Leica M3, 50mm Summicron, Neopan 400, Rodinal 1+45 (11 minutes).
I managed to get on film what I wanted to get when I pressed the shutter…
DPReview1 just put up their hands-on preview of the Leica X1. The following line made me laugh out loud, but is also indicative of one of the reasons I prefer film over digital:
…if you’re after an aquarium mode, HD movies or background music for your slide shows, you’ll need to look elsewhere.
Back to our regular programming…
Part of this is due to the fact that my lab charges more for B&W development than they do for colour (slide) development. (Or their contact sheets are very expensive). Costs run to over 10 EUR per roll. At over 2 rolls a week on average, that gets to over 100 EUR a month.
Luckily, when I chose my film, I went for a classic B&W film, so I dug up my parents’ old developing equipment and ordered some chemicals. This weekend, I developed my first few rolls. It was easier than I expected.
I used Agfa Rodinal, since it’s very cheap1 and lasts forever (reportedly). I used a 1+45 dilution2 and developed for 11 minutes, with 30 seconds agitation every 3 minutes. Followed by a water stop-bath and 6 minutes in RXA fixer (rapid, non hardening). Temperature was around 19 degrees, which is the temperature of the tapwater in my kitchen3.
I also caught up with my scanning this weekend, so from now on, I can develop and scan each roll in a reasonable time. Who needs digital?
It’s funny how you know things, yet don’t really acknowledge them.
I’ve always known that human vision is tremendously adaptive. Dark scenes, light scenes, red light, green light. See it for a few seconds and the brain/eye combo applies the correct filters, switches to the right aperture, and presto: Well exposed image with a good white balance.
Sadly, cameras suck at this.
By now, I’ve got the colour problem pretty well under control, and know when to adjust my WB/filter my lens, and when to gel my flash. With B&W this problem isn’t even there.
The light problem is trickier though. I’m finding that guessing the exposure in low light scenes is much more difficult than in well-lit scenes1. Especially once you get below EV 6, light levels drop fast, while the eye keeps up perfectly.
Recently, with the days growing shorter and the weather turning worse, I’ve had more evening indoor scenes, and often noticed that I was overestimating the light2. I’ve now come in the habit of taking my first guess and then deducting another two stops. Haven’t had any films back though (more on that soon), so I maybe I’ll just end up with overexposed and blurred shots.
As you may have noticed, I’ve added a contact page to the site. If you have any questions, suggestions or comments that don’t apply to any specific post or picture, feel free to use it.
This is Ben, one of our cats. He’s about one year old now.
Shot with the Leica, of course. As you can see from the emphasized grain, the photo was slightly underexposed, but once again I was saved by the large dynamic range.
Because it’s a good, well focussed portrait of a cat. As anyone who’s ever photographed cats knows, it brings along its own difficulties. Taking a picture of a cat isn’t hard, if you don’t mind your subject being either a) sleeping, b) motion-blurred or c) not looking at you. Getting one to look at you and sit still for long enough to take a picture takes either hypnosis, skill or luck1. In this case, it was mostly the last.
Sorry for the recent draught in updates. I haven’t been home a lot, and as such haven’t had time to scan any pictures. I’ve shot plenty though.
To compensate for the lack of imagery, a bit of text today.
I’m by now not half-bad at guessing exposure with the M3, and when I’m wrong, I’m usually at least close enough that the exposure latitude of the negative can give me an acceptable picture. One thing is really throwing me though: Filters.
I’ve been experimenting a bit with differently coloured filters, and this has led to a lot of overexposure. This is mostly caused by trusting the filter factor of the filter.
Example: I’m trying to accentuate something in a picture, say, a red flower, so I take out my red filter1. The flower is in direct sunlight, so I set 1/500th of a second at f16 to start with. The filter has a 5x filter factor, so I lower my shutter speed to say, 1/125th (or open up to f8).
Result: well exposed background, over-exposed flower.
Why?2.
The filter doesn’t do much for its own colour, yet blocks its complementary colours. So the filter factor is in fact mostly applicable for colours other than the filter colour.
The right way to do it would be to maybe open up one stop from the base exposure, to highlight the primary subject. For lower filter factors, don’t open up at all.
Of course, if your primary subject isn’t the filter colour, all bets are off (and I still have to experiment with that).
But the short version is: If you’re using a filter to boost contrast by making colours darker, don’t negate that by making everything brighter.
Dante Stella has an excelent article on filters that covers this as well.
Thus ends todays lesson.
Well, the first week is over. I shot about 6 rolls, most of which were `calibration shots’: bracketing like hell and checking the contact sheets for best exposure.
Another lesson learned this week was that when Mike Johnston said to make notes, he meant it. During the calibration rolls, I made a few unbracketed shots1, guessing exposure as best as I could. In some cases, I didn’t write down what exposure I used. As Murphy dictates, those exposures were dead-on, but I have no idea what values I used…
Well, the Leica Lessons project has officially started. I shot my last frame of Velvia around midnight, and this morning at breakfast I loaded the first roll of Neopan into the Leica.
Today I’ll shoot a lot of `calibration’ frames, setting some base exposures for common lighting situations. I’m cheating a bit, using this chart to get a close guess for an Ev value and then bracketing 2 stops above and below that. Making notes along the way of course.
Just a quick note that I’ve added the equipment for the Leica Lessons project to the equipment pages. Details are still limited, as I haven’t actually shot anything with this stuff yet.
I’m using this weekend to finish the rolls of film left in each of my cameras, as today is the last chance to use those. I foresee a lot of business for my lab this week…