We went to a great concert last night by an accordion duo (one of whom also plays piano and sings) who call themselves les Pitons épistolaires, probably because they worked out all their arrangements via email, as he lives in France and she lives in Québec. It was their first time playing together in public and I hope it won't be their last. I knew the café was poorly lit (based on previous experience taking digital photos there) but I wanted to try shooting film anyway; I brought my Nikon FM3a with 85/1.4 Ai-S lens and some T-Max P3200. I should have pushed the film one stop but managed to get some usable photos at box speed. Here's one.
This is Oscar, a home grown feral from my back yard who adopted us as a kitten, and moved inside. Black cats are also called "voids", and focusing in low light on extremely fine hair is a challenge for some of my cameras. However, the N90S doesn't seem to hunt much. This one was shot at 1/15 - f1.4 with the 85mm f1.4 Nikkor af-d on UFX-400 - It's soft due to motion. I tried the grain reduction recipe - even though UFX has fine grain, and it does inhibit the development process. I need to look at the grain under a microscope and compare to a previous roll before making any conclusions. It looks a bit thin ( I had to guess for the time), but looks good to me
Latest Holga harvest, with Fomapan 400; for the last two I used a fog filter over the lens.
These are even more low-fi than usual; I developed the roll in my old Kodakcraft tank, which isn't great for agitation (can't invert it and there's no twizzle stick); you're supposed to agitate with a circular motion every 30 seconds. My negatives came out pink, which I've experienced before with this developer (Flic Film's Black, White, and Green) and I did some quick research online which suggested more time in the fixer so I put them back and fixed for twice the normal time. That didn't change anything except cause some damage to the emulsion since my fixer is slightly acidic and Fomapan 400 is vulnerable to acid (I use water instead of acidic stop bath, which helps, but I didn't consider the fixer). Next time I'll try an alkaline or at least pH-neutral fixer.
Activatedfx wrote:
The 1st image of the restaurant and light strings is the kind of image the Holga was born to photograph. So evocative.
I think I've photographed that hot dog stand with every camera I own and this is my favourite image of it. I really wanted to get the lights, but they're off during the day and it's a dangerous place at night due to a rough and violent crowd that gathers every evening in and around a bar across the street. But last Saturday I had to pick up a car-share very early in the morning and was able to grab this photo while the lights were still on and no cars were in the lot.
More of the UFX 400 with the grain reduction recipe, but with the Mamiya C3, and the 135mm f4.5 Sekor + plus a Sunpak 321 bouncing off the ceiling - it's like a cave indoors. Sync works.
Charlie
Marnie - furthest away from camera - scared of the TLR
