Hongdae Halloween 2015: Female Edition

 

During last Halloween I hit the streets of Hongdae with a friend and we took photos of the wonderfully dressed up people there. I used my Nishika N8000 ( the older and heavier brother of the N9000). It is a heavier camera but so far more dependable and I prefer the forward lever compared to the forward spool of the N9000. I threw on a small lomo flash and I hit the streets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lady above had probably my favorite costumer with the Liechtenstein homage, but it was the last frame of the roll and I must have opened the camera at one point, getting a major light leak.

 

 

 

No lens, just a hole

I took my Sharan pinhole wide camera out for some photos around Seoul. I thought I had cleaned up the frame from unnecessary tape, but the photos showed I didn’t. The tape was there to make sure the camera was lightproof which it very much was this time. No sneaky light shining on my film.

First up are some exposures at night. I think the exposure was around a minute or so. I should have written it down. But like I said before, negative film is pretty forgiving so night shots regularly turn up nicely for me.

The subject is Namdaemun, the famous ancient south gate of Seoul. Burned a couple of years ago, but now nicely restored.

The rest of the photos were taken all over Seoul. Usually with an exposure time of around 4/5 seconds. I cropped out the sprockets to give you a feeling that this camera really gives you a wide perspective.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ferrania Solaris 400 Color

A film review of Ferrania Solaris 400. Very little noise for a 400  negative film. Colors are well-represented and I can’t say much more than that. This only the second time I’ve shot a  roll of Solaris ( the first one came packaged with my (Golden Half). This was all with my Olympus Mju2.

Why you should edit your film scans

I am often surprised by the lack of editing I see in people posting their film photo’s. I don’t know of it is  a) lack of understanding of post processing b) laziness c) some sort of purity mentality regarding film d) just liking the look of it. When I get my film back from the lab I am rarely satisfied with the result. My images are often over or underexposed and very under saturated. I am not going to argue that everybody should edit their photos but I would like to show that sometimes it is really worth it. This is not a showcase for my photo editing skills, which aren’t the best, but just to show there are more possibilities with your film.

Here is an example where the scan I received from the lab didn’t have any real black colors. I set a black point using curves and upped the vibrance.

Here I shot some expired Provia film receiving a very green tinted image after having it cross-processed. Some people may like this color shift, but it is way too much for me. After some editing I got a bit of a more normal image out of it, though a bit muddy.

Here is another roll of expired roll of Provia I shot, but I actually developed as a slide film. I did not expect the green color shift so I did some editing to take it out.

This was some basic Fuji Superia 200 film. The original scan was lacking contrast and color. When shooting sprocket with Superia the color lines are a good indicator what the right amount of color is. It’s quite easy to go overboard with the vibrance of saturation slider and those color lines should help you in determining the right amount of adjustment.

Expired 100 Sensia which was then cross processed. My expired Fuji films tend to go green when cross processed ( except some crazy Provia roll which went nuclear pink on me). Taking out the green tones gives me a much better image. You may ask then what is the point of shooting expired film and crossprocessing it if I don’t like color shifts and tints. Well I love the unpredictability of it and sometimes it works, but in the images where it doesn’t work I like to have the option to edit them so I can have images I do enjoy.

Lomo 400 color Film Review

This was a gift from my girlfriend. ( seriously, if you need to buy a gift for somebody who is into film photograhpy just buy him/her a bunch of different types of film, its fun to experiment). So the camera/marketing company brought out their own types of branded film and this is the 400 color negative version.

I took this film and my Canon SLR 500 along to London. It was winter (its fun when the pilot announces that the airport at your destination is closed due to snow and having to take a 4 hour cramped bus ride after 25 hrs of traveling). Now where was I? Oh yeah, London.

Colorwise I thought this film was fine, it was just much noisier then expected. I don’t know if it was this particular roll or the scanning method, but having shot 400 color film before I didn’t expect the amount of grain.

Kodak Ultramax 400 Film Review

Kodak Ultramax 400 color film. Taken with my Canon SLR on a trip to Beijing. Very nice colors, not as much grain as other 400 color films. Maybe my favorite color 400 film along side AgfaVista 400.

 

Beijing is a wonderful place for photography, highly recommended. It is also a huge place, so much walking to be done. Or you could always get a bicycle.

I don’t like the name Ultramax 400 though, seems like a rookie marketing department thinking of something exxxxtreme.