First roll w Kiev, first photos on Konica

[Pherdinand]

So here I scanned a few shots from the Konica Monochrome VX400 that Fraley sent me awhile ago (thanks!). It's a C-41 BW negative that looks, i'd say, very much like Kodak's BW400CN. I see no difference between them, neither on 10x15 lab prints nor negative (scanned or magnifyed), except that the orange base is a bit lighter for the Konica. "Grains", if you can call them like that, are very smooth and only apparent in light gray regions. Tonal range is excellent(not really proven by my scans!); a good film for sunny weather, it seems.

As to the Kiev: except the small misfocusing issue at close focus, i like how it handles. The shutter is working good after the ribbon replacement; exposure is quite uniform on the negative, no matter what shutter speed i used. But it's rather noisy and it makes a considerable bang when closes. Only the second curtain does that, so there's no motion blur resulting from it. Somehow I have no problem with the 'contax grip' (have long but quite thin fingers).
Both the jupiter-8 and jupiter-9 seem to perform great, although did not use the 9 much.

When I got the roll developed I noticed there are hardly any people shot on it. Hm, i guess i shied away with the 'new' camera. Next time.

 

[Pherdinand]

Here's a crop fromn the one before the last. You can see a combination of the grain and the scanner resolution...

 

[Nikon Bob]

Looks like you had good luck with the C41 Konica. Did you expose it at 400 or did you rate it slower, say 200?

Bob

 

[Pherdinand]

I used it at 400, metered occasionally with a handheld. The negs look a little bit thinner than normal, though (which is ok since it's easier to scan).

 

[Nikon Bob]

I agree, thin negs do scan faster. Let us know if you try it at 200 or so.

Bob