Category: Film
Guide to Developing Black and White Film with XTol Now Available!
Following up on the C-41 Flexicolor Guide, I’m pleased to announce that my guide to developing black and white film with XTol is now available here: https://www.kabbottphoto.com/developing-black-and-white-film-with-kodak-xtol/ Feel free to review and leave any comments! I hope that you find this useful.
New Mexico Gallery Added!

I am pleased to announce that I have put a gallery on this site showcasing recent film work done in New Mexico. The films represented are Kodak Tri-X, Kodak Ektar, and Kodak Portra 800. The images have been made on either 4×5 film or 120 film in a 6x6cm format.
Visiting Northern New Mexico again for the first time in six years was an excellent experience! We flew into Albuquerque, spent some time there, and then relocated to the little town of El Rito, New Mexico, to spend a week exploring the area. If you ever find yourself anywhere near El Rito, New Mexico, you should take the time to visit El Farolito Restaurant. Hands down, this is the best New Mexican food that I have ever eaten. We had planned to go out to Rancho de Chimayo (which is also good), but once we got a taste of El Farolito, canceled that plan and went back for a second night. Yes, it’s that good!
Locations photographed from this past trip that have made the New Mexico Gallery include:
- El Rito
- Petroglyph National Monument
- Santa Rosa de Lima de Abiquiu
- Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument
- San Francisco de Asis Mission
- Rio Grande Gorge
- Plaza Blanca
- Chimney Rock, Ghost Ranch
I hope that you enjoy looking through the images in this gallery!
Best of 2019

Culling down a selection of images for 2019 that represent the best has been a difficult task this time around. As such, there’s more here than I presented in the Best of 2018 post from last year.
All 3 formats that I shoot in are represented here, but with most of the work being made with the Minolta Autocord in the 6×6 format.
Having gotten to visit Northern New Mexico, Charleston, South Carolina, and the North Carolina Mountains and Coast this past year, there was a lot of material to go through. I hope you enjoy the images in this post!






















Appalachian Summer

Summer in the North Carolina Mountains can be a fascinating time. It usually gets muggy, the wildflowers are typically done, but the waterfalls have good flow and there is greenery everywhere.
This past summer, I had the opportunity to make some large format images in this region and wanted to share those here in that post:





First Shots with a Kodak Tourist

I recently purchased a Kodak Tourist camera at an antique shop largely because it was in excellent condition and I’ve always been interested in medium format folders.
The Kodak Tourist that I have is the version 1, which was manufactured between 1948 and 1951. The lens is a Kodak Angston 105mm f/4.5 lens in a Flash Kodamatic Shutter that goes from 1/10s to 1/200s and features a bulb and timer mode.

It’s a great camera that’s not too large (considering the size of the film), but it does bring with it some difficulties that other medium format cameras simply do not have. Specifically, here are those difficulties:
- Takes 620 film.
- No rangefinder or focusing aid.
- Heavy enough to require significant effort in not shaking the camera while shooting.
The first difficulty, takes 620 film (which is discontinued as a format), is actually not too difficult to overcome. You can purchase hand rolled 620 film directly from B&H or the Film Photography Project Store. 620 film is 120 film rolled onto a spool that is a little shorter and skinnier. As such, it’s not too hard to find, but it does cost a bit more than 120 film, even though they are the same film as you are paying for someone’s time and effort in re-rolling the film. Another option that you have is rolling 120 film onto 620 spools yourself. Once you get the 620 film, the camera takes 8 beautiful 6cm x 9cm images, which are in a 2×3 format, or the same aspect ratio of 35mm film.
The second difficulty, no rangefinder or focusing aid, is actually quite a difficulty. Because of the lack of anything to tell you how far objects are from your camera, you have to guess this yourself. Hyperfocal focusing becomes important here (where you set the focus ring to have infinity at the f/stop you desire to shoot at). On the Tourist, hyperfocal focusing at f/5.6 is 25ft to infinity, at f/8 about 18 ft to infinity, f/11 gets you 14 feet, f/16 gets you 9 feet, and f/22 gets you 7 feet. But what happens if you need to photograph something that’s 5 feet in front of you and due to light need to stop down to f/5.6? At this point, you can dial in 5 feet on the middle of the focus dial and you’ll have a small area less and slightly greater than 5 feet in focus. But what if you miscalculated the distance to your subject? There is a great chance at that point, the image will be out of focus and you are out of luck. You can see how this actually poses quite a difficulty.
The third difficulty is one that I encountered when learning to use a Minolta Autocord as well and it simply requires that you train your muscles to be able to hold the camera steady while tripping the shutter. I’ve done some work with this on the Tourist and think I’ll have better luck on my next outing.
To help address the second difficulty, I’ve purchased on eBay a Walz Rangefinder that fits into the cold shoe. If this device is in good working condition as advertised, I’ll be able to use the rangefinder to accurately measure the distance to the subject and then (as the rangefinder will be uncoupled) dial that in on the focus ring. It was difficult to find information on auxiliary rangefinders in 2019 as these days, most models are laser rangefinders. For a good source on vintage auxiliary rangefinders, please take a look at Mercury Camera’s Range Finder Roundup.
And now, as promised by the title, here are 3 shots from that first roll of 8 images on Kodak Tri-X (developed in XTol) through this camera:



Silberra Ultima 200

Silberra Ultima 200 is a panchromatic black and white film from Silberra in Russia. You can find more information on this film from their website at: https://silberra.com/films/silberra-ultima .
I picked up a roll of Ultima 200 and Pan 200 as rewards for backing them on their recent Indiegogo campaign and these shipped promptly. This was the only reward from the campaign that shipped promptly and all other rewards are supposedly still on the way. Such is the way with crowdfunding campaigns though.
I was excited to put this roll through my camera as I tend to really like medium speed (200 ISO) black and white film, with a special soft spot for Eastman XX (5222). When it came time to load the film in the tank though, I was shocked at how thin the film was. On the aforementioned page, they give you the actual number 0.06mm thick, but I glossed over that little detail. I had a very difficult time loading this roll and almost gave up on it. I developed it in Kodak XTol and was not disappointed at all. Even though I thought I had buckled this film in multiple places, there were no obvious issues with the developed negatives.
While I was loading that film, I was thinking about how to give away the Pan 200, but after seeing the results that I got with the Ultima 200, I think this film is well worth shooting, even as thin as it is.
Here are some of my results from an early evening of walking around Downtown Raleigh, North Carolina.