Today I show you some pictures from my third roll of 120 film taken with the Isolette. So, how did it go? The composition and the reaction of the people was fine, but boy did I have trouble focussing! It was a rather grey day, so I was shooting at f/11 and f/8, which sure makes zone focussing a challenge, especially when the focussing scale is definitely off. I tested this on my first roll and focussed one shot with the distances on my Zorki, which is pretty accurate, and it was out of focus. I’ve also zone focussed a lot with my Zorki and I know pretty well where the 4m mark is, but on the Isolette it’s definitely different. I’d say I can just half the distances the scale shows and I’d probably be roughly in the right area. Next time I’ll try that. Although only the first 2 pictures are roughly focussed as intended, I’ll show you the rest anyway. After all my rule is: Something has to be in focus, but it doesn’t have to be the main subject.
All pictures taken with: Agfa Isolette, Apotar 85mm f/4.5.
Tri-X developed in Tetenal Ultrafin 1:10, 9min.
The focus is on the little girl with the striped top and that’s exactly right (although I was probably aiming at the kid with the white shirt)!
The focus is roughly on the girls with the ice cream and that’s where I wanted to have it.
Here the focus is on the guy with the Gant t-shirt and it was supposed to be on the kids.
The focus was supposed to be on the boy running but it actually was on the couple in the background.
The focus is on the girl behind the guy making soap bubbles. It was supposed to be on the girl in the front.
The focus is on the guys behind the pig and it was supposed to be between kids and pig.
The focus is on the couple walking and I wanted to get the children.
The focus is somewhere between the guy looking at me and the guy with the bike. It was supposed to be between the two children.
Here the focus was meant to be on the girl, but it ended up on the ladies.
By the way, my little love affair with Tri-X continues and I have even figured out why we didn’t get along in the past: My completely unconscious automatic use of a yellow filter on the Zorki. Stupid, right? I started using a yellow filter very early on, because my Jupiter 8 lens is not very contrasty and it helped to give the pictures a bit more bite. For HP5+ I liked the outcome in tonality as well when I tested it. When I moved on to the Jupiter 12 lens I also used the filter, because that lens has an extremely uncomfortable aperture ring on the inside of the front, which is a pain to use in general. With the filter it becomes easier to handle, because then it’s only the scale that is in a weird spot while it handles like any other aperture ring. That the yellow filter actually affects the tonality I completely forgot over time. Well, I guess I’ll switch to a UV filter when I get the chance and see how Kentmere looks without it … I don’t think I’ve ever shot it without the yellow filter, that’s how invisible my yellow filter has become to me!