As the avid reader might have guessed, I quite enjoy shooting with my Leica M4-P. It may not come as a surprise then, that on a trip during the early days of 2018, I took the camera and its mate (the Voigtländer Color Scopar 35mm) with me to the town of Boulder, Colorado.

Boulder is right at the feet of a mountain range, which makes the choice of name quite punny. January is a weird time to visit this area: Everything has a tint of red-ish brown, as the colours of dried vegetation, the brickwork of the buildings and the tone of the hills mix into a uniform mush. And the Christmas decoration is still sprinkled all over the place.

I was there, as so often when I travel, for business. My limited free time was spent with meandering through the streets around the Pearl Street Mall and with a short hike to the foot of the nearby hills.

There is not much else that I can tell about Boulder. The time of the year wasn’t ideal, I did not have a car to explore the east of the area and aside from a sight-seeing tour around the office, I did not get out much. At least as far as I remember.

Thus I am left with a friendly farewell and a hardy “Enjoy the pictures, mate!”.

Another week, another trip to New York. This time I spent my free time walking around in Manhattan south of Central Park. One day along the High Line, another day along Broadway up to Central Park, which had a lot of police presence because of the New York Marathon.

In the morning, just after arriving at the office, I had a rather unusual sight out of the window. Unusual at least for me, as I am only a visitor to the big apple. The clouds hung low over downtown Manhattan, with skyscrapers disappearing into fluffy white cotton candy. I had to take a picture of that.

I had the Leica M4-P with me, with the Voigtländer 35mm (the one with the ridiculously long name) bolted on. Another thing in my pocket was the ColorChecker Passport Photo from x-rite (first generation). My thought was: All my scanned negatives look off colourwise. If I have a reference for white balance at the beginning of each series of pictures, I may be able to colour correct properly. (Note: The images in this post have been re-scanned, based on my recent insight into ”scanning film the right way”.)

In the end, taking pictures of the ColorChecker did not improve the situation at all. I still ended up with a nasty colour cast in my scans. Not knowing about this outcome at the time of shooting, I now have a couple of frames with my little ColorChecker in various situations around New York.

Funnily enough: Even though I can’t state enough that I have barely an idea about what I am doing when I run around with a camera, I still was asked by strangers to help them take their picture because I looked like I know what I am doing. That is the “Leica effect” at work. If you want to become a good photographer, buy a Leica. At least in your mind, and apparently in other peoples minds, you will have your goal achieved automatically.

Once upon a time, on an island far, far away. Well, not that far, but still far enough to warrant the use of a plane. It was the summer of 2017 and somehow I ended up at a large hotel complex on the island of Ibiza. Three days (including arrival and departure) with colleagues and an overly ambitious organizing team, far from civilisation as I know it (I grew up in a big city, but I love the outdoors). Various activities planned, among them a hike and a trip to the city.

I had my Leica M4-P with the Voigtländer Color Skopar 35mm f/2.5 VM II Pancake with me. That name is a mouthful, but the lens itself is nicely compact. Together with the little rangefinder, you get a handy travel companion that is comfortable to always have with you.

Walking around the island, especially near the hotel, is a chore of a hike. Just out the door, you start with a hill climb. Then it goes up and down, left and right, along roads and gravel paths. We even went cross country and through the woods where there was no indication of a path whatsoever.

Aside from that near-death experience (the hike), the weather was nice and the sights made up for at least a bit of the pain. And my little Leica was a joy to use: I set the aperture to f/8, the shutter speed to 1/250, and was set for the rest of the day. All I had to do was frame, focus and shoot. The aperture ring on the lens is a little too easy to knock around, so I had to check the f-stop from time to time. Thanks to the wonders of film (a Fuji Superia 200), it did not matter too much. All frames came out exposed ok.

The last day on Ibiza had the trip to the city on its schedule. Until then I had a bit of time to relax and recover from the pain of the hike on the first day. The first stop was down at the harbour. From there, we split up into smaller groups and some of us went up to Ibiza Castle. I got up to Baluard de Sant Jaume, before my body told me it got reminded too much of the exertions of the first day. My group turned around and we wandered through the streets of Dalt Vila. Those streets are photogenic, and around each corner is a potential subject to be framed and shot.

After the sightseeing tour in the city, we got back on the bus and drover to the airport to be stuffed back into the winged tin-can that flew us home.

A couple of days ago, while browsing 35mmc, I came by an article written by Mark Sperry on scanning at home with a Pacific Image XA. He mentioned (my interpretation), that scanning isn’t easy: To get great images, you have to put some effort into learning how to use the scanner and the software. As mentioned before in my posts, I haven’t figured out how to get scanned negatives to look the way I would expect them to look. Mark’s blog post inspired me to look for some tips and tricks for my scanner, a Nikon CoolScan LS-9000 ED.

I found an essential step in the release notes of VueScan (see “Scanning Roll of Film”): Locking the exposure and locking the film base colour. I missed that before. Furthermore, I took inspiration from Kenneth Morris Lee and his ”Scanning Tips with Epson and VueScan Software” to get a flat image for further processing in DxO PhotoLab. ColorPerfect has some nice tips on how to set up the Nikon Scan software, where I took a hint from the “Improving quality by use of analogue gain” section.

To test my new insights, I dug through my archive of scans for a good example. I chose the one that you can see above: It was taken in the Zoo in Munich. It was one of my first colour scans and I think I just used Auto Levels for colour correction in VueScan. It has a nasty colour cast towards yellow/orange that I did not know how to fix. At the time, I probably thought that this is what Kodak Ektar looks like. I found the negative neatly tucked away in a sleeve in my collection and went to work.

Scanning

The process begins with getting the correct exposure and film base colour locked in. I tend to cut the film to get as many pictures as possible into the film holder of the scanner. Given that these are medium format 6x7 negatives, I had two frames on one strip. The clear area between both frames, or the border of a frame, are a good area to use for exposure and film base colour locking. (For information of how to do this, please read the VueScan release notes: Scanning Roll of Film)

After locking the film base colour, you can find the values in the “Color” tab of VueScan (they are named as “Film base colours red/green/blue”). As an additional step, I set the analogue gain on the input tab to “1 divided by the film base colour value” and remove the film base colour lock afterwards. This corrects for the film base colour by telling the scanner to expose longer/shorter for each colour channel instead of simply multiplying by the factor detected when locking. I took the idea from the Nikon Scan tips on the ColorPerfect page. The benefit compared to multiplication is questionable, but the idea of getting a bit more colour accuracy makes me feel enthusiastic.

All other settings of VueScan are the usual, with exception for the tips for “Curve low”, “Curve high” and “Film Vendor” found in the ”Scanning Tips with Epson and VueScan Software” guide. The resulting scan can be seen above this section. It is a bit dark and flat, just how I wanted it.

DxO Photolab

The image from the previous section, saved as a 16 bit per channel TIFF file, was opened in DxO PhotoLab for colour correction and a bit of colour grading. I started with the “RGB white balance” tab and used the picker on the bright tree trunk on the left of the image. I never know what to pick in the image, so I try some spots where I think it may give me the correct balance until I am satisfied. Next is a combination of the “Exposure compensation” and the “Tone curve” tab: If the image is too dark/bright, adjust the exposure. If the image is too flat, try adding contrast by adjusting the gamma value. Adjusting gamma changes the perceived brightness of the image, so you may need to tweak the exposure compensation, and vice versa.

The result of my efforts is above this section. If you compare it to my first try on top of this post, I think the colours look a lot better and the colour cast is gone. I did overdo it with the gamma correction: The image is a bit too contrasty. It serves well as an example of how much “depth” you can get out of a flat image, though.

And there you have it: I may not yet get perfect results, but I am a lot closer to scanning film the right way.

Once upon a time, in a bout of temporal insanity (happens more often than I dare admit), I bought an 800mm f/5.6 Sigma behemoth of a lens. Why, you ask? To scratch one of those annoying “I want that!” itches, that beset one’s mind without rhyme or reason. I started testing the darn thing with my trusty Nikon D600 and a full moon. The lens came with a 1.4x teleconverter made by Sigma. With a bit of file work, I could adapt my 2.0x Nikon made teleconverter, too. With both attached, I get a neat little focal length of 2240mm. But with my otherwise decent tripod, my tests at those focal lengths were off to a shaky start.

I got a better, sturdier tripod and a gimbal head for quick and accurate turns. A big improvement. Pictures of the Moon now were usable, though not that impressive. The lens is of an older make and model (which I only noticed, after it had arrived). It is not the sharpest tool in the box, unfortunately. I had a suspicion that the lens was made back in the film days. So I decided to try it out with a film body, the Nikon F5. Off I went with tripod, gimbal, lens and camera in my luggage, and drove down to a nearby lake to meet with a friend who wanted to play around with his self-built camera slider.

We set up at the shore of the lake and stayed there for the whole duration. The lens is darn heavy, so I could not be motivated to move around much. And the camera slider was used to try out some time-lapses, which meant that my friend had a lot of time at his hands, while bound to one place.

As it turns out, if you have a long telephoto lens, you do not need to move around much, anyways: Everything appears close by. Often way too close. We joked with people passing by (you don’t see people with weird camera equipment too often around here, and passersby sometimes like to comment) that I should take photos of their friends at the other side of the lake (a couple kilometres away).

By my judgement, the lens is not very sharp on film either. Somehow I manage to see past that in this case, though. And some of the blur is down to motion, e.g. when I tried to catch a bird in flight, or a dog playing. An aperture of f/5.6 is not that fast, and the film I used was Fomapan 100, which means it was not a very sensitive emulsion. Thus, slightly too long shutter times mean some motion blur, too.

Road trips can be awesome. As it so happens, once upon a time I was on a road trip from Las Vegas, through Death Valley up towards Lake Tahoe and then San Francisco. It was the path a colleague and myself took to get from a conference in Las Vegas to some meetings with folks from one of the other offices. The trip took us roughly a weekend and my colleague suggested stopping at Mono Lake to wander around and take some pictures.

The lake has some photogenic features and I took some pictures on my smartphone and filled a roll of Fuji NPS 160 with a Hasselblad 503cx. The camera worked fine and I had the 10 frames filled quickly with various rock formations and vegetation. I love using cameras with big mirrors because of the satisfying “thunk” you get when pressing the shutter.

Everything went smoothly. The roll used is a colour film. Why are the five frames in black and white? Well, development did not go as planned. I put two rolls on the same spindle. That would not be a problem, as you are supposed to put two rolls on the same spindle. Somehow I managed to put both rolls on top of each other, so that they were stuck together. That way, not enough chemicals got to the emulsion and the images came out muted and with a strong colour cast towards blue.

At the time, I could not figure out how to rescue those pictures. I gave up on them and forgot about it until the time came to write this blog entry. Like with the other posts so far, I dug through my archives to see which images might have been taken with the Hassi. The only colour images, so far, are those where I failed during development. I started a last attempt to correct the colour cast with the help of the hue, saturation and lightness sliders in DxO PhotoLab. It did not work.

Then an idea crept out of the depths of my conscious: What about turning those images black and white? I tried some black and white film presets from the DxO FilmPack, settled for Rollei Retro 80s and adjusted exposure. Voilà! I got something usable!

Whenever I have a chance to visit New York, I take the time to walk around for a bit. Each time I try to take a different camera (feel free to expect more posts involving the city that never sleeps). The first time I visited the big apple, I was overjoyed to find that it is all that movies, TV, documentaries, stereotypes, etc., told me it would be. That in itself was unexpected. Never before did I go anywhere and though “Yeah… this is totally like in those Hollywood blockbusters!”.

There is a lot to shoot (with a camera, of course) around Manhatten (which is where I spent my time during my visits): Architecture, people, advertisement, the High Line, the Hudson River, and of course Central Park. The NYC Horse Carriage Rides are usually one of the first sights at Central Park that I point my camera at. From paths through the park, you have a nice perspective of the various skyscrapers that line the border. A selection of lakes, topical buildings, large grass fields (e.g. for sports activities) and paths snaking through a few small hills, attract all kinds of people. A decent way to find relief from tedious “street” photography between all those tall buildings and the hectic crowds (especially around broadway). And with a bit of luck, you can find some people in costumes LARPing away.

This time I took the Tele Rolleiflex 135mm f/4 with me. For those who do not know the camera: It is a Twin Lens Reflex (TLR) camera with a focal length of 135mm and a maximum aperture opening of f/4. On a TLR, you frame the picture through one lens, while the negative is exposed through another lens. My Tele Rolleiflex includes a light meter (which seems to be optional) with an additional “low light” toggle. This allows to switch sensitivity, extending the range in which the light meter may be used.

Operation of the camera is easy if you know what you need to do: The tricky part here is the crank that is used to wind the shutter and advance the film to the next picture. If you load film and do not follow the procedure exactly as described in the manual, the crank will not lock when the film has been advanced to the first frame. In essence, you wind, and wind, and wind, and wind… and finish winding the whole film onto the takeup-spool, without every snapping a picture. Given that I do not take this camera out as often as I should, I tend to forget about the correct procedure and ruin at least one roll of film. (It is difficult to rescue the roll by rolling it back onto the source-spool.)

If you manage to do everything right, though, taking pictures with this TLR camera is just plain awesome. The camera hanging at waist-height seems to make you nearly invisible to the people passing by. Looking down into the image of the waist-lever viewfinder, framing, focusing, snapping, winding, probably smiling, you look like you are enveloped in your little world, oblivious to what is going on around you. To others, you are mostly harmless.

Footnote: The film used (I think) is a Fuji NPS 160.

About a year after moving to the south of Germany, I had the opportunity to travel to Sydney (Australia) for business reasons. With a stay of 2 weeks, this was an excellent excuse to give my first (before, I only had the Mamiya RB67 that I borrowed from my dad) medium format camera a run for its money: The Texas Leica!

“Texas Leica” is the nickname given to all Fuji GW690, because their looks and operation reminded people of a Leica rangefinder. Just a lot larger. Like everything else in Texas. Mine is the third-generation model (i.e. Fuji GW690III), which looks a bit plasticky, but feels and operates wonderfully. Only the built-in lens hood is a bit annoying, as it tends to tilt and get stuck when stowed away in my luggage.

Exploring Sydney was quite delightful. I adored the bay area, which is always busy with the regular ferry traffic (which is part of public transportation and may be used with the same Oyster card that is used for bus and train), sailboats, riverboats and some historic sailing ships. Sitting on a bench near the water was great for calming the mind and for relaxing a bit.

The city centre reminded me of a cross between New York and San Francisco: Narrow streets between skyscrapers and a lot of road construction. On one afternoon, I joined a couple of colleagues on a walk to Luna Park, crossing the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The view from the bridge was nice, but it already started to get dark when we got there. Luna Park turned out to be mostly empty with only a few people here and there. A mostly empty entertainment park, but with everything lit up and running, turns out to be a bit creepy.

I love animals and tend to take a trip to the zoo when I am somewhere new and when I have time to do so. Sydney does have Taronga Zoo, which is worth a visit. It houses some local wildlife, and some from around the world, but the main attraction to me was the gorgeous view over the bay area.

Sydney was fun, my “little” Fuji was fun, and I met some interesting people there. If I ever have the opportunity to travel there again, I won’t hesitate to take it.

Who would have thought? Life is colourful!

I started my journey into analog photography by developing rolls of black and white negatives of various types of Ilford products, but that did not satisfy my urges for long. The pictures in this post are from rolls of Fuji NPS 160 that passed through a Mamiya RB67. They are the first rolls of colour film I developed myself. They are the first rolls of colour film I snapped pictures on, too. I did consider sending them out to a laboratory for development and scanning, but seeing the prices of laboratories with a reputation for high-quality scans, I decided screwing that up myself would be more fun.

I adore Fuji NPS 160 and its specific way of rendering colours. This is the way film looks like, after all, isn’t it? Could I have messed up during development or scanning? Impossible!

As those were my first try, I was meticulously lackadaisical in getting to the correct temperatures for the chemicals. And scanning the negatives? Settings for VueScan were chosen by the high standard of “looks kinda right”.

The neat thing about this approach is: There is no need for post-processing. I have no clue what the image would look like if everything had gone “the right way”. I do not have a clue how to use photo editing software to make the image look like it is supposed to (though I have tried for a couple of years now). So I can leave the image (mostly) the way it came out of VueScan. I just have to decide that I am happy with it.

Have you ever just decided to be happy with something? Works wonders with ones frustration!

Ok, seriously: Most of my self-developed colour images did not come out of the scanner as I would have expected them to come out. Looking at pictures from the same film stock on other websites, I often wonder what I am doing wrong. Did I mess something up during development? Did I use the wrong options during scanning? Is this a specific property of the film stock I used and how it reacts to different light conditions? Is it a light leak in the camera, or did I bend the film during processing? This is bugging me a lot.

My development process has become significantly better in the past couple of years. For black and white I think I have nailed it down to the dot above the T (aside from me cocking it up, because I missed some important step). I did get better at developing colour film, too. Still, I fight with the colours more often than not. And at some point I give up, admit defeat and accept the results as they are.

I just sit down, take a deep breath and decide I am happy with those wonderful, weirdly coloured fruits of my labour.

What better way to start this journey, than with my inspiration and my first wobbly steps into this world. No, not my birth, but the birth of my love for analog photography. It all started after moving to the south of Germany for employment reasons. One fine day I sat in the temporary office space that was our new home and joked about doing large format photography (I was thinking about digital sensors the size of a sheet of A4 paper) to a colleague sitting across from my desk. That lead him to introduce me to the wonders of a Linhoff 4”x5” large format camera and the process of turning light into a negative through the liberal use of chemicals.

I was hooked.

Fast forward to my first steps: I borrowed my dad’s Mamiya RB67, ordered a couple rolls of 120 film and the necessary chemicals and basic equipment for film processing online, and off I went. Taking pictures with the RB67 is a joy (I love the harumph when pressing the shutter) that turns into a literal pain in the neck reasonably quick. That camera is anything but light, which is probably the reason why it earned its place in photo studios instead of on the side of, e.g. landscape or street photographers. My mental image of an RB67 for street photography is of a respectful distance of everyone around you while searching for the right frame, and people jumping for cover when you hit the shutter button. 

Now taking pictures is a joy and a chore. What about the result? Well, as it turns out, and as expected, there is a lot of room for error. And I was about to start using it. The first rolls of film that went through my clumsy development attempts were showing promise. Given that I started with black and white, which sounds easy, I gained some confidence in my ability to get the results that one expects. It all seemed to be quite easy. The next rolls proved me wrong: Instead of decent, contrasty negatives (with a bit of dust), I got faded, blotchy, scratched crap (still with a bit of dust).

I loved it.

With analog photography, the process only starts with taking the picture. A lot of the fun there is in the making of the picture. It is a lot of effort and time, but with those downsides (that may be circumvented by having someone else do the processing work) comes a different way of appreciating photography. A way, that for me now got a new step: This presence in the World Wide Web.

I am a big fan of 35mmc.com and especially the “5 Frames With…” series. In this serial, photographers share their experiences with different cameras, film stock and other aspects of their hobby. And a set of 5 frames related to their post.

I considered for a long time if I should get a website. Previous attempts with blogs and such usually were doomed by my laziness and a subsequent loss of interest. So what is different this time? As mentioned above: This is a new step. If you look at my process of filling a couple rolls of film, developing, scanning and occasionally editing, “creating a blog post” does not seem to be much additional effort at all.

And with my interest in formats from 35mm over medium format up to large format, I think I will have a lot to talk about.

So without further ado: Welcome to “MK Analog”!