Back in 2020, during the pandemic, I learned about Mortimer (keirinberlin), who travels around the world on a fixed-gear bike, documenting his journey with a film camera. Some of his photos were taken on disposable cameras. Until then, I hadn’t realized that disposable cameras were still a thing.
I went to a drugstore and bought a Kodak disposable camera to give it a try. It was my first time shooting film. I was impressed by the prints I received, especially considering they came from a 10-euro camera with a plastic lens. Curious about analog photography, I started reading about different types of cameras and discovered rangefinders. Their compact size and unique focusing technique intrigued me. After some research, I purchased an Olympus 35RC on eBay. Unfortunately, it arrived with a smudge on the lens, but aside from that, it was in fully working condition. I shot a couple of rolls with it, but whenever the sun was bright, the smudge caused a dark spot on the photos. After unsuccessfully trying to clean it, I decided to order another camera—its big brother, the Olympus 35SP.
The eBay listing mentioned that the rangefinder of the camera needed some alignment. I found out that calibrating it should be relatively straightforward. It involves unscrewing a locking screw above the film rails, revealing another screw inside that adjusts the rangefinder’s alignment. To calibrate, you set the lens to infinity, point the focus patch at a distant object, and then turn the screw until the object appears aligned.
When I opened the back of the camera, I was met with an unpleasant surprise—the head of the blocking screw had been completely ruined by someone using the wrong screwdriver. Additionally, when I set the focusing ring to infinity, it went way beyond where it should have stopped. Despite these issues, the price was too good to give up on the camera, so I ordered a cheap little drill (rotary tool) with a set of tiny drill bits. Using it, I carefully drilled through the damaged screw, performed a precise alignment, and shot a test roll. Unfortunately, almost all of the photos turned out completely out of focus.
At this point, I realized that it wasn’t the rangefinder that was misaligned, but the lens itself. This issue was much harder to fix. I had to place masking tape inside the camera back where the film sits, then I displayed a target on a TV screen. Using the bulb mode I focused the lens on the target via the light projection on the masking tape and simultaneously aligned the rangefinder to the target using the screw. This way, the lens focus was coupled to the rangefinder focus. The second test roll came back perfectly sharp.
However, there was one problem: when I focused on infinity via the rangefinder, the focusing tab on the lens showed 5 meters, meaning the infinity mark on the tab was beyond the actual infinity. Additionally, the closest focusing distance of 0.85m on the tab corresponded to about 1.2m in real life. It wasn’t perfect, but I was already happy with the results. The F1.7 lens rendered photos beautifully, with a depth of field so shallow that I had never experienced before. Since the lens was not detachable, I expected that I would need to fully disassemble the camera to fix the focusing issue completely. I continued shooting with this focusing limitation until 2022 when I got the X-Pro 3 and mostly switched back to digital.
Not long before a trip to Paris in the spring of 2024, I ordered a couple of rolls of ILFORD Delta 400. By that time, good friends of mine had started developing black-and-white film at home and invited me to give it a try. I watched several videos on film development on YouTube but was nervous about ruining my Paris shots, which I had high expectations for. So, I decided to let the same old drugstore develop my film since it was the cheapest option that also provided prints.
I waited three weeks for my negatives to be processed—yes, the turnaround time for black-and-white film can be that slow. When I finally received them, I was extremely disappointed. The negatives were too bright and lacked contrast. Delta 400, a low-grain modern film, looked like an emulsion from 100 years ago. There were also numerous scratches that I had to spend hours cleaning. I regret it deeply! In those four years, I never had any issues with color film from them.
Despite the semi ruined negatives, after a two-year break, I enjoyed shooting with the Olympus 35SP so much that I wanted to have it professionally serviced to fix the focusing issue completely. I was prepared to pay between 100 and 150 euros for this service. Three repair shops in Berlin told me that they do not work on this particular camera.
While searching for a solution online, I came across an old Flickr thread from nearly two decades ago where someone had the exact same problem. From this thread, I learned that there are three tiny screws that hold the focus tab to the lens. I focused the rangefinder to infinity, loosened the screws, and the focus tab began to move freely without affecting the lens or rangefinder. I adjusted the tab to match infinity, tightened the screws, and voila— the infinity mark on the tab now aligned perfectly with the actual infinity on the rangefinder and lens! It took me only 10 minutes to do it.
That same day, I went outside to shoot a test roll of cheap Fomapan 100 to ensure that my camera was truly perfect now. I was so eager to see the results that I headed straight to Fotoimpex to pick up a starter kit for black-and-white film development. On the way back, I finished the roll with 36 shots of various random scenes. Since I had absolutely no attachment to these photos, I wasn’t afraid to potentially ruin them during the development process.
The kit included a Paterson tank, thermometer, measuring cylinder, jug, Rodinal, fixer, and wetting agent. At the time, I hadn’t done much research on developers. If I were to start again, I’d probably purchase everything separately and replace Rodinal with HC-110. The kit’s purpose is likely to provide a cost-effective way to try out a new hobby, and it fulfilled that purpose well. Besides the kit I got a film canister opener and a set of funnels. My negatives turned out amazingly, and it was truly magical when I opened the Patterson tank, spread out the negatives, and saw the images. I don’t remember the last time I was as happy as I was that day; it was almost euphoric.
During the summer, I read more about developers and various development techniques, experimented with different film stocks, switched to HC-110 for better results with faster film, and developed about 25 rolls. I believe this is just the beginning of the journey!