Tag: Kodak

Shooting expired Kodak EliteChrome 400 ….

Quite a while ago I was gifted a bag full of expired slide film from a photographer friend.

The bag contained plenty of film stocks that I had never shot before mainly Kodak Elitechrome 100/400 and Ektachrome 160 Tungsten.

I have shot the 100 iso previously and it was fine even though it all had a dubious history of storage.

I was expecting the 400 iso to be slightly more more grainy and I was unsure what iso to shoot it at, I only went 1 stop with the 100 and shot that at 50.

I decided to do the same with the 400 and shot it at 200 iso using my Nikon F100 and 50mm f1.4.

The problem was that when I developed it using the Tetenal E6 kit and then scanned it was that the whole roll was slightly underexposed but also blew out some of the highlights so I was glad that I didn’t push it any more as I managed to get some pretty decent images when processing in Lightroom.

Compared to the previous 100 iso this roll faired a little worse showing much more grain and not as sharp overall but I was happy with the slightly muted colours.

Here is a selection of images from the roll .. click to view larger

 

All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email

I also have a film only blog over at  usingfilm.wordpress.com if you want a peek 🙂

Shot my 1st roll of Kodak Ektar in ages … Here is the whole roll

For the first time in a while we had a lovely sunny Saturday the other week so I wanted to shoot colour on one of my mountain hikes.

I considered shooting some slide as I have quite a few rolls of expired film in my fridge as well as a couple of rolls of new Kodak Ektachrome but as I was going through my film stash I came across a roll of Ektar that expired back in 2015.

I am pretty sure that I bought it new and it has been lost in my fridge since then.

I don’t really shoot Ektar that often, in fact I probably have only shot 5 or 6 rolls in the past so I decided to use that for a change.

I do like how Ektar looks when I have used it and also there are loads of gorgeous images on the internet so instead of developing it myself I sent it to the awesome filmdev to get the scans right rather than me having to mess around trying to get the “Ektar Look”.

I shot the roll with my Nikon FE2 and the Nikkor 50mm f1.8 pancake lens that looks and works great with the FE2.

So here is the whole roll including the 1st test shot while loading the film (not very good but as it’s the whole roll I left it in) also the last 2 frames were shot indoors just to finish the roll.

I tried to look for subjects that would lend themselves to the Ektar look namely punchy Reds & Greens.

At the time of writing this blog Analogue Wonderland are running a competition to shoot Ektar along with a super discount on purchasing 120 and 35mm Ektar if anyone wants to take a look  (I am not affiliated to them I just love the service they supply) just click the link to visit the website for details.

Comments most welcome, click on an image to view larger

All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email

I also have a film only blog over at  usingfilm.wordpress.com if you want a peek 🙂

Sunny day walk with my Daughter & some Kodak Portra 400VC …

I have been working all the way through this pandemic lockdown which is a blessing as I think I would have gone nuts if I had to stay home so on the weekends I make the most of it by going on a long walk here in our lovely Garw Valley.

Most weekends if she isn’t working too I have been joined by my daughter who has been eager to explore the many different walks we have here in our vicinity.

I bought quite a few rolls of Portra 400VC from Mr Cad ages ago so I thought it was about time that I shot some of it so I loaded my trusty Mamiya 645 and went out on a hot Saturday morning to do a 8 mile trek around our valley.

After developing the roll I had some issues namely strange light leaks in different places and of different intensities so I immediately thought the camera was at fault even though I have never had a problem like this on any other rolls.

After posting on Twitter asking if anyone had any idea what it could be most people suggested the camera which would have been the obvious choice so I loaded up a roll of ilford SFX and shot that the following day under the same sunny conditions only to find they were all perfect … no leaks so on this occasion I think the problem was with the film itself.

I bought about 20 rolls and have shot 7 or 8 previously and all were fine except this one.

As most of the leaks occurred on the edges I managed to salvage quite a few frames with a little cropping which was pretty easy as it was a 6 x 4.5 frame.

See this original scan sample here

 

Anyway here are the final images … please click to view larger ….

 

All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email

I also have a film only blog over at  usingfilm.wordpress.com if you want a peek 🙂

I forgot I shot this roll … My 1st roll of Tri-X for years

I have been trying to tidy up my lightroom catalog of my film scans.

I seem to have at least 15 rolls of film that I have shot over the last year that I have not blogged yet.

Most of the rolls I remember but this one completely slipped my mind which is strange as it was a roll of Kodak Tri-X I shot with my Leica M2 which is a film I have not bothered with for years as I never seemed to get very good results with.

To be honest this roll didn’t really blow me away either, I am not sure what I don’t like as it has plenty of contrast and is sharp which is what I like in my B&W … maybe it’s the grain which makes me feel Meh!.

My favourite image was the one where I managed to slip and fall over ( Tree’s)

I doubt if I will be rushing to shoot it again for a while unless I try pushing it just to see if that gives me something that I will like.

Here is the best of an ordinary bunch ….

 

Please click on an image to view larger …..

All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email

I also have a film only blog over at  usingfilm.wordpress.com if you want a peek 🙂

Testing my 2nd Pentax Super A with Kodak TMax P3200 ….

About 6 months ago I picked up an SLR that I have wanted for ages a Pentax Super A.

I already have a few other Pentax’s including a Program A which is very similar but the Super has a top shutter speed of 1/2000 sec compared to 1/1000 which also shows on an LCD panel on the top.

To cut a long story short I somehow managed to lose that camera on a night out (Don’t ask) so I really wanted to get another one.

Super A’s are not that easy to get hold of especially in good condition but I managed to get one that was almost perfect but I needed to test it just to confirm I had a good one (as it was not cheap).

I had a few rolls of TMax P3200 that had just expired from Analogue Wonderland, I had already shot some before and were fine so I loaded up and went out for a local walk.

As you can see from a selection of images the camera worked great and I felt happy paying slightly over the odds for my 2nd copy.

 

All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email

I also have a film only blog over at  usingfilm.wordpress.com if you want a peek 🙂

My 1st roll of the New Kodak Ektachrome … all 36 frames

I have shot most of the available and discontinued slide films over the years and processed them in E6 and cross processed in C41 and it never fails to give you a great feeling holding up some slides to the light.

So obviously when Kodak announced that they were bringing back Ektachrome I couldn’t wait to get some to play with.

Once I bought a few rolls I decided to load the 1st roll into my Nikon F100 as it gives me pretty much spot on exposures when I shoot slide film.

As you can see from the 1st shot on the roll I began shooting on March 30th and I took about 4 months to complete the roll as I wanted to try it on a range of subjects and lighting conditions.

I had the film developed & scanned by AG Photographic as I didn’t want to mess up the developing and get unreliable results.

I have to say the film lived up to my expectations … colours and sharpness were great and even shooting into the sun worked, also portraits came out good too.

So here is the complete roll in the order that I shot them … comments welcomed.

 

Please click a photo to view larger

All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email

I also have a film only blog over at  usingfilm.wordpress.com if you want a peek 🙂

Testing some Kodak 5325 Commercial Internegative film …..

I was kindly given a roll of Kodak 5325 a while back from a fellow Twitter photographer which I had forgotten about until I came across it the other week and after a little bit of research on the interwebs I realised that I could process it myself as it was C41 so I went out on a lovely bright day with my Pentax Program A and gave it a try.

Kodak  internegative is supposed to make color negative copies of slides for reproduction also I was led to believe that it may even be Tungsten balanced and an iso rating of 8-50 ish depending on lighting conditions.

I decided against any filters and shot half the roll at iso 25 and the rest at 50 just to see what came out.

The first thing that I noticed was a very strong “Light Leak” which  I initially believed may have been my camera but after messaging my film donor he said that a few of the rolls that he tried came out similarly to mine so I breathed a sigh of relief that my trusty Pentax was fine ( I shot another roll of Fuji 200 to test the next day)

The images with the light leak were very pleasing I actually like the look and I don’t think they spoil the images.

There was quite a varied colour cast throughout the roll and some frames were a lot cooler than others which I thought was the different iso settings but that was not the case as they were mixed through the roll and I shot the 1st 10 images at 25 followed by 50 iso for the remainder.

I could have colour balanced all the images in Lightroom but decided to just leave them as they were.

If I get any more of this film I would definitely shoot it at 25 iso or less as all the original scans were slightly underexposed which was sorted in Lightroom.

Please click a photo to view larger

All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email

I also have a film only blog over at  usingfilm.wordpress.com if you want a peek 🙂

 

Last remains of Autumn on Kodak Elitechrome 100…..

I was lucky enough to be given a batch of expired slide film from a friend and fellow photographer a few weeks ago.

I have already tried some without any problems even though there was no guarantee on how the rolls had been previously stored.

Just as a precaution I bracketed this roll due to the overly bright sunshine that we managed in November.

I shot the roll with my Pentax Program A and Tokina SD 28-70 Macro

It was developed the roll in the Tetenal E6 kit and scanned on the Epson v500.

I was glad that I did bracket as the dynamic range was very small even by slide standards and the fact that it was expired.

I was happy with the results that were at the optimal exposure 🙂

Please click a photo to view larger

All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email

I also have a film only blog over at  usingfilm.wordpress.com if you want a peek 🙂

1st time shooting the new Kodak TMax P3200 …..

A couple of weeks back I managed to get some of the new Kodak Ektachrome when it arrived here in the UK along with some of the new Kodak TMax P3200.

I have yet to shoot the Ektachrome but did manage to put a roll of the P3200 through my Nikon F100 which I shot at 3200 iso .

I developed it with ilfotecHC 1+31 dilution for 11.30 mins.

I will shoot the next roll at either 800 or 1600 to compare the results.

I have previously shot well expired P3200 and I was looking forward to seeing how the new emulsion compared.

See links for blog posts ….

Post 1

Post 2

Overall I was pretty pleased with the photos which seemed to give pretty sharp images (most shot at f8/11) and the grain didn’t seem to hinder the look unlike when I have shot Delta 3200 where I could never seem to get many shots that I was happy with.

I will have to buy some more Delta 3200 and do some similar tests as maybe I am giving the film a disservice.

Anyway here is a selection of frames which were shot on a very overcast day ….

Please click a photo to view larger

All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email

I also have a film only blog over at  usingfilm.wordpress.com if you want a peek 🙂

Summer has gone ….Kodak Ektachrome 100GX

I have a backlog of rolls that I have shot over the last 2 months that I have developed & scanned but not posted.

This is a roll of Kodak Ektachrome 100GX that I shot when we still had a bit of sun here in Wales they are a mix of a day at the beach and the usual walks around my home in the Garw valley.

Obviously this film expired a few years back but if the new Ektachrome is half as nice as this I will be happy when I manage to get my hands on it.

The images were shot using my Nikon F100 and developed using the Tetenal E6 kit.

Click on an image to view larger …

 

All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email

I also have a film only blog over at  usingfilm.wordpress.com if you want a peek 🙂