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.
Driveway dragons are again prowling the pavement. They started appearing this month, and the last week or two they have been arguing about territory. These two bruisers were squabbling back and forth across the driveway, the dark male doing a lot of displays. The pasty yellow one is pretty brave, enough I can get closer than my lens will even focus, though I think the bruiser still has a bit of an advantage.
They were both displaying pretty heavily. I got no video of the blue belly and beard display because he runs around so much and is still skittish. I did get a breathing display from the pasty bellied one. I’ll add video of that when the you tubes is done processing it.
Yeah, yeah, I know it’s shaky. But it’s handheld at 500mm, so it’s not that bad, considering. Behold:
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.
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.
This will be a big picture dump. Mostly so I can share with a friend. I’ve shot some more film, and some of it on 135. I’m using an F6, which should be far more foolproof than my Fuji. And just about any film camera ever made, for that matter. My goal in getting it was to do experiments like bracketing exposure that are expensive in medium format, or taking more dynamic shots that are kind of difficult with a 12 pound beast on a tripod. The camera writes exif data, so I can work faster and match up exposure data when the scans come back.
The F6 I just set the exposure compensation up 2/3 of a stop. The Ektar I shot with the 680 I fudged up to the next stop
My first two rolls were Kodak. First Portra 400, then Ektar. I wasn’t completely happy with what came back. While technically correct, even shots taken using Program Auto were still a little dark, the Ektar was kind of red with lost details in the shadows, and the Portra seems a little grainy.
That second reminded me of something. I have a new method based on what I read on someone’s site — I don’t even remember where I read it — but the writer said that he was shooting portra up 2/3 of a stop if it was meant to be scanned. Like, he’d shoot Portra 160 at iso 100, but not push the film at all. So the most recent roll of Portra 400 I ran through the F6 I just set the exposure compensation up 2/3 of a stop. The Ektar I shot with the 680 I fudged up to the next stop, since that camera only works in whole stops. When I bracketed, I wanted to see the exp on the dark shot and a + with the angry beeping on the light shot. In fact, I’m not convinced that for anything with more than 4 stops of range, if I don’t get the overexposed warning I might consider another shot at one stop longer exposure time.
I’m happier with what I got back this time. Both the medium format Ektar and the Portra 400 in the F6. If I stumble across that website again I’ll have to drop a thanks to the author for that suggestion, assuming it wasn’t written 15 years ago.
Enough writing. Here are some photos.
Portra 400 from the first roll in the F6:
And the first roll of Ektar. The bird and surfer shots are all hand held, so while the pelican is a little soft and underexposed, getting sharp enough to see him taking a shit at 500mm, offhand, with no monopod or tripod, I am going to count as a win.
I needed some magic from the photo shops to bring up the shadows in the photos along the bluffs, and they’re very red. Strangely, pointing straight into the sun works better, the sunset shots are almost exactly what came back from the lab.
For contrast, here are a few shots from my third roll in the F6. For most of this roll I had the camera set with +2/3 exposure compensation. And, yes, they’re very random. I had no goal in mind other than burning a roll of film to see if the exposure compensation worked.
More exposure seems to mean less grain there. Important with the higher speed film, and it’s pretty hard to blow a highlight with these negative films, so I’ll fudge up from now on.
Here’s the roll of Ektar. I was playing with filters as well as bracketing. Even 1.3 stops over exposed (from the meter reading) I like it better than shooting at what the meter tells me.
This next gallery wasn’t here when I originally posted as I didn’t get the film back until after I made the post. But nobody reads this blog so I’ll add it here to make for an easy reference since it’s the same scenes.
Portra 800, shot at the same time as the Ektar above. I metered at 640, then fudged up, so everything would be at least a quarter stop over, but as much as a stop and a third over. Most of these shots the camera was beeping and flashing +, so it thought I was overexposed. The first three have very little editing, the bottom two I pulled the highlights back, but they were more than 5 and 6 EV over the reeds. The fact that I was able to compress the dynamic range enough to get it all printable means I’m on the right track with my shoot 2/3 stop over method.
There was a substantial swell over the weekend. Head high waves with way bigger in some sets. It seemed like every surfer in Southern California was trying to get a piece of it. I knew the tide was high at 1PM, so I headed down a little after, and as I was driving down the coast highway there were absolute rocking monsters throwing spray off of every jetty.
Except, the tide was lower than I expected. Because high tide was two hours before. I looked at the tide tables, saw 11, and my pea brain registered 1. Dammit!
Oh well. Stopped at the first open spot, which was next to the cold water jetty, so I climbed out on the rocks until I was almost getting sprayed by the bigger waves and started playing with the gear.
I first used the time to work out my video tripod with the 300-500 lens. Alas, I took 30-40 minutes getting set up, learning how to make the tripod move properly, then learning how to make the VR1 on the camera work properly for what I was trying to do. By the time I got around to still photos the tide had ebbed too far and the waves were significantly smaller and choppier, losing their grandeur. They had so much power when I first arrived, it was disappointing to not get them a their largest.2 That’s what I get for misreading my tide chart. I still enjoyed the afternoon very much.
The surf, and the linup:
North of the Jetty. Before I sorted it I was using too slow a shutter speed and having focus issues. I later bumped the ISO and changed focus to wide area S and continuous and got much sharper results. Here’s the first burst I tried:
There was a guy on a standup catching some monsters north of the Jetty, and when I was first there a couple of folks were making the right as well as the left. But by the time I was done futzing with gear everything was farther north, left, and running behind the north jetty rocks.
South of the jetty was into the sun, so the light wasn’t as good. And the waves there weren’t as steep and were getting smaller as the tide ebbed. But it was less crowded and there were a few pretty good surfers there trying to avoid the mobs to the north and at Terramar.
Basically, I shoulda got there earlier. Next time I’ll have my camera set up right, and I have the tripod tuned now, so taking video will go more smoothly as well, if I feel the desire. Another swell mid week and over the weekend, with higher tides later in the day, so maybe I’ll get to try again.
I ended the day over the lagoon watching the sunset. Since I had the ginormous lens on, I gave it a go. Nothing extra special here, just playing with exposures.
1. Vibration Reductions. Nikon’s brand of in-lens image stabilization.
Note to self: For video go with Internal Stabilization OFF, lens VR ON, Sport mode. This seems to smooth out the minor jumblies, but doesn’t introduce weird artifacts or cause strange lags when trying to pan the camera.
We had an Exmas visitor today. This is a Red Shouldered Hawk. They’re smaller than the Red Tailed Hawks we normally see around here, though they feed on the same things.
Unfortunately, I was standing in the street taking these pictures and a car came just as he saw some pray and swooped off the perch, so I didn’t get it. And I mean just as it happened. The car came up beside me, I stepped aside, looked up and he was swooping down after something in the neighbor’s yard. So I didn’t get the money shot, but it’s still a handsome bird.
The Black Phoebe was out again, trying to roust the mockingbird who has taken residence in the berry bush. He’d land on the wire and cheep cheep cheep loudly, then the mockingbird would hop on the fence above the berry bush and scare him off.
I have noticed the male mockingbird has picked up finch sounds, as well. Except not the sound of a finch, he makes the sound of a bunch of them arguing and chattering at each other. Makes it harder for me to locate the actual finches, which I pretty much do by ear.
I was also able to catch this hummeringbird feeding off the cactus flowers and then resting on the wire above. I’ve been trying to get one feeding in the wild for a long time, so I am happy I was able to get a reasonable shot.
And targets of opportunity, a female house finch posing on the wire after the hummingbird left, and some bees in flight.
House finch, Mockingbird, Black Phoebe — which, in addition to being a bird sounds like a good song title. I should take pictures of this dude to put on the album cover.
And from last night when it was cloudy, another mockingbird shot. This one has been following that black phoebe around and and now emulates it’s call perfectly.
Bees were swarming around the cactus flowers in the front yard. I got a wild hair to try and catch one in flight, but I had scant success. Wrong lens, and it was very late in the evening so the light didn’t last long enough for me to run inside and grab one more appropriate.
I did get to delete 300 photographs and only keep 8 or 10 though. So I have that going for me, which is nice.
I got two static photos that I like, though. One of a bee, one of a ladybug. And the neighbors staring at me like I was strange for standing in a bee swarm with my camera 8 inches from the cactus is a good trade for two OK shots.
