Trying to get pictures of trains today. I dragged the Fuji out, with the goal of practicing with the tilt to get flowers in the foreground and a 1/30 shutter speed on Velvia to get a slightly blurred train in the background with sharp surroundings. It all sounds like a lot of work for two frames, and it is, but I also caught a freight train that I didn’t realize was coming, so I climbed out onto a rock in the lagoon to get a perspective that’s hard to nab with the giant camera.
There was a nice lady on a paddleboard in the water just to my right who was chatting with me while I was climbing down the rocks. She caught my attention as I was hiking out and told me she hoped the pics come out — she had counted the cars on the train and everything. Nice to know someone was pulling for me.
The setup, I was looking for flowers in the foreground:
The train tracks run across a bridge. I took one less florid train shot from the trail, but the best digital shots were from along the lagoon, or perched on a rock a couple feet out into the water.
And, since I have nowhere else to put them, here are some random pics from along the trail, and a couple from Terramar that I took over the weekend. I had the Z6 set up for landscape, but the reflections on the water were so amazing I really wished I had the long lens to get some shots of the egrets. Another day.
135 is a special challenge to me. The grain is enough that it bothers me in a lot of situations. I found the Portra 400 tests I did unsatisfying, even though I really like the film in 120. But shooting 6×8 negatives gives me a lot more resolution, so I decided to give up on high speed (for the moment — I have a roll of cinestill 800 in the camera now) and try Portra 160.
All Kodak film is 2/3 of a stop slower than advertised. At least this is my rule
All Kodak film is 2/3 of a stop slower than advertised. At least this is my rule now, and since I’ve been following it I’ve been getting much better scans and more consistent results. In the F6 I just shoot +0.7, regardless. Medium format I set the meter for 100 instead of 160. To expand that rule, I shoot Kodak negatives +2/3 of a stop over, and always miss high. I find I can over expose a full stop from the box speed and the scan is still better than shooting at the speed published.
Since I’m bringing it up, I have experimented with Fuji, as well. Pro 160 NS I shoot exactly at box speed. If I miss, I can go down 1/3, or up 2/3, so I tend to miss high. Fuji slides are also exactly box speed. But don’t miss. At all. Velvia’s lovely, but exposure latitude is narrow.
Enough jibber jabber. Here are some samples, all just taken around town over a couple weekends. I am happy with the grain, and the not over saturated (like Ektar) colors. It’s not fast, but Portra works well enough in 135 for my tastes.
More shots from that card I left in the Z6 for a month. These were taken March 2nd and the rocks have now been completely covered by the dredging work going on in the lagoon, so it’ll be different next time I go there with a camera. Nothing interesting in a clear blue sky, so I spent time playing with reflections. Kind of wish I’d hauled the ND filters along so I could stop it down and get some long exposures of the water flowing around those rocks, but I was traveling light so I just went for the reflections.
Really nothing special here, but I bothered to pull them into the photo shops so I might as well share with the four people who have ever looked at this page.
I haven’t been using the digital much. I still take shots on occasion, but haven’t the patience to actually pull them into the photo editing software and upload them and all that. But this weekend on a walk I saw a graffito at a park where I occasionally take photos and play with dogs, so I went back the next day with the Z6 and did some studies on composition. Specifically Steelyard, which has been my composition study of choice the last few weeks. In these images there are three steelyards each: picnic tables, trash cans, and trees. Composition studies are a good use of digital, you can a bunch of perspectives quickly, and I kind of liked the angles on a couple of these. Plus, the irony of a nearly idyllic vista with that hidden message tickled me so I finally dug into what was on that memory card. I also got the dredge photos off the card — another steelyard study — and some random shots of other fun stuff.
First, those steelyards:
I also found some photos I took as the storms were blowing through a while back, the first set while taking slides of the dredge in Agua Hedionda, and the second set while braving an approaching storm. As you can see, I was definitely facing the wrong way for the storm clouds as to the east they were an otherworldly pink and purple, but my subject facing south never quite went off. The pelicans still made for a fun picture of the powerplant, though.
This one should be a direct comparison to the Ektar and Velvia shots, it was taken at the same time in the same light, using the same 1 stop GND filter — I actually took this then snatched the filter out of the holder and held it in front of the film camera. Thus one is using a 20mm lens, so slightly wider than the 50mm on the GX680, so I cropped it to be about the same perspective. In fact, I’m going to try the comparison tool, before is Z6, after is Velvia, and then I’ll put all of them in a gallery so you can see the Ektar too.
The Ektar shot below was with an 80mm lens, so that’s not a crop. Pretty sure I shot it, put the filter on the digital and let it fire on the timer (I have ten frames of this on the card) while I swapped a fresh roll of Velvia in the other film back, then shot the Vevia. I have a shot at 80mm and this at 50mm, which Is my favorite. It was the last one taken before the light subsided, and that was the perfect moment. It didn’t last more than 30 seconds before the sun went behind another cloud, and the light before was nice, but still a little subdued. The Ektar and Digital aren’t in as good a light, for certain. The difference two minutes makes.1
It amazes me how much both of the film types hype the magenta cast from that cheap ass formatt-hitech RGND filter. Also how vibrant they are, especially the slides. When editing the digital I kept thinking “I’m comparing this to film” so I didn’t hype the colors or anything, then when comparing it directly to the slides it feels like I could have boosted the vibrance all the way and never gotten close. I’d go back and play with the white balance, make it vivid, and all that, but I think I mentioned I don’t have the patience for that shit. If you want a print I’ll make you one of the Velvia shot. I ran a proof last week and it’s spectacular.
I also discovered some ladybugs I’d taken pictures of. There’s a bunch more on the card, but I’m bored of photo editing, so here’s a ladybug and I’ll call it a night.
Shots of the dredging in Agua Hedionda and afternoon at the park on Buena Vista. Can’t believe I didn’t notice the dredging barge had moved so far while I was swapping out film and I cut off the flagpole. Dammit! Someone was chatting with me while I was working and I wasn’t paying enough attention. I now know that she has a Mamiya and took photography classes in the 90s, and that I should recompose my damned shot when I look away from the scene for more than a few minutes.
Last week, during the sunny weather, I shot a roll of Velvia. It was just after the Provia, but I didn’t finish the roll until yesterday, so I didn’t get the chance to develop it until now. While doing some of the shots I had Ekar in the other back so I could get a direct comparison. Have I mentioned how much I love slides? Like love love them. I like looking at them on a light table with a loupe, they have a quality even these scans can’t reproduce. The sharpness, the saturation, the colors cool and vibrant, they’re a totally different animal than the negative films.
Slides aren’t for everything. The Kodak films have way more exposure latitude, for example. I shot two frames of sleeping tiger each with Provia and Ektar, one frame about 1/3 stop over the incident light, the next one stop up from that. The Ektar scans might as well be the same, you can color correct them in software to be identical and nothing is lost. The Provia that’s 1 stop over has washed out color and the sky color is just plain gone.
Velvia is the same, and the shadows go black extremely quickly, so you had best plan on that. And 50 speed is mighty slow. Shots of the cooling pond have what looks like grey clouds, but they aren’t clouds. They are pelicans. Even in full daylight, if you’re looking for extra depth of field you’re going to hold the shutter open way longer than any Portra. Even the extra stop of Provia and Ektar is appreciated. The trade off is almost no grain, and saturation that is more real than real.
Enough yammering. Here are the photos. Sleeping Tiger, the cooling pond, and the tree were all taken back to back for direct comparisons. The Velvia shot of the dredge was taken before the sun started to pop on the powerplant, so even though it’s only a couple minutes before the Ektar, it is not a direct comparison. The light just got better over the course of 5-10 minutes before dying off completely. I might have gotten a better shot in the good light on the next roll. The Ektar is using 1 stop GND on the sky, but pretty much straight out of the camera, so I’m really hoping I got something as nice on the next roll of slides.
The same week as the previous post I took some shots with the GX680 using some Fuji films. This week I got a roll of Fujipro 160NS negatives and Provia 100F slides processed. The first scan had one a little wonky and I asked to get it rescanned, but they did all of both rolls a second time. I actually think they came out better the second time, and I don’t know why. Something to consider going forward, I guess.
I’ll just dump a few samples here. Look at the file names to see what film they were taken on.
I don’t mean to make too many conclusions just yet, but first impressions are that I LOVE Provia 100F. It isn’t over the top extra like the Velvia 50, which I also love, and the extra stop of speed is welcome. It’s not posted here, but I took a shot of sleeping tiger up one stop and it is very washed out with an ugly color shift, so Provia doesn’t have any better exposure lattitude than Velvia, but I expected that. The negatives are nice, too. I wasn’t sure the first time I tried 160NS, but it’s kind of growing on me. I’ll post more samples of it later.
And this afternoon I made the mistake of not going out with the camera. It was raining and DARK grey so I stayed at work, but minutes before the sunset the clouds cleared out. The sky was spectacular, I could have killed the roll of Velvia I am dying to get developed but still has 3 frames to go.
I did catch some shots of a rainbow that ran from end to end and was as intense as I’ve ever seen. I actually ran inside to grab my 20mm because I couldn’t get both ends in frame at 24mm, but it was dying out by then. Still fun, I go three or four years at a time not seeing one, and almost never as intense as this.
This is a roll of Ektar. Like the previous Portra 400, it’s just snapshots from around town, taken during my evening walks. The dredging photos are all unique, I was experimenting with hyperfocal distance and framing on those. The duplicate shots on the seawall are just cropped to see what 8×10 vs 8×12 looked like.
I was using a Nikkor 28-105 AF-D lens, which I got for dirt cheap. It’s a walking around lens, not the highest of all quality. It’s much more prone to lens flare, and it’s not quite as sharp, as my 28mm prime. Yet it’s sharp enough, and from 35mm up not distorted. In fact, it’s a good bit lower distortion than the newer zooms that replaced it.
If I’m shooting only landscape at 28mm, I can grab that lens. but for random street shots, I’m sure not complaining much about something that only cost me $85. It’s truly a bang for the buck bargain.
Velvia is the standard for landscape photography. Or at least it was when I was taking pictures on film in the ’90s. I seldom used it as much of my photography was out the window of a glider and the combination of low speed and dynamic range made shooting slides a fraught endeavor. But since I’m always on a tripod these days, why not try?
Well, I’ll tell you why not. Medium format is expensive. It’ll cost me $4 a shot for film, develop, and scan, so I practiced with more forgiving negative film stock before I tried the slide film. Velvia is 50 speed, has significantly less exposure latitude than negative film and digital, and is prone to reciprocity failure on longer exposure shots. You have to nail the exposure, and either have a lower contrast scene or be fine with certain shadows going pure black or highlights pure white.
I have two backs for the GX680, so I loaded one with Velvia, the other with Portra 400 (it was in the back already, else I would have shot Ektar as my comparison negative stock) and went to the village for some experiments.
First, here are the scans straight up. Minimal editing makes a better comparison. Note, the liquor store I took from the middle of the street, so I was running into the street, snapping the shot, then scurrying out of the way of the cars, so the unedited scans needed a little rotation and composition hygiene.
And edited comparisons below. Note, these are minimal edits, just a touch of optimization and a little rotation and cropping for the most part on the liquor store. It was a perfect scene for this test being well lit with a variety of interesting colors, and shows how much warmer Portra is, as well as how much the blues and greens pop on Velvia. The Village Kitchen and Pie Shoppe with extra Ps and Es to make it fancy I chose for the opposite reason, the light was washed out and there were some shadows and bright clouds so I could see the dynamic range. This isn’t the raw scan, I pulled the sky back about 1/4 to 1/3 of a stop in editing to see what there was to be found in those highlights, and it has a little dynamic contrast boost, too. You can see the sky is blown out on the Velvia in the lower right corner where there’s detail to be pulled out on the Portra.
I don’t have any direct comparisons from later in the day. Instead I was just trying much more challenging shots. The clouds turned a crazy pink and red after the sun set and, though I understand that Velvia is not a high contrast film, I tried some high contrast shots. The blacks are black. I mean, there’s NOTHING to be pulled up there. But I was shooting for the sky and the highlights, so I expected that. These long exposure shots really show the weirdness of Velvia. The sky was blue and pink, and it did hint toward purple, though the Velvia just made everything… extra. A digital shot of the same scene is below to compare to the Velvia version.
I am also including a few other shots I got back. The sunsets and pictures of the Village are from a roll of Ektar I ran through the F6. I am shooting most everything up 2/3 of a stop and the scans seem to come back better. I’m also pretty darned happy with the sunset scenes, considering how contrasty the exposures are. You can definitely see the grain with the tiny little baby negatives, but it’s not distracting in these shots.
The train was with the GX680. I’d lost the light so the bush wasn’t as bright as it had been, but I like the composition. I converted it to black and white because, if I like B&W, then the composition feels good to me. The last image is a from the same roll of Portra 400, and I liked it so I thought I might as well share.
So… Velvia. It’s something. I’ll have to shoot more of it, maybe find some other fun colors. And if in town, I should bring the 100mm or 135mm so I don’t have to stand in the street to take a picture. I love that 50mm lens for landscapes, the view is expansive, but it’s about the equivalent of a 22mm lens on digital as far as field of view. I could definitely use more reach for a walking around lens.
These are just snapshots I took with the Z6 while experimenting with the medium format camera. Was waiting for the sunset to turn colors, and the dogs I was playing with went home, so I had time to kill. Since I had the digital, I might as well put it to use.
