From my last post, you could see that I wasn’t thrilled with how my photos shot on Fuji Pro 400H looked. I loved that film, but now that it is discontinued, I’m using up the last bit of my stock. I am completely out of 35mm at this point, but I do have some boxes of 120. The test on those will come soon.I don’t freeze my film, but I do store it in a cool environment, so those who freeze may have better luck.
Although I wasn’t happy with the Santa Barbara shots, the true difference was seen when I was shooting the Goleta Lemon Festival in Goleta, California, the next day. Half way through the pie eating contest, I completed a roll of 400H and popped in a roll of Kodak Ektar. These images were taken within the few seconds it took for me to change film:
You can see the difference clearly. A plus is that Ektar is still in production so you can get fresh film!
More expired Fuji Pro 400H:
More Kodak Ektar 100:
You can see from my previous work with Fuji 400H, it loved the sun and had gorgeous greens and blues. I really miss that film, but it’s time to move on.
Located at the southern end of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean island chain, the country of Grenada is actually three islands, Grenada, Carriacou, and Petit Martinique. Over Thanksgiving, our family visited the island of Grenada, known as “The Spice Island” for the abundance of spices which are grown on the island. The island of Grenada is the second largest producer of nutmeg, second only to Indonesia. We stayed at Spice Island Beach Resort, a family-owned resort famous for its hospitality since 1961. We toured the island, visited Concord Waterfall, lunched at Bathway Beach, picked up some chocolates and Belmont Estate, saw Mona monkeys, and snorkeled the Molinere Underwater Sculpture Garden.
Shot on the Canon EOS 1v, with Canon 24mm f/1.4 and Canon 50mm f/1.2 lenses, and using Kodak Ektar 100, Kodak Portra 160, Kodak Portra 800, Fuji Pro 400H, and Fuji Provia RDP III 100F film.
My daughter is getting married next year, and it came time to pick a dress. We are both fans of the show, “Say Yes to the Dress,” so it was time to make my first trip ever to New York City to visit Kleinfeld’s Bridal, and fingers crossed, hopefully, she would say “yes.” We only had a 3-day weekend in the City, but aside from our appointment at Kleinfeld’s, the weekend was devoted to sightseeing and eating.
As a newbie to the City, I was really impressed by the architecture. I shot the Empire State Building so many times it was ridiculous, although having a suite at the New York Editionwith a view of the ESB encouraged me to keep shooting. The New York Edition is located on Madison Square Park and is itself a historic building, the original home to Met Life Insurance. The building was the tallest building in the world from the time of its completion in 1909 until 1913, when the Woolworth Building passed it up. It is adjacent to Madison Square Park, which was the site of the first public Christmas tree display, which is marked by a star atop a white pole in the park. You’ll also find the world’s first Shake Shack if you’re in the mood for a burger. The Flatiron Building was on one corner of the park, but unfortunately, was ungulfed in scaffolding during our stay. Our location was perfect, within a short walk of NYU and Times Square.
I planned a visit to the top of the Empire State Building at sunset on our first day. Our timing was “perfect” as a storm rolled in over the City just as we approached the observation deck. These are far from your normal ESB sunset shots, but rather dramatic.
Great restaurants in New York City are everywhere and we were not disappointed. Even my pumpernickel bagel was the best I had ever tasted. New York City restaurants are presently requiring proof of vaccination – your vaccination card and a picture ID – but once complete, your dining experience is uninterrupted.
It was a short, but wonderful three-day trip, and she said “yes!”
Images were created with the Canon EOS 1v. I have too many photos for one post, so here are the images shot on Kodak Ektar 100, Kodak Portra 800, and Fuji 400H (my last few frames on the last roll in my camera when I started the trip). My next post will feature all the images shot on Lomography Metropolis.
I rarely take time when traveling to test films side by side, especially when I’m in the Caribbean. I am shooting for pleasure, and I’m there to relax, so I am not likely to take the time to shoot the same subject in two films to compare and contrast. On our January 2020 trip to Anguilla, I decided to walk the beach from end to end, about 1.5 miles in total. It just happened that I was at a particularly picturesque location when I ended a roll of Kodak Ektar 100 and popped in a roll of Fuji Velvia RVP 100. So I had a chance to compare how each film looked under the same lighting conditions, and with the same camera and lens.
Comparison of Ektar 100 and Velvia 100
For those who like to challenge themselves, I’ll show you two very similar images, one with Ektar 100 and one with the Velvia 100, giving you an opportunity to give your best guess as to which is which. Below the next paragraph, discussing the camera and lens used, you’ll see the images with captions denoting the film used. All film was processed and scanned by Richard Photo Lab. I adjusted the color temperature in Lightroom to match the two as closely as I could using the water color as my guide.
Image 1Image 2
Camera and Lens Used
I took two cameras for my beach walk, my Canon EOS R with the Canon 50mm f/1.2 lens, and my Canon 1v with the Canon 135mm f/2 lens. For fun, I have included a digital shot following the film images. I use digital for convenience, to take video, and under other circumstances where digital is the better tool, such as very low light. However, with the gorgeous full sun in the islands, you can see why I go to the trouble of taking film cameras and film along for the journey.
Both are beautiful, but I have to say I prefer the Velvia, although I may be biased because I love looking at the vibrant color of a positive image. I could probably accomplish the look with a few sliders in Lightroom, but whenever I get slide film back from the lab, I am convinced to pack more slide film on the next trip.
Price Comparison?
Although I prefer the Velvia, the price comparison is pretty startling. As of the time of this writing, a 35mm roll of Ektar is going for $8.99 at B&H Photo ($8.69 a roll at the Film Photography Project Store!), and a 35mm roll of Velvia 100 is going for $18.49. Seriously? Ten dollars different? That’s nutty. I guess I’ll use up my stock carefully, and then it’s back to Ektar.
How About Digital?
And the digital image? Keep in mind that a different lens was used and the image was cropped to compare subject to subject, so it’s not a terribly fair comparison, but I don’t change lenses on the beach. Tropical breezes, seawater, sand, and fine electronics don’t mix. But the comparison reaffirms my decision to shoot film.
Canon EOS R, Canon 50mm f/1.2
What’s your experience using these two films? Do you prefer other 100 speed color films? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
On our drive back from the FIRST Robotics World Championships in Detroit, we detoured slightly to the south to visit the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana.
Canon EOS 1v, Canon 50mm f/1.2, with Kodak Ektar 100, and Canon AE-1 Program, Canon FD 20mm f /2.8, with Kodak Portra 800. Processed and scanned by Richard Photo Lab.
Film lovers have been pretty excited with the re-release of Kodak’s Ektachrome, and have been anxiously awaiting their shipments to give it a try. I placed an order as soon as the FIND lab started taking orders and received five rolls in the first shipment. The day job delayed shooting a bit, but work took me to Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and I finished my roll of Ektar which was in the camera and then shot a roll of Ektachrome. Here are the results.
Let me preface this by saying that there is no science or technical expertise in this comparison. I am not in any way an expert in comparing cameras, lenses, or film stocks. I like to try different things, and if I like it, I keep shooting it. For both rolls, I shot my Canon EOS 1v with the Canon 50mm f/1.2 lens, with both rolls shot at box speed. Both rolls were processed and scanned by Richard Photo Lab.
Ektachrome
There are no direct comparison shots, although there is some overlap in time and place. My first impression is that I unintentionally underexposed most of the Ektachrome shots by up to one stop. The negatives are on their way back from the lab, so for now, I’m looking at the scans for the comparisons. The Ektachrome shots were richer in color than the Ektar. In the comparison shots below, the Ektachrome is on the left or top, and the Ektar is on the right or bottom.
Ektachrome left, Ektar right
Ektachrome top, Ektar bottom
Ektachrome left, Ektar right
When shooting at the marina, the sun was very bright, so there was a lot of contrast in the scene making proper exposure difficult. However, I noticed that I underexposed again when shooting under cloudy skies, as seen in the coffee shop scenes below. I err on the side of underexposure with slide film, but on the next roll, I’m going to try to overexpose a bit.
Ektachrome
Overall, the Ektachrome shots are extremely saturated and heavy in blues and greens.
Ektachrome
The Ektar strikes me as more representative of what I was seeing when I shot the scene.
Ektar
I shot a bit of fall color with the Ektachrome as well.
I have plenty more rolls on hand to get used to shooting it, but my first impression is that I will be bringing Ektachrome to the Caribbean when we travel there in January. I think the ocean will look amazing on Ektachrome.
I’ll post again with a few more trials. Are you enjoying the new Ektachrome?
You’re in Black River Falls, Wisconsin, home to the famous Orange Moose, and you have a few cameras and different film stocks with you. What would you do? Shoot the moose on four different films, of course.
Located just off Interstate 94, the Orange Moose stands approximately 15 feet tall, near a restaurant conveniently called the “Orange Moose Bar and Grill,” although it’s not entirely clear which came first, the restaurant or the moose. The story goes that the great moose was won in a dice game, and was originally brown in color. After the owner’s death, the moose made its way to the highway oasis and acquired its orange paint.
Armed with a Mamiya 645 ProTL and Mamiya 6, I set out to capture the moose on four film stocks, Kodak Ektar 100, Kodak Portra 160, Fuji Pro 400H, and Lomography X-Pro 200 (processed C-41). All film was processed by Richard Photo Lab. Take a look at the results:
The two square images were taken on the Mamiya 6 with the Mamiya 50mm f/4 lens. The remaining two were shot on the Mamiya 645 Pro TL with the Mamiya 80mm f/1.9 lens. To add a twist, one of the rolls shot on the Mamiya 645 Pro TL with a roll of 35mm, shot using the Mamiya 135 insert. Have you made your guesses? Let’s see how you did.
Let’s start with the easiest, the Lomography X-Pro 200, shot on the Mamiya 6. This can be processed with E-6 or C-41 per the label. This roll was processed C-41, and certainly produced the citrusy tones promised by the folks at Lomography.
The other image shot on the Mamiya 6 was shot on Kodak Ektar 100. It brought vibrant colors and was closest to the color of the moose as I remembered it.
The next two were shot on the Mamiya 645 Pro TL. The image in the upper right hand corner above was shot on the Mamiya 645 Pro TL using the Mamiya 135 insert with a 35mm roll of Kodak Portra 160. Great for skin tones. Not so great for an orange moose.
The last shot on the Mamiya 645 Pro TL was a 120 roll of Fuji Pro 400H. This film loves greens and blues, but doesn’t embrace orange like the Ektar, although the sky looks great.
The road takes us to more stops around Wisconsin and Minnesota this month, so stay tuned.
A few years back, I returned to film photography, and now shoot both digital and film while traveling. With a lot of hits and misses, I’ve come to find that several film stocks have emerged as my favorites, reliable from trip to trip, and perfect for the way I shoot. Although I will continue to experiment, these film stocks have proven their worth and will be in my bag on every trip, or as long as the manufacturers continue to produce them!
Kodak Portra 400
Portra 400 is clearly my favorite of all film stocks. I used to shoot Portra NC and VC back in my pre-digital days, but the new Portra is so much better than it was before. It handles skin tones well, and accurately captures colors, with a wide latitude for exposure variances. I tend to shoot it at 320, and love the bright, colorful look. Some have commented that the colors are a bit warm, but I find it suits what I shoot well.
Mamiya Pro TL, Mamiya 80mm f/1.9, Portra 400
Canon 1v, Portra 400
Mamiya 6, Mamiya 75mm f/3.5, Fuji 400H
Fuji 400H
When I am shooting scenes with loads of greens and blues, I love Fuji 400H. The greens and blues are a bit cooler than on Portra 400. For images of mountains and trees, or where those colors are prominent, it is perfection. It’s also flattering to skin tones, making it a favorite of wedding and portrait photographers.
Mamiya 6, Mamiya 75mm f/3.5, Fuji 400H
Canon 1v, Canon 24-70mm f/2.8, Fuji 400H
Canon 1v, Canon 135mm f/2, Fuji 400H
Ektar 100
I love Ektar’s ability to capture the vivid colors of the Caribbean. It is super saturated with a fine grain, and I use it at box speed. The only down side is that skin tones on caucasians look a bit ruddy, so I avoid using it for portraits. However, when it comes to landscapes, it’s stunning.
Mamiya 645 Pro TL, Kodak Ektar 100
Canon 1v, Ektar 100
Canon 1v, Canon 135mm f/2, Ektar 100
Other Stocks
I just started experimenting with Fuji Velvia 100 on our trip to Nevis in June of 2017. Velvia 100 is slide film, meaning it is a “positive” rather than a “negative.” The colors are vivid and the grain is super fine. The only down side is that I have to pretty much nail my exposures, and the scene has to be consistently lit, not too contrasty. You can see a side-by-side comparison of shots on Ektar 100 and Velvia 100 here. It does not have the room for error I have with Ektar 100, but the color from Velvia is amazing. I still need more experimentation to see if it will work for me. The trouble is that with all the beautiful sunshine in the Caribbean, you tend to get a lot of contrast in scenes.
Mamiya 645 Pro TL, Velvia 100
On our next trip to Kentucky, I will be shooting some Kodak Portra 800 for the first time. Stay tuned!
Since returning to film photography a few years ago, I make a point of taking at least one film camera on each trip. Part of the reason is that I love the look of film. I also love playing with my old cameras and trying different techniques. Traveling to Nevis, I packed two film cameras, the Canon 1v, which uses all the same lenses as my DSLR, and the Mamiya 645 Pro TL with the 80mm f/1.9 and the 45mm f/2.8 lenses. I decided to try some slide film, so I packed a few rolls of Fuji Velvia 100 RVP, along with my trusted stocks, Kodak Ektar 100, Fuji 400H, and Kodak Portra 400. Check out the results of our adventures in film photography on Nevis!
Velvia 100 v. Ektar 100
As to the slide film, I appreciated that there was a very small window for error in exposure. The tradeoff was incredibly vivid images. When the exposure was relatively even across the frame, Velvia is perfection. When there is a harsher difference from top to bottom, Ektar performed better, at least in some respects. For example, look at this shot of the beach. Velvia is on the left. Ektar is on the right. Both were shot at box speed. These were shot close in time, although not at exactly the same time for obvious reasons. In Photoshop, I used the color match tool to have the best comparison between the two images. Both were shot on the Mamiya 645 Pro TL.
It appears to me that the detail in the highlights has been lost on the Velvia on the top of the umbrella where it was overexposed. I do appreciate that I have a bit more shake on the Velvia image (you can see it’s sharper under the umbrella on the Ektar image), perhaps human error, or perhaps it was a bit of wind which shook the umbrella accounting in part for the difference. Regardless, I love the fine grain on the Velvia, and the depth of color is striking.
Where the exposure was more even across the frame, the Velvia was beautiful. I will definitely be shooting more slide film.
Human Error
My standby film stocks are my standby’s for a reason. They perform beautifully, even when I am not so precise on my exposures, and even when I made some grave errors. For example, I had a few rum drinks at Sunshine’s beach bar, and while changing the film out of my Pro TL, I dropped a roll into my lap. I thought all those exposures were completely lost as I fumbled to quickly roll it back onto the spool. Although there is evidence of light leak as a result of my fiddly fingers, the exposures survived. I cropped it square and applied a gradient and the shot was salvageable.
Double Exposures
I experimented with double exposures this trip, using my Canon 1v and a roll of Portra 400. On the 1v, you open the side panel and press the multi exposure button to enable multiple exposures. After you shoot the second frame it resets, so you don’t forget and end up shooting a whole roll of double exposures. This was my first try, and in the future, I will try to put the elements of the second shot just off the face.
Here are a few more film images from the trip.
All shot on Mamiya 645 Pro TL. Clockwise from top left: Portra 400, Portra 400, Ektar 100, Ektar 100, Ektar 100, Fuji 400H, Fuji 400H, Ektar 100
Overall, I was glad to bring all the extra gear to shoot film on this trip. It is fun to experiment with film photography, and even the failures are not so bad.
We took the film on the road and the results are back.We took the film cameras to Anguilla, the Canon 1V and the Mamiya Pro TL.We took a variety of film stocks, Fuji 400H, Kodak Portra 400, Porta 160, and Ektar 100.We experimented and burned a lot of film.Many lessons were learned.Here are my impressions of our efforts and the results.
1.Digital has ruined me for film – shooting the same scene again and again.I am so accustomed to shooting RAW and shooting multiple images to try to nail the shot that I wasted a lot of film.For example, I had the sense when shooting a sunset on Rendezvous Bay that I was not getting the exposure right.In digital, I shoot and adjust, and reshoot, and repeat until I feel comfortable. What I need to do is more thinking and less shooting.I found that I went from one mistake to another and never really nailed the shot.In the end, my favorite shots were the ones where I took one shot, and my least favorite were the ones where I somehow knew I wasn’t nailing it, but just couldn’t nail it, despite many, many efforts.
Canon 1v, Canon 135mm f/2, Fuji 400H
2.Digital has ruined me for film – part two – settling for OK because I can fix it in post.I was so excited to get out and shoot film that I found myself forgetting the basics.Errors in digital can be corrected.If I shoot RAW, and I always do, I can correct most mistakes in exposure. It promotes laziness.I can take the sunset shot without using my ND filter on digital and recover a lot in post.Do it with film, and I lose a ton of color. I need to strive more for perfection.Fewer shots and better shots.
Mamiya Pro TL, Mamiya 80mm f/1.9, Fuji 400H
3.Manual focusing is tough, especially when you have impatient subjects who want to get to the beach.I have been spoiled by my autofocus cameras.I took both an autofocus (Canon 1V) and a manual focus film camera (Mamiya Pro TL with 80/1.9 and 45/2.8).I used the Mamiya with the 80mm lens on our Christmas card photo shoot.It’s really tough focusing manually with any accuracy when the subjects are accustomed to getting in an out of a shot quickly.
Mamiya Pro TL, Mamiya 80mm f/1.9, Portra 400
4. My favorite film stocks were Fuji 400H and Portra 400. I went through my film scans to pick my favorites, not aware of what film stocks they were shot on. I just got my negatives back from Richard Photo Lab, and of 23 favorites, 7 were shot on Portra 400 and 16 were shot on Fuji 400H. Ektar 100 and Portra 160 did not make the cut.
5.I will travel with film again.It was not difficult to travel with film, especially with the Canon 1V.It uses all the same lenses (and filters) that I use on my Canon 5D Mark II, so it was hardly adding anything to my bag.Traveling with film was easy.I kept it in my carryon to avoid the high x-rays of the checked luggage.I never asked for handchecking by TSA given that my film ISOs ranged from 100 to 400and there was no compromise of the film, having gone through scanners three times.
As for my mistakes in exposures, I could spend more time on my shots and think more while shooting. I didn’t use my Sekonic meter, relying upon the meter in the camera for ease of use. I was not mindful of my need for my filters, circular polarizer and ND filters, and I will be more aware of that next time.I will take more time for my shots, and will shoot less.
Canon 1v, Canon 24-70mm f/2.8, Fuji 400H
Despite all the failures, I will travel with film again.A mistake is not tragic if you learn from it.I plan to keep the film thing going.It was worth the extra gear just for the portraits alone.The skin of my teenagers looked so much better on film than digital.I shot our Christmas card photo in both, and I preferred the film hands down. Even the shots of silly things, like signs along the way, I loved the look of my film shots far more than digital.The digital versions looked sharper, almost to the point of being too sharp, if that’s possible.I can see why people love film, how it brings across more of the feeling of the scene, rather that the technically perfect reality of the situation.Sometimes I need a little less reality, and a little more feeling, particularly when the snow starts to fall here and I look back on my shots of my favorite island.
