Single In Single in January (SiJ) 2021: Offshoot - Film Weekends

And now, finally - my instant photos from this weekend - specifically from late tonight, taken only minutes ago, this one with the Lomography Automat Glass (which, for those who don't know, gets its name because unlike most if not all of the Fujifilm Instax series of cameras, Lomography made the lens of this model with all glass elements. I know, it sounds a little weird to me - boasting about using glass to make a camera lens - but such is life in the strange, wild and wacky world of instant photography in this new millennium.

I only took two, it's getting late and snowing outside and the wood stove needs to be refilled. The first is an old stand-by: a self-portrait of the photographer, with his Automat, in the bathroom mirror---

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It was taken in conditions of extremely low available light. I'm hoping next week's entries will be be sharper and possibly brighter, not to mention less grainy.

The final photo is, simply, of a straw hat, on the hat rack in my closet---

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It was also taken with the Automat Glass.
 
Great stuff, Miguel! That Automat Glass looks so cool. I have to admit that, while instant film makes perfect sense for a challenge side quest like this, I never even considered it for my weekends. It looks a good deal easier than sitting for half the day in front of the computer and scanner! :p
 
I'm only posting one more Instax instant photo to make up for the first weekend I missed. This one was taken today, the 26th, using the Lomography Automat Glass - and I discovered that, actually, measuring the distance between the camera's focal plane and the subject (which in this case was me, standing outside, bundled to the gills, in the middle of a bitterly cold windstorm) - that the camera will produce much, much sharper images than it has been when I merely 'guesstimated' the focus distance.

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(Note: I also used this Instant photo print, inside a hybrid photograph taken for Day 26 of the normal S-i-J Challenge.)
 
On this final weekend of the S-i-J, I've got a few more instant film (Instax) photos from my Lomography Automat Glass, which I'm finally getting the hang of, little by little. And the more I use it, the more fun it gets; fun being the operative word although there is also a certain amount of frustration with the out-of-focus and occasionally incorrectly exposed shots, one of the downsides of having a non-fully-automatic camera, but I'm not complaining.

Here they are, in the order they were taken. First, an interior shot - of my living room, with my late aunt's enormous Smith & Corona typewriter dominating the frame---

Automat_Jan30_21_Smith&Corona(Instax).jpg
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The rest of the shots were taken outside, on a very gray (and cloudy) winter afternoon.
First, my Vespa scooter, whose parking place is in front of a green outbuilding---

Automat_Jan30_21_Vespa(Instax).jpg
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Next, just to vary the angle and the lighting, a frontal angle of the same Italian mechanical beast--

Automat_Jan30_21_Vespa_front(Instax).jpg
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Then, just to see what it would do, I screwed on a variable ND (Neutral Density) filter to the front of the glass lens - and set it at the Min (minimum) degree of darkness. It's quite fascinating how different (lighting-wise) this shot is from the previous one---

Automat_Jan30_21_Vespa_front_NDmin(Instax).jpg
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Next, the woodshed, which was partially in the shadow---

Automat_Jan30_21_Woodshed(Instax).jpg
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After that, a small un-split woodpile, waiting to be chopped or split.

Automat_Jan30_21_Woodpile(Instax).jpg
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In retrospect, I wish I had taken another shot of this, with the ND filter, just to see the effect.
It kept getting darker and at a certain point I realized the sun was beginning to set.
Here is what the Automat camera decided to do with the colours in the late afternoon sky---

Automat_Jan30_21_Afternoon_sky(Instax).jpg
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This time, I remembered to put the ND filter on the lens, for one last shot - and I turned the darkness setting up to approx. halfway between Min and Max---

Automat_Jan30_21_Afternoon_skyND(Instax).jpg
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That's all. The one frustrating part of this exercise is - I haven't totally learned to use the iPhone app 'Snap' which was desgined to digitize Instax instant photographs. The results posted here are close to what my photos look like - but not quite there yet, including some weird glitches which are driving me insane. I'm going to communicate with the app's developer in the hopes he can give me a quick tutorial and critique.
 
On this final weekend of the S-i-J, I've got a few more instant film (Instax) photos from my Lomography Automat Glass, which I'm finally getting the hang of, little by little. And the more I use it, the more fun it gets; fun being the operative word although there is also a certain amount of frustration with the out-of-focus and occasionally incorrectly exposed shots, one of the downsides of having a non-fully-automatic camera, but I'm not complaining.

Here they are, in the order they were taken. First, an interior shot - of my living room, with my late aunt's enormous Smith & Corona typewriter dominating the frame---

View attachment 247563

The rest of the shots were taken outside, on a very gray (and cloudy) winter afternoon.
First, my Vespa scooter, whose parking place is in front of a green outbuilding---

View attachment 247564

Next, just to vary the angle and the lighting, a frontal angle of the same Italian mechanical beast--

View attachment 247565

Then, just to see what it would do, I screwed on a variable ND (Neutral Density) filter to the front of the glass lens - and set it at the Min (minimum) degree of darkness. It's quite fascinating how different (lighting-wise) this shot is from the previous one---

View attachment 247567

Next, the woodshed, which was partially in the shadow---

View attachment 247568

After that, a small un-split woodpile, waiting to be chopped or split.

View attachment 247569

In retrospect, I wish I had taken another shot of this, with the ND filter, just to see the effect.
It kept getting darker and at a certain point I realized the sun was beginning to set.
Here is what the Automat camera decided to do with the colours in the late afternoon sky---

View attachment 247570

This time, I remembered to put the ND filter on the lens, for one last shot - and I turned the darkness setting up to approx. halfway between Min and Max---

View attachment 247574

That's all. The one frustrating part of this exercise is - I haven't totally learned to use the iPhone app 'Snap' which was desgined to digitize Instax instant photographs. The results posted here are close to what my photos look like - but not quite there yet, including some weird glitches which are driving me insane. I'm going to communicate with the app's developer in the hopes he can give me a quick tutorial and critique.
Love the colors coming out of these cameras!
 
Alright, I chose to cheat just a little bit this time - my rule has been to shoot both days on the weekend, but I have gotten tired of a good deal of my Sunday being taken up with finishing shooting, developing and scanning. So I shot almost exactly half of this last roll in the last two days preceding the weekend, and chose Saturday to finish up and develop/scan.

I decided to go HP5 at 800 ISO and semi-stand, but a little different, as I chose the method I have been using for Fomapan: 30 sec initial agitation, then 5 sec every minute for first 5, then at 15, 30 and 45, a bit more agitation, total of 45 minutes. I'm not unhappy with the way it turned out, though towards the very last part of the roll (would be the outside part of the development spool?) I got some uneven development along the sprocket holes. Not sure why that happened. Anyway, here are my selects:

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And the last few from shooting today - another windy, rainy, gloomy day on the coast, though the crash and roar of surf gives it more than enough character in spite of the flatness.

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This roll was shot through the Ricoh 500G, which just consistently pumps out well-exposed, sharp, pleasant images with a certain character, B&W just as good as color. Definitely still something to be said for those fixed, f2.8 40mm-ish lenses from that era.
 
Since I've so far - more or less unintentionally, probably out of habit - only ever posted one image per post (not what Andrew proposed, sorry about that!), I'll stick with it and only post one today.

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The Sofort again, catching the mood rather well!

This was a fun addition - thanks again for bringing it up, Andrew!

M.
 
Since I've so far - more or less unintentionally, probably out of habit - only ever posted one image per post (not what Andrew proposed, sorry about that!), I'll stick with it and only post one today.

View attachment 247620

The Sofort again, catching the mood rather well!

This was a fun addition - thanks again for bringing it up, Andrew!

M.

This is really nice, Matt.
The Sofort creates some lovely tones.
 
Since I've so far - more or less unintentionally, probably out of habit - only ever posted one image per post (not what Andrew proposed, sorry about that!), I'll stick with it and only post one today.

View attachment 247620

The Sofort again, catching the mood rather well!

This was a fun addition - thanks again for bringing it up, Andrew!

M.
Same subject as your others for the day? Now that's indeed what I'd call proper treatment of the subject. Lovely dark feeling.
 
Well, side quest achieved! I'm not sure whether I learned any real lessons from doing this, except maybe that processing and scanning film takes a long time when done every weekend. I'm going to look forward to having extra hours on my weekends! It was enjoyable, though, and I really enjoyed seeing the creative instant photography from the other participants! It has reignited an itch for instant gear. I'm going to have to figure out what that means: do I try another pack of film for the OneStep Two and hope it's in better shape than the one I tried out when I got it? Or so I look for an Instax Square or Wide, knowing that the quality control and predictability is much better on Fuji's side? I may have to make a sly gift to the wife of a new instant camera, so I can play with it part of the time, after several acquisitions and selloffs last year.

For 35mm, I am looking forward to trying some new stuff this year. In 2020 I did something I hadn't really thought worthwhile before: going local for street photography. The typical tourism crowds weren't absent all year, though I feel things had an indescribable, but recognizable, added weight and somberness to them, and I got some good shots, though tourists aren't usually my cup of tea. Once things get busy around here I'll likely get out on the weekends again, this time hopefully to shoot some rolls of color, for which I have a Cinestill C41 kit waiting. And I'm eager to try out some slow films, like the Rollei RPX 25 that's been sitting here waiting for bright enough light to use it.
 
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