Sunday Chores -- Cooking and Testing Leica and Rollei Shutter Speeds

Today I cooked up a big pot of vegan stew. With all of the right spices and veggies, it resembles beef stew.

With two new-to-me cameras in my possession, I’m going through the process of testing the very old (70-years old) shutters to see if they’re working correctly. I know that they’re opening and closing properly — that’s not always the case with old cameras — but I need to know exactly how fast the shutter speeds are if I want to get consistent exposures. To do that, I photograph a gray card at every shutter speed, changing the aperture so that each shot has the same exposure value. In theory, each exposure will create a negative of the same density. The only way to know if all is well is to check the negatives when they return from the lab. If the shutter speeds are way off, the gray card won’t be gray — it will be either too bright or too dark, depending on whether the shutter speeds are too slow or fast. With vintage cameras, the shutter speeds usually get slower with age.

Sunday, May 22, 2022 -- Second chore day in a row, and the return of my first love

Today was a cooking day. From 9:30 to 4 pm I was baking vegan loaves and cornmeal encrusted tempeh buffalo wings. Oh, I almost forgot the gallon of tomato sauce I cooked.

On another front, I feel my old first love beckoning me again…film photography. I was totally into film photography from 1967 to 2001. I was a camera addict with my share of Nikons, Leicas, Hassleblads, Pentaxes, and a shit ton of no-name cameras I found in pawn shops. I had my own darkroom, enlarger, the finest lenses, and 100-foot rolls of 35mm black and white film. My true loves were Kodak Tri-X film and D-76 developer.

Then, I went insane and stupid and sold all of my gear. Why was I so dumb? Simple. I was going to go digital! From that day in 2003, when I bought a shitty digital camera and tried to make it work, my interest in photography eroded year by year until all I had to take pictures was my telephone.

But now, the sleeping giant has awakened. My partner has been talking madly, passionately about film photography, and I feel excited about shooting someblack and white film. Tri-X, of course.

I’m not sure how deeply I’ll dive in. I still have picture books to illustrate and stories to tell. Will their attraction be enough to keep me faithful, or will my first love consume me…again?