Some winter-time images from the archive. This time it is from a trip to Boulder in Colorado. It was warm enough for autumn clothing and no snow in sight anywhere. All vegetation had turned it a homogenous, brown mass that effectively hid all the beauty of Colorado’s flora from my sight. A bit disappointing, but still a nice change from the coldness of home. The colors on these images are a bit wonky, probably because I did not yet know what I know nowadays about scanning (which is: I have no clue what I am doing). I tried to remove the excessive red color cast from them, only to be left with a green color cast. So what you see here now, is what I am capable (and patient enough) of doing in post.

• Where: Boulder, Colorado
• Camera:  Leica M4-P
• Lens: Voigtländer Color-Skopar 35mm f/2.5
• Film: Fuji Superia 200

Edit: I just noticed that I already did the “5 Frames - Boulder With A Leica M4-P” and selected the same 5 images for that one. Well, whaddya know? At least this is a new interpretation. 

• Where: Somewhere in Munich
• Camera:  unknown
• Lens: unknown
• Film: unknown

Some winter-time images from the archive, before the times that I had any kind of order in my film chaos.

• Where: At a lake in Bavaria.
• Camera:  Yashica Mat 124G
• Lens: Yashinon 80mm f/3.5
• Film: Kodak Portra 400 VC

I got myself a box of Kodak Portra 400 VC that expired in 2007. To see what is what, I got out with the Yashica Mat 124G on an overcast day after some snowfall. Sticking with the one stop per decade roll, I added two stops of exposure (it is the end of 2021 and 1.5 stops should have been appropriate) to compensate for the age of the film. After development, the negatives looked okay-ish. I still have a hard time telling if something is correctly exposed or not (especially for color negatives) just by looking at the film strip. After scanning and initial inversion of colors, the film looked like a mess: The colors were all completely off and the grain was excessive. I did my best to get everything lined up in the histogram and to deal with the color cast. I even added some noise reduction. Something I usually avoid. I had mixed feelings about the results: The grain was bothering me. The colors were not what I expected from Portra at all. But if you looked from far enough away, the results weren’t actually bad, either. So I did the only logical thing and ordered four more boxes from the seller.

• Where: A castle garden near a church and a lake.
• Camera:  Mamiya Press Super 23
• Lens: Mamiya Sekor 100mm f/3.5
• Film: Ilford Pan F+

It was an overcast day, right between two rain showers. I was yearning to take the new member of the club, the Mamiya Press Super 23, out into the wild and let her run free. For not very practical, but inherently strategic reasons, I decided to go with a roll of Ilford Pan F+. The 50 ISO film speed made it tricky to get reasonable shutter speeds with the given weather, even with the lens wide open. Thus, I ended up with some camera shake in my shots. And I have no clue as to how sharp the lens actually can be. In addition, I needed to learn how to operate the camera. It is not difficult, but fumbling with the controls while the camera is up to your eye, led to me tripping the shutter accidentally.

• Where: The garden of a castle next to a church.
• Camera: Yashica FX 3 Super 2000
• Lens: Zeiss 45mm Tessar f/2.8
• Film: Fuji Superia 200

I had just scanned two rolls of expired Kodak Portra 400 VC that was best by 2008. The grain on it was more than I had prepared myself for, and I got the impression that two extra stops of light (one stop for every started decade) were not enough. Thus, my expectations for this roll of Fuji Superia 200 that expired in 2003 were not very high. I exposed the roll with two extra stops of light, just as I did for the Kodak Potra 400 VC, and developed it normally (no pushing/pulling). It was the first time that I gave the Zeiss 45mm Tessar f/2.8 a try, too. The lens feels like it is mainly plastic and air. It is tiny and light, and the focus ring is very easy to turn. I was pleasantly surprised when I started converting the scanned negatives to positives. There were only a few small tweaks to do (less than I remember from fresh rolls of film), and the lens turns out to be surprisingly sharp.

• Where: At a lake in Bavaria.
• Camera:  Yashica FX 3 Super 2000
• Lens: Sigma XQ 70-230 Macro f/4.5
• Film: Kodak Double X

Just a few hours before I developed the first roll of Kodak Double X, I read somewhere that this type of Cine-B&W-Film-Stock has next to no latitude. This, the article said, forces you to get the exposure exactly right. Otherwise, you won’t end up with anything satisfactory. The negatives came out very dense. I guess I missed the ideal exposure by a little bit and over-exposed the images. I scan the negatives “raw” and convert them to positive in DxO PhotoLab 3. Normally, I need to correct exposure by something around 2 stops during conversion. That is just how my process is. In this case, the negatives came out so bright, even an exposure compensation of 4 stops (the maximum that DxO PhotoLab 3 allows in one go) was not enough. I had to abuse the tone curves quite a bit. In the end, I do like the resulting images. The grain is acceptable and they are somewhat moody.

• Where: Tierpark Hellabrunn, Munich
• Camera:  Mamiya RB67
• Lens: Mamiya Sekor C 90mm f/3.8
• Film: Kodak Ektar 100

The Zoo in Munich.

• Where: Partnachklamm, Garmisch-Partenkirchen
• Camera:  Rolleiflex Tele 135
• Lens: Carl Zeiss Sonnar 135mm f/4
• Film: Fuji Velvia 50 (probably)

The Partnachklamm (Partnach-Gorge) is located in the town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen in a valley on the german parts of the Alps. The parking lot near the entry to the Partnachklamm is located right next to the ramp that is used for ski jump events of the Olympic winter games. I shot these pictures during winter on (I think) Fuji Velvia 50 in an attempt to look at the positive side of shooting the Rolleiflex Tele 135. The camera is great, but it tends to eat film when you do not treat it exactly right. Some of the pictures did not come out too well, probably because of the cold weather. Thus, I decided to jump to the B&W filter and turn most pictures into 50 shades of… you know what.

• Where: New York, Manhattan
• Camera:  Hasselblad 503CX
• Lens: Zeiss Planar 80mm f2.8
• Film: Fuji NPS 160 (probably)

A work and leisure trip to the rotten apple. Because I do not shoot film in the pursuit of the dreamy, nostalgic, dare say “vintage” look. I shoot film because I collect ways to unintentionally mess up. And I am getting pretty good at it. These are 5 frames that originally were meant to be beautiful color images from around the Big Apple, but I royally messed up development. This was years ago. Sifting through my archives for things that I could create blog posts with, I tend to stumble over these ugly results and think to myself: “What would that look like with some heavy editing and a B&W filter slapped on top of it?” The answer is: Decent. Not like in “That looks decent.”, but more like in a short reprieve from the descent into the madness that is “shooting film”.

• Where: New York, Manhattan
• Camera:  Fuji GW690 III
• Lens: EBC Fujinon 90mm f/3.5
• Film: Fuji NPS 160 (probably)

A work and leisure trip to New York.