The Leica IIIC Explores Olympia with Ektar 100 Film (Oly 23)

It was time to exercise my 1949 Leica IIIC camera. An overcast morning in May of 2025 provided perfect soft light for Kodak Ektar 100 film. I have found the Ektar to be a bit garish in bright sun, but in overcast, it brings out the colors. Also, my mid-century 50mm Summitar and Jupiter-8 lenses are lower contrast than modern multicoated optics. In gloomy light, the Ektar tends to look blue through the Summitar, so when I scan it, I pull down the blue curve a small amount. 

Gull Harbor Road

I met the gent who owns this funny little electric car. It is a post-1979 Comuta-Car. Sebring, Florida–based Sebring-Vanguard made the original CitiCar from 1974-1977. Commuter Vehicles from California bought the design and manufactured the Comuta-Car from 1979 to 1982. Eight 6-volt lead-acid batteries supply power for the electric motor. The fellow said his purple car does run.

I think Toyota manufactured this little Chevrolet. It did not look too derelict. 

46th Avenue Northeast

Bigfoot is awaiting

This is a nice traditional wood barn. But beyond it is a modern steel building. I like the textures and patina of wood. I might have photographed the elusive Bigfoot.

Shinckle Road Northeast

The little coffee stand at 3525 Shinckle Road has been unused since at least 2022. It was originally on this lot because the street address on the door is correct. The A-frame house has a lot of roof area. This type of design works well in a locations with heavy snowfall, but that does not apply to Olympia.

Lilly Road

Hmmm, I could clean off the mildew and convert this bus into a camper. 

Slightly rough house, Lilly Road

West Bay Drive

Detroit iron in storage shed near Tugboat Annie's Restaurant

Kiddie car at warehouse

Tech Note

I took these photographs on Kodak Ektar 100 film with my Leica IIIC camera and a 5cm ƒ/2.0 Leitz Summitar lens. This is a 7-element coated lens designed before WWII. This lens is a rare one with no haze or scratches in the coating. The camera and lens have been to four continents and served the family for 75 years. How many other consumer goods can claim such a service life? I measured light with a Sekonic L318 light meter.

Leica IIIC and 5cm Summitar lens in extended position.
The large front glass is known for having a soft coating, but this one is still pristine.

Issue: When I used this Summitar lens on a Leica IIIG camera, the resolution was distinctly better than when mounted on my old IIIC. Also, the right side of each frame is out of focus. It is difficult to see the problem on the scale of internet display. Something is amiss with the lens mount. Some technician a long time ago may have lost some shims, and the mount is not quite correct. But it could take a lot of labor to get it right, so this IIIC will become a glass case display. I have more than enough 35mm cameras to keep me occupied.  

Around Olympia with Kodak T400CN (Abandoned Films 13) (Oly 08)

Introduction

Dear Readers, it happened again. I intended to no longer use expired films because of the risks of blotches or other issues caused by old age and improper storage. But a few months ago, an eBay seller included a complimentary roll of Kodak T400CN film in an order. I loaded it in my Leica IIIC camera and tried it around town. 

T400CN was a 1990s C-41 black and white film. It could be processed in common C-41 chemistry almost anywhere on earth (such as by any 1-hour processing kiosk) and yield black and white prints. I used it a few times in the past. When fresh, it was very fine grain and high resolution for a 400 speed film. Other companies also marketed C-41 black and white films, but today, only Ilford XP2 is left. 

Kodak discontinued T400CN in 2004. The Professional Portra 400BW film was similar (or the same?) and was discontinued about the same time. Kodak replaced them with BW400CN, which I have used in my Abandoned Films series. The last few rolls were more grainy than when they were fresh, so possibly the BW400CN changes chemically when old. Of course, other factors, like the brand of C-41 chemistry, may affect the appearance of the film. Has this T400CN aged more gracefully? 

Because of the age, I decided to expose it at EI=120 rather than the original specified 400. I took the film to Photoland at The Evergreen State College. They called me after 3 hours to report that it was ready! I scanned it on my Nikon Coolscan 5000 scanner. The advantage of a C-41 film, either color or B&W, is that the infrared ISRD function can identify scratches and correct them. It is a convenience because you do not need to touch up as many flaws on the film with a heal tool. Unfortunately, this does not work for traditional black and white film. 

This was also a test of my Leica IIIC camera and its 5cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens. In the past, the IIIC suffered from a zone that was out of focus on the far right. I suspected that the film was buckling or not lying straight in the rails. I added another nylon washer on the post that pushes the film canister up into the body. The reloadable Leitz film canisters, which were common in the 1940s, may be marginally taller than modern commercial 35mm film canisters. Even if the film lay perfectly flat (which never happens in any 35mm camera), the Summitar has field curvature, so the best focus curves towards you at the sides of the frame. 

Yes, I know, this experiment had too many variables. There were too many degrees of freedom to be able to isolate contributing factors. But you readers can decide if it all worked out. Here are some random scenes around Olympia, Washington. Click any photo to see it at 1600 pixels wide.

Olympia

Impending storm, East Bay, March 2, 2024. The Capitol is in the distance. 

Farmers Market, Olympia, March 2, 2024

Where did all the hail come from? Olympia certainly has interesting weather. What happened to spring?

Unused tracks off Olympia Avenue in the drizzle - where did spring go?

Former Golden Gavel Motor Inn, mid-century architecture at its finest. The unit is being renovated. (5cm Summitar with light yellow filter.)

Traditional wooden houses, view from Legion Way (with medium yellow filter)

Gas meters, Olympia Avenue

Gas meters scanned in full color RGB

I scanned most of this roll using 16-bit grey scale. But my Nikon Coolscan 5000 occasionally shifts to the default setting of full-color RGB (meaning 3×16-bit). I like the effect. It resembles selenium or one of the red toners. I may use this more with this T400CN film, but it would only be effective for certain subjects (artsy-fartsy stuff). 

This is a crop of the scanned file. It shows how much detail this film can capture. And this is from a lens designed before World War II! Note how this film does not have grain in the same way as a traditional black and white film. This, and all C-41 films, have dye clouds, instead.  

Door at 215 Thurston Avenue

Emerging from the 7th Avenue tunnel

Nature

How does this film work with nature topics?

Spurgeon Creek from the Chehalis Western bicycle trail south of Olympia

Olympia Avenue tree (with light yellow filter)

Industry

Foss Waterway, Tacoma

Tacoma is full of interesting topics. I will be returning!

Summary

T400CN film: I am pleased. This long-expired film was fine-grained and recorded a large exposure range. It does not look like traditional black and white film, and it may be less contrasty than Fuji Acros. But T400CN is more convenient to get processed if you have access to a photo lab nearby. Next time, I will expose at EI=100, so two stops more than the original 400. (A few years ago, I tried Ilford XP2, the only current C-41 B&W film, but did not like the results.)

The Nikon Coolscan 5000 film scanner: It is higher resolution than my Plustek 7600i. And the Coolscan has a higher dynamic range, meaning it extracts more data from the film. Also, the Coolscan does a focus adjustment with each frame. But the Nikon Scan software is clunky in a 1990s manner and needs a computer running WIN XP or 7. I will test Silverfast 9 on my Mac for future use, or may try a Windows emulator and load the NikonScan on my Mac. The native Mac versions of NikonScan would not run on the Intel chips. 

My 1949 Leica IIIC:  The extra washer on the bottom post may have solved the problem of the buckling or curved film. It is nice to keep this old family friend in operation. The 5cm Summitar is an impressive lens, especially considering that it was designed in the 1930s.

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.

From the Archives: Iraq in 1956

In the post-WWII era, Iraq looked like a progressive and advancing country, with active foreign trade, factories, major agricultural output, and (most important) oil. My dad worked on water supply projects there in 1956 for an American engineering company. I assume the work was funded by US-AID, as were infrastructure and water supply projects around the world. This was the short period when the USA was still seen as one of the victors and heroes of the war in Europe and Asia. We funded development projects around the world, fed a starving Europe, and shared scientific knowledge. These efforts led to the green resolution and the virtual elimination of small pox, tuberculosis, and polio. These were the good years before we ruined our reputation with the misguided interference in Latin America, the Bay of Pigs, and the disaster in Vietnam. 

In the 1950s, Iraq was awash with oil money. The government even commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to develop a Master Plan for Baghdad. None of it was ever built, so my dad did not enjoy any of Wright's extravagant architecture (such as the opera house on an island in the Tigris!).

Tigris River from Zia Hotel

This is the view from the Zia Hotel, where my dad stayed. 

Agatha Christie lived in the Zia in 1928 and used it as a model for her Tia Hotel. 

Haydar Khana Mosque, Baghdad 

Super stewpot, probably the Souk al-Safafeer, Baghdad

Souk al-Safafeer was Baghdad’s ancient coppersmiths’ market.

Agatha Christie's heroine, Victoria, came across the Souk on her first day in Baghdad:

"And then, as she walked along the street, a prodigious hammering and clanging came to her ears and peering down a long dim alley, she remembered that Mrs. Cardew Trench had said that the Olive Branch was near the Copper Bazaar. Here, at least, was the Copper Bazaar.

"Victoria plunged in, and for the next three-quarters of an hour she forgot the Olive Branch completely. The Copper Bazaar fascinated her. The blow-lamps, the melting metal, the whole business of craftsmanship came like a revelation to the little Cockney used only to finished products stacked up for sale. She wandered at random through the souk, passed out of the Copper Bazaar, came to the gay striped horse blankets, and the cotton quilted bedcovers. Here European merchandise took on a totally different guise, in the arched cool darkness it had the exotic quality of something come from overseas, something strange and rare. Bales of cheap printed cottons in gay colours made a feast for the eyes."

Villagers walking past an archaeological site

Checking out the date harvest

Ruins of the Arch of Ctesiphon. Note the massive base.

Ctesiphon was an imperial capitol and rich commercial city on the east bank of the Tigris about 20 miles southeast of Baghdad. The arch is a famous tourist destination. 

Ruins of the Arch of Ctesiphon.

Note how a modern buttress had been built to keep the wall from toppling.

From Alamy via The Economist.

Early-to-mid-1900s passenger network, from The Economist

The Middle East once had a comprehensive network of rail lines. You truly could take the train from Berlin to Baghdad, and continue to Basra, or the line to Beirut, and hence on to Cairo or Medina. Most of it has fallen into ruin after a century of war, deliberate destruction, mismanagement, and bad governance. But select rail lines are being rebuilt. 

This ends our short visit to Baghdad. My dad's employer never signed a contract for hydrology projects in Iraq and we never moved there. It would have been an adventure.

My dad took these pictures on Kodachrome film with his Leica IIIC camera and its 5cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens, the same package that I occasionally use today.