"editor's pick" and new bronica etrsi testing

ok, some more news. From now onwards, I decided to introduce every entry (usually roll) with my own "editor's pick" shot. I usually put pics here in chronological order but will choose one that I consider best, most interesting etc. Even if I did it ocassionally before, I will do it rigorously from now.

another thing is that I have bought bronica etrsi in beautiful condition with 120 and 220 backs also in perfect state. I put a roll of neopan 400 in it and the results are superb for me. I just love medium format. The only exception is the first shot of the roll which got somehow damaged (either in lab or by me in the camera, but more probably in lab :-) ).

and the last thing is that I'm now off of my regular home (NOLA) for three months and importantly, without a scanner. So, it means this is probably the last roll untill late august (unless I'll find some more interesting stuff in my pc or will shoot also digital).



brian's Homo erectus reconstruction with the pencil added by me indicating they were pretty smart :-)


the place will be explained on the next frame



I shot some IDs as well :-)


toilette


it is really hard to stop the water dropping from that, believe me.


and also, I bought some more olympus gear for Jakub - Om2 and vivitar series 1 24-48mm


and something for myself - olympus om-pc. A backup body


my cicik posing

exp. 1999

ok, today's story. two days back, I loaded a roll of neopan ss into the nikon fm2n with the intent to test 28mm lens on black and white. I took just few shots and decided to do a "whole roll" series with continuous shooting on canon A2e and wanted to reload the same roll onto the latter camera. However, one of our Czech friends here had a yard sale this morning and she had some photo items for sell. I picked plastic bag full of films. There were some kodaks, some unknown rebranded films of various speeds (100-400), all in color. As expected, they all were outdated. Have to say that a lot! But anyway, I gave her 5 bucks for like 15 rolls of film, so it was just worth to do it. I wanted to try film of that age. As a result, I decided to change my plans and loaded a Kodak gold 100 with expiration of 5/1999. Shot the roll with some help from my "kocur". And results?

have to say, pretty good. Don't have any feeling that the film would perform significantly worse than new. On the other side, I realized what are the problems of outdated film when I got it from the lab. First of all, it bends along its longitudinal axis making it difficult to scan. It is right now between pages of large book with hope it will stay flat. We'll see tomorrow. The second big problem is that it is prone to catch dust particles. It can be caused either by changed properties of the film with time or just simply by the old emulsion produced in 90'. I don't know but I spent much more time with cleaning the film before scanning than usual (which is pretty boring, especially if the dust is still coming back again and again).

special note for Jakub. I changed labs and now, I'm going back to that one on Tchoupitoulas where I started to go when we lived in our first place here in NOLA. And guess what? No red stripes - anywhere. Moreover, those people there still remember me which is nice. On the dark side, the lady who did the job today scratched the film more than usual and I had to retouch the scans (and it sucks).

ok, that's the story. BTW, all shot with sigma 24/2.8






























ok, not the whole roll got wasted on "kocur". we switched and here are some more "funny" shots :-)







that's all folks, yadidadida.

experimenting with new nikon 28/3.5 and 24/2.8 sigma lenses

I took fuji superia x-tra 400, loaded to nikon and took new 28/3.5 lens for testing. In the middle of the roll, I changed it to the canon A2e and shot with sigma 24mm lens. Multiple exposures come obviously from Nikon. This is my intentional triple ID exposure. Came out well, I guess. Color original below (in its original position on the roll).

some comments on films. the difference in color rendering between kodak and fuji has been mentioned by us before, however, this time I have even a feeling that especially the nikon lens renders very cold colors. On the other hand, it seems to be surprisingly sharp. Sigma test on color film revealed slighly more vivid colors and nice sharpness as well (on pictures that are focused well :-) ).


canadian club whiskey


this roll is overrated for IDs :-). non-traditional one.


traditional one


on campus sitting and drinking coke after some excercise in recreational center


perfect sharpness, cold colors. still nikon lens


I tried to play with multiple exposures


the car was loaded and at the same time "unloaded" internally





In all multiple exposures I tried to make correct exposure for the first pic and then underexpose the subsequent one(s) to get clear shot with double expo shadows. Obviously it did not work in this case well.



nikon's sharpness and fuji's (or nikon's) lack of color vividity






the original (cut though, because there was an overlap of frames from changing the film between cameras). from this point down it is on canon and sigma lens.


I'm really satisfied with it.



especially like it in this shot (and the shot itself).


some arm posing to make the boredom less bored



we had really good siesta in the afternoon.


I actually like those two shots of me and it does not happen too often. This one happened to be a little bit out of focus (don't know why) but still ok.

ok, that's all. evidence proved these two lenses are worth of having.