Relay for Life on the Front Lawn

There was an all-night Relay for Life event held in front of West Hall. It was midnight, and instead of getting to bed like I needed to be doing, I grabbed my Nikon SP and some TMZ and dragged Meagan out there. I snapped a few decent shots, with either the 35mm f/1.8 or 50mm f/1.4. There was essentially no light for the most part, but it worked out okay:

 

 

 

Expired Kodak E100G brought back to life

Some time ago I got a few rolls of E100G (35mm) for free. They were way out of date. When I shot a roll, it ended up being horribly blue-shifted and looked absolutely terrible.

I took some snaps while enjoying the weather the last couple of days. I figured as a good experiment, I would use a deep amber filter on my lenses to see if I could fix the blue-shift with this old film in camera. It worked better than expected!

For these I walked a bit around Drexel Park as well as Langdale Park. I used my Nikon F2 and either the 35mm f/2.8 pre-AI lens or 50mm f/2 pre-AI. Developed in the Tetenal kit I am still using. I left the film border on for a couple of them because I liked it:

Ektar 100 images and a rainy afternoon stroll

Developed some C-41 yesterday, one roll of Ektar that I shot mostly out at Grand Bay and a little bit at VSU during a break from work, as well as a 120 roll of Superia 100 (pretty old and out-of-date).

I have sporadically used Ektar over the last few months but I never really have liked it. This time was no different, except for the shots that I took around VSU. The low-contrast shaded area I shot in worked well for the high-contrast film, whereas when I shot near sunset yesterday with high-contrast scenes it didn't look good at all.

Honestly I probably won't buy anymore of it (preferring Portra) but it's good to know when to shoot the last few rolls I have.

Here's the best of the roll:

 

 

 

Meagan and I also took some shots while it rained on Friday. I used my second to last roll of Supera 100 film in my Pentax 67. I really like this film, and am very sad that I don't have anymore left. I wish they still made it!

Here are a few from that roll. I used a variety of lenses, including the 55mm f/4 (67 model), 105mm f/2.4 Takumar, and 165mm f/2.8:

Beautiful weather in Valdosta - exploring Grand Bay and final T-Max 100 suggestions

Yesterday, after the rain had cleared, the weather in Valdosta was absolutely gorgeous. The temperature was just right, there wasn't much humidity, and all this on a Saturday I actually didn't have to work on! The only disappointment was a lack of clouds (despite the weather report predicting them all day).

I traversed deep into the hiking/hunting section of the Grand Bay WMA - turn right at the dead-end and you'll come to another parking area for this section, rather than the boardwalk area. I hiked the entire loop and snapped a roll and a half of photos.

For this outing a brought along the venerable Nikon F along with a 20mm f/2.8 AF lens, the 35mm f/2.8 Nikkor-S, my 55mm f/2.8 Micro AF, and finally the 105mm f/2.5 pre-AI (Gauss design) telephoto. All of these are small, relatively compact, and high-performing lenses. I will have to share a full review of the 35mm Nikkor-S lens soon, as I am consistently amazed what this little gem delivers - especially considering it's worth less than $50 on the used market (preview: it's the sharpest 35mm I own at typical taking apertures across the entire field).

Anyway - the important thing I want to emphasize is my final suggestions for using T-Max 100 film and T-Max developer in high dilutions (my article on this will be published by KEH on their blog late this month). I settled on a standard dilution of 1:25, with a suggested EI of about 40 or 50. I say suggested because it's clear that a stop or so deviation in either direction doesn't really affect it much, which is great news. This is of course for semi-stand development - 1 hour with agitation at the beginning and middle. For this strategy, the best way to use the film is simply meter your deepest shadows that you want to be open and full of detail and put them on Zone 3, and don't worry about the highlights. I suggest that in high-contrast scenes a dilution of 1:30 be used to exhaust the developer quicker and tame the highlights more, and for low-contrast scenes, a 1:20 dilution be used to expand slightly. But 1:25 will cover most brightness ranges up to 10-12 stops from my tests, making a somewhat flat negative that scans easily. Adjust curves to taste digitally.

Okay, that's it for the tech blabber, here's my favorite shots from the roll:

 

 

 

 

I hope the feeling of light came through with these. Stay tuned, as I still have some color rolls to develop today from the last few days.