Delivery

I always love getting a box full of goodies delivered to my door. My order from Freestyle Photo arrived today. I highly recommend them, they specialize in film photography supplies, have good prices, and always include a nice little thank you card with every order.

I was running low on developer, so I ordered some Kodak Polymax T and Ilford Microphen. Thus far I've only used Ilford DD-X, so I'm curious to try out both new developers and see how things turn out.

I also ordered some more film, trying to keep a backstock just in case. I'm trying to test out a lot of different films with the hope of finding some favorites. Of course with so many variables (film type, ISO, developer, developing time, and just different photos) it's difficult to be systematic about things. Thus far I think I'm leaning towards Ilford film. I haven't been too impressed with Kodak TMax, but at least it is easy to find. Having said that, I wish I would have read this sooner, I would have bought a few extra rolls of Ilford for the freezer.

This time around I got some Kodak PlusX 125 in 35mm and Arista Ultra and Fomapan in 120, none of which I've tried before. I also go a roll of TMax 3200 which was on sale because of a short expiration date. I've never shot on anything above ISO 800 before, so I'm interested to see how it will turn out. I think I'm going to test it out on my next trip to Vegas for work and get some night time shots.

So what's your favorite film to shoot on?

And the Answer Is ...

If you hadn't already guessed, the first photo in the previous post was from the D80 and the latter was film. All you that got this right win a gold star.

I'm still undecided which I like better. I think each has its merits, independent from the medium it was shot with. I'm just happy I got several good shots with both cameras.

Here are more pictures from the session. Enjoy.

A Tale of Two Cameras

So here are a couple photos from Sunday night. One was taken on a Nikon D80 digital SLR and the other on a Nikon FG film camera.

Can you tell which is which? This isn't a test of your photographic skills or sense of detail, or which medium is better. I'm just curious if any differences are noticeable to most people. Also, regardless of which came from what camera, which shot do you think is the better photo?

More photos from the shoot are to come, but I didn't want to spoil things yet.

Baby Photos

Well, I did the first "controlled" shoot of my newborn son W last night. He's just over a week old and overall it went pretty well. I had all three cameras out to make sure I got at least a few pictures with everything, which made me feel like a combination of a professional wedding photographer and a klutz.

The biggest problem with shooting in our house is that it's so dark. Even in the daylight it has very little light inside, plus we had to wait until after dark anyway so that E was asleep. I do have a couple really big fluorescent stand lights with umbrellas, but even those weren't quite enough to make shooting with ISO 50 film on the 35mm camera easy. This was my first time shooting with film this slow, but I really wanted to see how fine the grain was. Even if the grain is really nice, given that I think you can only shoot on this in broad daylight (Sunny 16) or in a professional studio with a million watts of light, I think I may stick faster film in the future. The Holga had 400 speed film in it, so we'll see how that turned out.

I must confess that I did "cheat" a bit, essentially testing out a lot of shots with the D80, setting it to B&W mode so I could see how the shot turned out with a given setting. I think this came in handy since it has spot metering, while my FG only does center-weighted. I'm still not very confident in my manual shooting ability, so this was helpful. Besides, even the pros use a light meter - mine just happened to be another camera.

I processed the roll of 35mm film tonight and it's drying as I type this. I upped to development time by about 10% to try and get a little more contrast, since some of the digital shots weren't as contrasty SOOC as I would like. Hopefully I will get them all scanned in tomorrow and post them up. I'm curious to see if people can tell the difference between the film B&W and the digital B&W. I'll wait to post the pictures together to test everyone.

If anyone has any good tips for working with slow film, or getting an 18 month old to cooporate so I can do some photos of E and W together, I'd love to hear them.

"In the Grass", Dayton 080809 (Holga 120N, Fuji Reala)

I enjoy taking photos.

I like my photos.

I recently re-discovered shooting with film.

I still enjoy my digital camera.

These are my photos.

I hope you enjoy my photos.