Monthly Shooting Assignment - Jan/Feb 2014 - Cheap camera challenge!

NedL said:

Can't wait to see results from the BIG negative. That will be a challenge to develop and also to scan or photograph or contact print!

Click to expand...

Normally I design, calculate, draw, ... everything before I start building, but not this time, not this MSA.

I'll expose the BIG negative rather properly and will unload it in the dark. I've made a water resitant bench for my dark room, that is big enough for this 20x24" negative. So I'm gonna lay if flat on the bench and will use a sponge soaked in developer to "wet wipe develop" it for about 2 minutes or so.
Same thing with Stop and Fix. Then into the bath tub with clean water for rinsing.
I hope it will work out ...

Scanning might be a bit of a problem. So I think I'll use a d*****l camera to photograph it. Using PS to make a positive of the paper negative, I can determine if it did work out all right.
If so, I'll make a contact print later. First I must find a glass plate big enough and determine the right exposure for contact printing this sandwich.

Previously I used to strip the plastic back layer of the photo paper and then rub the paper back with lineseed oil to make it more transparant for alt-photo techniques using UV light (or direct sun light) for long exposure times decreased by 50%. Should be fun too with this size.

Bert from Holland
http://thetoadmen.blogspot.nl

I just posted four images in the MSA gallery, from my recent Lake Superior trip at the end of January.

I have this little cheesy Minolta P&S camera, not sure of the model, but it's the one that you click one button and the camera does the rest. It's kind of beat up and ugly looking, but I was surprised at the quality of the photographs.

The camera was loaded at the beginning of January for some pond hockey games in Minneapolis, but I ended up shooting the bulk of the film up North. Ilford FP4+ processed in D76 1+1 and subsequently scanned using Vue Scan and an Epson flatbed. I haven't tweaked the images much in Photoshop, mainly just slight contrast adjustment, dust spotting, and toning that resembles what I do in the darkroom.

This was fun!

Fallen Fan Palm

Sun and Shadow

In the last week I made a couple more contributions to the MSA gallery. In the first one I had wanted to include the healthy fan palm leaves, as well as the fallen one, and was pleased they were in the frame. I'm getting better at judging what will be included in the pinhole frame.
The second one is my favorite WPC neg from our trip.

I just want to tip my hat to those who routinely scan their negs. I rarely shoot colour, and scanning, dust spotting, and attempting to colour correct these negs (the scanner adds a magenta cast to everything) was a huge pain - in my back, neck, and shoulder, as well as the PITA that keeps me away from digital work anyway. I've not got the stamina, nor patience to do this on a frequent basis.

TheToadMen said:

.... This week (Thursday?) I'll make a real exposure and will develop properly (as far as possible with this size since I don't have a tray for it). I hope I'll find the time this week to finish this paper negative and post before Saturday, making the deadline of this MSA at the end of this month.
To be continued ...

Click to expand...

Yesterday (Thursday) was all rain and rain and rain ....
Luckily I had some time this morning because I have to work midday and evening (giving a course). And it is dry this morning!! Even with a very little sunshine through the times every odd moment. So - after finishing preparations for the course) - I took out the 20x24" cardboard pinhole camera and posted it on a table, overlooking my garden. I openend the shutter at 10:10 AM and need an exposure of at least 4 hours (@ f-number 1/1000, ISO 2).
I have to leave in 15 minutes, so I instructed my wife in how to close "the shutter" (= piece of cardboard + tape) in 2 hours and putting the camera inside before it starts to rain again. I hope to be home at 22.00 (10.00 PM) tonight so I can sponge develop the paper negative (20x24"), fix it and flush it before midnight. I'll make a probably bad looking digital photo of the negative, reverse in PS and post the result here before midnight, February 28th - still in time before the closure of this MSA.
Pray for me that it will work out. If not I'll post it on Saturday (one day late). And if the paper negative is any good I'll make a proper contact print later.

At least here is some proof that I made the shot itself today:

Well, as this is winding to a close I have to say that it's going to be near impossible to judge this thing. There have been so many great images and so much creativity from people to make them.

Bert: I know there is at least one other person who might need to post images tomorrow. I've got plans for the weekend so I am planning to review all the images and pick a "winner" on Sunday evening (PST) so if there are any stragglers tomorrow they'll get looked at.

adelorenzo said:

Well, as this is winding to a close I have to say that it's going to be near impossible to judge this thing. There have been so many great images and so much creativity from people to make them.

Bert: I know there is at least one other person who might need to post images tomorrow. I've got plans for the weekend so I am planning to review all the images and pick a "winner" on Sunday evening (PST) so if there are any stragglers tomorrow they'll get looked at.

Click to expand...

Hi Adelorenzo,
That would be nice, thank you.

The paper negative was exposed during for 4 hours today. It was a cloudy day with the first 10 minutes some little sunshine. I developed the paper negative this evening. I used a sponge and old, used & left over Maco developer in the dark. I sponged for about 4 minutes with the developer, then sponged Stop for 2 minutes, followed with 10 minutes Fix sponging. Then I flushed the large negative in the bath tub for about 30 minutes.

Using the sponge was surprisingly easy. It is strange to see the developing starting in places where I started sponging. It looked a bit like this:


And WOW: what is this size for a negative impressive!! I've never used such a large negative (20x24 inch), but it makes me wanting to get me a real ULF camera even more!! You don't even need a magnifier to see what's on it.

I dried the negative for an hour and then tried to take a digital photo of it. But I haven't found yet how to do this without lamps or whatever reflecting in the negative. I'll give it an other try tomorrow. Maybe I'll think of something tonight.

Here are the first (lousy) results, and yes: posted on February 28th before the official deadline.


I'll try po post a decent "scan" before Sunday night. The original negative is much better and sharper than this poor photograph of it ...

And about the rules of this MSA: Is was cheap, I used a cheap camera and it was a challenge.

The camera is solely made out of old cardboard and outdated Duct tape (not so sticky anymore). No lens used but a simple pinhole (about 0.6 mm) giving me an f-stop of f 1/1000. The photo paper 20x24" is very, very old Ilford RC paper from an opened box that was given to me. I think it expired about 20 years ago. The developer was leftover from a bottle I used before to develop film sheets, as was the Stop and Fix.

The total cost of this project was $0.00 (zero). The fun I had was priceless. This was a fun MSA that inspired me to go further than I did before. I know now that I really can build a camera this big ( next one will be made out of wood), and that I can get the exposure right with paper negatives.
So thank you Adelorenzo for this great assignment!!!

Bert from Holland
http://thetoadmen.blogspot.nl

TheToadMen said:

I'll try po post a decent "scan" before Sunday night. The original negative is much better and sharper than this poor photograph of it ...

Click to expand...

I have tried to make a better photo of the negative, since I can't scan 20x24 inch negatives. But there was always the problem of reflections. This is glossy Ilford photo paper. Lesson learned: don't use glossy paper for paper negatives.

The best try was my daughter holding the negative and have her moving around the room until there were (almost) no reflections:

using Photoshop to make negative positive:

Maybe this will also help you to get an idea of the size of this negative.

I made a close up shots to show you more details:
blow up section:

The image is rather sharp, but not as sharp as I hoped for (even for pinhole). But this may be due to the fact that the camera is very light and very big and might have been moved by wind during the 4 hours exposure. I'll make a still life scene indoors and shoot it with this camera to test it.

I'll also make a contact print of this negative in the near future. First I must locate a glass pane larger than 20x24".
I'll also peel the paper apart: separating the image from the plastic back layer and rub it in with lineseed oil, until it is fully soaked. This will make the paper negative almost transparent, thus reducing exposure times by half for contact printing with alt-photo techniques.
I already loosened the corner:

This works best when the photo has almost dried, but is still fresh.

Well, this will conclude my contribution to this MSA, never thought I would enter a large negative in the end. But the fun isn't over yet. I'll continue on this road ...

Bert from Holland
http://thetoadmen.blogspot.nl

Did you try using a polarizer to get rid of the light reflections? It works when taking a photo in a frame with glass. Can't see why it won't work for a glossy negative.

Few! Last minute submission....

It's lame but, this was a hail marry pass...

LEGO camera built with the little one while she was making a fun lego friends setup I was making a boring square box with lots of light leaks, no focussing, and terrible aim.

Shot on my last box of FP100C45 Fujirpoid film, as I have no film developing equipment where I am so the Polaroid and a cell phone snapshot of the Polaroid was all I had, but it was fun to build a lego camera, if I had more time and more Legos I would have made it focus able and more light right but as is it was fixed at about 15 feet on an ultra wide angle 75mm lens.










And the two image submissions...

StoneNYC said:

Few! Last minute submission....
LEGO camera built with the little one while she was making a fun lego friends setup I was making a boring square box with lots of light leaks, no focussing, and terrible aim.

Shot on my last box of FP100C45 Fujirpoid film, as I have no film developing equipment where I am so the Polaroid and a cell phone snapshot of the Polaroid was all I had, but it was fun to build a lego camera, if I had more time and more Legos I would have made it focus able and more light right but as is it was fixed at about 15 feet on an ultra wide angle 75mm lens.

Click to expand...

Hi Stone,
Nice admission!! Lose the lens and make it a pinhole camera to make it really cheap. It can be done, see:
http://www.foundphotography.com/category/cameras/lego-cameras/
or
http://petapixel.com/2011/03/03/simple-pinhole-camera-created-with-ordinary-lego-pieces/
or
http://www.diyphotography.net/fully-automated-lego-pinhole-camera/
or
http://www.diyphotography.net/you-can-build-everything-with-lego-even-a-pinhole-camera/

Can't we extend this MSA, since it is an inspiration for new and creative phoyography?

TheToadMen said:

Hi Stone,
Nice admission!! Lose the lens and make it a pinhole camera to make it really cheap. It can be done, see:
http://www.foundphotography.com/category/cameras/lego-cameras/
or
http://petapixel.com/2011/03/03/simple-pinhole-camera-created-with-ordinary-lego-pieces/
or
http://www.diyphotography.net/fully-automated-lego-pinhole-camera/
or
http://www.diyphotography.net/you-can-build-everything-with-lego-even-a-pinhole-camera/

Can't we extend this MSA, since it is an inspiration for new and creative phoyography?

Click to expand...

The winner could choose to, it's definitely a reason to play around with gear you normally wouldn't. And on the cheap! But it's an experiment in testing your abilities.

I have to admit I do wish there wasn't as much snow because then I could test the less contrasty image and see what I can get with my big box pinhole camera, but ultimately I think the 11x14 image was awesome but needs to wait till I have a dedicated darkroom, that said, I now have JOBO tubes from a trade that are large enough and I can get rid of the Cibichrome tubes that don't seem to work that well for film.

StoneNYC said:

The winner could choose to, it's definitely a reason to play around with gear you normally wouldn't. And on the cheap! But it's an experiment in testing your abilities.

I have to admit I do wish there wasn't as much snow because then I could test the less contrasty image and see what I can get with my big box pinhole camera, but ultimately I think the 11x14 image was awesome but needs to wait till I have a dedicated darkroom, that said, I now have JOBO tubes from a trade that are large enough and I can get rid of the Cibichrome tubes that don't seem to work that well for film.

Click to expand...

The winner could, but the thing is, it's nice and inspiring to have a complete new theme every MSA.
But what's stopping us to make a new thread about this theme after this MSA is over? Would be nice to hear now and again from you guys what you tinkered and shot.

Adelorenzo: maybe you will do the honours since it is originally your sublime theme? After you made your decision about the winner?

Bert from Holland
http://thetoadmen.blogspot.nl

StoneNYC said:

Few! Last minute submission....

It's lame but, this was a hail marry pass...

LEGO camera built with the little one while she was making a fun lego friends setup I was making a boring square box with lots of light leaks, no focussing, and terrible aim.

Shot on my last box of FP100C45 Fujirpoid film, as I have no film developing equipment where I am so the Polaroid and a cell phone snapshot of the Polaroid was all I had, but it was fun to build a lego camera, if I had more time and more Legos I would have made it focus able and more light right but as is it was fixed at about 15 feet on an ultra wide angle 75mm lens.


View attachment 83408
View attachment 83409
View attachment 83410
View attachment 83411
View attachment 83412
View attachment 83413
View attachment 83414
View attachment 83415
And the two image submissions...
View attachment 83416View attachment 83417

Click to expand...

That's pretty awesome. I'm sure you've seen the focusing box camera made out of legos that's floating around?

Might have to go visit my parents so I can dig out my childhood legos, haha.

fretlessdavis said:

That's pretty awesome. I'm sure you've seen the focusing box camera made out of legos that's floating around?

Might have to go visit my parents so I can dig out my childhood legos, haha.

Click to expand...

I've seen it, but had the idea before that, and mine would have been similar on design but I 1 didn't have enough time and 2 didn't have enough Legos without taking the "girl" Legos from the little blond there in the background... But I was allowed to use the "boy" Legos HAH!

Hah! Legos were the only thing I played with as a kid... We still have building contests between my dad, myself, and my brother sometimes on holidays. I might have to try out something similar, except with focus and normal film holders. Maybe 5x7 or 8x10, too. Give myself a chance to play with bigger negatives.

StoneNYC said:

I've seen it, but had the idea before that, and mine would have been similar on design but I 1 didn't have enough time and 2 didn't have enough Legos without taking the "girl" Legos from the little blond there in the background... But I was allowed to use the "boy" Legos HAH!

Click to expand...

fretlessdavis said:

Hah! Legos were the only thing I played with as a kid... We still have building contests between my dad, myself, and my brother sometimes on holidays. I might have to try out something similar, except with focus and normal film holders. Maybe 5x7 or 8x10, too. Give myself a chance to play with bigger negatives.

Click to expand...

If any of you wins a MSA, you can choose Lego as a theme.
Here some random examples to get inspired.
By doing so we could invite Lego as a sponsor of APUG

TheToadMen said:

If any of you wins a MSA, you can choose Lego as a theme.
Here some random examples to get inspired.
By doing so we could invite Lego as a sponsor of APUG

View attachment 83440 View attachment 83433 View attachment 83434 View attachment 83435
View attachment 83436 View attachment 83437 View attachment 83438 View attachment 83439

Click to expand...

Yes, I've seen many of those, and the last one was similar to the design that I had in mind, I had thought of it ahead of time and then went online and googled it to see what others had done and it turns out they had done exactly what I was thinking of, the only difference is I wasn't about to drill through the board on the front of the camera to make a lens board made of plastic I just figured I'd use an actual lens board but other than that it's basically what I had thought of. Well it's fun, The camera is already disassembled and is now currently a giraffe... A gas station... And I think a teacup

TheToadMen said:

View attachment 83357

Click to expand...

Bert this is awesome! ( I like the way the photo on the wall looks in this too..

StoneNYC said:

...
LEGO camera built with the little one...

Click to expand...

Excellent creativity and how cool to use instant film for that!

NedL said:

Excellent creativity and how cool to use instant film for that!

Click to expand...

Thanks, I would have used regular film if I had the time, but thanks, the little one was glad she could see it right away.

First off, thanks to everyone who participated in this MSA. I hope it was fun!

I'm trying to pick a 'winner' here and it's bloody hard. First thing is I've gone through and picked my favorite entry from each person who entered. I have tried to find everyone's images in the gallery or on this thread but if I missed anyone I'm very sorry!

Here they are in no particular order. Each one is linked to the image.

(there was a url link here which no longer exists): Really like this one, river landscape shot with a 1920's Ansco
(there was a url link here which no longer exists): In-camera cyanotype shot with a cardbox box and magnifying glass. Blue skies work perfectly on this negative image!
(there was a url link here which no longer exists): Great image, I dig industrial stuff. Shot with a Kodak Signet 35.
(there was a url link here which no longer exists): Stone gets points for his multiple creative approaches this this challenge. This one was my favorite, an 11x14 paper negative shot with a homemade cardboard pinhole.
(there was a url link here which no longer exists): Free cheap-o camera and film turns out a wonderful still life. I love the way the color came out.
(there was a url link here which no longer exists): Thomas got some great images from a Minolta P&S but this picture of the lighthouse is by far and away my favorite.
(there was a url link here which no longer exists): Sly posted many wonderful pinhole images but I liked this one the best. Really interesting composition, almost abstract.
(there was a url link here which no longer exists): Homemade coffee can pinholes, this one was my favorite. I love the crazy angles from the trees.
(there was a url link here which no longer exists): Shot with a Diana camera, the vignetting goes well with this image. I love how the vines invade the geometry of the wall and window.
(there was a url link here which no longer exists): You can't go wrong with a Harley, some great tones in this image from a 25 cent Brownie camera.
(there was a url link here which no longer exists): A dream-like quality to this photo of children on a beach. Shot with a pocket instamatic, I'd love to see this print in person!
(there was a url link here which no longer exists): I think Daci Royal is one of the best names for a camera, and obviously well worth the 2 pounds. Great choice of subject.
(there was a url link here which no longer exists): I'm a sucker for adandonment and this abandoned school is rather haunting. Taken with a disposable camera found under the spare tire of the car!

Winner to come in the next post...

I have to go with Thomas Bertilsson and his image of (there was a url link here which no longer exists) in Minnesota. By the standards of what people have brought to this challenge a Minolta P&S is actually a pretty swanky camera , but this is an image that just works for me. Interesting choice for vertical composition, the frozen foreground and the fog really set off the subject.

Congratulations! You win the right to post the new challenge.

Thanks again to everyone who participated it was a lot of fun to see what you came up with.

Congratulations Thomas!!!

Hello Thomas,
Congratulations!! It is indeed a wonderful image, proving a saying of Ansel Adams:

" ... avoiding the common illusion that creativity depends on equipment alone ... ".

And you did with a great image made with a simple point & shoot camera. The rightful winner of this MSA, indeed.
So, congratulations again and good luck on selecting an other inspiring theme for the next MSA. Can't wait to see what you'll come up with. I'll give it a go again. If possible I'll try a pinhole camera again. After all it's the May-April MSA and it's Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day (WPPD) again on the 28th of April.

@adelorenzo: thank you for a very inspiring MSA. I think you got us all out of our comfort zone where we learned new stuff. At least I did: I never build a camera this big and this simple and never made a negative this large. It was fun!!
Thanks,
Bert from Holland
http://thetoadmen.blogspot.nl

Thanks! I greatly appreciate the honor of receiving first place, especially in such fine company of creative and wonderful photographers. I just entered with a spirit of having fun and using a clunky old camera, but it was fun and very rewarding. I hope everybody else had as much fun, or more, as I had.

I have posted a new topic for March / April. Since I'm new to this, please let me know if I missed anything.