Recreating a Real Photo Postcard - a diary

Decided to try and kill this "what is the ASA of this mystery Ortho film" question in one go 'round. Realizing I needed more than one or two test shots, I cut a strip of 120 that I could get 4 or 5 shots on and that loaded onto the spool much nicer than the 8-10 shot strip I tried before. I went ahead and just loaded my TLR in the darkroom, just to be on the safe side. I metered the lighting at EV9 and calculated out tests for a series of ASA ratings. Here's a pick of the setup:




And...drumroll... I'm going with ASA 200 as the answer for this... really surprised
it tested that fast. Here's all the math from the four test shots:



I suppose the asterisk on this is I'm processing it for 15 minutes with D76 1:3. That's a bit longer than normal, so maybe it's pushing things a bit. As I'm contact printing, seems like I can stand an increase in grain, so perhaps a good way to go. Oh, and there's a goof in my chart - the fifth plan test didn't come off as I ran out of film and only got a partial frame(it was just a retest of ASA 25 anyway).

Anyway, very happy with how well this seemed to test out. I'm going to start trying to get some keeper images now in parallel while making headway on the printing side of things. I've acquired one of those old Kodak contact printers someone mentioned a few posts back... it needs some TLC and sorting out. Probably start with just some old BW paper for now, but will start looking to acquire some more appropriate post card paper.

Two steps forward, one step back... went out yesterday and did two shots with the "200 ISO ORTHO", which I thought could be keepers. Did my trick of putting some tape on the bellows top and tugging up when shooting. That tug did get rid of the unexposed arc, so confirmation of what the problem was. Very happy with the exposure, composition was acceptable, though I need to lower my aim just a bit, but... both shots were out of focus? I had a range finder with me, so wasn't a setting issue... the front slide has a little play in it, so I'm guessing that my application of the tape or the tugging pulled the front lens board out of focus. Just a guess. Gonna do a couple more shots this afternoon and pay attention to what that tugging is doing to the front lens board.

Also had a minor scratch and hair on these images... might be a fact of life when having to load the camera in a dark bag. The last test roll of 120 I did with this went so well, I'm rethinking the cut sheet vs roll idea... maybe rolling up some o the Ortho on a 120 reel would be less prone to that. Probably wishful thinking, though a roll would let me do more than a shot at a time. I have to admit it's a little embarrassing to have to retreat to my car between shots and put my hands in that dark bag on my lap and wrangle around in full public view...

bud007 said:

I'm guessing that my application of the tape or the tugging pulled the front lens board out of focus

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Yeah, that sounds very plausible.

Live and learn; progress is still good!

There's also some possibility of suction bowing the film toward the lens as you pull on your piece of tape. But more likely it moved the front or actually caused some camera shake.

If you go down to 120 size, contact printing won't result in a postcard size, anymore. But also, if you go to 120, you can just buy Ilford Ortho 80 in 120 and use that. Of course, you don't even have to stick with ortho film.

Ah, I think I figured out my focus issue. One thing that was bugging me was that nothing seemed to be in focus... e.g. it wasn't like foreground or background was in focus, but subject was off... everything was a little off. So that made me speculate about tilt or something. Anyway, as I was developing two more test shots (15 minutes of D76 time is alot of time to ponder...)... it dawned on me... what would happen if I got the film reversed so I was shooting through the base rather than onto the emulsion?

As background, this Ortho film doesn't have an obvious notch in the upper right - it has a notch on the side that's more in the center, though definitely a little closer to one edge than another... so I took that closer corner to be "upper right", and assumed that meant the emulsion was facing me. I keep my cut sheets in a dark box, and I've cut two of the ortho sheets down to date. I try to load them in the box emulsion down, so I can just take a sheet out and lay it in the camera when I load. It's possible I screwed up one of those cuttings and was either wrong about my emulsion side assumption or forgot to flip them when I stuck them in the box.

I really can't feel or see a difference in the side on this film. I can on regular film, but not on this thick ortho stuff.

After noodling a bit, it occurred to me I could easily test this theory, by scratching one of these out of focus shots - the emulsion should pretty easily come off the emulsion side, but not the base side (unless the stuff is double coated). That worked - one side clearly scratched off, while the other one didn't. So now I knew which was the emulsion side. Knowing the scene I shot, the negative would be in the camera ( I think), such that up is down and left is right). So recreating how the negative must have been in the camera... yep, that's the base side facing the lens.

So I really think my out of focus issue was I had the film reversed and didn't have the emulsion side facing the lens, so I was shooting through the base, which probably just fuzzed everything up.

I took a look today at what happens when I pull on the tape to lift the bellows and that really didn't seem to pull the lens board in any way.

For most recent test shots, which I now suspect are also loaded backwards, I tried pushing the bottom of the bellows up a bit, which does kinda raise the top bellows also. Even though they're still drying, I can see that it did help the bottom unexposed arc, but also created another arc on the top. Fingers crossed that the "pull tape up when shooting" fix, is not gonna mess the focus up once I get the film loaded in emulsion side forward.

The film thickness is not enough to impact focus that much. Pulling the tape probably had a larger impact.

You can tape a wire along the outside edge of the sagging bellows to minimize the sag. You should check to see if the inner of the bellows has separated from the outer.

Don_ih said:

The film thickness is not enough to impact focus that much. Pulling the tape probably had a larger impact.

You can tape a wire along the outside edge of the sagging bellows to minimize the sag. You should check to see if the inner of the bellows has separated from the outer.

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Yeah, I agree, but I was thinking because this base is pretty thick, maybe shooting through it would soften everything up, which I interpreted as "out of focus".

Get a piece of ground glass and figure out your focus. Doesn't have to be full size. For a quick check even a sheet of paper taped to the camera film plane would work.

The motor in my Jobo CPE2 gave out tonight while I was washing up the last test shots, so I'll have to get that sorted. Also have to head out of town again. All considered, it will probably be a couple of weeks until the next update... to be continued...

bud007 said:

The motor in my Jobo CPE2 gave out

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Well, that's not great. I know people have successfully replaced them, though. CatLabs is the place to ask about parts, though, from what I've read. There are a few things it could be, apparently: the motor itself, the control board, or the reverse switch.

I'm waiting for the day mine stops working. I don't use it that much, though. I went back to hand-inversion for b&w 35mm and 120 - so I only use it for sheet film and colour.

Don_ih said:

There are a few things it could be, apparently: the motor itself, the control board, or the reverse switch.

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There's also a PTC ('polyfuse') that sometimes malfunctions. It's worthwhile trying to bridge this with a piece of wire to see if that solves the problem.
On a CPE2, the part looks a bit like this:

It's on the main PCB, roughly in the center if memory serves.

Thanks for the pointers on repairs, that's very helpful. I did two tanks, back to back, and the motor just kinda bogged down at the end of the second one, to the point where it would occasionally stop and I'd have to kinda spin it with my hand to get it going again...like torque was declining significantly. These were 500ml chemistry, so not insignificant load. If I used the lift and disengaged the tank, it was normal and when I reengaged it was normal for a couple of cycles and then started bogging down. It jerks quite a bit when changing directions so first course is to take it apart, inspect it, and make sure everything is aligned and tight and eliminate some sort of mechanical binding as the cause. I can also take some measurements as I gather a motor replacement may not be exact and require some adapting. I've also seen posts where people have done some repairs on the motor brushes, so I could inspect those brushes if i wasn't scared of not not being able to put humpty Dumpty together again.

If it's the motor itself, exact replacements are available. Someone in one of the other threads said it was used as a windshield wiper motor in a Mercedes.

By the way, as you go on this adventure, fixing and washing the final postcards is easy to get sloppy about because you make a lot of little prints. Be sure to follow a consistent process.

Don_ih said:

If it's the motor itself, exact replacements are available. Someone in one of the other threads said it was used as a windshield wiper motor in a Mercedes.

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Back from my travels, so picking this project back up... I took the Jobo apart and found a loose screw right away that was letting the lift unit "twist" when the motor reversed. I think this was creating extra torque and worked it's way loose enough to the point of stalling the motor. Tightened everything up and motor seems to be stout enough now. I have some 120 rolls from my trip to process so that will be a good test.

While I had it apart, I went ahead and took a good look at the motor and researched that... looks to be an old Mercedes headrest motor, so grabbed a used one of ebay for ~$50 and have that inbound in case I need it (now or in the future). Can't vouch for it being a 100% fit as I don't have it yet, but it looks to be a dead ringer.

As I have a couple of "good enough for now" negatives, my plan is to focus on the printing side.

Jobo motor worked fine after I tightened it up, so didn't have to try my replacement motor. Not quite exact, but looks like it would have worked, or been close enough to make work.

Actually, Mercedes part number Mercedes part number 140 820 53 42 looks like it might have been an exact match... in hindsight. Probably should have picked that one up.

Definitely looks like a very close, if not exact match! Thanks for posting this; I'm sure people will find this very useful at some point. The question of a motor replacement comes up from time to time.

Some updates on printing progress...

I acquired one of those "Kodak Amateur Printers" box that was mentioned in an earlier comment. It needs new glass and a bit of work. I decided to back burner that for now and just try to get my feet dirty by printing something.

I acquired a box of old Kodabromide post card paper. Double weight with the addressing stuff on the back side. Probably dates from the 1970's. I made a few attempts at printing with this and didn't have much luck - the paper appeared badly fogged - couldn't get anything remotely close to a white - just medium gray to black. However, it was worthwhile as I got my chems going (Dektol 1:1 for now), dug out all my old processing trays, enlarger timer, etc. Obviously Im just doing contact prints, but am using the enlarger light for that. Bad paper aside, I quickly realized that positioning the negative on the curly paper is gonna require some kind of glass sandwich, and I'll need to be smarter about how I do that as stuff tends to shift around and attract dust when you're trying to build the sandwich. To complicate things further, I decided, for now, to simply use a transparency overlay with text on it to produce the title (which per earlier comments was likely stamped with ink write on the negative... not brave enough to try that yet

With the above failure/learning under my belt, I tried some more modern paper (only 20 years old - some warmtone RC Ilford that I had. I built my "sandwich" this way - taped the negative to a clean oversize piece of glass. I 3D printed a plastic "frame" that had a cutout the exact size of the paper and taped that into position against the negative. This way I could simply drop the paper into the frame and it'd be lined up with the negative correctly. To hold it in place, I 3D printed a "backing square" the same size as the paper and that fit inside the frame... then I turned the whole thing over and weight of the glass holds everything together. The overlay with type I taped on top of the glass, so there's the width of the glass between it and the negative, which I thought might soften the text on the print, but I don't think it did.

Here's a couple of pix of all this:




Pretty happy with how this print turned out. It's not a postcard, but I could glue a printed back on it and make it one:





I was a little surprised my negative, which should be as big or bigger than the original roll film... wasn't able to fully cover the print (it was short top and bottom). I sized everything based on those old Kodabromide cards, which were 3.5 x 5 7/16. I was cutting my film sheets 4x6, but that was oversize for what was getting exposed. I'll need to go back and check the size of the old real photo postcards. I don't recall them having a border, but will have to check.

The overlay text is a little too "perfect", compared to the real vintage thing. Mine is a little too thick. I might try moving the overlay under the glass so it's closer to the paper. I'm still pondering creating some sort of ink stamp also. Here's the text from an original vintage card:

Looks good. !!!

You may be able to eek out better results from your Kodabromide postcard paper by using a pq developer with higher levels of benzotriazole in it. But if the cards are base fogged to a high degree, nothing will hold that back.

When you look online, you see some photo postcards don't have a white border and others do. There may have been slightly different image sizes in the various postcard cameras. Offhand, I don't know what size mine is.

At any rate, your card looks good!

Looks like A122 film was 3.25" tall, whereas a "standard" post card as well as AZO and VELOX paper was 3.5" tall. That foots with what I'm seeing. I too have seen RPC's with no border, so that's kinda confusing to me. As was pointed out by someone earlier, you can no longer mail the old "traditional" postcard, as it's too small by today's requirements. My plan was to do some traditional sized ones for gifting/handing out and some 4x6 ones that I could actually mail.

The "Amateur Kodak Printer" that I have, has a mechanism/provision for managing an even border, which now makes sense, given that it appears that needs to be one.

Given my framing setup, I can simply add a mask on top of the glass, like I did with my text overlay.

bud007 said:

As was pointed out by someone earlier, you can no longer mail the old "traditional" postcard, as it's too small by today's requirements.

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Yet I have sent and received them.

The postcard specifications for the USA and for Canada are slightly different.
In addition, Canada doesn't offer a special postcard postage rate, while the USA does.

I'm using a Kodak 3A, which I think is a considered the "standard" post card camera. However, I notice the Kodak 4A produces a 4.25" x 6.5" negative, so could be there were folks out there printing photo postcards with that negative, which would be oversize for the "standard" postcard paper and leave no border. I also gather even high end photographers back in the day were occasionally making post cards. Presumably a high end photographer might have been using an even larger negative. So that might explain how some of these post cards have no border. I gather enlargers weren't common until the 1920's or so.