Oren Grad
Well-known
Spiratone reminds me... does anyone else remember the Spiratone Colorflow filters? Groovy...
Are you old enough to remember?
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x-ray
Veteran
Don’t remember those but I can imagine what they were. We’re ther for a rainbow effect on your image? I always got a kick out of the gadgets he designed and sold. I bought a few things and think the 12mm?? F8 semicircular fisheye was the best. I gave it to my son and he still has it.
x-ray
Veteran
CMur12
Veteran
I remember the Spiratone brand, though I never bought any of their products.
I still have my Kodak Master Photoguide, purchased in 1972. It was priced, US $2.50.
I went to the Nikon School of Photography, in Seattle, in the summer of 1972. The Nikon F was still in production and the F2 was the big news.
I remember as a child loading rolls of 620 Verichrome Pan into my Kodak Duaflex IV.
- Murray
I still have my Kodak Master Photoguide, purchased in 1972. It was priced, US $2.50.
I went to the Nikon School of Photography, in Seattle, in the summer of 1972. The Nikon F was still in production and the F2 was the big news.
I remember as a child loading rolls of 620 Verichrome Pan into my Kodak Duaflex IV.
- Murray
Oren Grad
Well-known
More interesting than that: they were polarizer sandwiches that changed color as you rotated the two components relative to each other. Depending on the polarization of different parts of the subject one was photographing, those parts of the subject could be rendered in different ways, producing selective color-change effects.
Here's a bit more:
Spiratone and Spiratone Colorflow™ Polarizing Filters
I have a set in 49mm size, but it's been more than 40 years since I last used them to make pictures - the effect was very cool, but the color pictures made with them mostly just looked weird, and the novelty wore off pretty quickly.
Also inherited from my dad a Spiratone Macrobel/Macrotel set, as well as a Vario-Dupliscope for negative/slide copying, both in M42 mount.
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x-ray
Veteran
That’s pretty cool! Psychedelic was the cool in thing then and the ad even had that beautiful psychedelic type face. Simulate an acid trip with that filter. 😁
Infrared Ektachrome was in in the late 60’s to early 70’s. What rock group had their cover shot in IRE? Bob Dylan and was photographed by Elliott Landy Proselytizing a New Way to Be Free: Elliott Landy’s Music Photography | Magnum Photos Magnum Photos
I remember the Dupliscope too. Fred Spira was the precursor of Ron Popeil and RONCO. Tons of cool gadgets.
Infrared Ektachrome was in in the late 60’s to early 70’s. What rock group had their cover shot in IRE? Bob Dylan and was photographed by Elliott Landy Proselytizing a New Way to Be Free: Elliott Landy’s Music Photography | Magnum Photos Magnum Photos
I remember the Dupliscope too. Fred Spira was the precursor of Ron Popeil and RONCO. Tons of cool gadgets.
Oren Grad
Well-known
Yes, I shot a few rolls of the stuff, using my dad's Kodak Signet 35. (I still have it! 🙂) Now that I think about it,, I got some Series V filters for the Signet from Spiratone too!
titrisol
Bottom Feeder
That was my bread an dbutter paper, both the German and later the Uruguayan made versions
Darthfeeble
But you can call me Steve
I'm too old to remember what chemicals I used but I do remember developing Tri X in my tiny ½ bathroom. I even tried contact printing using the light over the sink, it worked! I was taking a photography class in adult education at a local JC and did my printing there. Lost all the prints in a divorce.
Retro-Grouch
Veteran
I like to think of Spiratone as the Lomography of the Sixties.
x-ray
Veteran
Processing and printing in the bathroom is one of those great experiences of learning photography. Most of us that learned in the 50’s and 60’s did that.
When I was 9 in 1958 my parents built a new house that actually had a garage and as part of the garage there was a small room to store tools. My dad was into photography and bought a used Omega D2. In the storage room he built shelves and a counter top and hung his Kodak beehive safelight. There was electricity but no running water. We lived in the south and there was no air conditioning in there but did have a portable heater for the winter.
I spent many fun hours in that tiny room processing and printing. What a great experience.
titrisol
Bottom Feeder
Same in the 70s,
My dad opened my eyes for this magic in a temp darkroom he had in the downstairs bathroom (no windows)
He later made space in his workshop in the backyard with a hose from the bib on the side for running water 🙂
Glenn2
Well-known
Like others I found Agfa paper worked to my liking but for film used mostly Plus-X and Tri-X for B&W. Mainly used Brovira but some Portriga-Rapid when a warmer tone was needed. Also shot a lot of Agfa CNS an 80asa colour negative film. Just checked in the darkroom and still have a few kits for processing AgfaColor paper and a few sheets of very outdated paper. There's also most of a kilo of Metol and five kilos of Sodium Sulfite plus other stuff for mixing you own. Need to get busy before the dirt gets me.
Here's a selfie in the darkroom half a century ago, still have the enlarger, (D6) and analyzer but haven't used them in many a year.
Where do the years go?...
Here's a selfie in the darkroom half a century ago, still have the enlarger, (D6) and analyzer but haven't used them in many a year.
Where do the years go?...
x-ray
Veteran
Nice photo and you’re right, the years fly by.
I still use my D5XL with an Ilford multi grade head. Wonderful enlargers.
I still use my D5XL with an Ilford multi grade head. Wonderful enlargers.
DownUnder
Vamoosed (for a while)
So much nostalgia here, wow.
1961. My first good camera, a Yashica D. Verichrome Pan film. DK60a, the 'classic' Kodak Fixer in the cardboard box. Kodabromide F at first, tho' I could never get the perfect contrast I wanted out of it. The few surviving prints I've kept from that time look just fine to me today, so I must have been doing a few things right.
1964. Still using the Yashica for news, weddings, portraits. Yes, even portraits. Bought cheaply (and quickly sold) a Yashica 635 which was good enough but I needed the money. Ansco Versapan, the first film to giveme the mid-tones I wanted. Polycontrast F, a lousy paper (its successor which I think was Polycontrast Rapid was a big improvement). I still have my original filters.
In the '60s and '70s my cameras came and went. Most have gone. I moved over to Ilford mid-1970s and have stayed a firm customer of theirs from that time. Years of printing with Multigrade RCIII and IV, the Multigrade developer, all the other chemistry. Good and reliable. Only in recent years have I noticed how much veiling those papers produced.
Since 2000 I use only Ilford FB. Twenty years ago I bought a case load of old (original) Ilford Galerie FB, which I've used steadily over two decades but still have a large supply. Tried Afga and other German brands but always went back to Ilford, their supplies were most reliable of all that lot in Australia.
From Multigrade developer I changed over to PQ Universal. For a few years I home-brewed all my own developers but eventually the cost of the basic chemistry got too high (again in Australia) or supplies dwindled and eventually I went back to Dektol. Still have enough 'components' to mix a few more gallons of my own Dektol which will surely see me through for this avatar.
Amazing how many photo manufacturers have come and gone in my time. When I started printing we could still get Ilford Plastic but now no more. Ektalure was an interesting paper. Ditto Dupond products, their films were "interesting" and they made a multicontast paper called Varigam, in 1964 I bought three boxes at a discounted price and was given a free filter kit. Still somewhere in one of my boxes. The paper is long gone. Dupont Velour was beautiful for portraits. In the early '70s all those products disappeared overnight. Ditto Ansco/GAF.
Enlargers. My first was a Burke & James 4x5 diffuser model I bought online. Shipped to Canada duty free as back then the cost was low. Changed to a Beseler 23CII which I used until I left North America for Australia, I sold it to a friend who a few years ago still had it and used it. Not sure about now.
In Australia the best I've had (after several Meoptas which did the job but were about as exciting to use as driving an East German Trabant), was a Durst 600 which I loved but it short-circuited and I couldn't get replacement parts for it, so. Then a Leica ic and finally an LPL 7700 6x7 enlarger with B&W filter head, not overly vintage but I adore it. My last ever printing kit.
Still many good photo products available if stocking up in big quantities is now more a capital investment than a purchase.
When I think about all this I feel like one of the last surviving dinosaurs, but from this thread it seems I'm in glorious company...
Dogman (#15), like you a I was a cub reporter in a newspaper, mine being French, for three years in the '60s. Not a happy time as my forte was writing in English and I struggled with the translations, but I lasted. At first I took all my own photos (I didn't get paid extra for this) but eventually they employed a young rookie photographer who worked for a peanut wage, a chain-smoking 19 year old with a Mamiya Press 6x9, one film back and a 90 lens. He could make good images but knew f-all about darkroom work and I quick-processed his films, three minutes in full strength Dektol, one minute in Rapfix, five minutes wash and then wet printed. The enlarger in that darkroom lasted two years before it seized up from chemical contamination, but we could get scan-ready prints to the newsroom in just under one hour. My best time for the process was 56 minutes. It was fun for a while but office politics eventually wrecked the place and finally to save my sanity I left, walked out without giving notice in 1969. Never ever again.
We do these things when we are young'uns. It was fun to be 20 and a news reporter in the 1960s, with my own car and enough $$ from doing this and that - newspaper writing, some commercial photography, writing radio fillers, now and then selling a feature story to a US publication - when the world looked like it was ours to change, the going was still good and we all thought we would last almost forever. Which some of us have. A few have fallen by the wayside and photography has changed by leaps and bounds, film now being more a niche product. Times change.
1961. My first good camera, a Yashica D. Verichrome Pan film. DK60a, the 'classic' Kodak Fixer in the cardboard box. Kodabromide F at first, tho' I could never get the perfect contrast I wanted out of it. The few surviving prints I've kept from that time look just fine to me today, so I must have been doing a few things right.
1964. Still using the Yashica for news, weddings, portraits. Yes, even portraits. Bought cheaply (and quickly sold) a Yashica 635 which was good enough but I needed the money. Ansco Versapan, the first film to giveme the mid-tones I wanted. Polycontrast F, a lousy paper (its successor which I think was Polycontrast Rapid was a big improvement). I still have my original filters.
In the '60s and '70s my cameras came and went. Most have gone. I moved over to Ilford mid-1970s and have stayed a firm customer of theirs from that time. Years of printing with Multigrade RCIII and IV, the Multigrade developer, all the other chemistry. Good and reliable. Only in recent years have I noticed how much veiling those papers produced.
Since 2000 I use only Ilford FB. Twenty years ago I bought a case load of old (original) Ilford Galerie FB, which I've used steadily over two decades but still have a large supply. Tried Afga and other German brands but always went back to Ilford, their supplies were most reliable of all that lot in Australia.
From Multigrade developer I changed over to PQ Universal. For a few years I home-brewed all my own developers but eventually the cost of the basic chemistry got too high (again in Australia) or supplies dwindled and eventually I went back to Dektol. Still have enough 'components' to mix a few more gallons of my own Dektol which will surely see me through for this avatar.
Amazing how many photo manufacturers have come and gone in my time. When I started printing we could still get Ilford Plastic but now no more. Ektalure was an interesting paper. Ditto Dupond products, their films were "interesting" and they made a multicontast paper called Varigam, in 1964 I bought three boxes at a discounted price and was given a free filter kit. Still somewhere in one of my boxes. The paper is long gone. Dupont Velour was beautiful for portraits. In the early '70s all those products disappeared overnight. Ditto Ansco/GAF.
Enlargers. My first was a Burke & James 4x5 diffuser model I bought online. Shipped to Canada duty free as back then the cost was low. Changed to a Beseler 23CII which I used until I left North America for Australia, I sold it to a friend who a few years ago still had it and used it. Not sure about now.
In Australia the best I've had (after several Meoptas which did the job but were about as exciting to use as driving an East German Trabant), was a Durst 600 which I loved but it short-circuited and I couldn't get replacement parts for it, so. Then a Leica ic and finally an LPL 7700 6x7 enlarger with B&W filter head, not overly vintage but I adore it. My last ever printing kit.
Still many good photo products available if stocking up in big quantities is now more a capital investment than a purchase.
When I think about all this I feel like one of the last surviving dinosaurs, but from this thread it seems I'm in glorious company...
Dogman (#15), like you a I was a cub reporter in a newspaper, mine being French, for three years in the '60s. Not a happy time as my forte was writing in English and I struggled with the translations, but I lasted. At first I took all my own photos (I didn't get paid extra for this) but eventually they employed a young rookie photographer who worked for a peanut wage, a chain-smoking 19 year old with a Mamiya Press 6x9, one film back and a 90 lens. He could make good images but knew f-all about darkroom work and I quick-processed his films, three minutes in full strength Dektol, one minute in Rapfix, five minutes wash and then wet printed. The enlarger in that darkroom lasted two years before it seized up from chemical contamination, but we could get scan-ready prints to the newsroom in just under one hour. My best time for the process was 56 minutes. It was fun for a while but office politics eventually wrecked the place and finally to save my sanity I left, walked out without giving notice in 1969. Never ever again.
We do these things when we are young'uns. It was fun to be 20 and a news reporter in the 1960s, with my own car and enough $$ from doing this and that - newspaper writing, some commercial photography, writing radio fillers, now and then selling a feature story to a US publication - when the world looked like it was ours to change, the going was still good and we all thought we would last almost forever. Which some of us have. A few have fallen by the wayside and photography has changed by leaps and bounds, film now being more a niche product. Times change.
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x-ray
Veteran
DownUnder so many of us followed the same path. So interesting!
Did you work as a photographer all your career? I did, just shy of 55 years. I majored in chemistry and microbiology but worked my way through college as a photojournalist and was making great money so I decided to just stick with it. I apprenticed in a commercial studio for a year and a half and spent the rest of my career shooting catalogs, ads and annual reports. Most of that time I had my own studio. Never regretted my decision.
Very good story DownUbder.
Did you work as a photographer all your career? I did, just shy of 55 years. I majored in chemistry and microbiology but worked my way through college as a photojournalist and was making great money so I decided to just stick with it. I apprenticed in a commercial studio for a year and a half and spent the rest of my career shooting catalogs, ads and annual reports. Most of that time I had my own studio. Never regretted my decision.
Very good story DownUbder.
chuckroast
Well-known
I remember:
- When Kodak was the gold standard of all things photographic
- Purple Plus-X packaging and metal film cans
- 120 Pro Packs that had 20 rolls in them
- Tri-Chem packs
- Velox
- Verichrome Pan
- That time Nikon introduced the F2 right after I bought my new Apollo FtN Photomic - I now own both
- That time Leica announced the M5 and oh how I drooled - Ijust finally ought on on ebay 😉 (For you M5 haters, I also own an M2, m'kay?)
- Shooting weddings, portraits, and events in B&W
- Polycontrast and Kodabrome in 500 sheet boxes
- The Kodak G surface and all the other cool toothy textures they had for photo paper
- Arkay drum print dryers with a ferrotyping surface
- The box of below-the-lens Polycontrast filers and the holder (I found one of those a few years ago and had to buy it)
- And the thing that started all this for me over 50 years ago; A Kodak Deluxe Photo Hobby Kit given to me used to have fun with. The fun hasn't stopped since (and I also found another one of these a number of years ago.)
x-ray
Veteran
Very nice collection.
I still have a drawer full of metal film cans and snap caps. I actually have some when the preloaded cassettes could be reused. And when I got into photography Verichrome wasn’t panchromatic, it was orthochromatic. Of course my generation saved those metal film cans to keep their weed in. 😵💫
I still have a drawer full of metal film cans and snap caps. I actually have some when the preloaded cassettes could be reused. And when I got into photography Verichrome wasn’t panchromatic, it was orthochromatic. Of course my generation saved those metal film cans to keep their weed in. 😵💫
x-ray
Veteran
I pulled out a box of flash bulbs and thought everyone might enjoy.
They range from the small 5 to the FF33 that has the ribbon in it. That was a motion picture bulb for ultra high speed motion picture work and had a peak of 1.75 seconds. I used the for high speed work with a Redlake Highcam and shot at 44,000 frames per second.
The really large one is a #3 and was the largest for normal use. Bright!!!!! I lit some huge areas with those. There’s a #2, 22, 40 and a European bulb, the blue one. Also the black one is a GE5 IR. No visible light from those, only IR. They came in all sizes too.
There’s a #11 shown signed by O. Winston Link. Search his name for some great images lit with bulbs.
They range from the small 5 to the FF33 that has the ribbon in it. That was a motion picture bulb for ultra high speed motion picture work and had a peak of 1.75 seconds. I used the for high speed work with a Redlake Highcam and shot at 44,000 frames per second.
The really large one is a #3 and was the largest for normal use. Bright!!!!! I lit some huge areas with those. There’s a #2, 22, 40 and a European bulb, the blue one. Also the black one is a GE5 IR. No visible light from those, only IR. They came in all sizes too.
There’s a #11 shown signed by O. Winston Link. Search his name for some great images lit with bulbs.
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