Got my first batch of pics back from the trusty old Canon Canonet that was gifted to me (I used to abhor nouns used as verbs, but now I think it's a simply cromulent way of embiggening the English language -- just don't get me started on apostrophe abuse).
Where was I? Oh, yeah, the Canonet, a 1970s vintage rangefinder camera. Its history with me started as a footnote to this blog entry. Had a frozen shutter which I was able to unfroze. Filled it with Acros black and white film and shot about half the roll before realizing that Acros has to be developed in B/W chemicals, not C-41 color, like TMax film. Nobody nearby does straight B/W anymore (and this is Chicago we're talking about). I'm considering buying some developing equipment and doing it myself, like I used to long long ago in a darkroom far far away.
In the meantime, I slapped in a roll of Fujicolor Sensia (slide film), which I had cross processed in C-41 at good old Walgreen's. I discovered that Sensia does not take as well to cross processing the way a higher end film like Velvia might. Sigh. Some color desaturation and fiddling with levels in Photoshop rescued some images.
During the couple of weeks it took me to shoot up the roll of film, I played a game of me vs the camera. I let the camera pick the exposure on half the shots. I chose the rest, based on a decade of experience shooting film. I won. The Canonet tends toward overexposure. A lot. It could be the age of the camera. It could be that the modern battery discharges more juice than batteries in the 70s, making the electric eye hyperactive. Anyway, I'll trust my own judgement from here on out.
Photographs © 2009 James Jordan.
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