Category: Film

Different Film Stocks

The Moose on

I spent some time in December gathering film in abundance in an attempt to get a full view of the 120 negative landscape. This began with blurry pictures of surfers and the thought that a faster film might buy me a couple of stops to get sharper waves and moving things. Maybe the significantly larger negatives might mitigate some of the grain issues I remember from my 35mm film days a quarter century back and I don’t always need the very finest grain, regardless.

There really aren’t a lot of options these days. From what I have seen of pictures on the internets posted by fellow photographic luddites, each film has its own qualities. And what most intrigues me is that Portra 400 and Portra 800 seem to be different than the Portra 160 I have already tried. The only film stock I didn’t much care for in the samples I’ve perused was the Fuji 400H, which seems even worse with shadows than the Kodak offerings I’ve tried, but I have been interested in the Fuji Pro 160NS. It isn’t imported to the US market, but a few people seem to be getting cases and reselling them on ebay. Luckily, I found one seller right here in town and got a 5 pack from him.

So, my experimental films:

  1. Ektar 100
  2. Portra 160
  3. Portra 400
  4. Portra 800
  5. Fuji Pro 160 NS

Alas, I only have two backs, so I wasn’t able to really do apples to apples with all of them. And film and processing is so damned expensive I am not going to waste film on nothing but experiments, so I just kept a different film in each back and when I had time and the light looked interesting I went out to shoot.

For apples to apples, I got Ektar and Portra 160

Portra 800 and Ektar

Portra 400 and Fuji Pro 160NS

When I say Apples to Apples, the Portra 400 and Fuji are a little farther off than the other two. Both were loaded in the field as I ran out other stock and the images were captured more than a few minutes apart, so it was a little darker when the Fuji was shot. But the other comparisons were back to back1 and as close to the same exposure as I can get.

I uploaded a couple of shots super large. All I did was make them 90% jpeg so the file size is manageable, no color correction or sharpening. The idea was is get an idea of just how grainy the films are. Right click and view image for the monster sized version.

Portra 800 — fast enough the birds are sharp
Fuji Pro 160NS
Portra 400
Ektar 100

I have my favorites so far. Not going to say which ones, or why, but I have an idea now of what I might try in different situations. And I know the 800 is definitely grainier, and noticeably so, but not to the point of distraction. I might have to try to get some surfers after all.

I have been editing the crap out of some of these scans just to see what I can get. And have been experimenting with filters, though my filter holder is too small for the 50mm lens. I have to hold a filter in front of the camera while opening the shutter, and then hope the scan doesn’t come back with my fingers in the frame. My 100mm lens has relatively petite 82mm filter threads, so I have experimented there with success, but the wider lenses are 95mm and 112mm threads.

This isn’t the real problem, though. The real issue I had with many of these exposures is a byproduct of how reflective the water is near the reeds in the Bataquitos lagoon. There, the sky was only a stop or a stop and a half above the reflections in the water, but my reverse GNDs are 2 or 3 stop, and my hard GNDs are 2 and 2.5 stops.

In this case, if I want to get the reeds in the middle exposed with any detail the sky is 4 stops up and the water is 2.5 stops up. Using a 1 or 2 stop soft GND the border darkened the reeds and not the water in front of them. Using a hard GND at 2 stops brought the sky down to the same or even below the water. I tried using a soft 1 stop flipped upside down, which worked great to tame the sky, but that’s a cheap Formatt Hitech filter and it has a magenta cast so the sky ends up redder than the water. Every solution is suboptimal.

I need to ruminate on this, but it seems like a 1 stop hard or medium might come in handy. Or I could stop being an idiot2 and trying to tame an overly contrasty scene. I’ve been reticent to get one because 130mm filters are stupid expensive, but I could still hold a cheaper 100mm with my fingers, and I could use it with my 100mm holder on the tiny little baby Nikon cameras that only have 77mm threads as well.

Enough ruminating. I’m just going to post edited images now by film type.

Fuji Pro 160NS

Portra 400

Portra 800

Portra 160

Ektar 100

The first Ektar shot shows the value of a real holder, an easy horizon, and an appropriate filter. There’s 2.5 stops of reverse GND on that sunset and the clouds in the other shot (not posted) that don’t have the filter lack detail while the foreground is very dark. That’s an 8 second exposure a bit after the sun was down and I exposed for the grey bridge support on the shady side. Those cacti are a darned good substitute for middle grey and they were down maybe 1/2 of a stop as I have learned to fudge up, not down, when shooting Ektar. The others were just frustrating, either the sky was too bright, too dark, or had a magenta shift from that crappy filter and all the post editing to get the exposure balanced top to bottom doesn’t make the reflections the same color as the sky.

I took some digital shots while I was at these sites as well. I’ve posted the ones from the late sunset over the bridge, but I don’t think I shared the ones from the bird sanctuary. Taken after the film was gone as the sky just didn’t want to give up.

1. Literally. I took a photograph, swapped on a different film back, adjusted to get as close as possible to the same exposure, then took the other photograph. I can’t always get perfect exposure parity as ISO 160 is only 2/3 of a stop faster than 100 while the camera only adjusts in whole stops.

2. We all know that’s not going to happen.

Snapshots on Ektar

The Moose on

100 speed is too slow for surfers. At least during the winter sunset. I’ve got some Portra 400 and 800 coming, and I’ll likely try the same shots again if I get another day like this.

I also took a hard to meter shot into the sun. Portra is a little nicer on highlights, but Ektar does have some pretty significant dynamic range. I was able to pull some detail out of the jetty, which is well underexposed, and it doesn’t have the greenish tint the underexposed Portra gets.

What I really need is a big enough filter holder for these ginormous lenses so I don’t have to hold a GND with my free hand, hoping not to get a thumb or finger in the frame, to get the bright sky tamed.

Some more film

The Moose on

Just a few shots I took looking for challenging metering. I pretty much lost half of each roll doing this, but I think I am learning some. Taken over the course of a week in Early December. I’ll just leave them here without further comment.

Film Tests

The Moose on

I have been burning through some film stock, trying to see what’s what in negative film. The recent tests have been on Portra 160, Ektar, and PanF 50.

I originally thought to just try one black and white and one color film, and chose Ektar and Ilford XP2 to start with. The Ilford was chosen at random as a 400 speed black and white that has been around forever, so I figured it was a standard. The Ektar because I saw some great landscape images on the website of a photographer I like1. Both are reputed to be forgiving, so I got a box of each.

But I ended up with a large variety before I even shot my first frame. The gentleman I bought the camera from said he’d toss in a “couple rolls of film to get me started,” which I thought was awesome. But his definition of “couple” was quite expansive. He actually gave me a two boxes of Portra 160 as well as a bunch of Ilford black and white including PanF 50, Delta 100, and Delta 3200. Quite a variety!

Ektar is supposedly the more saturated negative film, and I’d thought to do some saturated landscapes when I decided to try film. The first rolls I shot that came out showed that it is, in fact, super saturated. Enough that skin tones get a little ruddy and golden sunlight gets a touch of red in it. The roll I got back today, however, was shot into a sunset with wild colors reflecting on calm water and it was beautiful.

This shot was the last frame of Ektar I had — I took three shots, the other two as lovely but I like the ducks in this one. I shot Portra before this for comparison, and was about ready to pack up and head back to the truck, but this was a sunset that never wanted to give up and a few minutes after I ran out of Ektar every cloud lit up an amazing pink, and even the ones overhead were reflected on the still water in front of me, so I slapped on the back with Portra 160 and gave it a go.

In all cases I knew the reeds in the middle were going to go black. The sky and the water only had a stop or two difference, but the reeds were several stops down, so I metered for the water and let the sky take care of itself. From what I’ve sussed about these films, you can go down a stop or two then it gets noisy, then black. You can go up way more and the highlights won’t run out of information even if they’re four stops over.

Well, the Portra definitely fits that bill. It’s amazeballs, and even the reeds in the foreground, which are down two stops, show the weird pink glow everything had in real life. The second shot is a four or eight second exposure3 and I can’t tell you how happy I am it came out like this.

Another roll of Portra had some night shots I’d done the week after Thanksgiving, including shots of Baba. The less saturated colors are even more pleasing than the slightly over-the-top Ektar shot of the same scene, and the dynamic range is beyond impressive.

Baba Coffee — shot on Portra 160
Baba Coffee — shot on Ektar 100

The same shot in Ektar is also lovely, but I’m a fan of the Portra. The colors are spot on, and the dynamic range is even better than the Ektar, which already handles the lit sign better than digital by far. Note how much more influence the streetlamp has on the color cast on Ektar as well, coming up a little green, but also note how much extra blue it adds to the sign and the umbrellas.

Even though I metered the same way, the Portra shot might be slightly more exposed. It is 160 speed film, compared to Ektar’s 100 speed, and having come only a few minutes later in the evening I’m guessing it wasn’t a whole stop darker even though I corrected up a full stop, but the highlights are still beautifully handled. The information in the dark areas is lovely, too, and you can tell the building above is a deep ruddy brown.

As for the PanF 50, I don’t know what to make of it. Every single image I took the camera barked at me4, even when I thought I was doubling the meter reading. I’ve learned two things here, first that PanF has a lot of reciprocity failure and needs quite a bit more than the meter says, and second, that the Fuji really doesn’t measure well at ASA50 so sometimes you just have to let it beep at you and tell it to suck your balls. Both of these shots were called underexposed and, though not exactly perfect, were not so dark I’d expect them to be more than two stops down.

I also took some experimental artsy5 shots of some bridge pilings where I had deep shadows and brightly lit concrete. All three had the camera beeping and flashing lights like a pissed off R2D2, yet I’m not convinced that they are too dark. The darkest one is underexposed, sure. But at very least least the brightest one has to be within two stops of adequate, regardless of the disapproving minus sign.

That said, I printed out a reciprocity chart for Ilford films and tossed a copy in each of my camera and gear bags. 50 speed film is slow even in full daylight, and the failure on these black and whites is way more than I realized. 4 seconds on the meter translates to over 7 seconds in the real world, and it gets worse from there so this stuff isn’t just meter for the shadows. It’s meter for the shadows then double it.

This was a fun bunch of data. Not in the least because I am still very uncertain about how to meter for a lot of situations and having a few frames come back nice, not just recoverable, is quite a relief.

The next batch will be both better and worse. I tried some crazy long exposures, which I’m almost certain won’t be good but will give me data on how far off my assumptions are. And I shot some tonight that included a spectacular sky and some pretty reasonable subjects, so I’m confident the incident metering in conjunction with Portra’s dynamic range should give me a usable shot or two.

1. alexburkephoto.com — I don’t know the cat, he just posts beautiful landscapes and explains things like metering and filters in a way that I find very easy to understand.

2. After carefully exposing several shots, bracketing the meter, and recording my settings for test purposes, I pulled this roll out of the camera and dropped it, at which point it sprung open and ruined the whole roll. I now keep a rubber band in my pocket to put on exposed film and keep it from unrolling, just in case.

3. It was very dark and I had put my notepad away already, so I don’t remember exactly. Which is foolish, as the whole reason for this was to test film and practice exposure in challenging conditions.

4. Being state of the art in 1997, this camera does metering through the lens. But only while you’re taking the picture, not before hand. If it doesn’t think it got enough light, or got too much light, during your exposure it will beep annoyingly and flash all the LCD screens in a fit of disapproval. Strangely, it makes it extra satisfying when it doesn’t beep and the “EXP” is shown on the screen instead of the flashing lights and a + or – sign showing that you over or underexposed that last shot.

5. This just means they’re crap shots. But if you act like they’re great art filled with hidden meaning and anyone who doesn’t understand them just doesn’t get it, maybe you’re avant-garde.

Film Samples

The Moose on

I got some rolls back from the developer today. I had tried a few things in black and white using Ilford Delta 100 and Ilford XP2. I also did two rolls of color, Ektar 100 and Portra 160, to compare them. But, alas, I pulled the roll of Portra 160 out in the field to swap in a new roll and the worst confluence of events happened.

120, I have learned1, is not a cartrdige film like 135. It comes on a plastic spool and you wind it up on a second plastic spool. When you are done the second plastic spool holds the film and you just swap the spool that came with the last roll into the takeup spot for the next roll of film. Normally, the exposed 120 film gets sort of sealed closed when the roll is finished up. There is an adhesive leader that is just enough to keep it on the reel and tight. But this roll of Portra didn’t seal up for some reason and, of all the times to be clumsy, I chose THIS roll to drop. I watched it spring open and wipe out all the carefully exposed images I’d taken the previous week. Dammit. At least I got some shots from Ektar roll to look at.

Delta 100 is pretty much a standard, fine grain, decent contrast, forgiving range. I was given two rolls by the gentleman who sold me the camera and since they had the closest expiration date I started there. I am very pleased with what I got out of them and will certainly use this film again.

The XP2 is weird. It’s a 400 speed film and, though it’s black and white, it is processed with C-41 like color film. I was looking for a 400 speed when I bought it, and didn’t realize it was weird like that. I guess that is a benefit in some places, as it can be developed by any lab, but the folks I’m using charge the same for B&W as color, so really quality is quality. Grain is different than Delta 100, but it is supposed to be contrasty and saturated and still has good latitude.

The Ektar 100 makes very saturated, colorful images for a negative film. It still has more latitude than something like Velvia, where you’ll blow highlights completely more than a couple stops over, so I thought I’d try it for landscapes and sunsets. I’ve had mixed results there, but at least some success with my most recent roll. And I have learned that they aren’t kidding when they say saturated. It pops color and paints skin a bit red.

The Portra 160 is supposed to be fine grained and have much more honest colors. Good for portraits and skin tones, etc. Like I’d know. The first roll I shot I threw on the ground. I’ll have to report back after the next roll is done. Maybe I can convince Doug to stand in the sun again so I can get a portrait to compare as well.

I started with Delta. You remember my first film picture from the earlier post:

Very pleased with the qualities of even my marginal first attempts, I loaded a second roll and took some portraits of Doug and Bootsie. Then I spent a little time wandering the village on Tuesday night when it was reasonably barren so I could get some more difficult subjects.

Here are the portraits:

Nothing wrong with those other than my marginal skills at focusing. Plenty of detail in the shadows, excellent grain. Easy peasy. Here are the night shots, which tested the film much more, mostly because I was having trouble deciding how to meter in the dark2.

For Spin Record, I chose to meter the Spin sign as medium grey. It’s a yellow lettering on a brick wall, and that wall is way darker than medium grey. Probably should have gone at least one stop down, maybe two even, so I could get more detail inside the store and not blow out the Open sign. But it did hold a lot of detail in those highlights, even 4 stops over.

The Baba shot was better metered. I shot everything and decided it was all within a reasonable range, so I just metered to the tree leaves above the lights in the upper right. I got plenty of detail everywhere.

The spin photo, not so good. But I know how to do it better. The Baba photo, however, is stellar. Even in the dark where there’s no blue hour sky to make that corner interesting, I really like this photo. Especially the We’re Open sign, which gives it a very Clerks vibe.

For the XP2, I shot some at the lagoon. Most of the shots are of well lit reeds, which are beautiful in person but kind of boring as a photograph. The contrast is good, detail is good, grain is just fine for 400 speed. I did try a hard one, just to see the dynamic range, taking pictures through a shaded tree of an extremely bright background. It was able to handle four stops without too much trouble.

The sky isn’t blown out. It was just ridiculously clear that day. Like you could see forever clear.

I also shot these with Ektar (And with portra, which I then ruined) and was surprised at how much range Ektar had. Also with how ridiculously saturated it is.

For reference, those reeds are golden. Here are digital images from that day that are closer to the real color of the lagoon. The one through the tree is HDR and kind of sucks… I don’t like HDR. But it is presented here as a comparison so you can see how much Ektar pops the reds and greens.

Portraits of Doug and the dog definitely show how extremely saturated Ektar comes out.

The greens are rich and lush, and the colors of his shirt and vest really come through, but his skin is a bit ruddier than in real life. Good to know for future film choices.

I took a shot of Baba two nights ago. This was one week after the black and white one above, and taken during the blue hour as they were preparing to close up.

I took a digital shot about fifteen minutes later, and the Ektar is as saturated as the processed digital, but also has nicer highlights.

I have no idea what I did to get the color shift in the sign. I have auto white balance going on, so most these colors are probably more real to life, but I had to dial back the highlights in the digital image quite a bit to get those lamps in gamut and doing so maybe I pulled some of the blue out. It is a wonderful image, full of detail, that I’m very proud of, but the highlight range on that film is really cool. Even with the green tint from the streetlamp and the exaggerated reds, I dig it. The lamps in the restaurant just pop, and yet nothing is blown out on the sign or the white wall. The more I look at the film image the more I like it, so I intend to mat it and give it to the owners of the shop.3

1. Really, I just learned this two weeks ago. Don’t take my word on anything film related. It takes at least three or four weeks to become an expert on things like this.

2. This is mostly hubris. A wise man would shoot a few rolls in the daylight of a simple subject that could be metered by holding the Seikonic in the air and doing whatever it said. Dealing with new gear, in the dark, and trying to spot meter was too much to do at my skill level.

3. Again, hubris. But I don’t have a place for tons of prints so I pretend people care and give them away. Most people act like it’s a big deal, and I don’t have to watch when they toss it in a drawer and never look at it again so my heart still swells with pride.

Shooting On Film

The Moose on

Or… How I lost my mind and decided to do things in a way that’s harder, slower, and takes significantly more effort for modest results.1

So, yeah. I bought a film camera. Not too bad a thing, right? Considering I have a metric crapload2 of extremely high quality Nikon lenses that will work extremely well on an old body I could either dig up my old FM or just snag an N90 off the fleabay for $40, scrape all the gooey rubber stuff off, and be good to go. I could even splurge a little and get an old F, which is one of the cameras I learned on. My middle school art teacher had an F photomic he’d let me use, though the classroom camera I used most was a Pentax K series, which also holds a place in my heart. But that giant silly pentaprism on the F photomics strikes me as one of the Japanesest looking things in 1970s photography and I love it to this day.

Even an F4 would be a relative bargain, and would scratch the nostalgia itch because it was the camera I wanted back in the days I was shooting regularly with my FM and 4004. In fact, the F4 is about as modern as I would need at a fraction of an F6 price, and would pair beautifully with several of my lenses. Even an F5 is less than half the price of a used F6 and might be the best built camera Nikon ever made. So many great 35mm options.

Definitely the wise choice for me would be an F4 or F5 to use modern lens features, or an older F series if I don’t mind manual focus (which I don’t). Small investment, big reward there.

In case you’re not getting the hint, this camera is big. It’s like a Flintstones camera, everything strangely oversized and extremely mechanical compared to modern digital

Having carefully thought through the best course of action, definitely being a late model Nikon, I bought a medium format camera. And not an old RB67, an absolutely ridiculous Fuji GX680IIIs. 6×8 negatives, switchable and rotatable film backs (to shoot portrait without having to move the camera), autowind, hot shoe, and all of the other bells and whistles that were absolutely state of the art for medium format in the mid ’90s. A far different ecosystem than the 35mm I grew up in, and of course completely incompatible with everything else I use — including my filters, alas. More on that later.

A local man was selling a very complete kit with a pair of film backs, half a dozen lenses, and various other accoutrements, all in reasonable working order and good for local pickup. I could theoretically get shooting right away and not have to further accoutre this beast. So I struck the deal and we made arrangements for me to pick it up last weekend.

When I got there it was even better than he promised. He made sure everything had batteries (the film backs have separate batteries from the body, so they will hold their meta information when separated) and all was in good working order, and had more accessories than I expected or really think I’ll use, including a Polaroid back, extended rails for macro work, and the remote, which I really like for zero shake shutter release on landscapes. He was even kind enough to throw in a bunch of fresh Ilford Delta and Portra160, to which I added a box of Ektar100 because I have read is very saturated which might make for interesting landscapes.

He also supplied me with a substantial tripod at a reasonable price, something I had not yet located, but decided I needed before even paying for the camera. My Manfrotto’s legs are up to the task but the ballhead is pressed to its limits with the the 200-500 lens, ftz, and Z6, all of which add up to about 8lbs. In Manfrotto’s defense, the only time I really have problems is with the lens fully extended and at angles, like when shooting the moon, which really unbalances things. Still, I didn’t want to push it with the Fuji. The Bogen I bought from this kind gentleman has a video head on it that’s rock solid. Probably too much, in fact, as the tripod weighs as much as the camera. But, again, it is safe and usable. I can find a slightly more portable solution later. For now, I will just stay near enough to the car that I don’t mind the 12 pounds of tripod.

In case you’re not getting the hint, this camera is big. It’s like a Flintstones camera, everything strangely oversized and extremely mechanical compared to modern digital, or even 35mm of the same era. I got the S version, which is the “lightweight” jobber without tilt and rise controls on the lens, so mine’s only 8.5lbs with a smaller lens. The III (non-S) is half a pound heavier, though it has rise and tilt controls you only see on large format. If I was shooting architectural I might have held out for a bargain on that version out of Japan, but my original idea for medium format revolved around landscape and portraiture, where this should shine.

When I mention mechanical, I mean in the sense of 1990s Japanese industrial design, where everything is remarkably solid. The film motors sound resolute and powerful as they wind. The mirror raises with a resounding thunk and even the shutter itself — leaf shutters that are made by Seiko and built into the lenses — is loud. So loud I would never use this camera for wildlife. At least not up close wildlife that I was not wanting to disturb. But it’s not an old fashioned, all manual camera. It was pretty state of the art in terms of 1990s medium format, in fact.

Of course, there’s no internal metering like on a modern 35mm. Actually, that’s not true, there is internal metering, but only while the exposure is happening so the thing will beep angrily at you after the shot if you are over or underexposed by 2 stops.3 But otherwise you get to pull out the Seikonic and deal with that hideous UI to figure out what exposure settings you need.

So, my first image, taken in lovely black and white to make it super artsy-fartsy awesome, was of my tiny little baby camera.

The aspect ratio is 4:3, with the negatives being 6×8. For perspective my cellphone camera is 6.5cm wide, so the negative is almost as wide as the phone screen. In the photo above you see what looks like the end cap of a 5″ artillery shell that the camera is sitting in. That’s the lens cap for the 50mm. It must weigh almost a pound by itself.

The 50mm lens, which takes beautiful photos and has a field of view slightly wider than my 24mm on the z6, is just monstrous.4 Alas, it has 112mm filter threads, which means I can’t use the 100mm filter holder I use with the z6 as most of my Fuji lenses are 95mm or 112mm threads.

Most of the black and white roll I shot that day came out OK, but I underexposed most of the color roll. A combination of having trouble setting and reading my light meter — which I think I have since beaten into submission — and thinking digitally. I can pull detail up from too dark in digital, but with both Ektar (color) and this Ilford Delta black and white film it seems best to use the old-school method of metering the shadows and letting the highlights take care of themselves.

The first color photo I took, underxposed, was of the Z6 and the powerplant below. The light was wishy washy at that moment and I should have just blown the sky out. The second shot of surfers and rocks was also underexposed, and I could easily have added a stop to get detail from the jetty, which was positively glowing in real life, and still had plenty of detail in the sky. For contrast, I added some that I took properly exposed of Doug and that little asshole dog. Between the underexposed early attempts, and the mundane pose (poor Doug had no warning, hadn’t shaven or dressed or put on his best ball cap, but I was in need of a subject) these don’t qualify as artsy. Doug calls the dog “Stinky” instead of his given name “Bootsie” so I’m thinking they qualify as fartsy, though.

On the surfer picture, I shot the rocks with a spot meter to make sure I didn’t blow the highlights and it came up a stop below the incident reading and what the Nikon was saying, the sky and reflections spot metered a couple stops above. I fudged down, as I would with digital, and it was all too dark. Too dark also means more grain, and less detail with Ektar. I am having to learn what is a good match for medium grey and those rocks are way lighter. Frankly, I shouldn’t bother with the spot at all if I’m not stretching more than five stops. The sun lighting me is the same distance away from the rocks and the surfers, I can just trust the incident. But I learn by doing so matching anything I can point the meter at with the incident reading should, in theory, eventually teach me what is a midtone and what isn’t.

For the portraits I just believed the incident meter and, for fun, shot all kinds of stuff in the scene with the spot. The green plants are a good substitute for middle grey, and the browns come up close. The shadow of Doug’s face under his hat was within a stop or two of those readings, too and the film had plenty of dynamic range to handle it and not lose detail.

And it looks pretty good when actually, you know, properly exposed. Ektar really does have saturated colors for a negative film, all you have to do is get enough light on it. Who would have guessed it?

For reference, here’s the surf scene properly exposed.

Properly exposed — taken with the Z6 at the same time as the film shot above

As a silly art project I recreated the first film shot, except in reverse. Using the Fuji as the subject and shooting with the Z6. It’s wearing the 100mm, which is the physically smallest lens in the whole kit, and sitting on the lens cap from the Nikon 24-70 I’m using to take the images. The size difference is palpable.

I’ll post more later about the camera, and maybe some more pictures if I can get any good ones. It takes a long time to get good images with this thing. In terms of setting up, I guess, but especially in terms of the number of days between taking a shot and actually being able to see the results. And if you drop a roll you just pulled out of the camera and it springs open you lose all the shots you carefully composed over the last two days and have to try again.5 But I plan on a roll of film (9 shots) per week minimum until I learn how not to ruin 8 shots per roll. We’ll see if my artsy to fartsy ratio improves in 2021.

1. This should be read in your best Jay Ward voice.

2. Variously Crappeloade or Imperial crapload equal to 1.1023 of a normal crapload

3. I’ve worked with people like that. They won’t give you help up front. Just have you do all the work then tell you you’re wrong after. Those are the best kinds of bosses!

4. Yeah, yeah, that’s what she said.

5. Don’t ask me how I know this.