We have a pause in the rain for the next couple of days, so I decided it was an auspicious time to break out a roll of slow speed black and white film and shoot. Earlier in the year, I had purchased a large number of rolls of slower film for the summer, not realizing how poor the light would actually turn out to be. So, I grabbed a roll of Catlabs X 80 and I loaded it into the Tokyo Leica and set up a couple of compositions. I currently shoot with the Fujica G690 from 1968, which is the original version of the camera. I had the 100mm f/3.5 attached. Even in bright sun, the exposure was only f/5.6 at 1/125 sec. The rangefinder is still in calibration and I was working near the minimum focus. The depth of field was a real challenge! The film was shot at EI = 80 and developed in HC110 B for 8.5 min. All eight exposures were spot on. They were digitized with a digital camera and processed to taste in Ps. In this case the black border in fact corresponds to the edges of the physical negative. It is an interesting film with a lot of exposure latitude and flexibility in post.
Sunflowers always remind me of the Fourth of July.
