Pushing Arista Premium (Kodak Tri-x) 400 to 1600

Posted on February 4, 2011 by totalmotard

One of my goals for my photography is to present a more objective image rather than a subjective image. To my mind, b&w photography does that for me. I also want to be able to shoot candids in low light without the use of flash. Film to my eye has many more subtle gradations between black and white than digital. It has the look I’m trying to capture. But iso 400 isn’t fast enough to allow me to do the photography that I want in low light.

So I’ve started on a mission to find the right combination of camera, film and developing to give me the results I want in a small, easy-to-carry package. And I think I have the right film and developer now. Here’s a shot of a couple of friends in a dimly-lit restaurant. I used my Nikon N80 and a 50mm f=1.8 AF-D lens loaded with Arista Premium 400 pushed to 1600.

Friends in a restaurant, photographed with Arista Premium 400 pushed to 1600

I developed the film in Kodak D-76 diluted 1+1 for 13:15 at 21 degrees. I’ve got good details, smooth gradations and the grain is under control. This is as dark as I would normally want to shoot and this combination has delivered the goods.

I love my N80, its compact, lightweight and has a ton of modern features that help me get the shots I want. I can select spot, matrix or center-weighted metering with my thumb without having to look away from the viewfinder. I can select any of 5 different focus points and the spot meter will meter off that point. In shooting candids in low light, a spot meter is your best bet because there are bound to be a lot of bright lights in the background trying to fool a meter.

Another great feature of the N80 is the 1/4000th shutter speed. Most of my old manual cameras have either a 1/500th or 1/1000th shutter speed. If I rate my film at 1600, that means I need to have at least a 1/2000th shutter speed to shoot that speed outdoors. The N80 gives me some flexibility to do just that.

I’ve started a gallery with sample shots of Arista Premium pushed to 1600, you can see all the shots here.

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Motorcycle Ice Racing

Posted on January 24, 2011 by totalmotard

Went to the ice races on Saturday and took my new (used) Mamiya NC1000. The Mamiya is a compact 35mm SLR. It is not much bigger than a Canon Canonet rangefinder. It fits easily in my jacket pocket. It also has very big, bright viewfinder. I find that this is the easiest manually focused camera to use. It has a diagonal split prism that makes it easy to focus off a horizontal or vertical line. I love the size of rangefinders, but I have a difficult time getting them focused. My eyes are too old. SLRs are usually too bulky to take everywhere, but this Mamiya is very compact and lightweight.

Not only was I shooting a new camera, but I was also shooting a new film, Arista Premium 400, which is supposed to be Kodak Tri-X 400 repackaged and sold much cheaper than Kodak. I bought it from Freestyle Photo for $2.20 a roll. I shot it at 1600 asa to see if I could replace the now discontinued Fuji Neopan 1600.

And not only was I shooting a new film with a new camera, I decided to develop the film myself. Holy Cow! Talk about lot’s of opportunities for failure. Anyway, I managed to stave off disaster and ended up with real images on my film. I was pretty pleased with the way they turned out. Very gritty and vintage looking.

Ice racing at Family Arena in St. Charles, MO

You can see all the pix here. I’ll have more on the Mamiya coming up.

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Canon Sure Shot Review

Posted on January 11, 2011 by totalmotard

I got this Canon Sure Shot in a box of cameras that I picked up for $25. I found 5 cameras out of the box that I’ve enjoyed shooting. This is a pretty good one. It is auto exposure and auto focus, just point and shoot. It is very similar to the Canon Sure Shot Tele that I’ve already looked at, but it’s an earlier model, so you have to advance and rewind the film with a button instead of it happening automatically. Also you have to set the asa film speed manually, which you will see is something of an advantage.

Canon Sure Shot

It has a fast, semi-wide 38mm 2.8 lens. The lens is fairly sharp, but nothing amazing. It uses 2 AA batteries, instead of the expensive 2CR5 that the Tele uses. It is also smaller and lighter than the Tele. It auto advances the film between shots and does it in a pretty noisy fashion. The asa goes from 50 to 400 in 3rd of a stop increments and then jumps up to 1000 asa instead of 800 like a lot of other cameras. The Tele set the asa automatically using DX encoding up to 1600 asa.

The cool thing about having a manually set asa is that you can cheat a bit with some film. I wanted to try some Fuji Neopan 1600, but I didn’t really like the Fuji at the box speed of 1600, I wanted to try it a little slower. So I loaded it into the Sure Shot and rated it at 1000. I was very pleased with the results. Shot at 1600, the Fuji Neopan is too contrasty and doesn’t have enough mid-tones for my taste. Shooting at 1000, it still has good contrast, but the mid-tones are much more apparent and the grain is nice and not overwhelming.

My muse in a dark restaurant

This combo gave me a point and shoot with pretty decent low-light capabilities. So good in fact, that I never tested the flash. Unfortunately, Fuji has discontinued the Neopan 1600 film, so I only have 5 rolls left in the freezer and then it’s gone. I’m going to try shooting some Tri-X at 1000 and 1600 to see if I can use it as a replacement.

I took it to a New Year’s Eve party and took some snaps without a flash. It did a great job. Well exposed and in focus, easy to use, just the thing for a party camera.

friends on the couch

thrilled

The Sure Shot is a great, inexpensive way to take some snap shots, even in low-light with right film.

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The true choice

Posted on January 10, 2011 by totalmotard

We must decide if we are to be a people who love the use of force, or who use the force of love.

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Why fool with film? Part II: Compact Cameras.

Posted on December 30, 2010 by totalmotard

Today’s cage match is between the Olympus XA and the Canon A1000IS, film vs. digital, looking for the best carry anywhere camera. My muse and I went to Paducah for a day trip and I took 2 cameras with me. The Olympus XA, the smallest film rangefinder, and a Canon A1000IS, a typical point and shoot compact digital camera.

Olympus XA and Canon A1000IS

As you can see, the little Oly is about the same size as the Canon Digital. Both fit easily into a pocket and can be carried with little effort. The Oly is a true rangefinder with manual focusing and aperture priority exposure. You set the aperture you desire and the camera figures out the shutter speed necessary for the shot and displays the information with a needle on the left side. The Canon is an auto everything model, no manual controls at all. You get what the camera thinks is the best shot. The Oly is equipped with a 35mm f2.8 non-zoom lens. The Canon with a 35-140mm f2.7-5.6 equivalent zoom. Without using the zoom, it is a very similarly spec’d lens to the Oly. In the interest of fairness, all pictures have been tweaked to look their best using contrast, saturation and sharpening. No extraordinary measures have been used.

The first round is a interior portrait of my muse while sitting in a little bbq place in downtown Paducah. First the digital:

Digital interior portrait

As you can see the portrait has a lot of detail and is very sharp. The lens has distorted her face a bit more than I would like, but that is because I was closer to her than with the Oly.

Now the film shot, I was using Kodak Gold 200:

Film interior portrait
See how the skin tone is much more flattering? There is much more depth and richness to the color overall. Also, see how much blurrier the background is? How it separates the subject and puts the focus on the subject? Compact digital cameras have a much smaller sensor, so there is a lot of depth of field and subject isolation is much harder to accomplish. Round 1 goes to the Oly and film.

Round 2 is a detail shot from a steam locomotive on display at the Paducah riverfront. First the digital:

Digital train detail

The Canon has done a good job, it has a 10 megapixel sensor and it has captured a lot of detail. Now the film:

Film train detail

I like the warmth of the color better, but the Oly and the Kodak Gold have not captured the same amount of detail as the Canon. I estimate the detail available from this combo to be close to a typical 6 megapixel camera. If you need detail, digital is the way to go. Round 2 goes to the Canon.

The final and deciding round is dynamic range. How much color can be captured in a high contrast situation. So this shot is a landscape shot of the train and the sky. First the digital:

Digital train and sky

The black train is predominant in the image and so the Canon has correctly exposed the train, but see what has happened to the sky? The sky has completely blown out to white, there’s no color there for me to try and save, it’s gone. Now the film:

Film train and sky

Really there is no comparison between the two, the film captures not only all the detail in the train, but also all the color in the sky. Round 3 definitely goes to the winner, the Olympus XA and Kodak Gold.

The winner

You can see all the shots here.

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Wide angle portraits

Posted on December 22, 2010 by totalmotard

The normal focal length for portraits is 75mm to 150mm. The reason for this is telephoto lenses compress the features of your subject and make noses and ears look more proportional. Your subject looks better, so you’re a better photographer. Believe me, most people will rate your photography by how good they look when you photograph them, not by any true aesthetic value. But you can use a wide angle lens for portraits, you just have to make sure you don’t get too close to your subject. The closer you get to your subject, the more exaggerated their features will become.

Also you don’t want to have things like hands or feet closer to the camera than the rest of them. That will make their hands look huge. As you can see in the portrait below, which was shot at 35mm, my muse’s hands run parallel to the focal plane of the camera, making them proportional.

wide angle portrait

Using a wide angle is a great way to show a person in the context of their life. Most photojournalists prefer wider angles to tell a story in context. The best focal length is 28 or 35mm. 24 is a bit wide and it begins to distort features. Here’s a 28mm below, you can see her face starting to lengthen in comparison to the above, but its still not too distracting.

28mm portrait

These were shot on my full frame D700, so if your shooting on a smaller frame DX or APC sensor you’d have to reduce the focal length appropriately.

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A day at the Arch

Posted on November 18, 2010 by totalmotard

The Arch is one of those things that locals never go to. I’ve lived here all my life and only been up in it a couple of times when company has been in town. It is one of the most photographed monuments in the world and so it is perfect for trying to see it differently and trying to avoid cliches.

My sweetie and I went down to the Arch for a photography expedition. I took my trusty Nikkormat FTn and 24 2.8 ais lens, loaded with Ilford Pan 50 film. In my pocket I had my new walk-about camera, an Olympus XA. Darn thing is so small and light, it fits in my pants pocket. I can take it anywhere and not even know it’s there. Ilford Pan 50 is a very slow B&W film, so the Olympus was loaded with Kodak Gold 200. It’s nice to be able to shoot b&w or color and the little Olympus is the perfect 2nd camera because of its size.

In trying to see the Arch differently, I tried to shoot it as if it was not the main focus, but this annoying thing getting in the way of the beautiful sky.

arch and sky

Perspective is important. I’ve set my lens right on the structure itself. The wide angle lens let me get everything in the shot and makes it look small. It is really difficult to convey the true size of this object. The tree in the shot below looks almost as tall as the Arch. That’s a false perspective, that’s one of the effects of a wide angle lens.

tree and arch

Of course, I still had to do a more traditional shot. I used a yellow filter to add contrast to the sky. We were fortunate to have some nice high clouds.

arch

You can see all the shots here.

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Fujifilm Velvia 50 Review

Posted on November 8, 2010 by totalmotard

Just got back some slides that I shot with Velvia 50 in my Nikon N80. I was shooting these at the same time as I was shooting Kodak Gold in my little Minolta, so it is a good chance to see the differences between these two films. First up is a shot of a lake in Lone Elk Park.

With Velvia 50:

lake shot with velvia 50

With Kodak Gold 200:

lake with kodak gold 200

As you can see, the color in the Velvia shot are much richer and vibrant. The Kodak is a more natural color, but it is a bit dull. Here’s another pair:

With Velvia 50:

hay barn with velvia 50

With Kodak Gold 200:

hay barn shot with kodak gold 200

The results are similar. The Kodak Gold is a bit duller and less vibrant. Velvia is 50 iso, so it very slow film. This allows me to do some shallow depth of field like this:

yellow leaves in velvia 50

log shot with velvia 50

The downside to this film is that it is very slow and so is not good for anything less that vibrant light. Also, it is very expensive, about $7 a 36 exposure roll from B&H photo. I just bought Kodak Gold on sale from Walgreens for $1.50 a roll of 24 exposures. Plus, my local lab charges $11 to develop a roll of slides versus $5 to develop a roll of print film.

If I’m going someplace where I know the colors will be great I will pony up the money for Velvia. Otherwise, I’ve got a lot of Kodak Gold around for general shooting.

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Scenes from parks

Posted on November 2, 2010 by totalmotard

St. Louis is blessed with many parks. There are lots of hiking trails ranging from paved bike paths to rugged wilderness hikes. My sweetie and I have been getting out and doing a bit of hiking the last few weekends. The great thing about photography is that you have to get out and see the world to photograph it. You can’t stay indoors by yourself and have something to shoot. You have to get out and find something. My sweet has joined me and even started carrying around the big D700 to shoot with. So here are some of our shots. You can see all the shots here.

lake at shaws nature reserve

doe a deer

lone elk at lone elk park

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Why fool with film?

Posted on October 29, 2010 by totalmotard

Last Wednesday night we went out with friends to a local brew pub, the Tap Room. I brought along the Nikon D700 fitted with a 50mm f=1.4 lens. This camera is an amazing light gathering device. Here’s a shot from that evening.

pub window

I took the shot with the D700 set in monochrome mode and a digital yellow filter applied. This is the jpeg straight out of camera. No photoshop, no adjustments, just dropped on the uploader. Look at the subtle, smooth gradation from dark to light, the rough, natural looking grain. It has a very similar look to Kodak Tri-X 400 iso film, except that this was shot at 10250 iso. The D700 fitted with this lens can capture light down to -1 Ev, yes, it can see in the dark. The D700 has a 5 stop advantage over film. You can see all the shots from that evening here.

So why do I still shoot film? Well the major reason is size. Yes, size does matter. Specifically the size of the camera, and the size of the image.

Big and little cameras

As you can see, the D700 is quite a bit bigger than the Minolta. It also is pretty heavy. The Minolta fits in my jacket pocket, the D700 does not. The Minolta uses a max of 400 iso film, with its 2.8 lens it is good to about 6 Ev, so the D700 has a 7 stop advantage over it. But the images are recorded on a full 35mm x 24mm. This means they have all subtle shading of light that I am looking for, little compact digital cameras record the light on a sensor that is only a couple of mms wide and tall. They lose a lot of light and so lose the subtle gradations. Here’s what I mean by subtle gradations from film:

rusty door

So until I find a compact digital that can produce the subtlety of film, I’ll keep shooting film when the light is good. When the light is bad, the D700 reigns supreme.

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