squirtiesdad
The Rain Pool (on 1931 Eastman Panchro No. 10)
When a significant rainstorm rolls across the open desert area east of where I live, not only does the water level in the Mojave River rise, but west of the river, the shallow basins among the scrub brush pool with rainwater, too, like this low spot near the western escarpment did after a cold front blew through late last winter. A slim crescent of ice can be seen on the near end of the shallow pool, wrought by the freezing nighttime temperatures.
Film: The film I shot this image with, 35mm Eastman Panchro No. 10, came from Adam Paul of the ClassicFilmShop on Etsy. It was packaged as vintage unexposed motion picture film when he bought it, with a perforated paper leader about 10ft/3m long, and had an expiration date of 1931. He shot some test rolls with a still camera, found it was viable film, estimated the film speed to be around ISO 0.3, cut some of the film in 20-exposure lengths, and loaded them into half a dozen 35mm cartridges. He warned that there was some moderate fog, biased toward one edge (see the image's top edge), and that there was some slight delamination, with the emulsion beginning to separate from the base, also along one edge (I lost a couple of images because of edge separation on their negatives during development). Despite the caveats, I thought I'd give it a try—how often can you shoot film that expired in 1931? I suspect that the "No. 10" in the film's name represents the original film speed, ASA 10. As I mentioned in the notes to my recent picture with the Reyna Cross III in which I used expired Perutz film, Perutz made an early film for the first Leica in 1925 with a film speed of ASA 4. By 1926, Perutz film speed was up to ASA 7, and by 1930, film speeds of ASA 10-12 were common. So for this film expired in 1931, ASA 10 sounds about right.
Camera: To shoot this 1931 film, I wanted to use a camera from the same period. It would have to use 35mm film, and have a tripod mount and B shutter setting for the long exposures necessary because of the slow film speed. The nearest I had was a 1938 Kodak Bantam 4.5. It's an 828 film camera, but 828 is, after all, simply 35mm roll film without the sprocket holes. So I rolled eight exposures of film from one of the Panchro No. 10 cartridges in homemade 828 backing paper, cut down from old 120 backing paper (www.pheugo.com/cameras/index.php?page=spool828), and off I went :-) I used my Dad's old Stanrite Superpod tripod from the early 60s, and shot two images at each of four different places, three in the Mojave riverbed, and one in the barnyard, each time using two different shutter/aperture settings: one second at f/5.6, and two seconds at f/8. I developed the film in Arista Liquid Developer (1+9) for 7:25 minutes @ 67 degrees, and scanned it with an Epson V600 scanner. An interesting adventure :-)
The Rain Pool (on 1931 Eastman Panchro No. 10)
When a significant rainstorm rolls across the open desert area east of where I live, not only does the water level in the Mojave River rise, but west of the river, the shallow basins among the scrub brush pool with rainwater, too, like this low spot near the western escarpment did after a cold front blew through late last winter. A slim crescent of ice can be seen on the near end of the shallow pool, wrought by the freezing nighttime temperatures.
Film: The film I shot this image with, 35mm Eastman Panchro No. 10, came from Adam Paul of the ClassicFilmShop on Etsy. It was packaged as vintage unexposed motion picture film when he bought it, with a perforated paper leader about 10ft/3m long, and had an expiration date of 1931. He shot some test rolls with a still camera, found it was viable film, estimated the film speed to be around ISO 0.3, cut some of the film in 20-exposure lengths, and loaded them into half a dozen 35mm cartridges. He warned that there was some moderate fog, biased toward one edge (see the image's top edge), and that there was some slight delamination, with the emulsion beginning to separate from the base, also along one edge (I lost a couple of images because of edge separation on their negatives during development). Despite the caveats, I thought I'd give it a try—how often can you shoot film that expired in 1931? I suspect that the "No. 10" in the film's name represents the original film speed, ASA 10. As I mentioned in the notes to my recent picture with the Reyna Cross III in which I used expired Perutz film, Perutz made an early film for the first Leica in 1925 with a film speed of ASA 4. By 1926, Perutz film speed was up to ASA 7, and by 1930, film speeds of ASA 10-12 were common. So for this film expired in 1931, ASA 10 sounds about right.
Camera: To shoot this 1931 film, I wanted to use a camera from the same period. It would have to use 35mm film, and have a tripod mount and B shutter setting for the long exposures necessary because of the slow film speed. The nearest I had was a 1938 Kodak Bantam 4.5. It's an 828 film camera, but 828 is, after all, simply 35mm roll film without the sprocket holes. So I rolled eight exposures of film from one of the Panchro No. 10 cartridges in homemade 828 backing paper, cut down from old 120 backing paper (www.pheugo.com/cameras/index.php?page=spool828), and off I went :-) I used my Dad's old Stanrite Superpod tripod from the early 60s, and shot two images at each of four different places, three in the Mojave riverbed, and one in the barnyard, each time using two different shutter/aperture settings: one second at f/5.6, and two seconds at f/8. I developed the film in Arista Liquid Developer (1+9) for 7:25 minutes @ 67 degrees, and scanned it with an Epson V600 scanner. An interesting adventure :-)