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.

Checking Out the Rails in Olympia (Oly 07)

Western Washington was once criss-crossed by hundreds of miles of rail lines. Many mountain valleys had regular or narrow gauge lines to serve the lumber industry. Many of them were abandoned in the 1970s as the lumber industry wound down, but some remnants remain. BNSF (Burlington Northern Santa Fe) operates its main line from Longview, on the Colombia River, north to Vader, Chehalis, Centralia, Tenino, East Olympia, and then on to Tacoma. This carries mostly cargo, but Amtrak uses the tracks for its passenger service. 

Olympia was once served by two railroads, the Northern Pacific and the Union Pacific. The tracks still exist, and Olympia & Belmore Railroad, Inc., operates the occasional freight cars. I sometimes hear a locomotive horn but have never see a train trundling down Jefferson Street. Amtrak's station is on the Yelm Highway in Lacey, the town southeast of Olympia. The Amtrak does not go into downtown Olympia.

7th Avenue Tunnel

The "Subway" (Fuji Acros film, Leica M2, 90mm ƒ/4 Elmar lens)

When the Northern Pacific first brought service into downtown Olympia in 1891, the tracks came down the Deschutes River valley, past the brewery complex, and along the tide flats. The track turned east and went through a tunnel to emerge near Jefferson Street. It is ugly and dirty now. A homeless man was badly injured in the tunnel years ago.

Jefferson Street

Jefferson Street view north. Where is the train? (Fuji Acros film, Pentax Spotmatic F camera, 55mm ƒ/1.8 SMC Takumar lens)

Jefferson Street view north

Steps on Jefferson Street (55mm ƒ/1.8 SMC Takumar lens)

The track in the foreground emerges from the subway (to the right out of the picture).

Jefferson Street view south

View north from Olympia Avenue NE (Kodak T400CN film, Leica IIIC camera, 5 cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens)

Rainbow Rails

Rainbow Rails view north (not very colorful any more; Kodak Tri-X, 100mm ƒ/3.5 lens)

Rainbow Rails with State Capitol in the distance and 4th Avenue bridge (Kodak Tri-X, Hasselblad, 100mm ƒ/3.5 lens)

Rainbow rails, view north, with West Bay to the right

The Rainbow Rails ran along West Bay to a wood processing facility a short distance south of Tugboat Annie's restaurant. The name came from the colorful paint that artists painted on the ties near the 4th Avenue bridge. Much of the paint has faded, so you do not see much rainbow any more. The track is a somewhat difficult walk, but you are next to West Bay and can sometimes see a freighter across the water at the Port of Olympia. Water birds occupy a pond just to the west. 

Port of Olympia

View south from Market Street NE (adjacent to the Olympia Farmers' Market)

This track comes in from the south along Jefferson Street (see above). It diverges, and two lines enter the port area (off-limits to visitors). Most of the timber now comes to the port by truck, but I hear an occasional train, usually at night. 

This ends our short railroad tour of Olympia. Later, I will post some pictures of the rail line near the unused Olympia Brewery complex in Tumwater. Thank you for riding along.

Trachte buildings in Madison, WI

[Guest post by morangm]

The Trachte company pioneered the manufacture of metal buildings, starting around 1917.  The company initially started out manufacturing metal tanks and tubs for agricultural use and invented a machine for efficiently creating corrugated steel panels for this purpose.  After using this material to build a garage for the owner's car and wowing the neighbors, the company shifted to primarily building flexible, modular metal buildings, which were often used for garages and industrial purposes.  A very nice history of the company and some examples of their work can be found here on the Madison Trust for Historic Preservation's website.  The company is actually still around and these days focuses mostly on self-storage buildings.

The old Trachte buildings have a distinct look: Long and skinny with straight corrugated metal walls and a circularly arched roof.  A lot of these buildings are still around in Madison, particularly on the formerly industrial east side.  Some of them appear to be abandoned, but others are being used in a variety of interesting ways.  Please enjoy a few examples!

Unknown industrial structure, E. Johnson St.

Unclear what this little red Trachte building is used for, if anything.

This Trachte building hosts an artist residency program in Thurber Park.

This one's been done up super nicely as someone's house.

This one is somebody's furniture workshop and has a matching Little Free Library out front.

Here's a very typical Madison East Side scene: Trachte building, 100-year-old houses, and a large new apartment building, all superimposed.

The old Trachte building factory was also located on the east side of Madison.  The factory itself is built of Trachte buildings.  It's still there but appears to be sitting mostly abandoned or partly used for storage.

Old Trachte building factory off Dickinson St.

Some impressive trees have grown up between these factory buildings.

Because Kodachromeguy always does this: All photos were taken with a Samsung Galaxy S10e mobile phone.

From the Archives: Belmont Center in 1969

One upon a time, several lives ago, I lived in Belmont, Massachusetts, USA. Belmont is a quiet bedroom community in Middlesex County west of Cambridge, also bordered by Arlington, Waltham, and Watertown. Belmont's commercial nexus was the Center, where Leonard Street emerged from under the railroad tracks and ran past a fire station and a cluster of stores. 

I bought my first "serious" camera in late 1968, a Nikkormat FTn. Here are some frames from my early attempts to use Tri-X film. I did not know what I was doing, but the built-in light meter was reasonably reliable in the hands of a total novice, and the Nikkor lenses were very good optically. I do not remember who developed the film, possibly a small camera shop in Arlington, where my dad knew the proprietor. 

Leonard Street

Leonard Street from railroad bridge 

Leonard Street passed through the Center and often had heavy traffic, even back in the 1960s. Note how the Volkswagen Beetle on the right is dwarfed by the Chevrolet behind it. 

1908 Belmont Station

Rail side of the Belmont Station

The Fitchburg Railroad (later the Boston and Maine Railroad) built the Craftsman-stye railroad station in 1908 after they raised the rail line to eliminate a grade crossing for the busy Concord Avenue. According to Wikipedia, a farmer quarried the stone used in the station from nearby Belmont Hill. 

Train service to Belmont ended in 1958, but the Boston and Maine ran commuter trains from Concord to North Station on these tracks using Budd Rail Diesel Cars (Buddliners). I recall when we occupied the new Belmont High School at its new Clay Pit Pond site in 1970, we occasionally mooned the commuter train as long as the teacher was not present. The MBTA (Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority) resumed service to Belmont in 1974 during the first energy crisis. 

When I moved to Belmont in 1966, the Lions Club owned the station, and the platforms were fenced off. If you look at Google Maps, the porch in the picture above has been filled in with ugly cinder block. 

Fire station hose tower

This is the Belmont Center fire station tower, where the firemen dried canvas hoses. The fire station is now a restaurant. The new fire station is a beautiful brick complex at the corner of Alexander Avenue and Leonard Street. This was formerly a parking lot for Filenes clothing store (sto-wah). The boring moderne building that was once Filenes is gone, replaced with a CVS and craft beer cellar. During one of my life interludes, I sold men's clothing at Filenes in 1979-1980 while job hunting. It was rather dull but paid a bit ($2.90 and then $3.10/ hour??). I had to wear a suit or jacket every day. But the suits came from a tailor in Athens, not Filenes.

Construction of Belmont Savings Bank

Demolition of Tudor-style commercial building (Kodak Instamatic 500 photograph)

Demolition detail

Belmont Savings Bank demolished an elegant 1920s Tudor style building to build a pseudo-colonial style bank and parking lot. Back in that era, banks invited new depositors to open savings accounts, no matter how little they could deposit. The idea was to encourage a habit of saving and demonstrate the benefits of interest. The bank employee typed your deposit and the accumulated interest in a passbook using a machine that resembled a big typewriter. I assume that it was connected to a mainframe computer somewhere, but I do not know what technology they used. Today, banks rarely accept customers with minimal funds, thereby driving the poor to pay day loan shops and other unsavory or illegal financial services. 

Clay Pit Pond from Concord Avenue

Clay Pit Pond was the site of a blue clay that was mined for brick production between 1888 and 1926. When I lived in Belmont in the 1960s, the pond was polluted and may only be marginally better now. The city needed a site for a new high school and chose the land between the pond and the Boston and Maine railroad tracks. The photograph above shows some initial dirt work in the distance. 

The town selected this site to replace an older high school on Orchard Street. In 1968, a disgruntled student torched the building. After the fire, we still used part of the old building. A temporary wall closed off the burned section. 

The 1971 school was quite luxurious in a mid-century manner, with earth tones as the color scheme. I even lifeguarded at the pool. Today, a spectacular new school occupies the site, a gorgeous brick complex that resembles a corporate headquarters (demonstrating an advantage of living in a rich town with a strong education ethic).

The author measuring cedar shingles. The house and shingles are still extant. The black underlayment is tar paper.

The famous February 1969 snow storm

This ends our short time warp trip to Belmont. Thank you for riding along.

Most of these photographs are Kodak Tri-X film. I scanned the negatives on a Nikon Coolscan 5000 scanner operated with NikonScan 4.03 software. I cleaned splotches and scratches with Photoshop CS6 software.

More Fun in South Shreveport, Louisiana

In previous articles, we looked around Olympia, Washington. Let us take a quick diversion back to the US South. 

On our way from Vicksburg to Houston, we overnighted in Shreveport, Louisiana. I wanted to do a last documentation in a southern neighborhood that shows elements of traditional wood architecture, decay, and neglect. In the morning, we drove west on 70th street in south Shreveport and looked at some of the side streets. The light was soft and even, quite suitable for architecture. 

Click any picture to see it at 1600 pixels on the long dimension.

Quiet times on Bates Street (Fuji Acros film, Spotmatic F camera, 28mm ƒ/3.5 SMC Takumar lens)

Cottage on Bates Street (24mm ƒ/3.5 SMC Takumar lens)

Bates Street house

Bates Street was quiet, with empty lots and houses that were boarded up. I could not tell if they were going to be repaired. If they were to be demolished, no one would have bothered to secure the window with plywood, so possibly there was a plan to restore some of them. Still, it is not a pretty scene. 

Bethany Street

Bethany Street house (24mm ƒ/3.5 SMC Takumar lens)

Bethany Street had many empty lots, meaning the former houses had been razed and the lots graded. 

Time for some crawfish at 925 E. 70th Street

7020 Line Avenue - not much happening now

The Little Shanty art store on Line Avenue, also unfortunately closed

Line Avenue runs north south. It was more commercial than the side streets but was very quiet. The street just to the right of The Little Shanty was East 71st Street. It offered a bit more photographic material.

Shed on E. 71st Street

Fixer-upper shed on E. 71st Street (28mm ƒ/3.5 SMC Takumar lens)

Asphalt shingle cottage, 569 E. 71st Street

Asphalt shingles were common mid-century for inexpensive housing. We look down on it now, but it was a practical building material because it was easy to install, inexpensive, long-lasting, and repelled bugs and vermin. It did not need repainting, as do shingles or clapboard.

 

Non-cottage, E. 71st Street

Duplex under renovation, E. 71st Street

Another duplex, E. 71st Street

Some of the houses on E. 71st Street were being renovated. That is a hopeful sign.

Muscle Therapy Center, 7101 Southern Avenue

This clinic is in a rather bunker-like brick building with burglar bars over the windows. It was unfortunate pragmatic (=cheap) architecture and looked unkept.

This finishes our quick tour on October 26, 2023, of a neighborhood in south Shreveport, Louisiana. Maybe I posted too many photographs. But, I may never return to this part of the world, although one never knows. 

I took these frames with my Pentax Spotmatic F camera and 24mm or 28mm SMC Takumar (thread-mount lenses) using Fuji Acros 100 film (exposed at EI=80). These lenses were multi-coated and among the best mid-price 1970s optics for SLR cameras. Praus Productions in Rochester, NY, developed the film. I scanned it with a Plustek 7600i film scanner operated by Silverfast Ai software. I made minor contrast adjustments with Photoshop CS6.