legs

Today I show you some pictures from the first roll taken with my Yashica Electro 35 cc after extensive repairs. The rangefinder was stuck, there was something loose in the top plate, it had light leaks and there was gunk in the lens. It took a few months to get it all sorted out. I repaired the rangefinder and put in new light seals myself and then my friend Damien helped me with the lens disassembly. It took a bit of doing but now it’s a perfectly usable camera! Although it still produces considerable flare when shooting against the sun it is much much better than it used to be. Most of the pictures from my first test roll were unusable, but with this roll I didn’t have too many problems. I had some blotchiness on a couple of the beach pictures, but this time I think the scanner software was to blame. Silverfast 8 SE can be pretty infuriating – SE obviously means “Sanity Elimination” – and while I was scanning this batch it didn’t really want to cooperate. I even complained to the support, but all they said was that I wouldn’t have these usability problems if I upgraded to their Pro version Silverfast Ai Studio 8 for a whopping 275€. Obviously paying 50€ isn’t enough to provide a piece of software that doesn’t make you want to tear your hair out. In any case, for now I will just put up with it and buy film instead.

As for development: I was trying a new development time on this one, because I always had problems with the highlights when developing K400 in Ultrafin. There was no time in the charts for K400 in Ultrafin and I just calculated it in relation to HP5+, so my usual 16 minutes might have been a little too much. With 15minutes these were a little underdeveloped though, so I tried 15 1/2 minutes for the next batch and they look promising. I also want to try around with Caffenol one of these days, because the most convenient Spanish supplier doesn’t have Ultrafin and I’ll be running out soon. The other supplier that I used once to get my Ultrafin also sent me an exhausted bottle first and it blanked a roll. They quickly sent a replacement, but still, I’m not so sure I trust them too much with the storage of their chemicals. Of course I could also stand-develop in Rodinal – I have plenty of experience with that -, but from what I’ve seen online stand developing in Caffenol CL might produce just the tonality I’m looking for with less grain than Rodinal. Although Caffenol is probably the most vile smelling developer I have encountered so far – I’ve tried it once for developing paper – it’s much less toxic and I’ve seen brilliant examples online. Besides, I like to experiment and developing stuff in a homebrew coffee concoction sounds about as amazing as it gets!

All pictures taken with: Yashica Electro 35 CC, Color-Yashinon DX 35mm f/1.8.
Kentmere 400 developed in Tetenal Ultrafin 1:20, 15min.