110/16mm Camera Image Quality

Bronson Dugnutt

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If only minolta's 16mm SLRs used the original cassette instead of 110 I'd be sold on one of those. Reloadable carts are a must-have for me. Manual exposure control is 2nd on the feature list but common SR/LR44 batteries are spec'ed to work in the SLRs and I've had good luck with the CdS meter in the MG-S. Retrofitting one of those would be interesting, but probably more difficult than just reloading a 110 cart

http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Minolta_110_Zoom_SLR

from the latest FPP Sonic 25 cassette

 
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Huss

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Patrick Robert James said:
.. 110 is fun though and that is the point for me.

View attachment 278498
Click to expand...

That's the weird thing about 110 for me. I'll take 2 cameras with me - the 110 and a 'serious' one. And for some reason I shoot about 5 shots on the 110 for every 35mm pic!
There is something about that framing, and perhaps the fun combined with low expectations! While I save the big camera for 'serious' stuff.
 

Cholentpot

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I try to use up the whole roll on every outing. Enough goes wrong enough times that I don't trust my 110 cameras as a 'memory machine'.
 

Patrick Robert James

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Huss I started shooting with a Minox a couple months before the pandemic started, just for fun. Like you said, amazing that I shot a lot more with it than any other camera I carried with me because it was so easy, and the mojo started flowing. Turned into the "serious" stuff, whatever that means. Any good picture to me is serious, ya know? Doesn't matter what camera it is. Haven't really touched the Leicas since. I bought the Rollei a couple years ago for kicks but just started using it recently. And it is fun. Microfilm in the Rollei isn't that great but a nice distraction none the less. Something different. I have an Ektramax too and I've also shot some half frame color which is also fun. The little Rollei though, sweet little camera.

I started an Instagram with the pandemic images from the Minox- https://www.instagram.com/patrickrobertjames/
 

ciniframe

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Well remember working in a camera store when the first version of the Minolta 110 SLR was current. Two things killed any desire for one, size and no full manual exposure control. Although a different shape and lighter weight it's volume was scarcely smaller than my Olympus Pen F half frame SLR, and, the Pen had interchangeable lenses.
If I'm going to shoot 16mm then I want a small camera. Huss has the right idea with that tiny Rollei. If wearing a cargo shirt it's the closest to a true 'shirt pocket' camera.
 

Huss

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Checked out your IG - love it. Fave pic is the lighting bolt, then the ceiling with bulbs.

I agree with your take on what is serious stuff. I just didn't expect the 110 to dominate that roll!
 

Bronson Dugnutt

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Overexposed and overdeveloped to get some super dense negatives on a load of Sonic 25. So dense, in fact, to produce pronounced scanning defects along the edge. Lends an IR-like quality to the foliage. First time using POTA and it lives up to its low contrast reputation. I'll probably try a similar exposure regime but pull the development a bit next time.

 

Patrick Robert James

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Huss said:
Checked out your IG - love it. Fave pic is the lighting bolt, then the ceiling with bulbs.

I agree with your take on what is serious stuff. I just didn't expect the 110 to dominate that roll!
Click to expand...

Thanks Huss. Those of course were some of the first images I shot in the Minox. Always works that way....

I should really clarify that I don't think any of my images are "serious". I am not a war photographer and nothing I do is going to change the world. I should probably replace serious with good, or at least the images I like.

I think the little cameras allow us to get out of our own way. All the images we've seen from others over the years tend to block our subconscious, and cameras that we use dictate in a way what kind of pictures we make based on past experiences and the history of photography. When you grab a little camera you don't think about anything at all because there really is no history there. "Did you catch my show at MoMA I shot with a 110 camera?" has never been uttered. Lol. We can just have fun and take pictures and get absorbed with doing it instead of thinking about it. I think the success has to do with that. You make pictures that you would never have made with the "serious" camera and there is a freedom to that. I also think the structure of small negs translates really well to the size of images on the internet, so that helps too.
 

ciniframe

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Patrick R J;
Finally clicked on your IG link. Totally agree with Huss, excellent work, my personal favorite is the clock shot. Don’t have an IG account but might as well sign up to see your work at a larger size. I have a IIIs but binge shoot a camera, at this time totally focused on 16mm in a Minolta 16II. But with my highly distracted nature, textbook ADD, might fire up my Minox a little later this summer.

Edit; A few thoughts on cameras that get out of your way, and let you free shoot. I feel this way about my 35mm half frame Olympus Pen viewfinder camera. This is the first model, with a 4 element 28mm f3.5 lens stopping to f22, in a 4 speed Copal shutter, 1/25-1/200+B. The focusing is by scale to just short of 2 feet. The viewfinder shows a bright, projected frame.
No meter (which is to me a feature, not a bug). Bought my first one used about 1971 in Chicago and just went nuts, shooting everything, all on bulk loaded TX. Loved the freedom it provided. Had a little cheap Vivitar CDS meter to occasionally check the light. Don’t have that camera anymore but still have two of the same model picked up later.
Another camera I’ll need to ‘binge shoot’ sometime….later. Have come to consider the 3:4 aspect ratio as normal.
 
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Bronson Dugnutt

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Great gallery of images there PRJ, powerful and cohesive especially as thumbnails.

'Original' MG-S 1/500s shutter priority, 40cm diopter
Vision3 50D @ 160; ECN-2, 1.5 stop push



Nailing critical sharpness with the 40cm attachment seems to be much more difficult than with the 25cm or 80cm lenses. 25cm measures well with the wrist chain, 80cm is my reach, and 40cm by my measurements is the length of the auxillary chain plus the length of the MG-s body but all 40cm shots are much softer than any other focus distance. Will need to run some tests for fine-tuning...

Edit: Submini (and half-frame in particular, given the possibility of 72+ exposures) provides the same sensation that digital photography did when it arrived: the limitless film cassette. Freedom to take more photos, especially bad ones.

Edit: One from infinty

 
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Patrick Robert James

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You guys are going to make me want to buy a Pentax.. Must resist... I think I am going to look for a 16mm camera though. Dealing with the 110 cartridges is getting old. I'd love to just spool off some movie film and go. Now to figure out which one to get...

I've been working out how to develop this microfilm I've been shooting in the E110. Haven't been very happy yet with several different developers. I've gone through about five now. I think I am finally on to something. I'll post the formula if I get a couple more rolls that are good, I decided to just come up with something myself to solve the issues I've been having. I'm calling it Microhooch.

 

Huss

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Talking about "serious" photography... yesterday I was out with my Nikon F2AS, CV 40mm f2 and Fuji colour film. Came across a scene which even though I photographed w the Nikon, would be perfect on 110 film - subject matter, lighting and frame shape. So I'm going back! I really should always keep a 110 with me, it takes up no space. But I wanted to use the Nikon and deliberately left the 110 at home so I wouldn't be tempted to use that instead!
 

Cholentpot

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Minolta 16, Plus-X, D-76 1:1 8.5min





Frame is quite a bit smaller than the Auto 110 but with the right film and developer it's acceptable.
 

Donald Qualls

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Not sure if it's the same design, but I have one of those collected on Thingiverse as well. My plan for camera stuff has been to use Atomic Filament black PETG, which the manufacturer calls "opaque" (rather use PLA, but it's hard to find any confirmed to be opaque in thin layers). Haven't opened the wrapper yet, still sorting out some issues with my Ender 3.
 

4season

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My choice was simple: I don't think my printer (Monoprice Delta Mini) is particularly good at anything besides PLA, so PLA it is. If need be, I will paint the exterior of those cassettes for better light-proofness. And that will be important, because I feel like fussing with 800-speed color negatives.
 

Bronson Dugnutt

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I bleached back the blown Sonic 25 POTA negatives and got much better results from scanning. Very interesting film & developer combo. All the frames were shot at 1/30s f2.8 so the contrast and tones vary wildly depending on the light.

 

jbrubaker

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I just received a new 50mm macro lens for my Nikon Z7 so I thought I would see how it works for digitizing a Minox frame.



This was shot on Acros film and developed in Xtol developer. I needed to use some extension tubes in addition to the macro lens. ---jb.
 

Bronson Dugnutt

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Cholentpot said:
Minolta 16, Plus-X, D-76 1:1 8.5min



Frame is quite a bit smaller than the Auto 110 but with the right film and developer it's acceptable.
Click to expand...

Small but mighty. The variety of negative borders is quite astounding. 110 pre-exposed frames, 16mm sprockets with film gate borders, the minox notch. Really helps give the image some flavor without having to think about adding it after the fact.

Inspired by JB's new macro lens, I did a quick d850 digitization of a Sonic 25 negative. Reversed 24mm af-d on bellows, so the capture is actually a crop of the original 12x17 neg... no fancy borders unfortunately.



The grain on this particular stock is practically non-existent; I'm not sure if the 100% crop shows grain or sensor noise



A bit of color, to boot. Very different colors than the scanner.




Edit: A full frame capture with a more typical 80mm el-nikkor / bellows set up. ECN-2 really seems to confound the d850.. what happened to the red channel?

 
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