Posts Tagged ‘black and white’

Travelling light

Sunday, May 23rd, 2010

I find it difficult to decide what to take when I travel.  On Tuesday, I’m heading to Toronto for some meetings and then, the following Tuesday, heading to New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island for some rest and relaxation.

Today I was going through my camera equipment trying to decide what to take with me and what to leave behind.  Ideally, I’d like to take everything…!

I decided to take my Nikon F5, F100 and F3HP.  The F5 is my go-to 35mm body.  The F100 has an almost identical user interface, but is lighter and smaller, particularly if I remove the MB-15 vertical grip.  The F3HP is a manual focus professional body from the 1980s, but without a motor drive (which I’m leaving at home) it’s quite small and very quiet.  I took it to Europe a couple of years ago and found that I used it quite frequently.

Having three bodies will be nice.  I can shoot Fuji Velvia in the two AF bodies and black-and-white film in the F3HP.

Now, to decide what fountain pens and inks to take… :)

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Film is NOT dead!

Sunday, May 9th, 2010

It seems that every week or two, someone on the Internet is proclaiming photographic film to be dead.  I won’t bother helping the authors’ cause by hyperlinking the articles; it won’t be hard to find them if you really want to find them.

It turns out that they’re wrong.

First:  I’ll unabashedly proclaim my addiction to film photography.  Computers are a terrific hobby of mine, but I learned photography on film and I don’t want to spend my photographic time at a computer.  (That, and I’d need to spend almost three grand to get a digital SLR that can shoot with my wide-angle lenses without turning them into boring normal lenses.)

I’ll cite this as some of the best evidence that film is still alive:  Kodak, only months ago, released its newest colour film Ektar 100.  After a successful introduction in 35mm, Kodak released it in 120 last summer and now has released it in sheet film sizes.  (What?  They still make sheet film cameras?  Yes, and I bought a new one – one of theirs – only two summers ago.)

To be truthful, it’s getting tougher to be a film shooter.  Local stores don’t stock film as much, and lab availability is decreasing.  Why, my local lab’s E6 (slide) lab shut down earlier this year so I’ll have to mail my reversal films for processing (not that that’s a big problem).

But when so many companies still around why not shoot some of their silver products and get back to the basics?  It’s fun!

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Postcards from the edge

Friday, March 19th, 2010

I’ve been using Ilford photographic products since the 1970s – films, chemicals and photographic papers.  Other than some brief dalliances in the colour world (most notably Ilfochrome, formerly known as Cibachrome), Ilford’s feet have been firmly planted in the monochrome photography world, and that suits me fine because its products are exceptional.  In fact, since Kodak’s withdrawal from the black-and-white photographic paper market a few years ago, Ilford is the world’s largest manufacturer of black-and-white photographic paper products.

One of Ilford’s most interesting products is its postcard paper.  It’s normal Ilford Multigrade IV Portfolio paper (Portfolio signifying a thicker paper stock than its normal Deluxe version), but on the back is a postcard-format imprinting.  The sheets are a standard 4×6″ postcard size.

While you can actually put these cards through the mail, it’s fun to use them to make small prints and give them to people.  Recently I made a bunch of prints of a photo I was raffling off, and everyone got a postcard of the print.  One person took home an 11×14″ of the photo, framed.

I’m thinking about putting out an issue of postcard prints every year, as a way of sharing my photography with friends (and giving myself an artificial deadline!).  I think postcard paper is a good way to do it.

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Eastman 5222

Friday, March 12th, 2010

My photographic habits wax and wane to some degree.  One thing that doesn’t seem to pass is my interest in exploring new directions with materials and equipment.  I suppose that makes me a photogeek.

I’ve always enjoyed tinkering with different films.  I certainly have my favourites (Ilford’s triad of Pan-F Plus, FP4 Plus and HP5 Plus are ones I use a lot).  However, in addition to using Kodak’s films I’ve also played with Fuji, Foma, Efke, Forte, Shanghai, Era, Lucky and Agfa films.

Kodak is certainly the best-known film manufacturer, but not many still photographers are aware of its Eastman arm.  Eastman produces motion picture film – and as it turns, 35mm motion picture film is essentially identical to still film in the same format.  (The first 35mm still cameras used respooled motion picture film, in fact.)  And one film that Eastman makes that you can’t buy in a still-photography cousin’s form is Double-X, or, as it’s better known (by its Eastman product code), Eastman 5222.

Double-X is an ISO 250 black-and-white film that comes in 400′ and 1,000′ cans.  Yes, this is a lot of film.  (Figure on 80 36-exposure rolls, approximately, from the smaller can.)

I’ve shot half a dozen rolls of it so far and I like it.  It has a nice tonality, and really fine grain for its speed (I’ve been shooting it at EI 200 and developing it in Kodak HC-110 Dilution B).  I’ve gotten nice 11x14s out of it.

The big problem is that it’s hard to get.  Apparently you can buy it directly from Kodak.  I got my can from a fellow photographer in Vancouver.  You can also get short ends from places like Film Emporium.

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