Film photography, a new approach.

I use a hybrid approach to film photography. I shoot film in a camera, develop the film myself and then, when the negatives are dry, I scan the negatives using a DSLR, an led light pad and a Pixl-ator. 

That work flow allows an accurate copy of the physical negative to be made in the digital environment. 

Further processing can take place in a photo editing suite to convert the negative to a positive and make it look like a photo.

Up to now I've been happy with the workflow and if a negative isn't what I'd hoped then, that's the unpredictability of film photography isn't it?

Turns out that this isn't the case.

So I've sought some help in improving my technique.

Last weekend I went on a day trip and so I took my Nikon F75 loaded with a roll of FP4 Plus.

Given the dreadful conditions, the incessant rain that was falling with no sign of stopping, I dialed in -1 exposure compensation to shoot the film at an effective ISO 250. 

The camera sets the film ISO using DX encoding on the film cartridge. So the only way to change the effective ISO is to dial in exposure compensation.

Anyway I shot the film on my day out, returned home and developed the film, ensuring the development time was adjusted to take into account the reduced exposure that the film was exposed at.

After the film was hung to dry and then sleeved, I left the "scanning" for a day when I could give the job my full attention.

That day was Bank Holiday Monday.

So I started on with the scanning work. I set my DSLR on to a tripod and setup the Pixl-ator.

So the new process.

The Camera will need to be configured to capture RAW files and the shutter needs to be set to delay by 2 seconds. That way everything has two seconds to settle before the shutter is fired. On my camera there are beeps during the countdown.

When you have the negative in the holder, configure the camera for manual exposure, an ISO of 100 and set the aperture to f5.6. To configure the exposure, you need to switch to "live view" and then bring up the histogram for the live view. Adjust the shutter speed until the histogram is just shy of the right hand side. It's best for the histogram to be just short of the right hand side rather than up against it, which could cause clipping.

Now roughly frame the negative so that it fills as much of the DSLR frame as possible but leave a small border.

Now to focus. Switch the lens, I use a Canon 100mm f2.8 Macro lens, to manual focus on the lens itself. Now on the live view on the camera zoom in to 10x so that you can see the grain of the film. Now adjust the focus so that the grain is sharp. Thats the focus locked in. Zoom out again so you can see the whole negative.

Frame the negative making final adjustments. 

Take a photo of the negative.

Review the photo on the camera and review it's histogram.

Before continuing to scan the rest of the roll, it's worth transferring the photo to the laptop to review it on a bigger screen and preferably in a RAW converter.

Thats the basics of the improvements to my scanning technique, And I'm really please with the results.

Fire, Fire!

I had the opportunity recently to go to a Music and Motorcycle Rally near Stonehenge in Wiltshire. I took lots of photographs of the wonderful array of bikes on display. The amount of time, skill and patience that people put into their machines is astonishing, although perhaps not surprising. These are skilled machinists, fabricators and welders, and their bikes are a reflection of their skills and their owners.

I'll be posting more photographs through the coming week.

But for this post I wanted to show a photograph of something that simply caught my eye.

I was sitting at a communal table with a group of other like-minded motorbike enthusiasts. The organisers turned out to be a motorcycle club from Wiltshire, and large canvas roofs had been erected to provide shelter, with tables underneath.

Bikers are an interesting bunch. They take danger and laugh in its face. Riding a motorbike leaves you remarkably vulnerable when things go wrong, and the SMIDSY (Sorry Mate, I Didn't See You) is always a possibility as is The Song of the Sausage Creature, as Hunter S. Thompson wrote.

Anyway, lots of bikers still smoke.

Given that the statistics would have you believing you're unlikely to reach forty if you ride a motorbike, a few cigarettes probably aren't going to make much difference.

So the organisers had put little fire buckets on each table, half-filled with sand, for cigarette butts.

And that's what caught my eye.

I had the LC-A with me. I set the zone focus to 0.8m, put the camera down on the table and took the photograph.

There was no careful framing or looking through the viewfinder. There was no guarantee that I had even got the focus right,  but it was worth a try.

And I rather like the resulting photograph.

 

Mad Max Vibes

There is something quite interesting about the amount of work, the skills and the creativity of bikers on the custom motorcycle scene.

This trike was ridden to the bike rally by someone who has clearly spent a fair amount of time watching Mad Max 2, The Road Warrior. 

It's the little details that caught my eye. 

The trike rear subframe had been fabricated from scratch buy someone who knew what they were doing, the welds were superb, suggesting a skilled welder and the whole affair looked like it had always been a trike. There was nothing about it that immediately suggested a motorcycle that had simply been converted. 

The Hannibal Lector mask on the handlebars and the skulls add to the vibe.

The army surplus ammo boxes on the back, give the whole bike an authenticity that shouts post apocalyptic in a way that simply bolting on a bunch of shiny parts could never achieve.

Finally the knobbly tyres set the whole bike off.

I took this at a bike and music rally using my LC-A, with the focus zone set to 1.5 meters. 

I'm always astonished that such a low tech camera can accomplish excellent results in difficult conditions.  It was a blisteringly hot sunny day with no shade and I think the little Soviet built camera did a fantastic job of capturing the moment in those conditions.

Most importantly, it captured what caught my eye in the first place.

I am very pleased with this one.

Searching for a Scene

Until last year I had lived in Wales for five years. There were reasons for the move, and I genuinely enjoyed living there. However, I was too far from my grown-up kids to make visiting easy for either them or me.

In Wales there seemed to be a photograph around every corner, and there were plenty of scenes to find a new perspective on the place. The area that I enjoyed the most was "The Mumbles". It was the place that I could simply wander with a camera and just photograph whatever caught my eye. Some scenes I photographed in a variety of ways, using a Holga, a Mamiya C330 and my Chroma Camera Snapshot Instant Edition. This is one of them, captured using my Mamiya C330. I've never felt that I quite got this photograph right. The wind has disturbed the reflection in the water, and that's not quite how I imagined it when I pressed the shutter. Of all the frames I made of this view, though, this one comes closest.

And that's OK, I think. It's not perfect but it does act as a reminder of that Sunday afternoon out wandering along the seafront.

 

Thought for the day

When you are out and about with a camera, it's important to find subjects to photograph. It would seem that this goes without saying, but it is worth reiterating. The thing is, looking at the world through a viewfinder really isn't the best way to experience a place.

Being present, or in the moment as the tropes would have you believe, is really just another way of saying: simply be there.

Don't look through the viewfinder looking for something to photograph. Look at the world. When something catches your eye, use the viewfinder to decide what to leave in the picture and what to leave out. The viewfinder isn't for finding views, but for framing them. There is a real difference between the two.

Go out somewhere, be there, and let the photographs find you. When something catches your eye, the camera becomes a useful tool for capturing it.

Perhaps that's what photography is really about? 

Not searching for photographs, but being sufficiently present to notice them when they appear.

 

The Halcyon Days of Summer

Summer is a funny time for photography, largely because of the increased activity that comes with family during the school holidays, particularly when you have school-age children or, as in my case, grandchildren. It means you have to get out when you can and make the most of whatever time you have with a camera.

This photograph is remarkably, well, unremarkable. But it was taken after a busy day, both at work and with the grandchildren. I dragged the motorbike out from its slumber and headed out with a Holga 120 GN loaded with a roll of Kentmere Pan 100 film. The Holga is permanently fitted with a yellow filter, and I simply meandered through the country lanes near my home in Somerset.

I ended up at St Mary the Virgin Church in the little village of Shapwick. By this time it was eight o'clock in the evening, but being high summer, lack of light wasn't a problem. I set the Holga to the portrait zone, which is approximately one metre, and took this photograph.

The photograph itself isn't really remarkable, but that doesn't particularly matter. Every time I look at it, I remember the motorbike ride, pottering around the quiet country lanes and a pleasant summer evening spent wandering around that churchyard with the Holga.

Perhaps that's enough reason for a photograph to exist.

Double Vision

There are times when you shoot a roll of film and things don't quite go to plan.

Film itself is an imperfect medium. It's an emulsion adhered to a length of plastic film, and cameras can require quite a bit of concentration to use properly. Even then, you can end up with an out-of-focus picture, a finger in front of the lens or too much light getting to the film.

It's all a bit of a worry.

My beloved Holga 120 GN is about as basic a camera as you could want. One aperture, one shutter speed, zone focusing and the ability to choose either instant shutter (N) or bulb mode (B). Bulb mode simply keeps the shutter open for as long as the shutter button is held down.

There is another "feature", though, that can either trip you up or give you a little serendipity, depending on your point of view.

The shutter isn't locked to the film advance. Unless you remember to advance the film after taking a picture, you can end up with a double exposure.

And that's exactly what happened here.

I'm firmly on the Lomo side of the argument. Accept the flaws. Don't look for perfection. Sometimes the things that go wrong are the things that make the photograph interesting.

So, is this picture the result of my own ineptitude?

Or is it the universe adding a little bit of its own magic to the mix?