As mentioned previously, I bought a Fujica Half half-frame 35mm camera, toward the end of last spring, after continuing to have problems with a sticky auto aperture system in my Olympus Pen EE2. The Fujica is similar to the Pen in several ways, except that it's seleinum light meter cell is on an upper corner of the front of the camera body, not in a circular array around the front of the camera lens. This makes it possible that a person with large hands might be more likely to put a finger tip in front of the cell on the Fujica leading to an incorrect light reading. Also, while not externally apparent, the Fujica has a more conventional aperture system, functioning more as one might expect, whether in auto exposure or manual mode.
In late May I loaded a roll of expired Fujicolor 200 into the Fujica. I forget how expired it was, but apparently I set the Fujica for the film's box speed, rather than lowering the iso setting to allow for loss of sensitivity. I shot some exposures in late May, some in late summer, some in early October, and I finally finished the roll in early November. I sent the film to Dwayne's Photo, in Kansas, who will develop and individually scan 35mm half-frame scans for $5 over their regular price per foll for develop and scanning of c-41 color rolls. I got the CD of scans about a week ago. Some of the shots seemed to have problems with overly contrasty lighting, and some had a slight magenta cast that a slight tweak of the Tint slider in Shotwell Viewer program corrected. I also made slight adjustments to exposure level, and shadow and highlight brightness, as I would normally do.
Here area a few samples from the roll. All of them were shot using the camera's Auto mode, since my first tests of the camera's meter readings matched my external light meter's readings pretty well --
The last shot was taken in a very dimly lit blacksmith shop, with only a little window light coming in from the side. The Fujica Half's auto mode handled the situation well, even the blur of the smith's moving hammer is helpful in conveying the experience.
The Fuji 200 seems like a good film for half frame, since it seems to have fine enough grain for half-frame. I would just use fresh-dated Fuji 200 next time! Since the Fujica Half's meter can't be set for a higher iso than 200, super grainy fast films could only be used with it in manual exposure mode, unless one used pull-processing. The exception might be XP2, which a lot of people shoot at 200, rather than the rated iso of 400, without changing processing from it's standard C-41.
As long as I am mentioning the balck-and-white chromogentic c-41 film, Ilford XP@, perhaps I should post a one of my black-and-white conversions of one of these Fujicolor 200 scans taken with the Fujica Half, clouds over a cornfield:
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Last edited by goatsNdonkey; 11-24-2017 at 07:51 PM.