Once upon a Spring – Black and White with a Contax RTS II, M42 lenses and Rollei Retro 80s.

I haven’t enjoyed any photography lately, and haven’t picked up a camera since early Summer when I last posted an article here, that was with my Voigtlander Ultramatic. But after a while being pretty much down in the dumps I can feel a slight bit of hope and enthusiasm stirring within the depths, thanks to my friend and 35mmc contributor Tony Warren.

Photography requires amongst other things, effort and a feeling of joy. Currently the thought of taking a camera and going out to shoot fills me with despair. I cannot explain it, I am just unable to do it. Even this summer I didn’t take a camera, but used that time to try and have a holiday, but these holidays are like anything (sex, drugs..) fleeting – they are over in a heartbeat and that’s that.

But I have been back to looking over books and I have been looking at my archives. whilst digging through the vaults I came across a set of photographs I had taken from one roll, in April 2023, 3 and a half years ago – how times flies! (look how little my boy is, he’s now taller than me!) I had taken these in my favourite time of year and around North Essex and Suffolk borders in East Anglia, England.  The files were in a folder labelled Rollei Retro 80s Diafine Contax RTS II, which I opened and spent a good while going over the photos. I was quite pleased with what I saw and thinking back I had been trying to capture some of that Spring light, it is in my opinion the most beautiful of lights, with some much translucency and subtle without being in any way harsh or overpowering. They weren’t shot in one day, but judging by the clothes – over a week or so.

I had taken my Contax RTS II – a camera I’ll never part with. I and multitudes of others have written about this camera before and it is of the highest quality, with an excellent reputation and the best of the Contax SLR’s in my opinion. Funny thing is, I don’t have any Carl Zeiss lenses with it – just a Yashica ML 50mm f2 and some M42 lenses, as I wrote elsewhere:

The main weapon is the formidable Yashica ML 50mm f2 – the closest I could get to the snub nosed Cal Zeiss 45mm Tessar f2.8. The Yashica isn’t a Tessar design as it has more elements, but it’s small and doesn’t protrude – it’s smaller than it’s faster 50mm Yashica ML brothers and has a very pleasing swirly almost DDR/Soviet type out of focus areas when opened up.

This is augmented by my collection of cheap and cheerful M42 lenses. The Pentacon 135mm f2.8 with a zillion bladed diaphragm. I really like this a lot – solid build quality and user serviceable – great for sniping targets over long distance – better for portraits with a lovely dreamy look.

Then we have my personal favourite – the Helios 44-2 58mm f2. What a fantastic lens! Great for people and with a flare and look which was made in Valhalla. Finally I have my snapshot wider lens – which is an Auto Chinon 35mm f2.8

The combination; Rollei Retro 80s with Bellini Duo Step;

BelliniFoto DF2 Duo Step, which is liquid Diafine. Now the very special thing about this is that it’s far and away the easiest developer to use.

1. It is not temperature critical. I’ve used it in mid winter after taking the bottles out of the larder, to mid summer, with a wide temperature range, all with the same consistent results. So you won’t need a thermometer or flaff around with heaters or other stuff ever.
2. It stores for years (allegedly) if stored in an airtight bottle
3. Almost every single Film has the same development time, being 3 Minutes solution A followed by 3 Minutes solution B.
4. It is a compensating developer, so you can chop and change the ISO as you shoot and it’ll give you the same consistent results after the simple development procedure.
5. It’s cheap and economical and can be used again and again with none of this ‘One Shot’ palava.
6. It’s easy peasy to mix – pour 500ml Solution A into a bottle and add 500ml of Water. Same with Solution B. Job done.
7. It requires no Stop bath. Just rinse with water then fix.

I recommend this for anyone just getting into developing their own Film, it gives an easy stress free introduction and if they wish they can then progress to other Developers in time. But the developer gets silty over time so needs a proper filter, say with coffee filters. And needs to be mixed with distilled water initially. I neglected to do this.

Nik and Trick specialize in Bellinifoto products, I also bought the fixer which I must say I am very pleased with.

I always use a Yellow Filter attached, in my case a B+W. I used the internal meter, usually metering for the shadows then reducing exposure by 2 stops to get those blacks black. Sometimes I’d meter for the brightest part (e.g. when photographing backlit plants/leaves then increase exposure, other times I’d just shoot and let the camera do the work.

Below you’ll find the photos I took that day on the roll of Rollei Retro 80s, the lenses with their softness I think suit the time of year and the subject matter, the tones are also subtle, apart from some – with the almost IR look being a characteristic of this Film, making faces glow. These won’t win any prizes for sharpness, originality or anything, being my usual boring tat,  but I like them and this combination might appeal to many readers.

I wasn’t sure what lens was used for what, but the sail boat was with the Pentacon 135mm, I think most were shot with the Yashica 50mm ML f2.

Overall, these scenes and the light suit Rollei Retro 80s very well, as anything harsh can easily lead to blown highlights, as for me, I’ll pick up a camera again soon, I hope..

Share this post: