- Entries : Category [ photography ]
- On picture taking... and pictures
19 February 2012
Scanning Cross Processed Slide Film
For Fun and Recycling
Yesterday I've been scanning some film for the first time in a while.
The films from my recent trip aren't developed yet, but I still have
some older (and lots of really old) stuff to scan. So I scanned some
cross processed slide film, which always gets funny results...
Some while back I hat gotten a bunch of 135 Fuji Sensia 100 slide film
from a friend. I'm not much of a slide film fan, I shot my due of slide
film in a studio environment "back in the days", but for my own photo
projects, I prefer color negative film. So what to do with the stuff?
Cross process it. In some "lomography" circles, xprocessing is all the
rage, they even sell "special film" for it. But of course, photographers
have been doing this probably for as long as there were color negative
and slide films around.
I'm almost through with the 9 films I got. I've got some interesting
pictures, where the slightly off balance colors are looking really good.
I've got some where things are too off for my taste. Looks to me like
with normal daylight and good scanning (covering a lot of latitude in
the image) it's possible to correct the images so they look almost
normal. The picture of the apples and pears is a good example there.
In more difficult light, like early morning or at sunset with
high contrast, it's much more difficult to get a normal color range.
Obviously the weird colors are part of the game though. To me there
is a tendency to like the crazy colors just as they come out of the
scanners. On photo sharing sites, some people refer to this as "no
post processing", but that obviously isn't true. It should be labelled
"random post processing by the scanner setting". What I aim for then is
a correction of the colors, bringing it close to "normal", but allowing
a little bit room for the weird colors of the cross process. When a
color cast starts getting annoying after looking at it for a couple of
times, that's where I draw the line. A pink image might look good at the
first moment, but it gets boring fast.
The picture of the burned tree over Athens was much more pinkish/magenta
in my first round of corrections. I like it a lot, but I know that I'll
get bored of the color cast soon. It's ok when thinking "this is a cross
processed negative", but without that info it's just a pic with a color
cast. The snow scene (where I was on a hike in the snowy Parnitha
mountains near Athens) might be not completely corrected, but it's one
case where the slight off-balance works for me.
23 March 2012
Getting 39 Pictures out of 1 Film with the Canon F-1N
A little economy never hurt
I've been loading 35 mm film (aka 135) for ages, but it wasn't until a short while ago, that I read somewhere a tip about how to do things differently. While I always had loaded my film from the left side of the camera, this guy (whose site I've unfortunately forgotten) claimed that it's better to load the film from the right side. Well, he's right. I've improved a bit on the system with the Canon F-1N and this is how I get 39 pictures from a normal "36 frames" 35mm film now....
Step 1: To prepare the empty camera, advance the film lever, fire the shutter.
Step 2 and the biggest part of the secret is to start putting in the film on the take up spool on the right. My F-1N's take up spool grabs the film tight, so I'm not afraid to "lose" the film on advancing further. I also take care to line up the sprocket holes on the little wheel sprockets right next to the take up spool.
Step 3: only now do I put the film canister in its place on the left side of the camera, pulling out only as much film as absolutely necessary. If by chance too much came out, I'll tighten the spool using the film wind thing.
With the camera closed, I now advance the film, fire the shutter, advance the film a second time, fire the shutter, advance a third time... and the third picture is ready to be taken on unexposed film. I've measured and tested this with the F-1N and I'm trusting it now without hesitation.
You can get 40 pictures out of one film when you load the camera in a changing bag (or in a darkroom), but 39 is good enough for me. Probably some people even older than me knew this procedure all along, but nobody ever told me all these years!
02 June 2012
Work and work and... Naxos
Island life again
Here I am again in Naxos, arrived yesterday evening with the afternoon
boat. The boat was full, but few foreign tourists, Greeks had a 3 day
weekend. For once, I didn't much move around on the boat, neither much
enjoying the air and the see. Instead I was reading. Now I'm here
to work (lot's of coding to do), for which the quiet life here on
the island is just the right thing. Again there is also good quality
Internet access in the house here... which is on the one hand good for
looking up work related stuff, on the other hand it's a distraction.
The other work plan is photography. I have something of a concept what I
want to do. Actually that is saying way too much. It's more of a rough
aesthetical idea of what kind of picture I'm looking for. It's not like
I know exactly what pictures I want to take or where, but I have a
bit of a feeling how I want the pictures to look like. Going from that
idea I'm now moving around, trying to align my "concept" with what I
see. Who knows, it might take me somewhere in the end.
05 June 2012
Underwater
There's not only work in life
There's not only work in life. Being on Naxos gives me the chance to go for a nice swim when work is done. The weather is fine for swimming, though the kite surfer dudes are probably fuming in their campers and rented rooms: almost no wind means no play for them.
My new (not really so new any more) underwater camera (Lumix) is holding up fine. The Pentax had the advantage that it could be set to fixed focus, but other than that the Lumix image quality appears to be slightly better.
18 December 2012
Films arrived
Slackers need films too
Never mind that I'm slacking at photography. Never mind that I have a huge backlog of stuff to scan. Never mind that I have even a huger (is that even a word?) backlog of pictures to post process or that I can't even call my printing backlog a "backlog" any more... I ordered some more films.
Here they are, next to the Christmas presents. Which really, really is a coincidence, since the films are not a present. Also notice how the box of films is already open, while the presents are closed. I had almost ran out of films and despite not taking many pictures right now, it was time to re-order.
So here we have: Tons of the new Kodak Portra 160 in roll film 120. A few Portra 400 in roll film 120, and a few more Portra 400 in 135 (I already tried that film in 135, but due to backlog of scanning, can't really say much about it, besides that it appears quite fine grained). Then there is good old Kodak Tri-X, some beloved Fuji Acros 100 (both in 120). Then there is another experiment, some Kentmere 100 and 400 in 135. Let's see how that one turns out.
There's also a gallon-sized portion of Diafine (b+w developer). The Diafine I develop my films with is still going strong, but I want to have some around for when it stops doing its magic. Since the stuff is in powder, inside a sealed can, it won't go bad for a while.
Also in the box: A tiny, little bag of sweets. I ordered these films from Macodirect, same as I did for a few years now. They always arrive in a short time, they have good prices and the films are always fresh. Once I had a small problem with them (I ordered 4 boxes of 5x Tri-X and received 4 x 1 Tri-X), which was resolved quick and uncomplicated. So I'm a happy customer and now they even bribed me with sugary sweets!
01 May 2013
Vernissage in Patras
1.3km, 19.-20.4.2013
Am 19.4. sind wir mit dem Zug und Bus nach Patras gefahren, weil am Abend die Vernissage der Ausstellung "GR€€CE No Probl?m" stattfand. In der Ausstellung geht es im weiteren um den Zustand Griechenlands in der Krise.
Diese Ausstellung hatte schon vom 1. bis 17. März in Athen stattgefunden. vom 19. bis zum 26. April war sie dann in Patras. Ich war in dieser Gruppenausstellung mit einem Werk vertreten. Der Titel ist "1.3km" und es besteht aus 7 Photos von Läden, die auf 1.3 Kilometern einer zufällig ausgewählten Einkaufsstrasse im Grossraum Athens entstanden sind.
1.3km ist im Bild das hochformatige Teil, dass die zwei Leute anschauen. Grösser zu sehen ist es auf meinem imagelog. Die Photos sind nicht wirklich "schön", aber das war auch nicht bezweckt. Es ist mehr eine Mischung aus Reportage und Schnappschüssen.
31 May 2014
Travel May, Photo Shoot, and Summer is Here
Filling my minimum quota of one post per month
So this May I travelled to a remote corner of Austria, which involved
various planes. One of them was a turboprop, which was kind of
interesting. At least until you notice that it's actually just another
cramped plane. I also had some very short connection times on both
trips. On the way up this resulted in a bit of anxiousness on my side.
On the way back, I wasn't the only one: Due to bad weather around
Munich, there was a small belays in getting there, and some people were
going to have to hurry for their connections. Myself I didn't have to go
far for my next flight's gate, so no problem.
Then on leaving Munich, there was more delay, sitting around an hour
in the plane waiting to take off. Some people were going to continue
to Larnaka or Hania and they needed some special treatment to have a
chance to catch those flights. On leaving the plane we were asked to
let those people out first. Then they were collected to be delivered to
their flights. Myself I had no such problems, the Metro in Athens wasn't
waiting for me, but I just got the next one :-).
As for Austria, I was lucky with the weather, which was nice, because
we had a bit of sun for the photo shooting. I hadn't worked in a photo
shooting with a model in a long time, so having a bit of luck with the
weather helped. In the evening set, there were no real rays of sun
(diffuse clouds), but in the morning we had good sunlight. The model
was a real talent too, the kind of person who lights up a smile and
everybody wants to smile along. So we managed some nice pictures.
Back in Athens now, and it seems that summer has arrived for good. The
annoying part of that is that my bike is still on the island, so no
riding right now.
20 December 2015
Naxos Cycling Panorama Pictures
The wide view on things
Lately I got a new digicam. Those little digicams seem to die every few
years. On purpose I buy the ruggedized, waterproof little suckers. I
presume they last a little bit longer that way. In any case, the latest
one I got is one from Fujifilm. I've taken it cycling a few times, where
I played around with the panorama function. So here are some pictures
from cycling on Naxos.
Naxos is an island, so obviously there is a lot of sea around it. There
are only few places where the road is right next to the sea, at least in
relationship to the length of coastline. This is a good thing, as a road
with cars spoils all the beach. Unfortunately it also means you can't
cycle along the coast as much as you would like too.
Right now it's winter, so the beaches are empty. In summer lots of
people down there.
Naxos also has a lot of mountains. Basically an island is a mountain
sticking out of the sea. There aren't many flat roads on Naxos, which
makes cycling sometimes a bit complicated and tiresome. It's either
going up or going down.
Sometimes there are some plateau-like areas up there. Here is one near
Kynidaros, with some weird, beautiful stone formations. The top foto
above has some similar stone formations, on the parallel road on the
Potamia road.
I like to go and cycle in the mountains. The landscape is very
interesting. Often you can spot a bit of sea in the distance. Here we
are above Apeirantho and you can see the road where I came from, as it
winds in a long turn along the mountains.
The last picture is at some point on the road that goes deep inside the
Naxian mountains, leading to the village of Komiaki. There are some
telecoms antennas, and usually lots of clouds and cold wind. Near that
spiky mountain in the center of the image is Apollona, the northernmost
village on the island.
(You can click on all the images to see a slightly bigger version.)