TMAX Push

Lucy looking out the window (larger)

Continuing my trials with medium format, I wanted to try push processing. I am using TMAX 400 (TMY) and wanted to push it to ISO3200. When shooting around the house (especially in the winter), certainly 400 is too slow, and 1600 is pushing what I’m comfortable with hand-holding. Hence my desire for pushing to 3200.

Yes, I could use a bounce flash (sometimes) but I’ve not worked that out yet. Those are tests for a different roll.

I’d have to say that I’ve got mixed reactions. The picture above seemed to turn out okay. The contrast is definitely more that ISO400, but I think it’s okay.

Lily in the basement (larger)

The next picture is more typical of when I’d use a high speed push: in our basement. While there are several can lights in the ceiling, I meter to f/4 @ 1/30 (if I remember correctly) @ ISO 3200. It’s a high contrast pic, to be sure. I’m not terribly fond of the picture, but this just may be the overhead lighting and the subsequent shadows it produces on Lily’s face.

One aspect of shooting with the C330 is that I’ve only got full stops to work with. If I meter for anything in between, I invariably choose more light as opposed to less.

For what it’s worth, all of my development has been in XTOL replenished at stock strength. I’ve thought about trying XTOL 1:1 or 1:2, but that will burn through my developer pretty quickly. Using it replenished is very economical. 

Technorati Tags: photography, film, tmax, 400, tmy, mamiya, c330, 3200, push, processing, xtol, black, and, white, b&w

Reprocessing my boat

Yesterday I posted “Boat as Bow.” Burstmode, who takes absolutely beautiful flower photographs, commented. While I can’t retake the picture (it’s a long car ride back to Shawano), I can reprocess in Lightroom. So, here’s the reprocessed version.

Reprocessed

And here is the original next to the reprocessed:

Original	Reprocessed

When I compare the two side by side, I tend to like the reprocessed better. But, the original is more like what I remember, sort of (isn’t memory a funny thing). It was early morning when I took the photo, and there wasn’t that much contrast.

It all comes down to this being a matter of intent, right? I feel the original is more “accurate” to what I saw but the reprocessed has more punch. I have to say, I’m torn on this one. I’m not a “purist” by any stretch of the imagination. But, the mood I was trying to capture (whether I captured it or not is another debate) in the original seems wiped away with the higher contrast of the reprocessed photo.

Still, I like the reprocessed picture. Well, no one ever said you couldn’t contradict yourself. Any thoughts, ideas, or comments?

Technorati Tags: photography, lightroom, processing, black, and, white, efke, 100, film

Sailboat on Lake Shawano

Sailboat on Lake Shawano

Technorati Tags: photography, efke, film, b&w, black, and, white, ilford, dd-x

Random Film Shots

Stella by the Pool

Honestly, how is she standing? Stella’s straight, but nothing else is….

Norah in Sunlight

Lily making letters using her body

Norah finally sleeping

Technorati Tags: photography, film, efke, b&w, black, and, white, kids, children

Daisys in the Morning

It amazes me that I can go weeks without seeing anything (photographically, of course). Nothing. No muse, no desire to go out and try to kick start it and then, suddenly it’s there.

Now granted, this is sort of a running theme with me (long light on our kitchen table), but it still holds my interest.

Both of the daisy shots were with my digital SLR, converted to B&W in Lightroom via my attempt at a “Tri-X in Rodinal” preset. “Grain” was added via a photoshop droplet executed from inside Lightroom. Very handy, that.

Technorati Tags: photography, daisy, morning, light, black, and, white, Lightroom

Stella on a Swing

Stella on a Swing

This is a picture of my third child, Stella, on a swing. I shot this by pre-focusing to a set distance on the lens and then just waiting until I though she was in focus. This picture is several weeks old now and I was initially disappointed with the results due to the lack of sharpness. While I didn’t expect miracles I can still hope, right?

Anyhow, I’ve just recently purchased Lightroom and have been making the transition from Aperture to Lightroom. Last night I was importing my scans into the library and had just watched a tutorial on split toning in Lightroom. So I figured I’d play a bit.

I can say that I like this better than I did initially, but I’m still not sure about it.

Here’s the original un-toned negative scan:

Technorati Tags: photography, stella, efke, 100, film, b&w, black, and, white, LIghtroom, Aperture, split tone

SoFoBoMo Finale

Employee Recycle Bin

This is one of my favorite pictures from my SoFoBoMo effort. It’s just my current fear / expectation / mindset at work showing through.

And of course this one….

Nick and Norah

Could be because I’m biased, but so be it.

I was fortunate enough to have an old friend review my PDF. He provided some excellent critique, telling me what I did right, what he thought was off, suggestions for improvements, etc. If I learned nothing else (though I did) that feedback was worth the effort.

After my crazy week of printing in the darkroom I’m pretty content skipping out on shooting for a few days. But, I sort of already want to take the feedback I’ve received and somehow work it in. Right now I’m a bit thin on ideas so I’ll have to work on that.

I need to take some time to go through the other SoFoBoMo projects. While I’ll probably just get jealous and wish I was a better shooter, I’m sure it will be educational and help me see what I could improve.

Technorati Tags: photography, sofobomo, black, and, white, employee, recycle, bin

SoFoBoMo — Done!

I made it! I’m done with SoFoBoMo.

You can find my e-book here. If you take a moment to look at it, I’d appreciate any constructive criticism.

As this is my first project like this, it’s probably worthwhile to start a “lessons learned” list.

So, my lessons learned

1. While my “general” idea of shadows was okay, I might have done a mid-way review to make sure that I was going to have cohesive material. This would also allow me to re-evaluate my theme and see if I’ve narrowed it by my shooting, or if I need to narrow it.
2. If I’m going to print the pictures, I should do so right away and not wait for the final week. I’m sure this seems obvious to someone with lots of darkroom experience but for me, it was a lesson learned.
3. Although I was warned about this, I still should have left more time for the layout work. I used Aperture’s book capability. It is okay. It’s really limited in fairly arbitrary ways though. So I should have been a bit more prepared with either trial runs or a backup plan.

A big hiccup (that I’d read about in passing) was the file size limit on the upload. Aperture wrote out a 36 Mbyte PDF. I could not find a way to work around this limitation within Aperture, though it’s probably an OSX limitation. My solution was to use the “Save PDF as TIFF” option. This saved all pages as individual TIFF files. Then I used Photoshop to create a “PDF Presentation” with the TIFF files created. Using a “High” value on the JPEG compression resulted in a PDF of only 6 Mbyte or so.

Anyhow, it’s done and so am I.

Technorati Tags: photography, sofobomo, efke, film, 100, black, and, white

SoFoBoMo Update

Flowers in the Morning

My personal SoFoBoMo started on May 8th. I’m 10 days into it and I’m not convinced that I’ll be able to make something cohesive out of my theme. I just developed 2 rolls of film tonight and will scan them tomorrow to see what I’ve got. I think that I managed to eek 7 or 8 possibles from the first roll. I’m definitely going to need all 6 rolls of film. In fact, I might have to supplement with digital (gasp!).

I guess that I’m just moving to a “pre-freak out” mind set. In another 10 days I’m sure that I’ll be right at the “freak out” mind set.

Technorati Tags: photography, sofobomo, efke, 100, black, and, white, rodinal

Norah, Efke, and SoFoBoMo

From Norah’s Birth

Norah in the hospital

It’s been a busy couple of weeks. We just had baby Norah, our 4th child. She’s doing well and we’re all adjusting to having a new baby in the house.

Stella
Dang that droopy eye!

I finally got some more film too. I decided to follow I Heart Film’s lead and try some Efke 100. He is using Efke 25, but I just can’t do that. ISO 25 would drive me crazy! I already notice the speed hit going from using Tri-X to Efke.

The picture above is my first developed roll. I developed in Rodinal 1:50 using semi-stand at 15 minutes. It seems a bit grainy compared to what I used to with Tri-X. But since this is a negative scan (as opposed to a print scan), that could be the reason. I’ve not (wet) printed any of these pictures yet so I can’t really judge my exposure or development time.

Finally, I’m participating in the SoFoBoMo. I hope that anyone interested in photography challenges themselves with this project. My theme (subject to change without notice, of course) is shadows. I’ve gotten some promising pictures on the first roll of Efke. I need a bit more cohesion to pull the whole theme together though.

Technorati Tags: photography, efke, 100, sofobomo, film, black, and, white