"Shooting film, time to result can be a bit longer than with modern digital technique. I am still waiting for developed and scanned films to arrive." - Referring to my earlier post - November 5th - waiting has an end.
Yesterday the developed and scanned pictures from my landscape photography experiments applying different types of film have arrived.
One first comment: Once more I notice the value of using a tripod even in good light conditions.
All the images were shot hand holding the Hasselblad 500 c/m camera using the waist level finder.
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| Kodak Ektar 100 |
The fall coloured trees (see the picture of a walnut tree on the left) in the landscape with their tiny details in the texture of colourful leafs are a challenge which only can be overcome using a stable support. In addition weather conditions such as wind might add quick movements to the leafs which results again in motion blur.
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| Fujichrome Velvia 100 |
Comparing to my recent lavender field pictures - see post from August 16th (and sample picture on the right) - where I was shooting every picture using my tripod and fast shutter speeds, the current results are a bit disappointing. Shooting the lavender fields introduced the same, maybe even a bit higher, challenge to capture details in texture of these beautiful plants.
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| Fujichrome Velvia 50 |
Applying Fujichrome Velvia film as expected gives rather blueish results a bit less warm in color than the Kodak Ektar 100. The spectrum of the Fujichrome clearly exhibits more contribution at the blue side of the color spectrum, while the Kodak Ektar is more prominent at the yellow/red end of the spectrum.
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| Kodak Ektar 100 |
As specified both films exhibit an equally fine granulation. However, the grain can only be observed in bright areas of the sky, as well as in extreme dark green areas of trees in the forest with adequate magnification.
To fully capture the impression of a autumn landscape on a sunny day I would prefer the Kodak Ektar 100 film given the better performance for yellow, brown, and red colors.
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| Fujichrome Velvia 50 |
This picture was extremely difficult to take since there was the very localised, but blurred due to the sky coverage, bright direct light from the sun combined with the very dark south-east facing mountainside in almost true black, and the dramatic sky coverage almost turning the scene into a night shot. It was not very clear to me on choosing the right exposure.
What I wanted to get out of this picture was the dramatic sky combined with the reflection on the surface of the lake, and the band of fog at the bottom of the mountain.
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| Ilford HP5 400 b/w |
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| Ilford HP5 400 b/w |
As the picture on the right shot through the trees directly into the setting sun shows, the film exhibits good detail a very fine grain but not much graduation between extreme bright and extreme dark.
The image on the left capturing a scene with less extreme lightning conditions shows the film is capable of representing a well balanced scenery in terms of light and color in black and white.
Comparing the two black and white images shows that the Ilford HP5 400 is good under low light conditions. However, the result is much better for a scenery with diffuse light than for one under high contrast conditions.
See more images from this series of analog film photography at my website.
- Rigi Kaltbad
- Autumn landscape
