The Vyne woodlands with Sigma DP2 Merrill

The Vyne woodlands with Sigma DP2 Merrill

Fuji DL-200 - review

How did I come to review the Fuji DL-200? I was a little tired with my 35mm rangefinder cameras, the focusing and the poor or non functional metering, yet interested in the smaller 35mm as opposed to medium format that I shoot most of the time.
I love the my Fuji GA645 point and shoot. What a stellar lens and the ease of shooting with all manual controls when so needed, but yet it is a little bulky and heavy to carry in the laptop bag for occasional film photography when around and about.

So I looked for a 35mm P&S, Fujifilm Klasse, Contax T3, Leica Mini, Konica Hexar, Nikon 35TI all very tempting with full control of the process when so needed, but dropping £500+ on a used camera with many of the models having users witnessing challenges with electronics in these cameras just was not justifiable. The basic idea was to have something always hanging around in the laptop backpack, but expensive gear is not ideal for this.

Next level was premium lens quality P&S like well renowned Yashica T3/T4/T5 fetching £250 on Ebay or Olympus Mju-II for £150 also felt wrong.

Back to square one need to look for a sleeper , Minolta TC-1, Fuji Tiara, Konica Mini Big oops hardly sleepers hmm

All the Fujinon lenses I own have been of good quality, from the truly stellar Fujinon 60/4 Super EBC on the GA645 to sharp Fujinon 50/1.8 EBC on the Fujica Compact Deluxe and the fantastic color rendering of Fujinon 50/1.4 EBC in M42.

There must have been a Fuji/Fujica P&S that was good from that time period. Back in the 80s Fuji was well known for film in the west but their cameras and lenses had little mindshare.
After some research I found a few interesting models Fujica Auto-5 (Fujinon 38/2.8), Fujica Auto-7(Fujinon 38/2.8), Fujica DL-100 (Fujinon 38/2.8), Fujica DL-200 (Fujinon 32/2.8), Fujica DL-300 (Fujinon 35/2.8). There are not many reviews of these models on the web as they are not that common. I browsed the of photos on Flickr for these models still unclear which one to select. I cant say I found the flickr samples very encouraging but then I know that it is not only the camera, it is equally much your skills as a photographer and the knowledge of tools for scan and post process that creates the final picture. Most users seemed only to shot one test film and then giving up. After a while I had decided that a DL-300 would probably be my preference as one could turn off the flash, with DL-200 being second choice because of the interesting TTL metering and the lens of four elements in four group (ie not a tessar clone) but no suitable samples of DL-300 came up so I eventually became the owner of a DL-200 for £9.

Technical spec.
Lens: Fujinon 32mm f2.8, 4 elements in 4 groups
Exposure: Through the lens, EV8.5-18 for ISO 100 film
Shutter: 1/40s to 1/400s
Minimal focus dist: 60cm
Flash: Automatic, Guide Number 10
Film speed: ISO50 to ISO1600 through DX coding. Non DX coding interpreted as ISO100


Enough elaboration on the choice.What about the camera?

First of all it has drop loading meaning that you drop in the film without the whole back opening. Once shut the rear door the camera winds all film and the film counter show how many shots you have left. So the shots are done in reverse order on the film. Each shot protected from accidental opening of the rear door as it is rolled back into the film canister. This was a new thing back in 1983 when the camera was released.

How about the lens?
It is interesting to note that this is not a triplet nor a Tessar clone. There are four elements in four groups. I read somewhere that this was supposed to be an Unar like design.
To be honest when the first film came back I was not impressed because I maybe wrongly had GA645 quality in my mind. The Fujinon 32/2.8 is no Fujinon 60/4 Super EBC but it is still contrasty.

How sharp is it? about the same as Olympus 35RC. Having said that I dont consider the Zuiko 42/2.8 to be very sharp , wide open it is a little soft in my mind, stopped down to f8 yes it is sharp. (Reference calibration for the reader, very sharp lenses in my own experience are the Sigma 30/2.8 on Sigma DP2 Merrill or Fujinon 60/4 Super EBC on Fuji GA645)
There is of course no scientific way of comparing the Zuiko with the Fujinon as one cannot control the aperture on the DL-200 Fujinon 32/2.8.

While the lens has not EBC marking, I bet it is EBC coated though. The shimmer from the coating reflection has the same characteristics as the Fujinon 50/1.4 EBC lens. I tried to shoot into the light and it handles it quite well.

Lets look at some samples. This one shoot straight towards the sun coming from behind St Paul speaks for itself.

St Paul's Cathedral
Fuji DL-200, Fuji Superia 400 (CH-25)

Upper Thames street
Fuji DL-200, Fuji Superia 400 (CH-25)

Next one done under less light and as you can see the aperture has opened up so one can see some background bokeh.

Vauxhall VX220
Fuji DL-200, Fuji NPZ800 (expired 10y+, shot at IE400)

 Next one is under exposed, shot in dusk.

I guess this would be with aperture fully open and the longest shutter time of 1/40.
As you can see there is vignetting, an issue in a pure chemistry work flow but with the hybrid chemistry and digital work flow it is not really an issue and maybe even could be described as character.

Green park, ecotricity
Fuji DL-200, Fuji NPZ800 (expired 10y+, shot at IE400)

 

Fuji DL-200, Fuji Superia 400 (CH25), IE400

Straight into the Sun
Fuji DL-200, Fuji Superia 400 (CH25), IE400

Exposure,  I must say the negatives looked very correctly exposed when shot inside the camera parameters. The issue is as usual that fully automatic is not always correct in terms of what you may want to have lit in your composition. As the exposure measurement is done TTL by reflection off the film there is no way of tricking the camera before hand by first pointing at something darker or brighter and half pressing the shutter button. All that does, is lock the focus but it does not lock the exposure. This is also why this camera cannot have a flash-off switch, the only way to determine if flash is needed or not is to open the shutter.
What I don't fully understand is how it actually works.I get the reflection off the film and the basically integrating the incoming light and once enough light is captured the shutter is closed. The part that I don't fully understand is at what stage the auto program selects the aperture. To measure the light the shutter must be opened and the aperture must start in some position. At some stage the aperture need to be changed. My speculation is that it start with a very small aperture say f25 (corresponds to EV18 ISO100 and 1/400s) opens the shutter for the minimum time of 1/400s integrate the incoming light, after that assesses what aperture is needed inside the maximum of 1/40s minus the 1/400s already consumed = 9/400s. This would also explain why the minimum EV is 8.5 instead of 8.33 as it should be with ISO100 f2.8 1/40s. Apart from curiosity this maybe be important to allow some control of the exposure.
There are no direct controls for exposure except for a flash fill-in button.
My guess is that when the flash engages due to low light the aperture is based on the distance measured, however if the fill-in button is pressed the exposure program should assume that the available light would be controlling the aperture and the fill-in just assists with additional light. Now if one tapes up the flash with electrical black tape it should be possible to push the camera to open up the aperture without being compromised by the flash program. So after all a flash program switch off using the fill-in button and tape. Of course now it is up to the photographer to determine whether the light conditions are sufficient for this.

Fuji DL-200 in stealth mode w the flash suppressor mounted

Flash fill-in button to the upper right on the camera

Despite the awkward feeling to press the flash fill-in to avoid the flash and flash program it seems to allow a large aperture in low light conditions.

 

Fuji DL-200
Kodak Vision3 500T, IE500, no 85 filter,
fill-in pressed, flash suppressor mounted

Fuji DL-200
Kodak Vision3 500T, IE500, no 85 filter,
fill-in pressed, flash suppressor mounted

Fuji DL-200,
Kodak Vision3 500T, IE500, no 85 filter,
fill-in pressed, flash suppressor mounted

 

Fuji DL-200
Kodak Vision3 500T, IE500, no 85 filter,

fill-in pressed, flash suppressor mounted

The camera likes to flash. I guess that the Fuji engineers have put in some sound margin  to avoid underexposed shots on this consumer camera. This test shot was purposely orchestrated to see how a larger aperture would look like. I metered with my phone before which called the scene F5 @ 1/40s  ISO400. Guess what, the flash fired. With GN10, ISO400 film in the camera and I guess about 3.5m to the wall the aperture should be about 5.7, if the camera measured correctly and my eye measure from memory is reasonable.
.

Fuji DL-200, Fuji Superia 400 (CH25), IE400

f25 - not so sharp?
Loaded with fast film (IE500) the camera seems hanging on small apertures. The shots in bright light with fast film is nothing to write home about. The diffraction seems to take the best out of the lens.

Fuji DL-200
Kodak Vision3 500T, IE500, no 85 filter,

fill-in pressed, flash suppressor mounted

Handling

The camera start-up is nothing short of SLOW with the battery I have in it. The battery measures 5.5V (should be 6V) so it is probably nearing end of life. As the flash needs to be ready due to the TTL measuring it needs to charge the flash, this takes about 20s on my camera when it has been off for awhile. I guess the capacitor is discharged and requires to be recharged, maybe my battery is on the edge. From photo to photo it is not that bad. The "decisive" moment may quickly be gone if you need to reach for the camera from your backpack and then get the charging going. If you are on alert mode with the camera open this is not an issue. If one just close the lid for short while say a few minutes it is instantly ready to shoot when opened again. I am thinking about replacing the battery which is easy on my DL200 as it is version2 with the battery changeable w/o soldering.
[Update: I hacked the battery and replaced the cells with 2x3.2V rechargeable ones and now the camera starts from completely discharged capacitor in 11s]

Conclusion
This is a technically interesting camera. It takes reasonable sharp photos.
Who is/was the camera for?
Consumer: It was as consumer film camera and still serve as one P&S film camera quite well.
Advanced amateur: With some tricks as described one can get some control of the process. It does seem to have a reasonable lens.
Professional: I never done photo shoots for money, and i probably never will, but I would not select this camera if I had a paid jobs. Not enough control of what it does. For some art work where experimental is allowed maybe it can be used.

Will I use or sell it. Actually I have not bought any camera for about 3+ years despite always looking. I introduced a piece of self discipline a few years back not to buy more cameras unless I also sold a camera. The problem is each time I am thinking about selling a camera I always think about the reasons I got it in the first place and some good photos with that camera. With this one only costing me £9 I skipped that rule of selling.

I doubt this will be my main camera but at £9 it stays on my shelf and will probably see a few rolls pass though it.

AM fog with old stock Studio35 (Agfa 400)

AM fog with old stock Studio35 (Agfa 400)

My last roll of Studio35 400N V33 (Agfa 400) from last decade, it held up well in the freezer. I love the colour rendering.

Film review motion picture film for photography: Kodak Vision3 200T/250D/500T, Fuji Eterna 250D, Fuji Reala 500D

This piece is about experience of home developing and scanning motion picture films Kodak Vision3, 250D, 200T, 500T and Fuji Eterna 250D, Reala 500D with remjet layer.

The reason on embarking on this experient is that my stock of high speed film ISO (800) Fuji NPZ/Pro800Z for 35mm is down to three rolls of 35mm. I looked into stocking up with some fresh ISO400/800, only to find the price level was quite high in UK £10+ for single roll (36 frames). Motion picture rolls (30 frames) like Kodak Vision3 500T and Fuji Reala 500D with the remjet still on the film can be had around £5 per roll.  The motion picture films should be developed in a processed called ECN-2 , which is different to the normal C41 we use for colour negatives or E6 for slide film. Motion picture labs (processing ECN-2) normally dont take a 36 roll of film, the machine is not setup for that small amount.
Note that motion picture film cannot be processed by your normal C41 lab as the films have the remjet on, it will clog up/contaminate the processor. There is a variant of this from Cinestill film that is the Kodak Vision3 500T respooled with remjet pre-removed, and can be processed in a normal C41 processor but that sends the price per roll back up to £10. The general view seems to be that one has a colour cast that is somewhat difficult to manage when using processing in C41 with pre-removed remjet.

Wondering what remjet is? It is a black carbon layer on the non-emulsion film to protect it and reduce halo effects on motion picture film.

I came across Nik and Trick Services/Photographiques selling a variety of films types. They also offered advice to process the film in RA4 developer as a hack to the normal C41 process, ie using the bleach, fix and stabilizer from the C41 development kit. The RA4 developer has the same color developer compoent as the ECN-2 developer namely CD3. According to Nik and Trick this will reduce the color cast. To facilitate this Nik and Trick sells a chemical kit with the remjet remover from ECN-2 and RA4 developer to mix up one liter for developer at £9. As I had a Fuji Hunt X-Press C41 kit where the developer had gone bad, I saw the opportunity.

As I was on the trip to explore what would work best for me I ordered five different films to test:

• Fuji Eterna 250D
• Fuji Reala 500D
• Kodak Vision3 250D
• Kodak Vision3 200T
• Kodak Vision3 500T

Developing the film

With the  RA4/Remjet removal kit came instructions: see here

For me that meant this based on the Fuji Hunt C41 X-press kit with RA4 developer.

All steps were done in a rotary processor at 38degC.

I mixed up the liter for RA4 and remjet solution and split it in 500ml bottles.

Step 1: 30s in remjet removal bath

Step 2: wash in water a few time until the water becomes clear.
            I pour in water, let it rotate for 15-20s and pour out and repeat until clear

Step 3: 3min in RA4

Step 4: 6:30min in C41 Bleach

Step 5: 3:30min wash

Step 6: 6:30min in C41 Fix

Step 7: 6x1min wash

Step 8: For Kodak films (no need for Fuji in my experience):
        a:Take out the film from the reel

        b:carefully wipe down the non-emulsion side of the film with a clean, wet, soft, non black,  micro fibre cloth. Take care not to touch or scratch the emulsion side.

        c:rinse the micro fibre cloth clean and repeat until no more black residue on the cloth

        d:put the film back on the reel. This may require you to dry the reel with eg a hairdryer for the loading function to work. Steel reels does not require this.

Step 9: 1:20min stabilizer

First roll I processed according to the above description was Fuji Eterna 250D. I did step 8 for it as well but there was no remjet on the micro fibre cloth so I concluded that this is not necessary for Fuji films. This was further verified when I skipped step 8 for a roll of Fuji Reala 500D and with no remjet on the film.
On the other hand with Kodak you cannot skip this. The remjet solution in step 1 does not remove all remjet, you do need to wipe down systematic and carefully. On one of the Kodak films I think was was too light handed. At scan time I could detect spots which I believe was residual remjet.

Developer exhaustion

As I was experimenting with both motion picture film and normal film in the RA4 developer I was also able to determine when the developer is exhausted for mixed use. Note that this refers for 500ml of developer.

First there seems to be no need to do any compensation for the first 6 rolls of 135/120 film. I did increase the development time by 15s on film 4 though the developer which was the Kodak Vision3 250D and it came out what looks like pushed +1/2 to +1 stop, so I backed it back down to 3min for the remaining rolls.

At roll 7 (Fuji NPH 120) I could see that it looked somewhat under exposed but was not sure if it was the camera metering or the developer. By roll 8 (another roll of Fuji NPH 120) it was clear that the developer was reaching exhaustion, it looked grainy and under exposed.

All processing was done within one months time and the developer bottle was top filled with water each time to avoid oxygen to touch it in between the development.

It seems that one can process 6 rolls per 500ml of 135/120 film without extending the processing time. After that either the developer is to be considered to be exhausted or some time compensation needs to be added.

Inspecting the negatives

When inspecting the negatives after development you will find the Kodak ones looks very much like normal negative film. insert photo

The Fuji's on the other hand look very "thin".

Fuji Reala 500D on the left, Kodak Vision3 250D on the right.

Scanning

I did shoot one or two calibration frames with QP203 and an IT8.7 target to be able to create custom film profiles in Silverfast AI and Vuescan. While they were good to have to ensure good results I also experimented with the built in profiles. It seems both brands use film formulas similar for their pro films and motion picture films, this meaning the Fuji Eterna 250 and Reala 500D scans well with the Fuji Pro160 profile and the Kodak Vision3 250D, 200T, 500T scans well with Kodak Portra 160NC in Silverfast. The results from the "standard" profiles were very close to the custom profiles..
This is good news, no difficult blue color cast as been reported from some users developing ECN2 film in C41 process. Also clear is that each brand seems to stick with their own profile.

However tungsten film is not daylight film. I found Vision3 200T and 500T difficult to get produce good results under daylight. I tried with (85A+81A) and w/o filter.


Fuji Eterna 250D, custom Eterna profile vs Pro160 profile in Silverfast

Fuji Reala 500D samples

Kodak Vision3 250D samples

Kodak Vision3 200T samples

Kodak Vision3 500T samples

Note on the physical film quality: The films had quality issues. Fine scratches along the motion direction. My camera did not cause it, I checked by switching between different cameras during the tests, also normal C41 film did not show any scratch marks. I doubt it was my handling of the film either, as the Fuji (that did not require any wipe down) and the Kodaks (which do require the remjet wipe down), both suffered. I still don't know what caused it but I can guess that either the bulkloader that was used loading the cassettes caused it or maybe these were end bits that had actually run through some equipment at some point.

Did I find what I was looking for? A direct replacement for Fuji Pro800Z?

Hmm maybe not.
The Fujis were easy to process as the remjet just came off without the need for wipe down any remjet.
The Fuji Reala 500D was probably the closest to what I was looking for. The looks of it is in my eyes close to Fuji Superia XTRA400.
However I also discovered during this experiment that Reala 500D and Eterna 250D are no longer produced so no fresh source of this. So this put them out of the game.

The Kodak films are still produced.
Kodak Vision3 500T is the fast film in the Vision3 family. It is not a bad film but it did not appeal to me, cant put my finger on it but I think it has to do with the tungsten balance, filter or no filter on the camera did not really make any difference. Maybe I will try it again, maybe not.
This also goes for Kodak Vision3 200T, this film I will for sure not buy again. It seems to have less latitude than 500T and I had more trouble with daylight shots with it.

Kodak Vision3 250D is though a keeper. I like the colors. Maybe pushing this one to ISO500/1000 is the way forward.

Update July 2019 I did revisit Vision3 500T: revisiting-kodak-vision3-500t-with-proper-ECN-2

Update Aug 2019 I did test to push Vision3 250D: pushing-kodak-vision3-250d-ie500

C41 film in CD3 (RA4 developer)

I have read about developing C41 film in CD3 developer from the RA4 process before in a number of forums but very few samples were posted and lots of arguments among the authorities on development and some enthusiastic free thinkers willing to experiment claiming success.
I stumbled into this DIY experiment after acquiring some RA4 as a hack to my C41 chemicals to process ECN-2 film. By mistake I loaded the wrong roll on to the reel. When I opened my changing bag I saw the canister of a Fuji NPZ instead of the Fuji Eterna that I intended to process. As I was out of C41 developer, I stood in front of the decision to either reattach the film to the canister and load the Fuji Eterna, or just go for it. I did the latter.

Processing

The processing was done in a rotary processor at 38degC.

Step 1: 3min in RA4

Step 2: 6:30min in C41 Bleach

Step 3: 3:30min wash

Step 4: 6:30min in C41 Fix

Step 5: 3min wash

Step 6: 1:20min stabilizer

Apart from the CD3 from RA4 the other steps used C41 chemicals from a Fuji Hunt C41 kit, where the developer (CD4) had gone bad.

Scanning

So how what was the result? Well, ocular inspection of the film looked normal.

The film was shot at EI400, which is how I normally rate my expired Fuji NPZ.

I occasionally shoot calibration shots, unfortunately I had not done it this time as I did not plan for this first C41 film in RA4.  After this initial trial, I did shoot three more rolls of Fuji Pro400H and NPH in RA4 developer with calibration shots which I used to create a profile for this more systematic test (see Second Round below). I was pretty certain that with film calibration the results would be good, but what about standard C41 color conversion? Below I have taken the same framed scanned/converted it with Silverfast and Vuescan with different settings.

As you can see, the result varies. I think while none of the is impossible to adjust to satisfaction in Lightroom. I would select (C) or (D) as starting point. The skin tones look natural, there is some small cast that needs to be address but in general quite OK. (F) might look good at a first glance but is over saturated, even if saturation is brought back the skin tone does not look right, and  it also suffers some loss of shadow details.  (E) also suffers loss of shadow detail.

Interesting is that correcting (A) (the one with heavy magenta cast) is down to two corrections.  Just change the white point for blue and green in Lightroom and the cast is gone. A slight hint of magenta cast still can be spotted but many Fuji films have this characteristic.

 

                

It seems strange that Silverfast gets this wrong. According to the histogram there seems to be almost no samples in the top 15% of the range for the blue and green component. Maybe CD3 uses 15% smaller space for green and blue and Silverfast profiles are operating with some pre known knowledge in which range the color samples can be found?? (note I did not touch the "auto tolerance" which does improve the result somewhat)




There is a contradiction the sample material if you are looking for what CD3 (RA developer) instead of CD4 (C41 developer) does to the negative.
With Vuescan the most color accurate one (F) was converted with a C41 NPZ ICC film profile that I created in Vuescan based on a IT8 target in a Fuji NPZ frame from a previous roll developed in C41. It would lead one to believe that CD4 and CD3 produces the same result. However the worst color accuracy is (A) based on using the Fuji NPZ profile in Silverfast (w/o CCR). The result becomes better with CCR turned on, which is probably closer to the Vuescan autolevel feature does to the processing. My guess is that CD3 (RA4 developer) changes the dye components density, confusing the Software which part of the scan range for each color (RGB) to apply the curve to. When the start and end points are correctly located for each color the response (curve) remains similar between the two developers. What this experiment does not tell is if that start to end piece of the range is larger or smaller just that when the range is located the response curve is correct applied to that range. I have no experience trying to produce a print with photo paper in RA4 process so I cant tell if this matters for this.

decode key
SF = Silverfast
VS = Vuescan
SF NPZ C41 profile  = Standard Silverfast Fuji NPZ profile
VS NPZ C41 profile = Custom calibration profile for Fuji NPZ developed in C41 created in Vuescan based on a IT8 target. You will not have it unless you create it yourself.
Pro400H RA4 profile = Custom calibration profile for Fuji pro400H developed in CD3 (RA4 developer as this blog entry describes) created in Silverfast AI based on a QP203 target.
You will not have it in SF unless you create it yourself.
CCR = Color Cast Removal in Silverfast language
autolevel = one of the methods in Vuescan to manage white balance 
Generic = Generic profile for C41 film not brand to type related

Going indoors

In the mixed lighting, the CCR in Silverfast needs to be turned on to reduce the cast.
In my mind (I) is the best base to start from. 

Second round

Encouraged by the partial success I decided to tryout with some expired Fuji Pro400H that I exposed at EI200. Processing was done as described above. With some more attention to avoiding water marks this time and also adding calibration shots.

As a the template for the calibration I used the Fuji NPH profile in Silverfast AI and calibrated the grey scale patches on a QP203 card. I also added a IT8 target in the calibration shot to create a calibrated ICC profile in Vuescan.

This time there is no doubt (A) is the best starting point for further processing.

Final thoughts

Is it possible to develop film in CD3 (developer for RA4)? The answer is yes.
Will scanning software Vuescan/Silverfast be able to produce usable scans with the built-in profiles? The answer is yes, but autolevel/ccr or manual tweaking is needs to be applied.
For best results I have to admit custom calibrated profile's are needed.

Should I continue to develop C41 film in CD3 (RA4 developer)? This is not a clear cut. While it is possible to produce good end results, I am hesitating as it is sort of proprietary and require calibration to achieve high quality color results. What if one try to rescan w/o having the tools for calibration at a later stage? I am less concerned over the often claimed issue of going through a paper printing process due to different color response on the intermediate negative as I (or someone else) unlikely will ever do that with my shots.

PS

Working with all setting in Silverfast and Vuescan can produce better starting positions in Lightroom but I seldom do as a part of my work flow. Only with tricky negatives and slides I work more inside the scan tools, all other work I prefer doing in Lightroom as it is easier to experiment and change the mind.

Techie notes
All frames were scanned with a Microtek M1 using Silverfast AI Studio 6.6.
Vuescan converted images was first scanned with Silverfast in raw mode "48 bit HDR Color" as Lasersoft calls it. Output from Silverfast was set to Adobe RGB TIF files(all negfix profiles as based on Adobe RGB in Silverfast)

In Silverfast I applied each profile, I wanted to test, to the scan and used image auto adjust. No other changes in Silverfast. The Silverfast images are prefixed with SF.

In Vuescan I loaded the frame and used the generic film profile and did variations using autolevel/fluorescent (where applicable) and selected no film ICC vs IT8 calibrated film ICC profiles. Output profile was set to Adone RGB in TIF files.

I did manual exposure adjustments in Lightroom to make them look similar bright. 

The "contact sheets" were produced in Lightroom through the print to file function with SRGB output.