Hacking The DX Coding On The Film Canisters

Mom: So is there anything you'd like me to bring over when I visit?
Me: Hmm, ya. Whatever happened to my old film camera?

So she searched around the house and found this.

My old Olympus Mju-II. This camera accompanied me through my college and uni years and to many places in Europe. It's a reliable old friend. There was one problem with it though, it automatically sets the ISO based on the DX coding on the film canister. That may be alright for normal photography but a massive inconvenience when shooting with redscale or black and white films.

So how to get around this?

Changing from 400 to 1600

Fool the camera by changing the DX coding. The film at the bottom is at normal 400 speed and the film at the top has had its paint scratched so the camera reads it as a 1600 film instead. Probably the best thing about this is that the Olympus is such an easy camera to handle that I can be in the pictures more often.

With available window light and spot metering on the Mju-II

Darkroom Fun

Following up from my last post, I tried my hand at developing my own black and white film. The very first time, I had a few issues to iron out, like getting all the chemicals at the right temperature (20 deg c) before starting. I tried putting ice in a basin but it wasn't getting anywhere near that figure, so I just stuck them all in a freezer till it dropped. Thanks to the timer from the Massive Dev Chart App on the iPhone, once everything starts, it's pretty easy. I took a shot of my setup and here it is.

I've done 3 rolls so far with 2 different type of films and the results vary quite a bit. I think I may have been a bit overenthusiastic in agitating the chemicals in one of the sessions but I'll know more after many more trials and errors.

He's wearing a 'I love mum' shirt... -.-

This last film with Delta 3200 - oh the grain!

Thankfully there are many things to shoot these days. Cyrus is growing really fast and looks different everyday.

Now there have been people who have been saying that Cyrus looks more like his mom and yes, if you look at the shots above, you can see the similarities with the nose and the chin. But if you look at him from another angle, you will see that he looks EXACTLY like me.

Huhuh! Thanks for such great hair dad!

What I've Been Doing Last Weekend

My black and white film developing kit has arrived recently and I've been practicing what I initially thought is the hardest step in the whole process - taking the film out and loading it into the tank in the dark.

All the various parts

Going into the changing bag

Magic happens... kinda like solving a rubik's cube up a cow's backside

Tadaa!

Checking to see if everything is done correctly

It's easier than I thought it would be. Now the next step will be making the toilet into a darkroom then it's on to the chemicals! I've got a couple of black and white films bought 5 years ago that can finally be put to use.

Monochromatic Dreams

I don't think you can ever shoot with film in its full glory until you've tried shooting black and white. And I don't mean shooting in color and then converting to monochrome. I've picked up a few rolls Ilford XP2 Super 400 and immediately got hooked like flies to turd.

All pics shot with Canon EOS 5 with 50mm

Haven't touched this in quite a while

Since I was using a Canon, I also tried using my flashgun for some off camera lighting. What's scary about this is that the EOS 5 does not support E-TTL. So I have to park the flash in manual mode and guess the output. Also this is not digital... so if I get the exposure wrong, I'll only know in a couple of days time.

Fortunately it turned out alright. After I finished this shoot, I realized that I could've shot with the exact settings on my DSLR first, then apply the same settings to the film camera... but hey, where's the fun in that right?