My DIY Analog Journey

I’m Adrien, a french DIY and technical stuff enthusiast. For many years (since I’m 3, I guess), I have really liked to experiment with new things, undertaking a lot of tests with technical devices and processes.

About a year and a half ago, I wanted to discover analog photography like my father did in the 70s. I’m not a particularly good photographer and I must say, before jumping into the rabbit hole, photography has been mostly an utility thing.

Digital cameras didn’t appealed to me (perhaps ironic since I’m a child of a fully digital world) so finally I ended with making all my pictures with my phone, mostly without printing them to keep memories safe.

Then, I divorced and I realized that I wanted to transmit something to my daughters, not with 1s and 0s on the cloud, but with real tangible things.

I started to print a lot of my digital photos to create albums and that was the beginning. Then I started wondering if I could use an analog camera to create real pictures, with a little sense of composition. As each photo costs money in analog, I would need to think a bit before triggering the shutter.

This was quite liberating and forced me to think about the photo differently (and slow down).

My first analog camera

I soon bought a Pentax P30 on Leboncoin (the same as Craigslist, but in France) for about 30€, with a 50mm lens. I bought also a 35-70mm lens and after that a 70-200mm lens.

I was ready to shoot with budget Kentmere Pan 400.

As I wanted to do a lot by myself, so I bought also a Patterson Tank (used too) and the chemicals to process my own film.

I started with the well known D-76 and a 1+3 to experiment at the beginning.

That made a really great start, and with it I shot about 12 rolls of 36 pictures in the first year. The development process and all the rituals around really pleased me.

I was mostly taking pictures of my family, just moments at home, or during weekends and holidays.

My partner in life, Camille, was a little bit sceptical about this new interest, and also because it’s black and white. Anyway, she started to find this nice and now she likes when I bring my camera with me for family moments.

Here are some of my early results:

Scanning

To start with, bought an all-in-one scanning device, for individuals at about 30€ and 5Mpx. It was only for 35mm with a adapted mask. That worked well but I wanted to have more control over contrasts etc and so I decided to use my old Sony rated at 18MPx which is about 15 years old to scan my films.

I designed and printed some 3D parts to have something well aligned and I started to use GIMP to control the inversion, levels and curves.

For the backing light, I use a LED ceiling panel light rated at 4000k. It’s pretty cheap but also big too (60x60cm – maybe to large). I just need in GIMP to desaturate the colors of the negative before inverting it to have something really grayscale.

Now I’ve scans at about 18MPx (before cropping the sides) and I can print several adapters for several formats (6x6cm for example).

Patterson improvements

Usually, when I develop a film I use a 30 second agitation time at the beginning then 5 seconds every 30 seconds. When you want to develop a Kentmere Pan 400 in D-76 1+3 it’s 28 minutes, so lot of agitations during the process. I was a bit stuck doing this and I wanted to improve the process.

I then designed an adapter to install a stepper motor to turn the roll inside the tank. I wrote an Arduino sketch and added an OLED screen to make a time counter.

That way, it’s almost automated, I just need to check the development time to stop and change the solutions (stop bath and fixer).

It’s a great improvement and if you’re interested by the sketch and the CAD files, feel free to ask.

Other film experiment: Ilford FP4+

I wanted after a while to try something else and I bought a roll of FP4+. Even though it’s pricer than the Kentmere Pan 400 and I was really pleased with the results:

New camera: Rolleicord II type 3

When you start an analog journey, it’s pretty sure that you will want to experiment more and more. I found on Leboncoin (again) a nice Rolleicord from 1938 with a shutter problem at 72€. This seemed a good price, so I bought it.

When I received it there was surely a shutter problem. I unmounted it, removed the face plates and realized that there was like sand and dust from decades past inside the shutter system and levers. I cleaned everything carefully and the camera was fixed and ready to go. This took me something like less than 2 hours to fix, so felt like a pretty good deal.

I started cheaply with Fomapan 400. The first roll was OK but not exceptional. This was with D-76 and 1+3:

Then I went for a hike with my partner for 3 days in Britanny (hike trail GR34). I decided to bring this camera in my backpack (ouch -+1kg to carry) and I was not disappointed. I shot just a single roll of 12 pictures but here are the results, with Rodinal 1+25:

I bought some 120 rolls like Fomapan 100 and 200, and also FP4+ to reduce grain and get more benefit out of the medium format.

The Pentax will remain for now my EDC camera in my backpack but the Rolleicord is becoming my camera for more composed pictures; when I want to work a little bit more before triggering the shutter.

Conclusion

My analog journey has just started I guess and I’ve lot of ideas to test (nude pictures with good light, muted shadows, art things). For a little while now, analog photography has been becoming more art and not just for family stuff.

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