This image was created using my Zeiss Sonnar 50mm/1.5 lens. This is a very quirky lens when used at large apertures, and will definitely take some learning!
Contax IIa, 50mm/1.5 Zeiss Sonnar lens
Svema Foto 100 film developed in Xtol 1+1 10 minutes @ 20 C
I don’t often get a chance to photograph children, so it was fun recently to get a few images of the younger son of a good photographer friend of mine. He likes to move around a lot, so the manual focus was a challenge!
A few light leaks on the film 😦
Contax IIIa (35mm rangefinder from the 1950’s) 50mm/2Â Jupiter 9 lens
Svema 125 Colour Film (C-41)
Today’s image is a colour version of a subject I also captured in black and white. This time around my 75-150 Nikon Series E zoom lens allowed me to get a bit closer, at least optically speaking.Â
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Nikon F4, 75-150 Nikon Series E lens
Svema 125 Color Negative Film
Old architecture reflected by a modern building. I love the distortions.
Nikon F4, 80-200mm/4 Nikkor zoom lens
Svema Foto 200 film, developed in Xtol 1+1 12 min @ 20 C
In 1976, when my father let me use my first “good” camera (his Voigtlander Vito B) he sent me to the store to buy film, with the instructions “Ask for Plus-X”. Decades later, here is an image from a test roll of Plus-X I shot yesterday — expired since about 1983, but still perfectly usable!
Olympus XA, 35mm Olympus lens
Plus-X, developed in Xtol 1+1 for 7.5 minutes
Photograph from recent Open Streets Day in Toronto. The title “Behind Bars” comes from a question as to whether we are urban prisoners in Toronto, slaves to the gods of endless construction.
Nikon F4, 28mm/2.8 Nikkor AI lens
Svema Foto 200 film developed in Xtol 1+1 for 12 minutes @ 20 C
In this post, while Grace is amazing in showing character in her posing/expression, I am actually going to talk about the character of a film I have tried for the first time: Svema Foto 200 film, made in the Ukraine, and available from The Film Photography Project. What I like about this film is the grain structure: it’s not fine grain, but it is organic, it just feels right, and it has a lovely tonality! Now if I could only get it in 100 foot bulk rolls!
Nikon F4, 85mm/1.8 Nikkor lens
Svema Foto 200 film
developed in Xtol 1+1, 10.5 minutes @ 20 C
In Kingston, Ontario this past weekend we discovered this little back passage-way. Rollei Retro 80s film and Rodinal developer were the perfect combo for this image!
Nikon F4 body, 17mm/3.5 Tamron lens
Rollei Retro 80s developed in Rodinal 1+50 for 14 minutes @ 20 C.
This image is from our trip to Niagara On the Lake this past weekend. It was a gazebo, so I had to shoot it, but to me the woman stretching out in front gives the image a slightly different, almost surreal aspect; it would be a very different image without her.
Nikon F2, 28mm/2.8 Nikkor lens
Eastman 2366 film, E.I. 10, developed in Xtol 1+1 for 10 minutes @ 20 C
Around 30 years ago in the early 1980’s I shot a roll of Kodak Infrared Ektachrome E4 Slide film (you can see an image from that roll here). It was magic, but I never got around to shooting more of it.
A couple of weeks ago I shot two more rolls of Colour Infrared Slide film, purchased from the Film Photography Project online store. They have a limited supply of an equivalent E6 process infrared slide film, expired but cold stored. Here is one of my favourite images:
With the proper filtration (in this case a yellow-green filter and a polarizing filter) you get some really interesting colour effects, with foliage coming out red in a lot of cases, and blues tone becoming very vivid. The world becomes a different, alien, fantastic place.
I wish I could shoot this film stock all the time, as I don’t feel digital infrared (either post-processed faux infrared, or specially converted digital camera) gives the same magical effect. But I must be realistic: this film is not cheap, it is no longer made, and E6 slide processing is getting rarer, except by mail order.
A magic, but transient moment, and I mourn its imminent passing.
My Third Eye 