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3 Emulsions: Part 1

Kodak UltraMax400

Since Fuji Superia400X has been discontinued 😦 I’m trying out a couple different ISO400 C-41 film stocks. The political economy of film photography is… well… weird RN… and film pricing is responding to inflation, fashion, private equity capital flows and the market distortions caused by Kodaks 2012 bankruptcy that are still rattling around the global economy. I don’t really obsess about which color film I use. My target is an under $10/36exposure roll of ISO400 C-41 process film for everyday work. When I find one that works for me I buy a brick, stash it in the freezer and use it till it’s gone.

One thing I liked about Superia was it did this when you overexposed it 1 stop… You got increased saturation, contrast and a bump in shadow detail without blowing out highlights. It also shifted a bit warmer without getting weird.:

So I bought some current production film and shot some test rolls: Kodak UltraMax400, the new Fuji400, and Wolfen NC400, to see how they respond to the light. I bracketed 3 exposures of each scene: box speed , 1 stop under, and 1 stop over. Developed normally – not pushed or pulled – we get normal, under, and over exposed images.

For consistency I used the same camera and lens (Nikon F6 w/Nikkor 28-105 f/3.5-5.6), and the cameras internal matrix metering mode with no filters or fill flash. All 3 rolls were processed and scanned by Indie Photo here in Philly.

The light in many of these shots pushes at the limit of the films dynamic range that could be controlled through lots of traditional techniques, but the whole point of this experiment was to test those limits. Here’s the results for Kodak UltraMax400:

My biggest takeaway is that this film stock is consistent with other Kodak consumer films I’ve used. It’s a bit ‘hard’ and not quite as forgiving as the old Fuji SuperiaX or Kodak Portra. Over exposed we do get increased saturation but with less latitude, more contrast, and the highlights tend to blow out. Looking at the sunset we got a dramatic color shift that wasn’t correctable. It also doesn’t like being underexposed, we get a magenta shift in the shadows. Nothing that can’t be handled with more careful and intentional exposures (or some tweaking in Lightroom). It has its strengths – and its weaknesses are all manageable, but I won’t be shooting this emulsion at ISO200 on a routine basis.

Inside The Philly MAGA March

Make America Great Again?

March 25th 2017 Philly MAGA March.

Philly area Trumpers show their stuff in Center City. I’m usually on the other side of the line but went inside to look and listen. About halfway through the event most of the mainstream Trump supporters left and hard right took control. When was the last time you saw organized white supremacists marching down Market St?

Here’s a few frames.

Shot on Ilford HP5 – Nikon FE2 (35 f/2, 50 f/1.4 & 105 f/2.5) – Developed and scanned at home.

Fun With A Russian

IMG_0913WTF is a Zorki?

After World War 2 the Soviets took material, tooling, dies, and in some cases entire factories and the skilled workers to run them, from occupied Germany back to the USSR as war reparations. All of Germany’s patents were also released into the public domain by the allied governments. The Soviets (and others) began manufacturing Leica and Contax clones for internal and export markets – this was also the basis of Japans post war camera industry- and so we get this  Zorki  35mm Rangefinder, a Soviet derivative of the Leica 3.

This one has commemorative markings celebrating the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution so I’m assuming a manufacture date of about 1967. It’s a bit clunky, the film registration is slightly off, there’s no batteries or exposure meter, but it fits in my coat pocket and is actually a lovely small camera to carry around.  Here’s a few frames from some test rolls. The color negatives were developed and scanned by a local lab, the b&w shots were hand developed and scanned at home.

Zorki 4 35mm rangefinder w/50mm f/3.5 lens  – Fomopan100, Kodak Tri X, and Portra 160