The image you see above is a cheap JCPenney Automatic Electronic Strobe flash unit powered by 2 NIMH AA batteries and attached to the Isolette 1 via the top cold shoe. For some reason it has a short cord coiled up under the flash with a plug that fits right into the lens of the Isolette. We fired it at 1/60 successfully using the settings listed on the back of the flash for distance and f-stop. The next photo shows the plug we are referring to. It also shows our sewn felt bellows cover that we use in the field. After fitting it to the camera we have had zero light leaks on shoots, even in broad daylight.

The following is a sample fired with the flash. ADOX CHS 100 Art pushed to ISO 200 at 1/60th fired with camera at F4,5 and around 12 feet. The focus is a bit off, but this is an example of the flash working.

Using the same shutter speed tests we used on the Polaroid J610, we came up with two different shutter speeds working on our Isolette 1.

25 and 50 on the dial = .016/.017 seconds or 1/60 of a second
200 or max on the dial = .004 seconds or 1/250 of a second

Upon doing research we discovered it is common for cameras of this age two have two separate mechanisms for high and low speeds, which would explain only having two speeds. We still have no idea why they would be so fast, but the solar cell doesn’t lie.

Another trick we have for you is how we cheaply and easily keep the shutter from sticking. Keep in mind it will still stick periodically, but all you have to do is give it a gentle push in the right direction and it fires fine. All we did was wrap a hair band around the that folds the bellows and lens out. What you’ll do then is cock the shutter and slip the band over. It should fire almost every time now. The top image shows the shutter ready to fire and the lower one shows it in the fired position.

We have a few more tricks (and some photos from recent shoots) in store, but are not entirely sure how or if the tricks will work at the moment. More to come as we explore a multitude options with this wonderful camera.

Click any photo you see in this post to view it in greater detail. You can click the back button on your web browser to return here.

In the above screen capture you can see where I’ve ftp’d into my server using the free FTP client Filezilla. Any of my clients with a Coppermine Gallery receive a username and password that dumps them directly into the Albums directory of their specific Coppermine install. This saves both time and confusion when adding multiple albums to your gallery. The folders you see on the right contain photos used in the gallery on the Vanessa ‘N’ Adam website.

Prepare some images that you want to put into your gallery and place them into folders like the ones highlighted in blue above. Upload them into the Albums directory (the directory the FTP dumps you into upon login for my clients). This may take some time depending upon the size of the images you upload. I often re-size images to 1600 pixels wide before uploading, but what size you use is totally up to you.

Login to the back end of your photo gallery through the login link. Once there you may have to enable admin mode, but it’s usually on by default. Click categories to edit your album categories. Here you can see I have Wedding, 2009, and 2010. You can create any categories or subcategories you want using the Update/Create category system. For example: you might have a Photos category with Digital and Film under it. Photos would be the Parent category in this case.

Right next to the Categories tab you’ll find the Albums tab. This is where you create and edit all of the Albums under your previously created categories.

To create a new album first select a category from the drop box, then click New. Select each New album and type a name into the box above at the bottom. You can select an album and use the arrows to move it’s position in the list. When you’re satisfied with the album names click Apply Modifications.

If you use the main menu to return to the albums, or navigate to the main gallery page, you should see your new albums listed. If they are under a sub-category then you may have to navigate inside that sub-category to see them.

Click the Batch add files button on the menu. You must be in Admin mode to see this. Click one of the new folders you added to the FTP earlier.

Hit OK to select the folder.

Select the Album you created earlier from the drop box. I try to create Albums with the same name as the folders I put onto the FTP just so I don’t get confused. You’re free to name them other things if you want to take a risk in having to delete a bunch of photos and start over. For clarification, when it says Put files of “Photographer Digital/” into Photographer Digital that means put the photos from the album on the FTP into the Album Photographer Digital on the website.

Click Insert selected files to start the process. If you have hidden files and folders visible on a Windows system you may have inadvertently uploaded Thumbs.db. There’s no need to worry about unchecking it, as it’s not a photo and will not be processed by the batch processor.

You should get a screen that looks similar to this one. As files are successfully added into your new album it will say OK under the Result tab.

If you’re uploading a lot of photos at once like I am your browser might time out a few times before finishing the task. If you no longer see waiting for ‘website address’ at the bottom of your browser window, or all of the files say click for details or to reload, OK, or PB, you may need to refresh the page. You’ll want to refresh the page and wait for all of the images to process. If you refresh and the page says PB next to every image then you’ve finished uploading everything successfully. For anyone reading this that isn’t my client you have to refresh many many times. Part of my setup is a mod that allows auto-refresh of the batch add process, so clients have to do less work to get photos up.

Click Album properties at the bottom of the page to edit information about your new album.

Here you can add a title, change the category, add a description, and change the thumbnail if you want a specific photo to show from the parent category. Now save what you’ve entered and click Edit files at the top.

This is where you can enter a title and description for each image in your Album. You can even change the album the photo is in if you change your mind. Keep in mind the description shouldn’t be too long, as it is shown when people open the album up. Click save at the bottom and go back to the Home page of your gallery to see your new photos.

Click on your album title to view the album (mine is Photographer Digital).

Opening the album up you can see thumbnails for your images as well as the title and description information you entered. Click on a photo with information.

The title and description are also below the enlarged photo. Guests can click the image itself to see a super sized version (again this is where sizing it down a bit might help, as they’ll be seeing the full sized image with watermark). Your image may or may not be watermarked. I install a mod onto all of my gallery installs that includes automatic watermarking on intermediate and full sized images.

I guess that wraps it up. Post any questions you might have.

Keep reading for a more detailed explanation and some clarification.

I believe the above image was cut off unintentionally, but I can’t seem to find my negatives to check. I seem to remember the actual negative being centered. Way to go Wal-mart photo lab.

The majority of digital camera lenses you will run across are not full frame. When I say they are not full frame I am talking about the area the light coming out of the back of the lens covers. This light only covers a portion of the 35mm film frame and you get a vignette effect as a result. You’ll also run into another issue since very few lenses designed for digital cameras have rings to control f-stop. That and many manufacturers changed their digital mounts to prevent you from switching lenses between cameras.

There are some ‘full frame’ digital cameras such as some of the newer Canon’s, but looking at specifications their ‘full frame’ is still shy of a 35mm frame. I would assume even using a full frame lens would still yield vignetting in most situations. That’s providing you could even mate the lens to your film body.

Film lenses on a digital body are another story entirely. I use a wide assortment of older k-mount and even M42 lenses on my K10D body. These lenses used on a digital body yield a sharper image than using it on 35mm (at least from my experiments). Since the frame is so much larger than your digital sensor you only use a smaller portion of the lens center. If you’ve done much research on lenses you’ll probably already know the center is the sharpest part of the lens. Discarding the sides (on my K10D) seems to produce a much sharper image.

Finally, I’ll mention an interesting side effect of using a 35mm lens on a digital. Depending on the crop factor of your body the lens length will change. My Pentax K10D has a crop factor of 1.5x, so any film lens I use is multiplied by that factor. The 50mm primes I love to use are actually 75mm (or 77mm according to the anti-shake system). This is great if you like to get closer, but not so great if you were planning on using a 35mm fisheye lens on your digital.