Showing posts with label Summitar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Summitar. Show all posts

Saturday, June 3, 2023

Kodak Technical Pan Film at the Acropolis (Abandoned Films 11)

Technical Pan film


In the 1980s, Eastman Kodak heavily advertised their Technical Pan as being an extremely fine grain and high resolution panchromatic film. The data sheets stated:

This is a black-and-white panchromatic film with extended red sensitivity. It has micro-fine or extremely fine grain (depending on the developer used), extremely high resolving power, and a wide contrast range for pictorial, scientific, technical, and reversal-processing applications. 

Kodak made this film for either copying documents or for aerial reconnaissance by the military (I have read both theories). Kodak discontinued sales in 2003 or 2004 but stated that they had been selling off stock that had been stored for years. Many astronomers used it for celestial photography

Most document films are very fine grain but also high contrast. Therefore, for pictorial use, the photographer or laboratory must use special low contrast developers to provide a normal tonal scale. Kodak sold a proprietary Technidol developer for pictorial use, but it has been discontinued for at least a decade.

With a degree of hyperbolae or over-enthusiastic marketing, Kodak claimed Technical Pan in a regular 35mm camera rivaled the results from normal film in a 4×5" camera. Well, maybe - sort of. I cannot find an example right now but recall seeing these advertisements in camera magazines in the 1980s.

I used Technical Pan 2415 in 35mm cameras only twice. Once was in Texas (see my 2017 post) and the second in Athens, Greece. I agree that the film was incredibly fine-grain, but it was hard to develop and was contrasty, even with the Technidol developer. It had a "soot and chalk" tonality. My ultimate conclusion was why bother? If you want high resolution and smooth continuous tones, just use a medium format or 4×5" camera.


The Acropolis, Athens


We will make this a double abandoned films treat: Technical Pan from 1985 plus a couple of 1951 comparisons with other long-discontinued films. Let's take a walk around the Acropolis on a brilliant sunny July day. Click the 1985 frames to see the amazing detail. 


Parthenon east side, July 7, 1985 (Technical Pan film, Leica M3, 50mm ƒ/2.8 Elmar-M lens)
Parthenon east side 1951 or 1952 (Kodachrome slide, Leica IIIC camera, 5cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens)

The magnificent Parthenon is under perpetual preservation and reconstruction. It is amazing to think that Aristotle himself must have visited this temple and walked among the columns. And consider modern famous visitors such as Lord Byron, Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Princess Elizabeth, Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin, Elizabeth Taylor, etc.



Archaeologists and marble masons have spent over a century on repair and preservation. All the stone on the ground has been catalogued, measured, and fitted using 3-dimensional CAD software. The dilemma is what to do where original stone is missing. How much reconstruction is "authentic?"


Checking the Parthenon
Summer in the city - checking out the Parthenon
The Erechtheion under restoration.

The Erechtheion or Temple of Athena Polias is an Ionic temple-telesterion on the north side of the Acropolis. It was primarily dedicated to the goddess Athena. The geometry and placement of features within the temple is unknown. It may overlie a palace of Mycenaean age.


1985 south view of Erechtheion
Erechtheion photographed in 1951 from the porch of the Parthenon (Kodak Plus-X film) 
Looking down to the Anafiotica neighborhood.
Acropolis from the Temple of the Olympian Zeus (Leica 90mm ƒ/2.8 Tele-Elmarit lens)

This scene is an extreme example of high contrast that demonstrated a soot and chalk rendition. I am glad I experimented with Technical Pan film. With the revival in film photography recently, it has become a cult favorite among some film users, and they buy remaining stock eagerly. But for me, a normal panchromatic film is fine.


Appendix A


Here are some curves for Technical Pan film from Kodak Professional Black-and-White Films book F-6 © 1984. 




Photographer Michael Elliott has been getting excellent results from Technical Pan with a 2-part developer based on metol. I am impressed with his energy.

Saturday, May 20, 2023

From the Kodachrome Archives: Athens and Central Greece in 1951

Background


My father moved to Athens, Greece in February 1951. He had just returned to USA from an overseas position in the Pacific, spent a week job-hunting in New York City and was offered this posting. He visited relatives in Boston and Orlando, bought a few supplies and clothes, boarded Pan Am, and left for Greece. He traveled light and efficiently (unlike his son).

Greece must have seemed exotic. But he had read classical literature, and Greek architectural features were popular in early 20th century American buildings. On weekends, he had time to explore. He sometimes had access to the company car and by mid-year, bought a new Chevrolet. 

He and other American engineers lived in hotels for a few months and then found apartments. He co-rented a flat near Kolonaki Square with two other Americans within easy walking distance to the office on Merlin Street. The flat came with a man-servant who did laundry and cooking. 

Here are some examples from approximately 1951 and 1952 (plus one from 1957). My dad did not label his slides, so I am guessing the dates based on his diaries. For some frames, I know the exact date because he wrote a detail like "went to the market with two cameras." At that time, Kodak did not print the processing date on the cardboard slide mount. He used his 1949 Leica IIIC camera with its 5cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens (both of which I still use 70 years later). 


Athens


Hadrian's Arch and the Acropolis
East side of the Parthenon. 
The Parthenon (built 447 to 432 BC).  

I remember when you could walk all over the Acropolis site and climb up into the massive temple. Today, visitors must walk on wooden boardwalks. The millions of tourists were literally wearing out the stone. 

Think of the awesome passage of history during which this temple has stood. Aristotle may have walked among the columns. More recent visitors have included Lord Byron, Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Princess Elizabeth, Agatha Christie, Vladimir Putin, Elizabeth Taylor, Margaret Thatcher, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton. 


Checking out the Cariadids on the Maiden Porch of the Erechtheion.


As of 1957, these Cariadids were originals. But in subsequent decades, air pollution disfigured them and Greek authorities removed for safe-keeping, They are now in the Acropolis Museum. In their place are replicas based on an example in the British Museum. The one in London, taken to Britain by Lord Elgin, had been preserved indoors are was largely intact. 


Temple of Olympian Zeus (construction 6th century BC to 2nd century AD)


This scene has not changed much over the decades. There may be some tall building in the background now.


1994 view of the Acropolis and Phaleron Bay from Lycavitos mountain (Kodachrome 25, Leica M3 camera, 135mm Tele-Elmar lens)

This is a modern view of the Acropolis taken at dusk. 

Central Greece




According to my dad's diary, this was a 1951 4-door Chevrolet Sedan Skyline Deluxe. He ordered it from a Chevrolet dealer in Athens but paid by sending a check to General Motors in USA. It cost $1629 plus some extra for hubcaps and a spare tire. A ship delivered it, along with cars that other American engineers had ordered, to Piraeus. He got it out of customs on August 6, 1951.

I vaguely remember this Chevrolet. I used to stand up in the back (this was the era before we worried about car safety). I recall him telling me that in the early 1950s, only diplomats and Americans could afford to own cars. Recall, Greece was very poor because it had been looted by the Nazis during World War II and then suffered three years of brutal civil war. An automobile was a luxury item. Petrol was a luxury.

Somewhere in central Greece near Volos

Once, tourists dressed properly. Today, Americans look like homeless people.


View of Volos looking west

Pelion



Plateîa with Platanos trees, Zagora, Greece

Zagora is a cheerful mountain town perched on the Pelion Peninsula facing east towards the Aegean Sea. My grandfather's family came from Zagora, and the municipal office has records dating to the late-1800s. 


Lady of the Lake (stream), near Zagora, Pelion, Greece


Closing notes


Consider what an amazing amount of information is stored in these 70-year-old slides. And it is accessible! All you need to do is look at the slide with a magnifier. It is a time machine into the past. As long as the slides are not damaged by fire, flood, or fungus, some sort of optical device, like a camera with a macro lens, will be able to retrieve this image data for decades to come. Will our hard drives loaded with digital jpeg files be readable in 70 years? Will people look at a billion cell phone dump Instagram uploads on the "cloud" in 70 years? 

In those days, it was a challenge to get the Kodachrome processed. In that era, Kodak included processing with the purchase of the film. I remember my dad  telling me that he would give an exposed roll to an American who was returning to USA. The colleague would send the film to Kodak when he was back in USA. Then he would take the slides back to Greece or give the package to another American heading to Athens. He would also deliver fresh rolls of film. Turnaround must have been months. This would certainly not suit the modern Instagram generation. Greece is dry, which helped preserve these slides and retard growth of fungus.

I scanned these Kodachrome slides with a Plustek 7600i film scanner operated by SilverFast software. Most frames were almost perfect with the Auto CCR setting. On a few frames, I used the neutral grey dropper to correct the color. Afterwards, on some frames, I cleaned lint and splotches with the heal tool in Photoshop CS5. I resized for web display with XnViewMP. Please click any frame to see it magnified.


Sunday, April 3, 2022

The Colonial Heritage Byway, north central North Carolina (Abandoned films 08d)

Colonial Heritage Byway

In the previous article, I wrote about historic byways in North Carolina. This the second byway that I explored in October of 2021. 

From the North Carolina Department of Transportation:

Colonial Heritage Byway

This byway provides an impressive tour of 18th and 19th-century history in North Carolina. While traveling on NC 62, look for many older houses and barns dating back to the 1800s, especially in the town of Milton. The NC 86 portion of the byway provides a glimpse of the Piedmont’s dairy farms and rural life.

My goal was to photographic tobacco barns. I read that they were a traditional architectural feature of the Carolinas that were disappearing because tobacco is a less important agricultural commodity than in the past. I started my journey in Carrboro and headed northwest towards Hillsborough (a very nice town with an excellent coffee shop, Cup-a-Joe, on West King Street) and proceeded north on NC 86 towards Cedar Grove.  It was a cheerful sunny day but with rather harsh lighting.

Garage with residence above, 8906 Old NC 86
Fixer-upper, 7403 NC 86, Cedar Grove
Vine explosion, 7403 NC 86, Cedat Grove

Heading out of Hillsborough, I did not see many old barns but was pleased to see some of my favorite topics, country stores.

Shed behind 8318 NC 86

Ahah, the first tobacco shed. I stopped at a workshop on NC 86, and when I told the proprietor what I was looking for, he directed me to an overgrown path behind his shop. At one time, these sheds had gaps in the logs, but afterwards, farmers added concrete chinking to seal the interiors.

McDade Store, McDade Store Road

Finally, between Prospect Hill and Hightowers, old-fashioned tobacco barns became more common.

Restored historic barn, Prospect Hill

I spoke to a farmer who owned the barn and land. This one had been restored by the state. He said that if a historic barn was standing, the structure could not be demolished. But, some farmers let the barns deteriorate to the extent that they collapsed, and then they could sell the land to developers who built McMansions. This farmer and several others I met were bitter that some landowners were willing to sell out. I saw signs protesting proposed gravel pit somewhere in the county.

Barn, NC 86, Hightowers, North Carolina
Sheds, NC 86, Hightowers
Asphalt siding house, Hightowers

Asphalt siding, similar to roofing shingles, were popular in the mid-20th century because they were durable, repelled bugs, and did not need paint. Notice how in the siding on this house was made to look like bricks.

Barn on Hwy 119, Hightowers
Shed on Hwy 119, Hightowers

By 5:00 pm, the light was fading and it was time return to Chapel Hill. I could have easily spent more hours driving on rural roads and looking for old barns and sheds.

No gas here, US 158, Leasburg
Slightly closed store, New Hope Church Road, Leasburg

This ends our short tour of part of the Colonial Heritage Byway. Thank you for riding along.

I took these photographs on Kodak BW400CN film using my 1949 Leica IIIC camera and its 5cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens. This roll of film was grainy, and dark areas looked sooty. This was one of my last rolls of BW400CN, and I will not buy any more.

Sunday, March 27, 2022

The Football Scenic Road, central North Carolina (Abandoned films 08c)

North  Carolina Scenic Byways (from NC Department of Transportation)

Introduction


The State of North Carolina has a network of scenic byways that cover many of the historic and scenic parts of the state. If you go to the Department of Transport web page, you can download a book of the byways and look at an interactive map. You can also request a printed copy of the book.

The screen capture above is the online map on the NC-DOT web page. The blue line in the west is the Blue Ridge Parkway. Long-term readers may remember that I have driven much of the Parkway in 2017 and 2018. I have also driven the Nantahala and Fontana (Rte. 28) Byways. It is beautiful terrain in the west. 

For the urban decay photographer, the state is a treasure trove of old farmhouses, mills, factories, and quiet little towns that look like time passed by. 

The Football Road (west of Chapel Hill)



The DOT calls the route between Chapel Hill and the outskirts of Greensboro the Football Road. I do not know why it has this name. But it goes through nice farm country and avoids the boring Interstate 40. Part of it is Old Greensboro Road and then becomes the Old Greensboro-Chapel Hill Road.

Barn on Old Greensboro Road, near Chapel Hill
Farm house, Dawson Road near Chapel Hill
Farm, Old Greensboro Road near Chapel Hill
Barn, Greensboro-Chapel Hill Road near Snow Camp
Farm, Greensboro-Chapel Hill Road near Snow Camp (Jupiter-8 lens, yellow filter)
Happy cows, Greensboro-Chapel Hill Road near Eli Whitney

The Greensboro-Chapel Hill Road winds its way past farms and woods. An occasional car or tractor passes by. I was surprised that many of the silos consist of concrete tubes reinforced with exterior steel bands. It is a cylindrical version of a barrel. 

Fixer-upper house, Greensboro-Chapel Hill Road, near Snow Camp

Snow Camp


Historic school, Snow Camp Outdoor Theatre, Snow Camp
Restaurant next to Snow Camp Outdoor Theatre

The Snow Camp Outdoor Theatre is at 301 Drama Rd. (great name!) in Snow Camp. The site was empty when I visited in October, but in-season, the semi-professional company has been presenting plays for over 40 years. The restaurant next door will not be providing any meals for a long time..... 

Unoccupied farm, Holman Mill Road, Snow Camp

This ends our short excursion on the Football Road in central North Carolina. The time was late and I had to return to Chapel Hill.

These photographs are all on Kodak BW400CN film from my little Leica IIIC camera. I used my 5cm ƒ/2 Summitar and 50mm ƒ/2 Jupiter-8 lenses, often with a yellow filter to enhance clouds.

Tuesday, March 15, 2022

Huge architecture: Mills of New Bedford, Massachusetts (Abandoned films 08b)

Introduction

New Bedford is a historic seaport, whaling town, and industrial city facing Buzzards Bay on the south coast of Massachusetts. 

According to Wikipedia, New Bedford was once known as "The Whaling City" because it was one of the world's most important whaling ports in the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Whaling declined after the 1860s when petroleum was discovered in Pennsylvania and as overfishing almost eradicated whale populations around the world's oceans. 

Textile manufacturing replaced the whale trade (from Wikipedia):

In the midst of this decline, greater New Bedford's economy became more dependent on the textile industry, which began to eclipse the whaling industry in the late 19th century. The mills grew and expanded constantly, eventually comprising multiple sites along the Acushnet River. In 1875 alone, the Wamsutta Mills processed 19,000 bales of cotton into 20 million yards of cloth, which had a wholesale value comparable to that of the entire whaling catch, and continued to produce over 20 million yards of cloth yearly after 1883. The Wamsutta Mills remained the world's largest weaving plant until 1892.
My wife and I briefly visited New Bedford in late 2021 and looked at some of the monumental mill buildings. Many are empty now, but some have new uses, including residential. The New Bedford Economic Development Council prepared a City of New Bedford Historic Mill Inventory in 2008. You need to walk around some of the structures to see what huge businesses these must have once housed and image how many thousands of workers once toiled inside. We have seen similar huge brick mill buildings in Lewiston, Maine, in 2003 and Łódź, Poland, in 2016 (in a pre-Covid life).

New Bedford Harbor


Harbor Street, New Bedford. Note mill worker houses in the distance
Former power plant, Harbor Street (5cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens, orange filter)
Mill view from Gifford Street (taken from US Army Corps of Engineers hurricane surge barrier)

Clarks Cove


Clark's Cove is on the west side of the city, with Rodney French Boulevard running along the shore. We stopped at a driveway leading into a mill complex at 89 Rodney French. The gate was open and no one was around. I could not find a name of the complex or the name of the former milling company. The 2008 inventory does not list the original companies that operated these mills.


The Globe Furniture Company occupies part of the ground floor facing Rodney French. But most of the hulking complex appeared to be empty. The doors were secured and I could not go inside, but did not have enough time to look everywhere. 


The patterns of light and shadow were especially interesting in the harsh sunlight. I hope I can return with a 4×5" camera some day.


Details, patters, shapes, textures - no end to interesting photographic topics.

Workers' homes, Thatcher Street (digital image)

Another topic for a future visit is the worker housing that the cotton companies erected near the factories. The morning steam whistle would blow, and the factory workers walked to work.

I took the 2021 photographs on Kodak BW400CN film with my Leica IIIC rangefinder camera and the 5cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens.