Scanning Cross Processed Slide Film

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.

Getting 39 Pictures out of 1 Film with the Canon F-1N

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!

Work and work and... Naxos

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.

Underwater

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.

Films arrived

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!

Vernissage in Patras

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.

Travel May, Photo Shoot, and Summer is Here

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.

Naxos Cycling Panorama Pictures

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.)