I'm getting ready for some fun with film. My dad generously lent me his Paterson Super System 4 developing tank and Western Model 100 bulk loader. I've got 7 or 8 rolls of film ready to develop, though I'll probably burn through a new roll to use as a tester since I've never actually developed film before. It seems like it'll be easy, but still...
I ordered the chemicals from Freestyle Photo in Hollywood. I've never ordered from them before, but after poking around on film forums the last couple of weeks I figured I'd check them out. They have a much more extensive collection of B&W film than the big NY stores. I added 5 rolls of Arista 400 B&W film ($1.99 a roll!) just for the hell of it — I really need to settle on one or two films I like, or I'll be developing one roll every time. The Paterson tank can hold 3. A lot of the forum jockeys are convinced that Arista 400 is really re-branded Tri-X. We'll see. If I like it, I'll buy 100 feet of it and fire up the bulk loader.
Canon's 10-22mm lens is a great option for APS-C cameras. I've got one for a few weeks and am having a great time with it. Naturally, 99% of my shots are at the wide end, like this one.
I've had a real bug lately to shoot black & white film. I plan to develop it myself & scan it. I've even gone so far as to purchase a vintage film camera and a scanner that can handle transparencies. I'm not abandoning digital, but film is really tugging at me lately. How can this be?
I already spent a lot of my time taking/processing/sharing photographs. I found a way to take a time-consuming hobby and make it even more time-consuming.
Part of the pull of film is the DIY aspect — I love that. Deconstructing the photograph is another thing to love. There's a real sense of satisfaction that comes from taking a decent photograph with a toy Holga camera or a pinhole lens I made out of tinfoil.
My wife & I just had a baby, so I'm taking tons of pictures — but now I'm spreading it around. I keep the AE-1 loaded with ASA 1600 film and leave it upstairs for indoor baby shots. The Ricoh 35 ZF has ASA 400 film in it for casual outdoor snapshots. The Holga stays loaded with ASA 100 film just so it's at the ready. My 40D still does most of the work, but I carry the Ricoh around now as my point-and-shoot.
There's a look and feel to film that cannot be recreated in digital. I can't put my finger on exactly why, but it's true. I'm not saying it's always better, just different.
Is the pull of film becoming a trend? I read Ken Rockwell's site regularly, and he's been on a Leica M7 trip all this year. David duChemin published a post recently on the topic. Is it a strange lunar year or something?
Virginia gets very little snow, so when some does come it's quite an event. Last night we got about 5 inches.
Here's Charlotte checking it out:
Later in the day, the sheet of snow starting melting on the metal roof at work:
ISO 6400 is achieved in the 40D by choosing ISO 3200 and -1 EV of exposure compensation, then pushing it a stop during RAW processing. Actually, ISO 3200 in the 40D is really ISO 1600 and -1 EV manipulated in firmware — it's why it says "H" instead of 3200. Anyhow, it worked out okay.
You can see some banding in the shadow areas in the shot above. Shadow areas were rendered poorly using this digital push process. I came away from this experiment believing that black-and-white conversion was the way to go.
The shot above shows banding, too, but it's sorta kinda useable. If you printed it fairly small it wouldn't be as noticeable. And as long as you stay away from the shadows, the 40D does pretty well considering it's being pushed two stops past its limit.
Sorry, it's not a funny clip like when Father Carlos Las Vegas de Cordoba shows Navin Johnson underground footage of cat juggling in Mexico (thanks, paranoid losers at NBC Universal for removing the clip from YouTube).
Nope, it's how I shoot my pictures lately. I've had this urge to shoot film recently, and I've been doing so with three cameras: a Holga 120N, Ricoh 35 ZF, and Canon AE-1. And, of course, the Canon 40D still does most of the work. But I carry the Ricoh around with me during the day in case anything interesting reveals itself. And I'll see something that screams "Holga shot" and go out the next day to shoot it. The AE-1 has a roll of ASA 1600 Fujipan B&W film in it now for indoor use.
The cameras tend to collect on my mantle, mostly out of convenience so I can grab whatever camera strikes my fancy (I often grab two). But today has proved to be a tipping point — I scored three EOS lenses to test out over the next month. So now the mantle looks like this:
Even I can't live amongst such clutter. It shall be cleaned up this evening.
I've been testing out various films lately, and I plan to do a post about their pros and cons as I see them sometime in the future — I need to acquire a scanner that can handle transparencies first.
I got the first few B&W rolls developed at Stubblefield's Photo Lab here in Charlottesville. They do great work, and I really thought their scans were great. Then I had a roll of Fuji Superia and Kodak 400CN (the C41 B&W film) developed at CVS 1-hour photo and scanned to a CD. Not so good. It looked like they had Mr. Magoo hammering on the sharpening control in the scanning software. They weren't even email-worthy, but at least I have the negatives. And sorry, Stubblefield's, I'll never stray again.
