Topslakr August 29th, 2008
Topslakr August 22nd, 2008
Topslakr August 22nd, 2008
I ordered this film to allow me to shoot in dark environments and also to capture in black and white. This is a ‘professional’ film designed to be shoot at ISO1600 but can be ‘pushed’ to ISO3200. ‘Pushing’ film means you shoot it a stop slower and then push the exposure during processing allowing you to bring out the images that are essential underexposed by a full stop. It’s a trade off in quality but the image you have it always better then the one you don’t and gaining that extra stop can make a huge difference in tricky low light situations.
My experience with this film is limited to use at ISO1600 only. When using this film with my 50mm and 85mm primes I have never been in a situation where ISO1600 was not enough. The combination of F/1.8 and ISO1600 is very good in that regard.
Topslakr August 21st, 2008
Topslakr August 20th, 2008
Over the past few months I have been running various 35mm film stocks through my Nikon FE and more recently my Nikon N80 in an effort to find differences in the films. The film I was most excited about was Fuji’s Velvia 50. I know that professional landscape photographers that use Velvia 50 are using medium and large format films to get their stunning images but that didn’t discourage me from using the 35mm format.
The internet is filled with information about what makes Velvia 50 special but to boil it down the film favors reds and yellows and by extension adds warmth to the image. If you are planning on shooting landscapes in the morning or the evening this is the film to choose… or so they say.
Topslakr August 18th, 2008
I ordered this film after I shot my three rolls of Fuji Superia 400 film as a part of my effort to take a look at a few of the more popular options in 35mm film. This was my most disappointing film to date. At first I thought that it was perhaps me who made the mistake. Perhaps I shot the film wrong or didn’t set something correctly but I looked through my images and found some Fuji Superia that I shot in the exact same way as this film. I shot one then the other at the same event. The only actual difference is I shot this film mostly with one of Nikon’s best lenses, the 14-24mm. A lens that is universally agreed to be of amazing quality.
For these images I was shooting an evening softball game in fading, but still strong light. My shutter speeds were reasonably high during the game and I was able to stop motion as well as the softball itself. I’m willing to consider the image below my fault because the sun is in frame. I have shot the 14-24 lens into the sun on my D300 and seen no problems at all but I’ll allow this one as a scratch image.
Topslakr August 11th, 2008
Well, I’ve just returned from a week long vacation into the white mountains here in New Hampshire. I am tired but it was enough of a change of pace for me that I’m feeling refreshed as well. To me, that’s what a vacation should be, a change of pace. We saw a lot of rain and had to change our plans continually but in the end we did find plenty of fun and new things to do.
We head into the mountains basically every year. If I were the only person choosing, it would be every year. I love that area. This year we went a little farther north then we usually do and were in an area that we don’t normally get to compounded by the biblical amounts of rain we have seen this year and our usual repertoire of activities was severely limited. We had to change it up.