Posts tagged ‘DD-X’
Catching up on my Scanning
HP5, DD-X
Continuing to catch up on my scans while I’m on vacation. It will end far too soon.
Getting Ready for What Comes
HP5, DD-X, toned in Silver Efex
Happy New Year to everyone, and thanks for your feedback on the theme. A theme has been chosen (you should be looking at it right now), and we are still in the process of migrating everything over and setting up the true landing page.
I thought that rather than setting goals for 2012, it might be more revealing to review, from my perspective, what I think I learned last year.
Film
The biggest shift this year was the inclusion of two Kodak films in my regular shooting regimen: Plus-x and Tri-X. I don’t know why it took me so long to truly see what these films had to offer other than to just assume that my historical influences kept me from really considering the options (my film teacher loved FP4 back in the day). I remember talking to Ray about HP5 and how I loved the contrast. He replied “yup, but once you have it, it’s not easy to get rid of.” And, indeed, once I started to shoot a lot with Tri-X, what I loved about it was the more gentle approach to drawing the scene. Who would have thought? And now, of course, Ilford is doing well, business-wise, and Kodak is going down the tube. Sheesh. Not that I don’t like FP4 and HP5, mind, it’s just that timing is everything. And I’ve spent enough time pulling Plus-X that I have feeling for how it looks. Now I need to replay those experiments with FP4.I’m just hoping that when Kodak sells off its film business, someone buys it who can continue with it.
My tests with older-style films have been a mixed bag. Fomapan turned out well, I’m going to try it in medium format, but my two rolls of Adox 25 were developed at grossly inadequate times (those times were gotten from MDC) and are extremely thin. I haven’t tried scanning them yet, so they may be salvage-able. We’ll see.
Rollei Retro holds great promise, but I think I need a different developer besides D-76. My two rolls of Rollei Blackbird were totally fogged and useless. I suspect I know when they got fogged, but I’ll never be certain.
I like the old-style films because they move further away from a digital look. The more I can find a style and look of my own, the better.
I’ll talk about developers in the next post.
Today’s Image
This image was from a portrait shoot for a client last year, and was a candid shot I caught on film while they were prepping. The main shoot was captured on my 5D.
Paris Streets, Dec 2010
Delta 400, DD-X
If you remember, last December (that would be December 2010) I had the opportunity to walk around Paris for a two-hour period in the pre-dawn light before I had to leave for my flight back to the States. Going through my backlog of negatives not-yet-scanned, I came across 16 negs that had just never made it to the scanner. This post includes three of those sixteen. Someday I swear I’ll get back there in the daylight.
As I walked around the neighborhood, I noticed a few people (very few) who were up and awake there preparing for the day. Shop owners, people on the street (either going home or heading out, no way to tell) and street sweepers. The image above is one of those street sweepers, cleaning the sidewalks by hand on an early Sunday morning. Dressed in some sort of official municipal uniform, this young woman was not the only one of these souls I saw that day.
Others were prepping their shopd for the business to come as the city awoke.
Others walking somewhere.
During the holidays, I’ll be posting more images as I work my way through older rolls not-yet-scanned. In process now are images from Point Lobos, captured January of 2011. I’m not quite sure how these rolls fell to the bottom of the pile, but I’ll get through them, hopefully.
In these low light situations, gotta like the Delta 400. I pushed these rolls slightly, not much, and the Bessa hand-held often at 1/30th or 1/15th to get these on the roll at all. I know I’ve sung its praises in the past, but the combo of the Bessa and the Zeiss Biogon continues to reward me.
Have a great holiday, everyone!
No Special Way
Vancouver, October 2011
“There is no special way a photograph should look.”
“The photograph is a thing in itself.”
– Gary Winogrand
Vancouver, Oct 2011
One of my goals in 2012 is to take a street photography workshop either with Peter Turnley or Mary Ellen Mark. My street work is ‘ok,’ but I really want it to improve.
Soft Light
Biogon, Bessa R2a, Tri-X, DD-X
Just a couple other images from that Chicago trip. I am a sucker for the kind of light that appears in this image above. The softness of the light coming through the window against the crispness of the items on the table.
I tried this image with more expsoure for the people
And a second try for that image in the alley
Tri-X and Zeiss Glass
Zeiss Biogon, Pittsburgh, July
The images in this post are just a handful from the rolls I’ve scanned over the last couple days. The unifying theme is Zeiss glass (the C/Y 50 and also the Biogon on my Bessa) and the film is Tri-X, souped in DD-X.
Biogon, Chicago, July
Regarding the C/Y Contax experiment, I’ve given up. I returned the Contax RTS for a refund from KEH, I’m going to sell the C/Y 50mm on line, and I’m going to try and pry a refund from the adapter manufacturer.
C/Y 50mm, EOS 3, Vancouver, October
As Mike Peters, mentioned, there’s a limit to my patience trying to get this stuff to work.
C/Y 50, Vancouver
While the 50 and the adapter obviously don’t have the same troubles on the EOS and film. the 5D has difficulties.
C/Y 50, Vancouver
And while my love for Zeiss glass is undiminished, I’m just going to save up for the ZE series and get lenses that work on both bodies. And, of course, eventually get my Sonnar for the Bessa.
RIP, Plus-X
As some of you may have heard, Kodak stopped producing Plus-X. I bought two bricks earlier this week, and will try to stock up on it as long as I can.
Bessa, Chicago, Biogon
I guess I should start stocking up on Tri-X as well. Sigh.
Vancouver Trip
EOS 3, C/Y Zeiss 50, Tri-X, DD-X
Contrary to Mike’s comment, testing with the adapter is not the only thing I am doing these days. I currently have 16 rolls of exposed b&w film sitting on the sink in the darkroom, and tonight I just mixed up some D-76 to soup some of those rolls in. In fact, I am shoe-horning in the testing around a lot of film shooting these days.
In a Blenz coffee shop
This roll is the first I developed where I used the C/Y 50mm on the EOS body, and I honestly don’t see a great deal of focus issues like the 5D.
But I wasn’t testing so much for those issues, so I can’t be sure. I just went out shooting a bit.
More to come . . .
Heading out to Vancouver tomorrow
Art Institute, Chicago. FTb, 50mm f/1.4, Tri-X, DD-X
((This post was supposed to be posted on Tuesday of last week. I would’ve sworn I posted it. But today when I began to work on a new post during my trip, WP told me this was still a draft. Crap.. Here ya go. I’m already in LA.))
Tomorrow I head out to Vancouver for a conference. I’m bringing both the 5D and the EOS 3 so I can shoot with the Contax lens. Having a digital with me will allow me to post some images in real-time from the trip.
After Vancouver I go to LA for a couple days and then I head back to Pittsburgh.
While I”m on the road, I’m going to try and post some thoughts on the teachings of Ben Lifson, a photographic mentor with whom I’ve never had the honor of speaking but whose thoughts about the nature of photography influence me a great deal.
Speak to you soon!
Chicago Trip viewed through Tri-X
Tri-X, FTb, DD-X, 100mm FD f/2.8
In March, I traveled to a conference in Chicago for an organization I belong to, SIGGRAPH. I had loaded a roll of Tri-X in my FTb and that afternoon, before I headed out to the meeting hotel, I walked around downtown Chicago to get some shots. It was a cold, blustery March day, and my goal was to experiment with Tri-X developed in DD-X but using the 100mm FD f/2.8 lens on the street. Mind you, had not yet developed the San Francisco Tri-X rolls with the Sonnar in DD-X, so I didn’t yet quite know what I would be getting, tonality wise. The image above shows the ‘softer’ tonality on Tri-X at work. You know, it amazes me how I never really saw the beauty of this film until recently.
I certainly know why HP5 does appeal to me, I was always a fan of contrast (it can be very dramatic). I can remember reading an article about a Voightlander lens that could be purchased in either a Single Coated version or Multi-coated. The Multi-coated version had more contrast. I wondered when I read that article ‘why would someone want LESS contrast?’ Now I know and can see it, and, in fact, value it.
Recently I read (I wish I remember where) that Cartier-Bresson used to send his proof prints back to the printer asking for less contrast. While at one time that would have puzzled me, now I understand it completely.
Crossing the street
A ‘taboo’ in street photography is to use a telephoto lens. It’s viewed, I believe, as more ‘sneaky’ than getting up close to your subject with a normal or, lord, a 28mm (which is what Winogrand shot, apparently). But on this day I used the 100mm, more as an experiment than anything else. While I had to pre-focus on a point to get any traditional street shots (in the image above there was a light pole to this gent’s left that I had focussed on and waited for a decent composition to present itself), when the images worked they did so because of the slight compression of the telephoto effect.
Compression works for this one, as well.
Overall, I think the tonality of Tri-X souped in DD-X continues to work regardless of the lens/camera combo, and I will continue using the 100 FD on the streets.
San Francisco Delta 400 Walkabout
Delta 400, Zeiss Sonnar, DD-X, Bessa R2a
On the first day I walked around San Francisco, before I started to shoot Tri-X, I had one last roll of Delta 400 in my bag. Today’s posts all came from that roll, captured in bright San Francisco sunshine on that Saturday in early March. Interesting how the film/lens combination co-operated on that day filled with etched sunlight. I don’t know if you can see it in this JPEG, but there’s an almost 3-D quality to the parking meter.
I had a meeting that morning about a mile from the hotel, and opted to walk. Just around the corner was a courtyard where people were hanging out, meditating, drinking coffee, whatever. The patterns the people created fascinated me, and this image was my favorite.
As usual, the people in SF are unique. This guy was tall and wide, made more so by his clothing.
All kinds of people inhabit the streets. This guy and his buddy were whipping down the sidewalk, and I saw them coming. I had the exposure pre-set for the shady side of the street, and quickly zone focussed and waited a sec for him to reach the focus point.
It was a Saturday, so my guess is that a water line had broken and absolutely needed to be fixed. The Sonnar/Delta 400 combination yields wonderful but different images than the Sonnar/Tri-X combo. I remain convinced that the Sonnar is the 50mm lens for me; the only question remains color film.
Retail worker in a furniture store.
The sun’s piercing clarity emphasized everything that day, generating wonderful reflections in windows.
Made me see all sorts of reflected images in new ways . . .
And emphasized old things in ways that made me reflect on where I was and where I had been and where I was going. These billboards were all over the city. Seeing the four of them, displayed so large on buildings, really brought me up short. First of all, just their influence on every aspect of our culture. While you could argue that if I wasn’t them, it would have ben someone else, it WAS them and how interesting what each of them brought to the situation and, in turn, affected all of us.
While I was always a ‘John’ guy, and admired his art and song in many ways, there is no doubt the one that had the most lasting affect on my life was George. I recently looked at my iTunes library and examined the song counts. Of the four of them, George’s music, specifically ‘All Things Must Pass,’ had the highest individual play counts of any of their combined solo work. But more than that, George’s exploration of Eastern mysticism began, for me, my own exploration into non-Western thought and philosophy that permeates every moment of my daily life.
But, regardless of their individual influence, I just thought I’d take this moment to say publicly ‘thanks’ for everything they must’ve put up with. As George once said (paraphrasing) “the world went crazy and blamed it on us.” Well, I don’t think that’s entirely accurate, Mr. Harrison. A more accurate statement might be “the Beatles illustrated what we could all experience if we looked at the world and the very nature of our existence through different glasses. And we said ‘let’s give that a try.’” And then yes, if things went wrong, we blamed them for opening the door.
