Out with the Kodak 3-A Folding Pocket camera: Some street art around Aveiro.

Out with the Kodak 3-A Folding Pocket camera: Some street art around Aveiro. 

My second outing with the Kodak 3-A Folding Pocket camera was just as much fun as the first test with this camera, but not as successful. From my expired film box in the cupboard I picked a roll of Lomography ISO 100 colour film, which expired in 2023.

Loading the camera was easier than the first time, I roughly know what I'm doing now. I stopped winding when I came across the 'start' arrow and closed the back. This time I wound forward for 20 half turns, which is the position that the Camerhack.it website suggests the film was in the right position for the first exposure. After each exposure I wound the film forward eight half turns to the next frame.

*Edit (16 February 2025): Comparing this roll of film with that taken on my first outing with this camera, two things are immediately apparent. Firstly, winding the film on by 20 half turns was too much. This left too large a leader before the first frame. Secondly, I think that I actually wound the film too far between frames, 10 half turns instead of 8. Comparing the image spacing with the first outing, I reckon that in fact 7 half turns between frames is ideal. So on the next outing I'll try 18 half turns from the 'Start' marker and 7 half turns between frames.

This time I headed to Aveiro to record some street art. There's one excellent example near the railway station, and I discovered other on the other side of the city near the Yacht Club. Actually, I had intended to go to the Yacht Club but the area was being resurfaced and I couldn't gain access. 

As before, I left the shutter speed of the 3-A on 1/100 second and rated the film at its box speed of ISO 100. I used the app Camera Meter to judge the apertures I should be using, which for this exercise was between f16 and f22. With my four exposures in the bag I dropped my film off at the lab and within a few hours the zipped files dropped into my inbox. 

Again the images were a little 'thin' to my mind. Having looked at the negatives from the first outing they actually looked fine, so I didn't adjust the exposure, but I'm wondering if I should open the aperture by one stop above the meter reading to get a better exposure. *Looking at the negatives the images are definitely murky and overexposed. In future, when I've made the reading I'm going to close the aperture by one stop. Hopefully, this will give a better exposed image.

Sadly, apart from my first image the framing of the subsequent images was quite poor, and I'm not sure why. Perhaps I didn't have the viewfinder quite level. Also, the street art near the station was framed completely wrongly. I'm going to have to go back and do that again. Lastly, I only got three frames out of the roll, and I'm not sure why. It's a bit fiddly to get to the shutter, and I reckon that perhaps I didn't press the shutter lever properly.

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*Edits made on 16 February 2025, after examining the negatives. 

#Kodak, #Autographic, #122Film, #Camera, #Bellows, #Experimental, #Film, #Panorama, #Vertorama, #Retro, #Vintage,