is not exactly one of the best-reviewed cameras of the era: At 35MMC, Torsten Kathke called it a "wannabe VCR of a point and shoot" (for the whirr it makes when automatically advancing the film, and it beeps too... yeah, I'm old enough to know what a VCR is :-)) and wrote "The Canon AF35ML is a good camera to shoot and own if you already have one and no other. ... The Canon AF35ML is mostly one thing: puzzling. A 'what were they thinking?' kind of puzzling." Mike Eckman noted that his AF35ML more often than not produced out-of-focus pictures, only managing 6 good shots out of his test roll... Mine seems to have been somewhat more successful, but even here, the AF35ML doesn't always nail autofocus, especially with close-up shots and low light situations (also, I was reluctant to try using the flash, simply because it's an antique camera)
My first picture to come out: A different road near my house than the Ultramax
A good example of the contrastiness of the Svema film: A nearby apartment building, taken when the sun was low enough at midday to be obscured by the building
The plants in my front yard that I'd intended for my first pic on the Ultramax (they're roughly where the mini-greenhouse in the last post was)
River view of the new congress building, and the Rama VIII bridge in the far distance
(And here's a 100% PNG crop of congress to show off the graininess, as well as minor imperfections in the film... Just another way film adds flavor to pictures ;-))
Kitty near the river pier
A restaurant we used to frequent in pre-pandemic times (and still get takeout from every now and then)
Birds perched on the roof (I've taken plenty of bird pics with film)
Just visible in the sky: Not a comet, but the trails from an airplane (also, note the contrast with the buildings against the sky)
And now, some not very well-focused shots (to put it mildly):
The same road near my house I showed in the Ultramax
Flowers: Nice thematic contrast between the fresh and wilted, but seems like focus was behind the intended target (Note the sharpness through the holes in the "fence")
Sidewalk pigeons
My only indoor pic: Shopping mall mannequins (the cam's low-light warning sounded for this one, but it managed to expose it well; focus OTOH...)
And one final sidenote: Due to a different film base, this particular film likes to stay curled... Check out how my Ultramax negs looked when I got them back from the lab... (smartphone pics)
And now the Svema :-) The strip in the bottom sleeve was at the end of the roll, and look how curled it is...
