Sprockets and the beauty of 3D print capabilities

Sprocket Photography

Aug 1, 2019

So I've been perusing the internets lately and have found some pretty interesting posts about shooting 35mm in a 120 medium format camera. The film (in my case at least) is much cheaper, and also easier to develop (in my case at least) without losing a large amount of ducats if you screw stuff up.  In my case at least-when i attempted to develop a $12 roll of Fuji Pro 400H but left the ramjet on the emulsion, I was not a happy camper.  Bummer.  Had some good chances there for some great pics too, but forgot what kind of film I had in camera.  I though it was Lomo BW 400, but unfortunately it was Pro 400H color. UGH.  Lesson learned. 

I know a guy at work who prints a lot of 3d stuff. The cool thing about 3D printers is you can print all sorts of stuff that you would normally pay large amounts for (like nylon screws) or, these neat 35 to 120 adapters to fit your 35mm film cartridges so the film fits into a 120 medium format camera!  

After a little fiddling to get the print head changed over using CAD, my .14 cent converters were ready.  I immediately loaded the Bronica and shot a roll of B/w I had laying around.  I think this is the best, easiest way for me to get used to shooting a medium format.  The expired color roll of 800 film (bad choice in a 1/500 speed camera that you have to use sunny 16 for) was put in backwards to create a redscale effect--not to mention the noise, but overall, I was able to get about 9 pics off a 24 exposure roll. Basically what the videos said I'd get so i was pretty happy about that. Granted, not all the pics turned out due to the photographer and misjudging actual light with calculated speed of film, but a few turned out just right.  Here are a couple of them.  Yes, the redscale effect turned out pretty cool, especially in darker situations-after all, it WAS 800 speed expired Kodak Gold!

Avery Bronica ETRSi expired 800 kodak gold 

Living room #redscale effect Bronica ETRSi expired kodak 35mm Gold 800

So, after finally figuring this out, I decided to try again with one of my last rolls of self rolled Ultrafine Xtreme 100-a much fresher roll to eventually see the sprockets on the photography.  Got pretty cool results just shooting around the yard:  

UltrafineXtreme 100 bw; Bronica ETRSi sprocket photography

Found it much easier to expose b/w 100 using the sunny 16 rule.  Use very little exposure differences in PS Lightroom after taking these. Scanned using medium format trays on an Epson Photo V500. 

There will be much more of this in the future, at least to play with and learn the best practices on the Bronica. Then medium format will be loaded and shot--especially looking forward to the Portra 160 I've been saving for a portrait occasion :)