Initial shots on Bessa and Kodak Six-20 (test shots)

[David Mitchell]

Hi all,

I am still saving up for my photo scanner so I will get higher resolution scans of my negatives as soon as possible (I can't wait either lol) so I have 'scanned' these in with the use of my D3100 so they aren't perfect but you should be able to see the difference between the Kodak Six-20 box camera and the Bessa.

Here are a few test shots on the Kodak Six-20:

My parents

Garden chess pieces

Shot down the road - note that the mark is a slight crease in the negative but should flatten out when scanned properly

And here is a test shot from the Bessa during the Jubaliee celebration down the end of my road taken inside the tent

You can see that the Bessa has a sharper image than the Kodak which has quite a soft focus, this is due to the fact that the Bessa actually has an adjustable aperture lol but the quote Kodak said with the box cameras is true - you take the photo, we do the rest, the Kodak shots were all done on the 'instant' setting so probably taken at 1/40s - might have been slower due to the age of the springs etc.

Anyway I will get the full set of test shots up as soon as I get a proper scanner, they were all inverted and tweeked in lightroom

 

[Pete Askew]

Good to see some test shots David. I'm sure image sharpness will improve once you can hold the negatives flatter and improve the contrast etc. Alas I suspect that the crease will not flatten out, these type of stress marks rarely do.

 

[Chris Dodkin]

That Bessa shot looks really excellent David

Amazing how the Kodak look/feel makes things immediately look 'vintage'

 

[David Mitchell]

Thanks Pete, that is a nice improvement, im still getting used to lightroom and it many many settings lol I will spend more time processing them once I have them all scanned in, the images above are just photographs of the negatives, I will see what happens with the slightly creased negative, not sure how thats happened as its been in a archive sleeve on a flat piece of card lol

Chris - thanks for that, I wanted to take a once in a lifetime shot as its not going to come around again in my lifetime and use something traditional to capture the image.

They were both shot on ISO 400 so I had a few limited options to go with on shutter speeds etc as ISO 400 would have been a very very high speed film vs when the cameras were made. I think what makes the Kodak shots look more 'vintage' is the fact that its a simple small cheap lens with quite a slow shutter speed (slower than if it were new) so I guess it might overexpose a few shots but im very impressed with the fact that it took photos without needing to change any settings (because I couldn't lol) even with much higher speed film than originally intended.

 

[Hamish Gill]

Aaaaaaayyyyyyyy photos!!
good effort David...
you should be able to get good enough results photographing you negatives!
your camera is certainly good enough res!
what was your method?

that crease looks terminal to me too, you wouldn't have that problem with digital

 

[David Mitchell]

Lol they have been sitting on my shelf but i'm still saving for the V500, the method I used was the same as shown on digitalrevtv on youtube, basically need a backlight so you can use your computer screen, open up paint to make the whole screen white, then simply put the negatives onto the screen and take a photo with your camera. Might have been easier to lay the screen down, but I managed these with it vertically. Its just so that I could get them online as they have been sitting on the shelf for a while and I was wanting to know how they came out lol

Whats that you say? Dust on the sensor? Oh I see, the battery ran out? How much did that cost again?

 

[Pete Askew]

Here's the settings.

 

[David Mitchell]

Thanks Pete looks a much cleaner image, perhaps I should have a 'Pete' setting in lightroom