Film Camera Week for January 8

From the first roll in a very long time with my long-lost Contax IIa. 50 f2 Sonnar on HP5. I'm completely overjoyed to have it back!

Canon AF35J Kentmere Pan100

Hi Brad. My turn to "steal & return". You have tons of shadow values in those negs, you are just printing tooooo dark. This "return" has a few simple brightness[ATTACH=full]1371266[/ATTACH] controls added to bring the whites up about 1 or 2 Zones. The shadows follow along. I always like to have a Zone 6 or 7 white value if possible in a print. My print has been dropped to 1k pixel, so it might be a bit "mushy". Aloha, Bill

Bill, as you know, as a refugee from the software industry, I'm allergic to using it on my hobbies. But I did try an autocorrect button in Photoshop, and came up with this. Much more like your recommendation.

From the first roll in a very long time with my long-lost Contax IIa. 50 f2 Sonnar on HP5. I'm completely overjoyed to have it back!

[ATTACH=full]1371543[/ATTACH]

That composition is extraordinary. The "Lucas" headlamp in glorious crispness and the rest of a car apparently fading out of focus and into rust. Wow. Just great photography.

bradleycloven said:

Bill, as you know, as a refugee from the software industry, I'm allergic to using it on my hobbies

That's certainly a vast improvement, Brad. I overcame my hesitation about the use of software in photography as least a decade ago,though I try to limit it's use to achieving results I could achieve in the darkroom. When you look at the techniques and manipulations the "great" photographers indulged in to create their prints you realise that the finished result is a long, long way from the instant the shutter fired; the great Sam Haskins was perhaps the greatest darkroom technician of them all and you might like to Google him to explore his work. After all, the moment you hit the power switch of your scanner you're merely firing up an electronic machine that's totally dependent on software to produce a result... Despite naive discussions regarding "native" scans with everything at default settings, the results will vary enormously depending on the features/construction of the scanner in use and the software dictating it's performance. Just as earlier photographers utilized all the tricks of their trade, the advances in technology have given us an equivalent toolbox, without the mess, toxicities and smells!

bradleycloven said:

 

That's certainly a vast improvement, Brad. I overcame my hesitation about the use of software in photography as least a decade ago,though I try to limit it's use to achieving results I could achieve in the darkroom. When you look at the techniques and manipulations the "great" photographers indulged in to create their prints you realise that the finished result is a long, long way from the instant the shutter fired; the great Sam Haskins was perhaps the greatest darkroom technician of them all and you might like to Google him to explore his work. After all, the moment you hit the power switch of your scanner you're merely firing up an electronic machine that's totally dependent on software to produce a result... Despite naive discussions regarding "native" scans with everything at default settings, the results will vary enormously depending on the features/construction of the scanner in use and the software dictating it's performance. Just as earlier photographers utilized all the tricks of their trade, the advances in technology have given us an equivalent toolbox, without the mess, toxicities and smells!

I still think about how I process an image in photoshop like I did when I was in the darkroom.

That composition is extraordinary. The "Lucas" headlamp in glorious crispness and the rest of a car apparently fading out of focus and into rust. Wow. Just great photography.

Thanks for that! The Austin is one of several cars that were "repurposed" into an art installation several years ago. They have gardens growing in them in summer! After the end of the installation per se they were spread about town in various locations. This one is on the frequent "flight path" of one of my walks. I've studied it photographically many times - on film, digital, in B&W and colour and every format up to 6x6. I think the image I posted is my favourite of the lot to date and I put much of that down to the lovely behaviour of the Sonnar. Much as I like having fresh things to photograph I also enjoy very much revisiting the same subjects and trying to see them with fresh eyes each time.

The school I teach at had a "snow day" so after taking a few photos I processed the film mid afternoon and scanned the negatives during halftime of the Alabama vs. Ohio State game. I finished up a roll of Kentmere 100 and started and finished a roll of HP5+.

storage building, Minolta HiMatic 7s, Kentmere 100

snowy vehicles in driveway, Minolta SRT 101 with MD 35-70 f4, HP5+

more snow, same gear as last photo

snowy shrubs, same gear as previous

As the day progressed snow melted quickly.

only snowman survived the melt, same gear

One of the last photos of the afternoon, same gear

Another car pic from the same HP5/Contax roll. I shot some Delta 100 with the IIa on the weekend that needs to get developed and tried out a Helios 103 53mm f1.8 I was given - half roll Sonnar, half Helios. They're very different designs (Helios being Biotar/Planar related) so it will be interesting to see how they compare.

Talk about gardens in cars...Pentax K-1000, probably 35/2.8 lens and Fuji 100 consumer neg film