Today’s Post by Joe Farace
I didn’t think this blog’s new focus on film photography would be controversial but it appears that it can be. As it seems, so do my wardrobe choices for my Film Friday videos. While some of my film photography posts have gotten a higher-than-normal numbers of page views, they have also generated lots of different kinds of questions, some of which surprised me, which is why I’m doing today’s Q&A. And if you missed last weeks Q&A, you can find it here.
Q: Why do you always wear the same clothes in your videos? —Sylvia, Grand Rapids, MI
A: Have you been talking to my wife? She says that I need to have a wardrobe consultant but she was referring to the duds I wear in my Cars & Coffee videos; she hasn’t commented on what I wear for my Film Friday videos yet and I think she’s actually watched one of them.
First, I am not wearing the exact same clothes. I am, however, wearing the same sweater. It’s a nice one that I got from Abercrombie & Fitch and is 100% wool, very comfy and warm; I get cold this time of year. Second, the idea of wearing the sweater is that it’s a solid color so the viewer will (tend to) look at me, instead of what I’m wearing. One of my favorite film photography YouTubers wears lots of different and colorful clothing—he’s a young guy—and I find myself saying, “Oh, I really like that shirt” and missing what he’s saying. That’s my theory anyway. Maybe when the weather warms up. I’ll ditch the sweater.
Q: You haven’t mentioned your Seagull TLR lately in any of your prost and if you’ve solved it’s film scratching problems. Any news? —Bobbie, Midlands, TX
A: If you’ve been keeping up with my film photography blog posts, you may know that my wife gave me a pair of Canon film SLRs—an AV-1 and an AL-1—for Christmas. She even bought me a nice strap for the AL-1; you can read about that here. Right now I am in the process of testing both cameras to make sure they are fully functional. When testing the AV-1 I ran into some winder problems that you can read about here. I just received the film back from The Darkroom from that photo walk and there appears to be some problems. But there also some images too and you can see one (at right) in this post. I asked The Darkroom about it and they thought the shutter is lagging and blocking part of the frame. They suggested a CLA (can’t afford one) or using slower shutter speeds like 125th or lower, which I will try.
The AL-1 remains to be tested, mostly because of the cold weather. (*It’s snowing here on Daisy Hill as I write this.) But Mary wants to do a photo walk with the Nikon Z fc that I gave her for Christmas. If we do a photo walk, I’ll write a post or maybe make a video about it but only then will I try to clean up the Seagull in what I fear will be a misguided attempt to fix the problem of it scratching the negatives. If it can’t be fixed, I’ll be down to my Holga 120N or Holga Wide Pinhole Camera for medium format use. And that’s why I’m sitting on my decision to renew my Film Fix subscription that currently includes one 35mm and one 120 roll.
Q: I’ve always wanted to own an XPan but they are so expensive. Overpriced? You said yours is broken. Are you going to get it repaired? —Calvin, Boise, ID.
A: This is a tough one and I have been doing much soul searching on what to do. As I write this (and my opinion on this may change on this tomorrow) I’m planning on selling the XPan and its two lenses on an as-is basis for someone else to cope with the repairs. To be honest, spending the money and repairing the Seagull, a far simpler camera, and not having the camera fully functioning afterwards was a big turn-off for me. As with cars I don’t have a lot of emotional attachment to most of my cameras (and most of my cars too, except this one and this) and while it’s true I hung onto the XPan when selling some of my other film cameras, I should have kept the Hasselblad Flex Body that I sold and sold the XPan instead. But that’s the benefit of hindsight.
If you would like to send me a roll of film to review or any other stuff that could be used for these posts and my videos you can mail it to: Joe Farace, PO BOX 2081, PARKER, CO 80134