As Changeable As The Weather

Easy to make a commitment to shooting mostly black and white in the middle of a gray, Chicago winter. But then Spring arrives early and you begin to rethink all your plans . . .

"Too Early Magnolias" - March 2012, Chicago, IL (Panasonic GF-1, Lumix 20mm f/1.7)

Winter Pines

February 2012, Chicago, IL (Holga 120N, Ilford 3200, home developed and scanned)

So I got relatively caught up on the processing, scanning and editing of a bunch of photography that had been languishing away . . . and then promptly fell behind all over again. Not quite as much time on my hands in recent weeks as earlier this year, which is a good thing actually, but posting might get somewhat thinner. Will continue to put stuff up as as can - and will perhaps get around to finishing up some non-photography related posts that I have been kicking around for awhile.

Still loving doing my own black & white film developing. Lots more of that to come. Maybe a little Spring color as well.

OOF (Out of Focus Fridays) - "Mood Ring"

March 2012, Chicago, IL (Polaroid Land 250 camera, Fuji FP-100C film)

This is the window storefront portion of a local greenhouse. Image was taken on a very cold night, through the fogged window glass. I like this shot, even though I don't think it is actually a very "pleasing" image and I'm actually not sure it really "works." The colors, while technically warm tones, come across to me as a bit sickly and cold. And the forms of the plants in the window are completely unidentifiable as such. A fouled aquarium? Alien viscera? A generally poor photographic execution of a bad idea? Your call.

Secret Garden (More Kodak Ektar 100 Shots)

All images: 35mm Kodak Ektar 100, Canon Elan 7ne, Canon 17-40mm f/4L.
(October 2011, Benicia, California)

Okay, maybe not so secret. These are all images taken at K's parents' home. They have this wonderfully eclectic backyard that I always take time to photograph whenever I am there. It also was another great opportunity to do additional testing of the Kodak Ektar film. As I've mentioned previously, once you figure out how to scan it the results are really spectacular - bright, saturated colors and good contrast. As long as this film is available, I'm afraid my Velvia 50 slide film will not be seeing much love. Looking forward to trying out this film in medium format once Spring hits and there is a little color in the landscape again.

Film Test: Kodak Ektar 100 (The E-6 Killer?)

A somewhat atypical Ektar shot. Lots of light and little overexposure gives this a bit of a pastel look. The true colors of the scene were not nearly so vibrant, however.

Everyone was raving about Kodak's relatively new film, Ektar 100, so I had to give it a try myself. Kodak originally just released it in 35mm, but the film was so popular that they now carry it in 120 and large format, as well as 35mm. K and I were heading out to the Bay Area in California in October of last year for a marathon that she was running and to visit family, and I knew this would provide a perfect opportunity to test out the film. I bought five 36-exposure rolls of the stuff before the trip and shot all of them over the course of the week we were there.

Overall, I was really impressed with the film. As everyone else who as already been converted over to Ektar has already said, the film provides awesome color, extremely fine grain, is much more forgiving than slide film as to exposure and has a much wider exposure latitude than you will get with digital. It's not a perfect film - there is a little too much saturation for general purpose/snapshot photography for my taste, and it has nowhere near the exposure versatility that you would get with Kodak Portra 400 - but it appears to be a really spectacular film for landscape work.

With this film in their stable, and the generally niche market status of slide film these days, I don't think its any surprise that Kodak recently made the decision to discontinue the production of all consumer slide (E-6) films. While the film originally was only available in the "miniature" 35mm format, Kodak has really targeted this film to landscape photographers over the past year or so, and I have to think that the possibility of discontinuing the slide films was part of the impetus behind that push.

I am going to spread out the test shots over a few posts. The images in this post are all from a little park that is nearby to K's parents house, Benicia State Park. K went for a run and I hung out and played the part of the creepy guy in the bushes with a camera. Fun times.

If I was being more technical about my testing, I would have shot everything using a tripod and made several bracketing exposures for each image. If I really wanted to be technical, I would have shot the same scenes with one or two other films for direct comparison. I generally don't have the patience (or the wallet) for such testing, however, and this time was no exception. When I "test" a film, I just take it out shooting and see what I think when I look at the pictures. I generally use one company for all of my color film developing these days, and the rest of the post-processing is done by me, so I generally can expect any observed differences to be the result of the film and not some odd link in the processing chain. My impressions are highly subjective and not meant to be a technical review of the film. I know what I like for how I shoot, your mileage may vary.

All shots taken using fresh-dated, 35mm Kodak Ektar 100, shot at box speed with my Canon Elan 7ne and a 17-40mm f/4L lens. Metering was done using the camera's internal meter with some over/under exposure compensation, depending on the scene. Development was done by Dwayne's Photo. Scans were done by me, using an Epson V600 and Vuescan software with the infrared dust removal option set on "Light." Images were resized, along with some slight cropping and sharpening  using Adobe Lightroom 3.

The film really captured the warmness of the early-morning sun well and delivered great detail. I've gotten a bit spoiled by medium format, but even with 35mm in the full scan of this image, the branches are distinct and crisp (even handheld without a tripod).

Colors are nicely saturated, especially greens and reds. The film provides a good definition between close color tones as well, such as in this scene where the tan/yellow tones overlap each other.

Ektar loves red - the berries are bright and saturated, without losing detail or getting muddy as can happen with some other films, and which can be a huge problem with digital cameras.

Ektar also loves light - compare the color rendition here (where the main subject is mostly shaded) to the shot above (where the shade is offset by some reflected sunlight and a lot more light in the background). This shot shows a distinct color shift into the blues, which is fairly typical for shaded subjects shot on negative film. While the saturation of the red berries seems about the same, to my eye the green of the leaves is much less saturated than in the shot above.

Ektar handled this high contrast scene really well. The sun itself is blown out, which was expected, but the highlights on all the grass hold details and there is detail in even the deepest shadows.

Not sure what is going on in the upper right corner on this one, maybe a scanning artifact as it doesn't appear to be on the negative. Same subject as the first shot, above, but without the slight overall overexposure. Again, the film handles the flare and high contrast in this shot wonderfully. I'm not sure I was ever able to get this kind of performance out of slide film.

Some more test shots to come, but I think that this film could well become my go to color film for landscapes. It really does not seem to like caucasian skin tones, although I've seem a few photographers who seem to know the right voodoo to get good portrait results. I've still got some nice Velvia 50 and Provia 100 slide film in my freezer, but that may get relegated to use for cross processing. The Ektar really does deliver a very "slide-like" look - high contrast and saturation, with little to no visible grain - and is much easier to work with and more forgiving on exposure. From what I can see, you can still get pretty good results with shooting this a stop or two over and perhaps a stop under. Slide film gives you maybe a third to a half stop in either direction by comparison. Since almost all of my shooting these days is on older cameras, many without internal metering (or with unreliable metering), having that extra exposure latitude can be the difference between getting the shot and wasting film.

Alcatraz, November 2010 (Holga 120N, Kodak Tri-X 400)

Second pass at some of my early Holga shots. I had taken the Holga out for some test shooting, but when I took it on K and I's vacation to San Francisco in the last part of 2010 I was determined to really put it through its paces. Put about ten rolls of film through it, but did not get a lot of keepers as I still wasn't use to the quirks of shooting with the Holga. Alcatraz Island is pretty much a perfect setting for the Holga. Would love to go back there again and do some more shooting now that I have a better sense of how to work with this camera.

Rolling Stock

 June 2010, Chicago, Illinois (Canon 40D / 17-40mm f4.0 L / 1/250 @ f4)

Not much bicyling-relating posting of late. I don't even have a decent excuse, as it has been an unusually mild winter this year. Will have to shake the dust off of my bone shakers and get back on the bike soon.

Winter In The Bone

December 2011, Chicago, Illinois
(Agfa B-2 Cadet, Fomapan 400 120 film, home developed and scanned)

K said she would like to see this printed big - something along the line of several feet across. This does get cooler as it gets bigger, maybe one day when I'm fabulously wealthy.

Out Of Focus Fridays (OOFF) - Step Into My Parlour

October 2011, Benecia, California (Canon Elan 7ne, Kodak Ektar 100, 17-40mm f/4.0)

So a dear, old friend (or is that an old, dear friend at this point), tells me that she "wants to go with me" on these out of focus experiments, but they make her head hurt. This one is for her: a little slice of focus on the right side of the spiderweb will give her eye something to rest on, and hopefully keep her little head from aching too bad.

Morning Herald

October 2011, Benecia, California (Canon Elan 7ne, 17-40mm f/4.0, Kodak Ektar 100 film)

An angel figurine in one of K's parents spare bedrooms. The statue can actually look quite creepy at night, but I loved the way the lace curtains diffused the morning light coming through the window for this shot. To get the statue to be more than just a silhouette, I had to use a very slow shutter speed. No tripod, just bracing my back against the side of the bed as I squatted down to get the angle.

Quite impressed with the Ektar 100 film, although it was a little tricky to get the film to scan correctly. Will probably do a longer write-up on the film later, but short version seems to be that it is a really nice color negative film that gives almost slide-like results, but with a lot more exposure forgiveness. Not a perfect film - does a horrible job rendering skin tones for white people - but damn good, nonetheless.

North Side Space Port

Holga 120 WPC, Kodak T-Max 400, Home developed and scanned
November 2011, Chicago, Illinois

One of the CTA elevated train stations near our apartment. Shot with another one of my plastic cameras: the Holga Wide Pinhole Camera, which takes 120 film and gives you a 6cm x 12cm size negative. Never done much with pinholes before, but I like what I am getting with this camera. More coming soon.

Out Of Focus Fridays (OOFF) - "Into The Woods"

September 2010, Chicago, Illinois (Polaroid Land 250, expired Polaroid 669 film)

Rudder In The Grass

(Kodak Tri-X 400, Holga 120n, home developed)

Happy Everything

"Happy Everything" (December 2011, Chicago)
Ilford Delta 3200, Holga 120n, home developed in Ilford DD-X

OOFF (Out Of Focus Fridays) - "Night Moves"

November 2010, San Francisco, California (Canon Rebel XTi, 18-200mm, 1600 ISO)

First Snow of 2012 (Con't) - Rosehill Cemetery

January 2012, Panasonic GF-1, 20mm f/1.7, 400 ISO, f/8.0 @ 1/500
Black & white conversion in Lightroom 3

A few more shots from the only decent snowfall we have had yet this season. These are from the Rosehill Cemetery here in Chicago. This is great, huge older cemetery a little north of where I live. You will often see other photographers there, but the morning of these shots it was just me and the groundskeepers, who were busy plowing the numerous roads that wind through the cemetery grounds.

January 2012, Panasonic GF-1, 20mm f/1.7, 400 ISO, f/8.0 @ 1/320
Black & white conversion in Lightroom 3

January 2012, Panasonic GF-1, 20mm f/1.7, 400 ISO, f/8.0 @ 1/500
Black & white conversion in Lightroom 3

January 2012, Panasonic GF-1, 20mm f/1.7, 400 ISO, f/8.0 @ 1/250
Black & white conversion in Lightroom 3

First (And Last?) Real Snow of 2012

January 2012, Panasonic GF-1, 20mm f/1.7, 400 ISO, f/8.0 @ 1/20

Middle of last month we had the first snow of the New Year, and what will perhaps turn out to be the only real snow of the 2012 Winter. Chicago has been having extremely mild weather this year. The usual sub-20s temperatures and snows that require you to dig your car out the next day have yet to materialize. I don't mind the milder temperatures and certainly don't mind not having to excavate a couple feet of snow just to have a parking space, but at least snow gives the otherwise dead and gray landscape some visual interest. Without the occasional snowfall, the Midwest landscape can get pretty bleak between December and March.

January 2012, Panasonic GF-1, 20mm f/1.7, 400 ISO, f/8.0 @ 1/20

January 2012, Panasonic GF-1, 20mm f/1.7, 400 ISO, f/8.0 @ 1/15

Food Motivated

This is Rudder waiting for a treat at the September 2011 8K/5K run/walk event for the local no-kill pet shelter, PAWS. They put on the event every year, and this is the second year that Rudder, K and I have participated. Always fun to see all the other dogs and all the money raised goes towards PAWS and other pet-related charities. 

Still a little behind on dealing with the last of the 2011 film images, but am (slowly) catching up. 

Cross-processed Kodak EB-2 (expired), Canon A-1, 50mm f/1.8
Rudder Waiting For Treats @ PAWS "Run For Their Lives", September 2011, Chicago, Illinois

Fuji 400H Film With The Holga

I would like to like Fuji Pro 400H more than I do, as it would be nice to have an alternative to Kodak Portra 400. Jury is still out, generally, but it doesn't work that well with my Holga. The Fuji film appears to be rated at least a stop faster than it really is - meaning that it really needs to be overexposed to get decent colors and negative thickness. Since the Holga only has two aperture settings (at best) and one shutter speed, you either need to get just the right lighting conditions, or you need a fairly forgiving film. Black & white films tend to have a lot more exposure latitude, so you can get decent exposures under much more varied lighting conditions than with color negative film. Kodak Portra 400 also has a lot of exposure latitude, although not as much as the better black & whites. I've had very good luck with the Holga using Portra. However, given Kodak's recent troubles, and its apparent attitude toward us "backward" film shooters, having an alternative would be both helpful and prudent. Unfortunately, it looks like the Fuji isn't going to be it.

"Eventide" (Roscoe Village, Chicago, October 2011)
Holga 120n, Fuji Pro 400H
I like this shot, even though it is strongly underexposed, as I think the underexposure helps create a mysterious and evocative mood.

"A Little Light Is So Religious" (Roscoe Village, Chicago, October 2011)
Holga 120n, Fuji Pro 400H
This shot shows a much better exposure, resulting from the more direct light on the steeple and the bright sky.

OOFF (Out of Focus Fridays) - Squinting At The Bergoff

(Cross-processed Kodak EB-2 (expired), Canon A-1, 50mm f/1.8)
September 2011, Chicago, Illinois