A nostalgic look

It is AGES since I last posted anything on here. January…. and how things have changed since then!

I’m not sure how I didn’t get round to posting a few things during lockdown as I’ve not been slowing down with my photography whatsoever. I finished my 365 project at the end of February (I’m still working on the book of that) and decided that I was going to start experimenting with some more film stocks in 2020.

And then Covid came along.

I’ll post in more length about my Covid photographic adventures soon. But let’s just say that I did get a chance to experiment. And I’ve tried a lot of different emulsions, which has been fun.

But this particular post is about some expired film I bought a while back from Analogue Wonderland. It is Agfa CT Precisa 100 slide film. Analogue Wonderland recommended shooting it at box speed and then cross processing it.

I bought two rolls. This first roll was shot over one weekend in Lyme Regis and Axmouth. The other roll has been waiting to see how successful I’ve been with the first.

Firstly, this stuff comes out grainy. And very, very blue - although the red does pop out as well. I’d read a couple of places that yellows really pop too, but not with my experience with this roll. The cyan/blue was very dominant once scanned - I had to back off the saturation of the cyan in Lightroom quite heavily. Obviously I knew I’d get bonkers colour shifts but I still wanted it to be in a reasonable ballpark.

To begin with, I was a bit disheartened as all I could see was that grain and the completely way-off colours. And started to question why I’d not shot the Kodak Vision 3 50D I also had with me for the weekend. It was perfect weather for that lovely film.

But after a while I started to quite enjoy the look of the Agfa. It gives off a nicely nostalgic feel - even more so with shots of my little ‘un. That could almost be my young self at his age on that beach. The film really does have the feel of the turn of the 70s/80s.

I’m now wishing I’d bought more than the two rolls. Might have to start hunting for some more…!

Ilford Ortho Plus

There was muchos excitement all around when Ilford released this orthochromatic film a couple of months ago. And not wanting to miss out on the party, I grabbed myself a roll from the wonderful Analogue Wonderland.

The talk was of fine grain, nice contrast and excellent tonality. And it did not disappoint…

This film is amazing. It has absolutely gorgeous tonality with near non existent grain in the right light. The contrast is spot-on. Being an ortho film it doesn’t react to red whatsoever, so skin tones are dark. But for landscape and detail-type shots - YUM YUM YUM!!!!

As usual when I’m trying out a new film, I stuck my roll in my Oly OM10. I think all of these shots were using my Zuiko 50mm f1.8 lens. Mostly shot in Cornwall over the Christmas period, the weather wasn’t great - gloomy, misty, rainy…. but the Ortho took everything in its stride. It really captured the atmosphere.

It ain’t the cheapest of films. But it really is worth it as it’s quite special.

Film developed by Silverpan Film Lab.

Pushing film

I’ve recently experimented with pushing some film. It’s not a new idea but not something I’ve personally tried before.

For those that don’t know what pushed film is, I’ll explain it quite simply:
You underexpose the film and then push it back to what it should be in the developing.
For example, if you have a 400iso film and expose it as 800iso then you’re pushing it by one stop of exposure. This will allow you to shoot at a faster shutter speed but the film will be one stop underexposed. Therefore when it is developed, it needs to be adjusted accordingly.

Why do this?
Well, it can be handy in low light situations. If you only had a 400 film you could shoot it at 1600 in bad light.
Also, as an aesthetic decision: when you’re pushing film in this way then it increases grain and contast. So if that’s the look you want then it’s a good way of getting it in camera.

I had some rolls of my favourite films from the summer left in the fridge: Ilford Pan 400 and Kodak ProImage 100. Having shot quite a bit on these two films, I thought they’d be pretty good to experiment with.

Both of them I shot pushed by two stops. So, the Pan 400 I rated at 1600 and the ProImage 100 I rated at 400.

First issue I found which I didn’t expect at this time of year: really bright sunlight. Not just the occasional bright Autumnal morning. Nope - bright, contrasty light all day for a week or two. It was lovely for catching shadows… but I was rating my 400 film at 1600. Which meant I was pretty much stuck on an aperture of f16. Which isn’t the end of the world but I do prefer a bit of flexibility!

To be honest, I’m unsure if pushing the Pan 400 really added much. Apart from some grain. I think it’s fine to use for pushing and I’m happy with the results (and it ends up being cheaper to push this than buy some faster film!) but I don’t think it really added anything to the shots.

When pushing a colour film the saturation levels should also increase. The scans from the pushed ProImage had noticeably more punch to the colour. Not that the colours were washed out before. It’s just there was a noticeable difference after having been pushed. More contrasty colours; possibly good to play around with during the winter.

Overall, it’s been handy to try pushing a couple of films and I will probably try some more. However, the downside is that the whole film has to be push processed, so you are tied in to doing that for the whole film. Which - as I found with the 400 speed film - can limit you from time to time. However, I’m quite interested in trying it out for a gig I’ll be shooting next month.

All shot on my Olympus OM10. As far as I remember, these were shot on either the Zuiko f1.8 50mm or Panagor f2 35mm.