Catlabs Test Shots - First Results

I wouldn't normally have considered yesterday's weather ideal for box camera photography. It was overcast, drizzly, and generally looked a bit miserable. It was EV 12 and didn't look that inviting. It was ideal, then, for my ISO toggling experiment. I grabbed a roll of Catlabs X film 80 and loaded it, not into a Ful-Vue, but into a new addition to the collection, a Ferrania Zeta Duplex.

This Italian box camera dates from the early 1940s and is very different from the Ensign Ful-Vues. For a start, it doesn't shoot squares, it shoots dual format 6x9 or 6x4.5. Its viewfinders are absolutely tiny. It has a choice of two apertures, f/11 and f/16, and it shoots at 1/50. Its main selling point however is its smiley face.

I'd never shot one of these before and I must say, once you're used to the huge viewfinders on the Ensigns, composing with those miniscule little lenses on the Ferrania was seriously challenging. Otherwise the experience is very much the same. Hold it still and press the shutter release.

Seeing as it was EV12, I decided to push the film 2 stops to ISO 320. I developed the film in HC110 (B) for 19 minutes. Here are some of the results.

Sheep Pen

Bridge

Bridge looking the other way

Twisted old trees

Trail of seaweed

Low cloud

Splash

Rocks

Waves

Silhouette

Clouds

Pretty delighted with the results. Catlabs X film 80 is a lovely film and there is no perceivable grain, even when pushed to 320. I shot these pictures in the late evening and by the last couple of shots the light was getting very low. The clouds shot above was the final frame, which I took by holding the camera against a signpost and then making two exposures. Upping the exposure levels a shade in post processing recovered a lot of the data, though the foreground is still pretty dark. Pleased with how the clouds came out though.

The lens in the Ferrania produces images with extremely soft edges. They certainly look like they were taken on a vintage camera.

Very happy with my first results.