Posts tagged ‘Delta 400’
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!
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.
Almost forgot this one
This image also came off the roll I posted yesterday, but forgot to add it. The mixture of wood tones, reflections in the water and composition made it one of my favorites.
Cloudy Day
Delta 400, DD-X, Bessa, Biogon
As I continue to work my way through rolls of film developed but not yet scanned, I came across a roll of Delta 400 I shot while in Vancouver last November. I had posted a few images from that trip a bit earlier (here) and the images from this new roll really grabbed me. As I have grown an appreciation for the ‘Tri-X look’ I discovered with the Tri-X/DD-X/Sonnar combo, with its softer gradations and tones, the Ilford tonality of these images really made an impact.
These images were all captured in the town of Steveston, south of Vancouver, B.C. The day was, as seen in the first image, one where the sea and sky melted into one continuous tone.
The somewhat biting tonality of Ilford Products really seems apparent to me in this set, especially in the following two images, one from that day and the second from the following morning in Vancouver Airport:
I have heard that Delta 400 scans better than other b&w films, but honestly, I don’t find any film to scan any better or worse than any other film.
This, to me is a classic Ilford look; that very crisp detail in these two gents’ hair against the almost cold-toned blacks of his jacket and the darkness outside.
I guess this is all about contrast and the way Zeiss lenses draw.
I’ve pretty much concluded that since June of 2008, when I began shooting b&w film and developing my own negs, until May 2011, I’ve definitely exceed my entire b&w film output of my earlier years. For a long time I labored under the misconception that back THEN I knew what I was doing and that NOW I was trying to recapture that skill level, but I need to be honest. When I look at my work now, I don’t believe that my older work was anywhere near as good as my new work. And any ‘fondness’ with which I hold my old work is just, pretty much, an illusion.
Just yesterday I sent off six rolls of color film to be developed and scanned. The rolls range from Vancouver to Paris to San Francisco to fall foliage. Later this week I’ll be posting some images from my SF walk-around with the Bessa and Biogon and then next week I’ll have gotten the color back.
Hope you enjoy these images. Hope spring has arrived where you live; here in Pittsburgh it is still, pretty much, one cloudy day after another.
More from Paris
Delta 400, N+1, DD-x
Just wanted to post some further images from that first Paris roll.
On all these shots, the thinness of the negs leads to the scanner reading EVERY little dust spot. I have not re-touched these frames, sorry.
Delta 400 did a really good job where I had some light to work with.
This was in the hotel room. It was barely more than a big closet, but ideally situated.
More to come . . .
Paris, 6 a.m.
Bridge Over the Seine, looking North
I finally developed the two rolls of Delta 400 I shot while walking around in Paris that morning in December.
Just to quickly summarize the story, I had arranged on the last day of my trip to Europe in early December to get to Paris at around 4 in the afternoon, go out street shooting that evening, and then fly back to the US the next morning. But my flight from Lisbon was delayed by a strike of the Spanish air controllers, so I didn’t get to my hotel until 12:30 am, exhausted. I still wanted to get in some street shooting in Paris, so I set the alarm for 4:30, got dressed, and walked around for an hour from 5:30 am until about 6:30 am. My taxi to take me to the airport was due at 7, the sun wasn’t due to rise fully until 7:30, so I knew I’d be shooting in full night conditions.
I didn’t meter at all, I just exposed my Delta 400 at 1/60th (1/30th at times) and wide open (f/2) and hoped for the best. I figured that if I metered, I’d probably only set myself off.
When I developed the film, I developed at N+1, relying on the film’s flexibility to help me out. These negatives are VERY thin, and the scanner is getting a great deal of ‘noise’ from the actual film material itself.
But, overall, I am very pleased with the results.
I just wished I’d had more time, and that at least SOME of the time I had there would have been even in the earliest moments of dawn.
More from those rolls to come . . .
Delta 400 and a cloudy day
Delta 400, FG7, N-1 development
One of the challenges I have taken on with my ‘hybrid’ process (it has a name now, it does, this film-to-digital process) is that the guidelines for film development are all written assuming that your end goal is to get yourself a negative that prints well in a traditional darkroom. Contrast, sharpness, density, etc. All these things are, in large measure, determined by a) the film, b) the exposure, c) the developer, d) the strength of the developer, e) the time in the ‘soup,’ f) the temp of the solution, and g) the agitation sequence/frequency.
Phew. Lots of variables. But it is in those variables (call them the details) that the art resides.
Then you add to that all the software manipulation possible.
Scanning: many of the people I learned from (Matt Alofs, mainly) scan the negative as if it was a positive, so that the image looks just like the neg when you save it. Then, you open it in PS, invert the image through Curves (making the neg a pos). This extra step, in the opinion of many, preserves the most detail and dynamic range. Then you add a Levels layer, adjust black and white point, Gamma level to taste, and then save it out.
So, in this process, getting really dense highlights (in the negative world, that means a LOT of silver on thre film) is harder to scan. Thus, you want to control development so you DON’T block highlights. And so, also, sincde in software you can always add contrast, you don’t want an overly contrasty negative either.
What that all means is that the time/temp guidelines that you can find are almost always too contrasty and too dense for proper scanning.
Which also, incidentally, means that in the search for proper scanning density, I might be screwing myself for using these negs in the wet darkroom, but I digress.
The point here is that this roll of Delta 400 I recently shot was developed at ‘N-1′ time so as to get negs easier to scan. The two images I present todsay were from that roll, and I think the combo of cloudy, low-contrast day plus N-1 development was too much a swing to the other side. But these images were pretty nice, although very different.
Just to add some sauce, I was shooting in ‘matrix mode’ on my Nikon F100, a mode which I haven’t shot in much. Summary is that I’m pretty sure that the combo of N-1 development on a cloudy day ion FG7 = not what I want. But I did learn something. Also in that session was a roll of Delta 400 that wasn’t exposed on a cloudy day, so when I scan them I can compare and contrast.
Enjoy.
Famous Blue Raincoat
Delta 400 pushed to 800 in Rodinal
It’s four in the morning, the end of December
I’m writing you now just to see if you’re better
New York is cold, but I like where I’m living
There’s music on Clinton Street all through the evening.I hear that you’re building your little house deep in the desert
You’re living for nothing now, I hope you’re keeping some kind of record.Yes, and Jane came by with a lock of your hair
She said that you gave it to her
That night that you planned to go clear
Did you ever go clear?Ah, the last time we saw you you looked so much older
Your famous blue raincoat was torn at the shoulder
You’d been to the station to meet every train
And you came home without Lili MarleneAnd you treated my woman to a flake of your life
And when she came back she was nobody’s wife.Well I see you there with the rose in your teeth
One more thin gypsy thief
Well I see Jane’s awake –She sends her regards.
And what can I tell you my brother, my killer
What can I possibly say?
I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you
I’m glad you stood in my way.If you ever come by here, for Jane or for me
Your enemy is sleeping, and his woman is free.Yes, and thanks, for the trouble you took from her eyes
I thought it was there for good so I never tried.And Jane came by with a lock of your hair
She said that you gave it to her
That night that you planned to go clear– Sincerely, L. Cohen
When I recently visited New York I stayed at the Chelsea Hotel, where Leonard Cohen lived for a number of years. After I checked in I was told that my room, 424, was where he had lived those years. I am a big Leonard Cohen fan (his most well-known song is possibly ‘Suzanne,’ if you don’t know his work, you most certainly have heard that song, and American Idol has recently made ‘Hallelujah’ sorta well-known as well). After I found out I was staying in his room, I wondered what songs had been written while he stayed there. My favorite Cohen song is the one I quoted above.
I love NYC. When I lived in Phoenix we would often sit around and talk about where we would like to live (almost everyone I worked with had moved from someplace else to work at the company). I would most often say when asked ‘New York.’ I would get stares when I said this, because most people, even those who LIKE New York, wouldn’t want to live there, necessarily.
At the 23rd Street stop on the 'E' train line
I grew up in NJ, 13 miles from downtown by car, and loved living there. I loved going into NY. We lived so close that if it was, say, Saturday night and we felt like having Chinese food, and it was 10:30 at night, we’d think nothing of jumping in the car and heading into the city, ’cause we could be standing in line at Wo Hop’s on Mott Street in less than an hour from that moment.
When I worked at SPI in 1981, I lived in a sublet on the corner of Waverly and Gay street for about six months. Loved it then. I don’t know whether I could take living in NY today (aside, of course, from the cost of rent and such-like) but it’s a great place.
Interesting technical info about this roll. It’s Delta 400 pushed to 800, and developed in Rodinal. I really like the look. The combination of t-grain Delta 400 and Rodinal seems to work quite nicely. Additionally, I actually UNDER developed it by a stop. I read the wrong time on the Dev Chart, so these images are underdeveloped a stop, or, put another way, underexposed a stop. They came out a bit thin, but still scanned quite nicely.
Take a look at this one. Underexposed a stop, a little grainy, but still quite nice.
Fresh Picked
Seattle Market
Thanks again, Ray!
