Would Someone Educate me on 110 SLRs?

On the Hasselblad 500 you can have the A16 back that shoot 645 and how do you change from vertical to horizontal shot? The back revolves?

 

- No. I think you flip the camera on its side and get a crick in your neck! Or shoot sideways.

 

The revolving back is a much-neglected facility - and probably we should be thankful. Can you imagine a 6x9 version of the Mamiyaflex TLR with a revolving back? Dr Frankenstein would be proud of such a creation.

I tend to use prisms on 645s, but find them too big on anything larger. My Pentax doesn't give any other option!

 

Thank goodness for the rotating back on the RB67.

- No. I think you flip the camera on its side and get a crick in your neck! Or shoot sideways.

 

The revolving back is a much-neglected facility - and probably we should be thankful. Can you imagine a 6x9 version of the Mamiyaflex TLR with a revolving back? Dr Frankenstein would be proud of such a creation.

Seriously how the heck can you turn the camera and shoot with the waist level finder?

Seriously how the heck can you turn the camera and shoot with the waist level finder?

 

I can do it on my Rolleiflex :) . Granted there's no point in it, but still.

 

My first Rollei(a Rolleicord Va) came with a 645 frame mask and 16-frame counter. I used it that way for a while-I finally ended up buying a parts camera to get the 12 frame counter. When I did do verticals, I used the action finder and made a mask.

I can do it on my Rolleiflex

 

I think the little-known 6x6 cm Rectuflex made in Freedonia had a rotating back, didn't it?

 

:rolleyes:

The revolving back is a much-neglected facility - and probably we should be thankful. Can you imagine a 6x9 version of the Mamiyaflex TLR with a revolving back? Dr Frankenstein would be proud of such a creation.

I like my Mamiyas. I think there would be nothing too wrong about a revolving back 6x9 version. - Yes, it would be a tad bigger and heavier and most likely not my first choice as a touristic camera.

OTOH: I doubt the revolving back to add much weight to my Technika but believe it makes shooting a press camera hand held more convenient.

Given a chance I'd happily try a 6x9 or even 4x5" TLR with chimney finder at the usual Mamiya price point.

I don't like prism finders for two reasons: (Other) people and affordable tripods tend to be too short. + Lifting a camera up to m eye is significantly more work than getting the lens just up to my breast.

TLR advantages: No need to compose through your orange filter and also no focusing obstacles created by your softeners.

Shooting RFs instead is of course an alternative.

No SLR bashing intended; I guess everybody has some somewhere? With the bigger formats view cameras can be a better choice for portability. It is just the lens and the not that great roll holder I have for my Voigtländer Bergheil 6.5x9 that keep me from trying to take more landscape pictures with it.

I think D&P processors killed off 110 by putting lazy antisocial people (they were about to sack), who had no concept of quality control, on the ageing 110 line. At its best the Pentax 110 was capable of a good 8x10; a charming little camera.

Does bokeh actually exist for such a small format?

I think the little-known 6x6 cm Rectuflex made in Freedonia had a rotating back, didn't it?

 

:rolleyes:

I'm not sure, but isn't your spelling of the camera in error. I think there is a missing letter. Regardless it's a shame that the camera factory was destroyed during their war with Sylvania. I'm a little surprised that no other camera manufacturer copied their innovative folding pocket TLR design.

The Pentax 110 SLR was awfully cute, though

 

That was the thing about those cameras. They were toys.

Yeah

That was the thing about those cameras.

 

Who could complain about results like these with my new kitten and me ?

 

Of course I've always been partial to abstract expressionism

Just the kind of D&P I got used to.

Yeah

 

 

Who could complain about results like these with my new kitten and me ?

[ATTACH=full]1241046[/ATTACH]

 

Of course I've always been partial to abstract expressionism

 

No complaint but your picture does need a tittle otherwise I wouldn't recognize you not even know that it's a kitten.

Lack of choices of black & white 110 have caused my interest in the format to wane. Also, none of the 110 cameras would have been able to take advantage of a slow film like Ilford Pan F+ or Rollei RPX 25. Pentax had the best idea, but lack of manual controls doesn't help.. On the plus side the quality of color negative film available is higher, but with fewer choices.

I never got to use B&W film with Pentax 110. It just wasn't around much. On whim, I printed a few colour print negs on Kodak Panalure B&W paper, and image quality was so much better than what I had got with D&P colour.

Panalure, when it was fiber based was glorious stuff. I used to have a client that brought me 4x5 Vericolor negs of corporate head shots, and printed on Grade 3 Panalure and hand toned they were stunning.

 

110 and Kodak disk were a nightmare to handle commercially. The film area was so silly small that your lenses had to be constantly focused or the grain got mushy fast. Manual optical printing or scanning was the only way to get results from them. Disk cameras had the notorious habit of under exposing, and underexposing print film with such a small film area only exacerbated the grain issue. If you could over expose print film about a stop in these small formats they would print decently as long as your printing system was tack sharp.

There are also some eBay vendors still selling expired Fujicolor 110. Dwayne's Photo still does 110 processing as well.

 

The Film Photography Podcast Store and the Lomo store care 110 film. During My last trip to Tokyo, I picked up a few dozen rolls of E6, C41 and B&W 110 to feed my Pentax Auto 110, Diana Baby 110, and a few other Kodak instamatics. I grabbed two complete Pentax kits with all the lenses and macro adaptors for a song. 110 film fits what I want from some projects I do...and is fun to use.

Well, a few months later I looked again and found a nice, boxed inexpensive Auto 110 kit on Ebay. It's on its way.

 

This is the standard 18/24/50 kit with a flash and winder. I figured it was worth a shot-my last film order cost me more.

 

I'm almost embarrased to admit that I bought a Lomo product also-I bought a 3 pack of their 110 color film. It was less expensive than outdated Kodak or Fuji of unknown quality...

I got the camera today...it's hard to appreciate how small it is until you've held one in your hand.

 

Have fun! Hope you can share some sample photos sometime.

Enjoy Ben. Share some of your photos sometime.

The film I ordered from Adorama arrived when I was out of town, but hopefully I can load and shoot some tomorrow. I have a BUNCH of film from my vacation to take to the lab(shot a lot of Velvia, Provia, a bit of E100G, and even Ektar 25 but about 20 frames of digital) so I'll try to shoot a roll before I take this batch to the lab and include it.

 

Scanning should be fun. I have the glass adapter for my Epson V700. I doubt it will be worth the trouble of wet scanning, but I have a nice heavy piece of AN glass that came with my Better Scanning 120 holder. I can probably dry scan with that over top of ~3 strips at a time or so.

 

BTW, I went to my favorite local used shop to see if I could dig up some 110 film before leaving since I knew the fresh stuff wouldn't arrive. I have a good relationship with the shop and they let me dig A LOT but I didn't find any(any time film comes in with a camera, it gets tossed in the same general area of the shop.). I though I'd hit paydirt when I found a long, skinny box of Kodak Gold 100. Much to my surprise, I dumped the roll out of the open box and it was 120 that expired in 1996. I forget that even "consumer" 120 film was available not all that long ago-for that matter I think Kodak was still making 620 back then.

The film I ordered from Adorama arrived when I was out of town, but hopefully I can load and shoot some tomorrow. I have a BUNCH of film from my vacation to take to the lab(shot a lot of Velvia, Provia, a bit of E100G, and even Ektar 25 but about 20 frames of digital) so I'll try to shoot a roll before I take this batch to the lab and include it.

 

Scanning should be fun. I have the glass adapter for my Epson V700. I doubt it will be worth the trouble of wet scanning, but I have a nice heavy piece of AN glass that came with my Better Scanning 120 holder. I can probably dry scan with that over top of ~3 strips at a time or so.

 

BTW, I went to my favorite local used shop to see if I could dig up some 110 film before leaving since I knew the fresh stuff wouldn't arrive. I have a good relationship with the shop and they let me dig A LOT but I didn't find any(any time film comes in with a camera, it gets tossed in the same general area of the shop.). I though I'd hit paydirt when I found a long, skinny box of Kodak Gold 100. Much to my surprise, I dumped the roll out of the open box and it was 120 that expired in 1996. I forget that even "consumer" 120 film was available not all that long ago-for that matter I think Kodak was still making 620 back then.

 

I use the Lomo 110 film adaptor for scanning on my V700. Totally retro look. I'll put up a few shots from when I did some photography in Seattle...just need to remember what drive the scans are on...lol

Alright, here's my first attempt.

 

I'm not normally a fan of "full frame" scans, but left them here for a couple of reasons.

 

One of these is that I couldn't manage to get the orange mask completely out of the scan. Apparently, though, Vuescan was still able to get the color right-or at least it looks good to me.

 

Second, you'll notice that the cut-off isn't exactly at the frame edge. I hesitate to call it "ghosting", but as you can see the image extends out(at much lower density) past the proper "frame." I'm not sure if this is a peculiarity of the camera or if most 110s do this. My only other 110 camera was a Kodak I had when I was quite young(my aunt gave it to me after she bought a Disk) and I never looked at the negatives(if I could even find them).

 

Third, it's not particularly sharp. I wanted to show the frame markings to show that it's not a scanner focus issue. This was taken on a good "sunny 16" day, which means that the camera PROBABLY fired around 1/500 and between f/5.6 and f/8. I forget what the minimum aperture on these is-I think it's around f/9 or so. It MAY be that I'm seeing that the lens is diffraction limited-I'd have to test more to find out, and it may be that an ND is called for(I wish I'd spent a bit extra on a kit that had filters included, as a polarizer is generally one of the filters and they seem pricey outside a kit). Also, I'm sure that the square behind the lens aperture isn't the best situation. I just wish that there was a way to know what the camera was doing...

 

In any case, as can be seen this was taken on Lomography brand "Tiger" film, which is rated at ASA 200. These are quite dense as the low speed code on the Auto 110 is 80, and there's no way to apply any exposure compensation. I've been told that their film is made by Lucky in China.

 

Unfortunately, the lab managed to put a nice scratch on it. The scratch seems huge, which I guess it is relative to the negative(the same scratch even on 35mm wouldn't be as noticeable).

 

This was scanned directly on the bed with a piece of AN glass over the negatives. I made the mistake of scanning emulsion up for the first frame, which of course gave me Newton rings.

 

The V700 doesn't do ICE with on-bed scans, although fortunately the focus is pre-set and correct(I think on-bed is meant for 8x10 given that there's an 8x10 mask you can use, but will work with any size piece of film as long as you can keep it flat. The maximum resolution is 4800 dpi(as opposed to 6200 in a film holder-I've been told that the 6200 dpi scans use a different lens). Also, even though it doesn't support ICE, I'd think the AN glass would drive it nuts-I'll have to try.

 

I may try again tomorrow both wet and dry with the glass mount adapter.

 

All of that aside, here's a photo of my MG-an appropriate subject that's a few years older than the camera.

 

The larger image is a feature of the Pentax Auto 110.

126, and I believe also 110, have pre-exposed borders. As well as I remember from 126 days, this allows printers to standardize on the frame size.