spiderbraids (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spiderbraids) wrote2023-12-24 11:06 pm
spiderbraids) wrote2023-12-24 11:06 pm
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Spidersnaps: Going Retro with Rollei
From my previous roll I noted that I bought a roll of converted aerial Agfa film as part of the same batch as that previous roll... Well, here it is: Rollei Retro 400S in my Kodak H35 :-) The price was THB288 according to the confirmation email when I bought it, but looking at the price now it's gone up to THB340 :-\
According to this review, "Rollei Retro 400S is actually a repurposed Agfa-Gevaert Aviphot aerial film, made by Agfa at their factory in Belgium. It’s then distributed by Maco in Germany who license the Rollei name from its current owners." The fact that 400S was originally an aerial film informs one of its notable properties, as the review notes that said film "was produced for mapping terrain from on high, which means it needs to be good at cutting through any low cloud that may be present. That’s probably why they made it super-panchromatic, as opposed to merely panchromatic. This means it has an increased sensitivity to red light, which in turn means shooting Rollei Retro 400S with a red or infrared filter can result in infrared images." The review also notes that "Retro 400S brings low grain with good sharpness and high contrast." Low grain and good sharpness would seem to make it perfect for shooting half frame, and the good pictures do bear out the high contrast claim :-) As for the whole sensitivity to red stuff, we'll get to that a bit later :-)
On the other hand, this review notes that "in the shade, the photos (understandably) do tend to look a bit dark, so you might need to do some editing in order to salvage them." And some of these unedited (other than resize and rotation) pictures also do seem to agree with this assessment, reminding me a bit of the Svema 400 I tried early on... (which is not surprising, since it's also apparently made from aerial film as well, even with the same thin base that requires loading in darkness)
Camera and film
Another angle of the noses and vacuum cleaners art installation, in which the detail drops off quickly heading indoors
A late afternoon shot of a film lab near my uni, except it's practically invisible due to the film's terrible performance in the shade (but you'll see the lab in a closeup later)
Decent shot of a bulldozer on the median near my house
Pretty foggy shot of a bike in an alley near my house
Also pretty foggy is this shot towards downtown taken from a subway train
Somewhat dark but usable shot of the street near the faculty of science in the early morning of university graduation day
Same spot more or less, but this time in the early afternoon
More graduation atmosphere later in the afternoon
Shot of a sign celebrating the graduation (compared to a smartphone shot: the sign was bright pink because it's the uni's official color)
Early morning shot of the new garden
Swimming pool at the sports complex, shot from the library
Tree, with strongly reflected sunlight from the leaves... maybe a little Robert Williams Wood effect going on here?
Cooking demo at a vegan festival
Uni main entrance
Sound of the Northeast, featuring trees reflecting sunlight
Another shade-affected photo, of a temple near uni
Street near uni
As mentioned above, this super-panchromatic film is sensitive to infrared... I found a discarded prop wrapped in red cellophane, so I ripped off some of it, and held it in front of the lens for some tree photos, attempting to get some of that Wood effect action, which had the side effect of making the pictures a bit blurry (in picture 2, you can actually see the edge of the filter if you look carefully)
Incoming subway train
A shade-affected shot of plant branches poking from a fence
Shopping mall balcony view
Workers working on the Samyan Mitrtown Christmas tree
Cat looking at a tree, and look at that contrast :-)
Building near uni, and yet another instance of a H35 picture being off-centre from intended
The flipside of having bad performance in the shade is blown out highlights, as this photo was meant to show off cranes at the school construction site, which instead all but blend in with the sky (the AnalogJan review notes that without a filter, "you still get deeper blacks and brighter whites than you would with most of the un-super-panchromatic monochrome films on the market today")
Wood prints made by students on display, and these pictures were already B&W, so nothing of value has been lost :-)
Tree stump withmushroomsfungus growing around it
Christmas tree and lights
Birds on the TV aerials
Central Ladprao celebrating 2024... with Pokemon (!)
Replete with a lighted Christmas tree topped with a Pikachu tail instead of a star :-)
(Plus 100% crop)
While writing about Svema 400, I showed a picture of a second hand camera store that also even sold APS film, which was right next door to my usual lab... Well, when I went to pick up the negs from my previous roll (and also have them rescan my half-frame 250D), I discovered that not only it was closed, the shutters were down and the sign at the top had been removed, and the lab confirmed they had shut down their business... This was taken a few weeks later along with the Pokemon celebration, showing the insides being gutted out
Slightly grubby early morning shot of our local mall's Christmas tree
Contrasty and off-centre morning shot of the war memorial
Wide shot of the uni stadium, with soccer practice on the pitch and some jogging on the track
Christmas tree at the uni photo lab mentioned earlier... Also barely visible are boxes of empty film cans and disposable cameras, free for the taking :-)
Shaded up shot of two birds on a lamppost
Street photography near Sri Yan market
Light drawing without the long exposure, thanks to a light tube courtesy of the uni's Northeast Culture Club :-)
Even with flash, this shot of a sax player near an indoor Christmas tree at Samyan Mitrtown still came out awful (even before the nasty bit of scraped emulsion)
Ending the roll with a shot of the market near the dentist's office
According to this review, "Rollei Retro 400S is actually a repurposed Agfa-Gevaert Aviphot aerial film, made by Agfa at their factory in Belgium. It’s then distributed by Maco in Germany who license the Rollei name from its current owners." The fact that 400S was originally an aerial film informs one of its notable properties, as the review notes that said film "was produced for mapping terrain from on high, which means it needs to be good at cutting through any low cloud that may be present. That’s probably why they made it super-panchromatic, as opposed to merely panchromatic. This means it has an increased sensitivity to red light, which in turn means shooting Rollei Retro 400S with a red or infrared filter can result in infrared images." The review also notes that "Retro 400S brings low grain with good sharpness and high contrast." Low grain and good sharpness would seem to make it perfect for shooting half frame, and the good pictures do bear out the high contrast claim :-) As for the whole sensitivity to red stuff, we'll get to that a bit later :-)
On the other hand, this review notes that "in the shade, the photos (understandably) do tend to look a bit dark, so you might need to do some editing in order to salvage them." And some of these unedited (other than resize and rotation) pictures also do seem to agree with this assessment, reminding me a bit of the Svema 400 I tried early on... (which is not surprising, since it's also apparently made from aerial film as well, even with the same thin base that requires loading in darkness)
Camera and film
Another angle of the noses and vacuum cleaners art installation, in which the detail drops off quickly heading indoors
A late afternoon shot of a film lab near my uni, except it's practically invisible due to the film's terrible performance in the shade (but you'll see the lab in a closeup later)
Decent shot of a bulldozer on the median near my house
Pretty foggy shot of a bike in an alley near my house
Also pretty foggy is this shot towards downtown taken from a subway train
Somewhat dark but usable shot of the street near the faculty of science in the early morning of university graduation day
Same spot more or less, but this time in the early afternoon
More graduation atmosphere later in the afternoon
Shot of a sign celebrating the graduation (compared to a smartphone shot: the sign was bright pink because it's the uni's official color)
Early morning shot of the new garden
Swimming pool at the sports complex, shot from the library
Tree, with strongly reflected sunlight from the leaves... maybe a little Robert Williams Wood effect going on here?
Cooking demo at a vegan festival
Uni main entrance
Sound of the Northeast, featuring trees reflecting sunlight
Another shade-affected photo, of a temple near uni
Street near uni
As mentioned above, this super-panchromatic film is sensitive to infrared... I found a discarded prop wrapped in red cellophane, so I ripped off some of it, and held it in front of the lens for some tree photos, attempting to get some of that Wood effect action, which had the side effect of making the pictures a bit blurry (in picture 2, you can actually see the edge of the filter if you look carefully)
Incoming subway train
A shade-affected shot of plant branches poking from a fence
Shopping mall balcony view
Workers working on the Samyan Mitrtown Christmas tree
Cat looking at a tree, and look at that contrast :-)
Building near uni, and yet another instance of a H35 picture being off-centre from intended
The flipside of having bad performance in the shade is blown out highlights, as this photo was meant to show off cranes at the school construction site, which instead all but blend in with the sky (the AnalogJan review notes that without a filter, "you still get deeper blacks and brighter whites than you would with most of the un-super-panchromatic monochrome films on the market today")
Wood prints made by students on display, and these pictures were already B&W, so nothing of value has been lost :-)
Tree stump with
Christmas tree and lights
Birds on the TV aerials
Central Ladprao celebrating 2024... with Pokemon (!)
Replete with a lighted Christmas tree topped with a Pikachu tail instead of a star :-)
(Plus 100% crop)
While writing about Svema 400, I showed a picture of a second hand camera store that also even sold APS film, which was right next door to my usual lab... Well, when I went to pick up the negs from my previous roll (and also have them rescan my half-frame 250D), I discovered that not only it was closed, the shutters were down and the sign at the top had been removed, and the lab confirmed they had shut down their business... This was taken a few weeks later along with the Pokemon celebration, showing the insides being gutted out
Slightly grubby early morning shot of our local mall's Christmas tree
Contrasty and off-centre morning shot of the war memorial
Wide shot of the uni stadium, with soccer practice on the pitch and some jogging on the track
Christmas tree at the uni photo lab mentioned earlier... Also barely visible are boxes of empty film cans and disposable cameras, free for the taking :-)
Shaded up shot of two birds on a lamppost
Street photography near Sri Yan market
Light drawing without the long exposure, thanks to a light tube courtesy of the uni's Northeast Culture Club :-)
Even with flash, this shot of a sax player near an indoor Christmas tree at Samyan Mitrtown still came out awful (even before the nasty bit of scraped emulsion)
Ending the roll with a shot of the market near the dentist's office