VE Day – Victory in Europe Day with a Balda CA 35 and Polaroid High Definition 200

8th May is when this day is celebrated in many countries, Britain especially rejoices for Peace in Our Time. Alas, there’s no peace, but war, war and more war everywhere.

’The War’ (both Wars) is like a pseudo religion in Britain. Every town, city and village has a sacred war memorial, always covered in red wreathes – almost like religious shrines or temples, where the glorious dead are celebrated, reminding me of ancestor worship cults. Every enemy is a Hitler, every diplomatic approach is appeasement, every war leader is Churchill – you get the gist. In my opinion such things are used to steer and control using emotional baggage and ‘patriotism’. But that’s just me. Ignore what I say.

We went to Woodbridge that day, Woodbridge, which is a small town and Civil Parish in Suffolk, about 8 Miles up the River Deben from the North Sea, in East Anglia.

It’s a very nice idyllic English town with a very tranquil atmosphere, friendly people, pretty houses, streets and Red Pillar and Phone boxes, with a lot of green places and all the quaintness of England outside of the big cities. VE day was being celebrated and everywhere were Flags and banners.

I’m not into flag waving and have not much Patriotism of any sort in me (being sort of Anarchist and pretty much non Political)

But I do like to see these celebrations. People enjoying the Spring sunshine, dressed up, music, dance and entertainment, and a general atmosphere of festivity.

A band was playing War era music in the park and we had Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, Sea, Air and Army cadets (with some Para Company soldiers and Gurkhas) and I had my West German Balda 35mm zone focus camera with me. I really am attached to this. It’s the same size as a little Minox but I’ve heard that it’s much nicer to use, though you don’t have control over Aperture and use ISO dial to compensate.

I had it loaded with a roll of long expired Polaroid High Definition 200 Print Film. I hear this is actually Agfa Vista 200 but I cannot be certain. I don’t often use Colour Print Film and have little experience in using it, after getting the roll developed and seeing the scans (which I did at home) I’m not surprised I’ve avoided it for so long, as I’m pretty useless at getting the best out of it.

The Balda CA 35 is the easiest to use camera I’ve ever had or tried. It’s effortless, with a big bright VF and easy to control focus, which I determine with help form the little icons in the VF. every single shot I’ve ever fired with it has been sharp, well exposed and in focus. It’sd also so discreet that I no one batted an eyelid at me lifting and shooting. Almost all of these were set to either 10ft or 3ft on the lens, the camera did the rest.

The Polaroid High Definition 2000 Thoughts and Conclusions

I found this Polaroid High Definition 200 cheap on eBay and thought I’d give it a try. I have no colour profiles for it and have no idea how this Film is supposed to look and that pretty much sums me up with C41 Film and why I don’t like using it.

As the film is expired I set the ASA to 100. In hindsight I should’ve shot at box speed as maybe I’d have got better colour.

Anyway, the results were as shown here – bar some tweaking of levels and Contrast in Light Room.

Overall if this film suits give it a try – it’s readily available and relatively cheap.

I was expecting better colour but it isn’t Agfa Ultra 100 and it isn’t a Chrome Film, but considering it’s 22 years out of date, not bad (bar some deterioration of emulsion on other pictures I was unable to edit which is a shame as I had some nice close ups and portraits).

The colour looks odd, in hindsight I may could have tweaked the white balance but I’ve no idea how this Film actually looks when printed correctly. It’s also quite grainy, though pretty sharp. It isn’t High Definition though, this probably being some Polaroid marketing bait, but then again as my film is long expired it may well have been.

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