Week 32.2: In Montsouris with the Rolleiflex

As you will have seen in my previous post, the weather was very nice in week 32. And as I was on holidays, I managed to get up very early and go to the park near where we live, Montsouris. It an “English park” created by Baron Haussmann and friends at the end of the 19th century. My objective: once again, to take pictures with the Rolleiflex 2.8C that I have been loaned by a friend. For those of you not up on your rolliflex history, this camera dates from the early 1950s. More than 60 years old ! I have mentioned it before in a few previous posts.  I admit that I have had a lot of trouble getting something good with this camera.  The first half-a-dozen or so rolls I took were subtly out of focus because film selector inside the back panel was not fully on 6×6 as the manual said it should be. Groan. Any time I had tried to take portraits they were blurry. Then I had various strange development problems which I have never had with the 100+ rolls of 135 I have processed.

However, I am very impressed by the nice medium-format work here on 52rolls from Alex, Urban, kellyblackdog and many others so I was really motivated to try again. I think the camera itself is in good repair despite the fact that it is so old. So, down to the park again.

Here are the two best images from my latest test  roll. I am almost there now. The only weird problem now are small white dots (black dots) in clear areas on some of the negatives. Is it the water? I suspect, after having negatives in the past which were overexposed, these ones are underexposed. I do have an external light-meter,  however, which I need to learn how to use… The film was TMAX-100 developed in Rodinal. To be honest, I will just use Tri-X from now on, it seems to be more forgiving, and I understand it much better after my work with my Leica. From previous rolls, the images I liked the best were those taken with Tri-X…

Montsouris #1

 

Montsouris #2

 

That’s it. I do have two rolls of portra-400 in 120 that I may try out again, once the leaves are falling, and there is a shop near here that will develop colour 120 …

Here are my previous posts on 52rolls.

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Technical notes: all images were taken with a Rolleiflex 2.8C on TMAX-100 film and developed in Rodinal (1+50) for 12mins.