Taking a Shot at Lomography

A few weeks ago I spotted this beer label at the grocery store.

I thought it was a cool logo, and I really liked that they used a vintage camera in the design.

A few days later I found this camera on a shelf at a thrift store, and it reminded me of the one on that beer bottle.

After a quick inspection, I decided I wanted it. Two dollars later, the camera came home with me.

When I got home I Googled the Kodak Instamatic X-15F camera and discovered that Kodak made about a billion of them, and they're about as rare as elbows. Also, the Instamatic requires 126 film, and Kodak discontinued that format in 1999.

So, did I waste my money on worthless plastic? It wouldn't be the first time. But, no, my camera can still be used. 

There's a community of photographers who have dedicated themselves to using cheap, analog (non-digital) cameras - it's called lomography in some circles. I think it's a reaction to digital perfection. Yes, perfection looks really good, but it gets boring pretty quickly. People like to see faults that can't be faked. That's why celebrity tabloids exist.

Anyway, thanks to these people, there are several how-to articles and videos on the 'net about loading 35 mm film into a 126 film cartridge.

The left one needs to go into the right one.

The first problem I had was finding a 126 film cartridge. I checked eBay, but individual cartridges were selling between $15- $25. But then I spotted this auction.

What you don't see in the heading is that this auction included a camera with two cartridges of 126 film. I clicked the "buy it now" button, and I got the film and a second Instamatic camera as a backup. Not bad for $11.65. 

The first step to putting new film in the old cartridge is to break the old cartridge open. And that was the only part I was worried about. I was hoping I wouldn't wait a week for the package to arrive, and then in ten minutes destroy the cartridges and any hope I had of lomography glory. Turns out I had to wait two weeks, the eBay seller didn't include the film in the package, only the superfluous camera. So frustrating.

When the second packaged arrived, I noticed the film was marked May 1987. That's the month I graduated from high school. Man, this stuff is old.

Breaking the first cartridge open was a fail. I snapped the window frame while trying to break the plastic "welds". I tried to glue it back together, but that didn't work. 

That's okay, because I learned how the two pieces were joined together. A lot of online instructions and YouTube videos tell you to twist the cartridge, but they don't tell you that the half with the protruding curves fits inside the other, flatter half. 

Once I figured that out, I could tackle the second cartridge with a game plan. So, instead of trying to break the cartridge into two, I twisted and pried one side out of the other. That worked.  

I know failure is frustrating, but if everything worked out for you the first time, then what would you ever learn? Failing is a key component to discovery. Please remind me of this when I've been working on my Bug, and I'm about to punch a wall in the garage...

Other people better than me have written instructions better than I could write about loading 35mm into a 126 cartridge, so if you're interested, search those words and see what it's about. 

The biggest difference between 35mm and 126mm film is that 126 film had a black strip paper behind it inside the cartridge. That paper had numbers on it that would tell you how many pictures you had taken. You could see the number through a window in the back of the camera and a window in the back of the cartridge. Since 35mm film has no protective paper, you have to tape off the cartridge window. I taped off the window in the back of the camera as well. Maybe that was overkill, but I wanted to prevent any light leaks. (I loaded the camera in the black depths of my school's dark room, so don't believe the next picture.)

According to hints online, to shoot reloaded film in this camera, I should wind the crank, shoot a blank picture with the lens pressed against my leg, and then wind the crank again. I forgot that step for the first two pictures I took, but that's okay. 

One online source stated that since you have to double crank the camera for every photo taken, you could only fit 12 pictures on a 24 exposure film roll. That seemed to make sense, but it wasn't true. After taking 12 pictures, I went back into the dark room, removed the film from the 126 cartridge, and I stored it in a black film canister before turning on the light. 

I took the film to Wallgreens Photo. I explained that I only wanted them to develop the film, and that the film was "naked" in the canister; if it was opened in the light it would be ruined. I also explained I didn't want the negative cut. I needed it in one long strip. I couldn't have them make pictures for me; the Instamatic takes pictures that are square, not rectangular.

When I got the film back (in an hour!), I was happy there were 12 exposures, but the rest of the film strip - about two feet - was unexposed and wasted. Oh well, I learned something there.

Next came scanning the negatives. You can't just drop the film in a scanner; negatives need light on both sides to be scanned. Luckily, the scanner I have access to is an old Epson Perfection 4490. The mat in the lid can be removed, and the scanning light in the lid can be used in sequence with the bottom light.

Here are the settings I used.

When the scanner scans the negative in preview, it looks like a negative. But when I selected what I wanted to be actually scanned, the colors inverted.

I was pretty excited to see that square photo! But the colors were a bit washed out. I tweaked them in the Preview program, and then I ran the jpeg through PicMonkey, a free online photo editor.

I'm pretty excited about the results. I really like how the sprocket holes and the Kodak information on the 35mm film show up in the finished product. 

It's not a big surprise on whom I chose as my model.

Remember when I forgot to double crank between photos? Here's the overlapping result.

How cool! That's the back of my car on the left, and the side of my car on the right, but they seem to join.

This is fun! Time to get some more film and take some more lomo photos.