On Large Format and Light Leaks

So my camera has a light leak.  It’s most likely the bellows (though I suppose it could be the film holders, but I suspect not) and I’m going to have to jam a flashlight in there and fix it.   Getting my Velvia back, it was fun to see that white splotch in the corner of (almost) every image.  The photos look pretty good though, outside some iffy exposure.

Below, I’ve skillfully demonstrated the light leaks with Photoshop.

I cropped that noise on out, so they’re (sort of) usable images now.

The second fun part of my film adventure was sending the wrong negatives in, so I accidentally got two unused negatives back.  Cool beans.

Also, I fried this one.  It’s pretty disappointing, because that ice is long gone now (it was in the low 80s today) and that was a gorgeous sunset.   That being said, the composition is pretty bad, and I don’t miss the cold even a little bit.  I’m not sure how I got this so wrong, but the proof is in the pudding.  Oh well.

SAVING GRACE: this photo.  The light and everything isn’t perfect, but it has that look you can’t get with digital.  It’s maybe a little underexposed – I could certainly brighten it up in Facebook – but I think I like the velvety look it has here.  The zoomed-in detail is pretty stunning too.

For what it’s worth, the original resolution was 14970 x 11829. That’s just nuts.  And yes, that’s definitely an eyelash or something in the middle.  I’ll have to scan it again.

T-Max 100 and Polish Pride

Delaware Camera finally got my negatives back to me, a week after I dropped them off.  These were an odd bunch, and I’m frankly surprised so many turned out alright.  I’m chalking this up to the crazy dynamic range of black and white negative film.  There’s a ton of room for error.  Still, trying to shoot 100 rated film in low-light conditions is flirting with disaster, and most of them aren’t exposed properly.

Oh yeah. That old chestnut.

I sort of love the look of the T-Max.  It’s a strong, contrasty aesthetic that transforms the most mundane scenes into something vaguely profound.  I’m going to order a box of 4×5 T-Max for portraits and landscapes soon.

Now if you aren’t familiar with Easter in Buffalo, it’s essentially an opportunity for all us Polish Americans to trot out our ethnic pride for a week.   Buried deep in the city’s desolate East Side is the indoor Broadway Market, an old cement building filled with pierogi, golabki and horseradish of all kinds.  It’s awesome.

I went with my mom (pictured sneakily in the foreground of the above photo) and struggled to handhold the Minolta with slow film in the low light.  The pictures turned out better than I’d expected.

I ate a sausage sandwich and we bought kraut, meat, and a couple butter lambs.  All in all, a successful day.

Those are ostensibly lambs. Made of butter.

I burned off the rest of the roll at my folk’s house and at the Ohio gas station I posted about last week.

My sister and her boyfriend, just happy to be photographed.

I’d love to shoot some more T-Max on larger formats, and then develop it myself.  The look is just beautiful, and it’s a very forgiving film, so long as you take into account its glacial speed.

And a dog.

35mm Ektar

I took rolls of Ektar and Tmax 100 into my local camera store yesterday.  Apparently it takes several days to process black and white (if you’re lazy), but I got my Ektar back in a couple hours.  I’d complained about the look of Ektar, but it occurs to me that maybe I was just using it wrong.

I took my mom’s old Minolta x370 to South Buffalo to shoot some urban decay.  Unfortunately, halfway through my roll of Ektar, the camera started jamming and I lost a bunch of photos.  Example below.

Whoops!

This is too bad, because that isn’t a bad looking shot.  Ektar is weird in that it definitely has a sort of blueish tint to it, but the other colors really pop.  It almost looks like a comic book.  I think that in less contrasty scenes, the look can be really pleasing.

Abandoned gas station off Ohio street.

Is that a DSLR on your shadow or are you just happy to see an abandoned gas station?

I took 2 4×5 exposures on Velvia 100, and I won’t know how those turned out til next week, but the 35mm doesn’t look half bad.

People say Ektar acts more like slide film and therefor requires greater care with exposure.  This seems true, but if you’re going to guess, guess on the overexposed end of the spectrum.  Any images I underexposed were unusable, but the slightly bright ones look pretty good.

When I get the black and white negatives back, I’ll toss them up here.  In the meantime, 180mm or 210mm large format lens?  Thoughts?