Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Canon EOS 3 - Lomography 400 b&w film


We get to compare the lomography 400 b&w film to the t-max 400. I'm just going to say I think t-max has the edge. I liked how the t-max roll came back with more contrast which is something I personally appreciate in black and white photos :) I found I had to use the lomography b&w in really sunny locations to get the same contrast that seemed to come more naturally in the t-max. That said I'm a big fan on black and white and apart from focus issues (my biggest downfall!) I was really happy with the roll that came back. 

You guys also get more pics from the wedding too! I tried to have with me throughout the day my digital camera, a film camera with a colour roll and a film camera with a b&w roll...excessive much :p  

I'm thinking more about my focus issues, with this roll I had learnt not to rely on autofocus and just manually focus but it seems my eyes let me down, especially at night.  With digital photography I'd just look at my display screen and re-take the photo if it wasn't in focus which is something you can't do with film.  Dani (from the awesome blog the cat you and us) pointed out in the comments that focusing wide open (low aperture) on the canon 3 would be like playing Russian Roulette (Thanks Dani!) I kind of didn't think about that but it makes perfect sense.  So 1.4 means not much is in focus, which means what you want to be in focus (say the eyes of someone) has to be dead on - a more narrow aperture, that keeps more things in focus, gives more of a buffer zone :)

So the solution I think is to kick up the aperture especially in low light situations or maybe buy some glasses! If someone has another suggestion for improving focus I'd love to hear :)


7 comments:

  1. oh this camera looks so good, love how the photos turned out! I need to get into lomo x

    http://britishmermaid.blogspot.co.uk

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  2. me too i personally prefer t-max result but that one is lovely too, it has that peaceful feeling if you know what i mean?

    re focus thing, I think I have the same problem, to focus something I always take time with it, probably not a good idea in the weddings where you need to shoot as many as possible...if I am correct anyway

    Katrina Sophia Blog

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  3. Yeah I probably do rush my focus I'm really going to err, try and focus more on focusing :P I can see it's my weak spot anyway. I understand what you mean about peaceful I think it's definitely a reflection of the film's less contrast and grain!

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  4. beautiful pictures! I always have problems getting my pictures to be sharp and clear, it's blurry sometimes which bugs me so much. :)

    http://www.ourlifeisbeautiful.com/

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  5. Blurry pictures are super annoying but the nice thing is that you can solve it in a few ways:
    1) by using a tripod or having amazingly steady hands or leaning your camera up against something!
    2) by using flash or
    3) by changing the camera's exposure settings manually (though you can't do this on all cameras)

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  6. Oh, I'm so late in this post! Maybe I shouldn't been giving advices about focusing (I usually lost focus too, ask Damaris about it xD) but as a wide-apperture lover I use three strategies:
    1) If the subject doesn't move, I focus and without moving the camera a single inch shot the pic.
    2) if I have to be quick taking pics in different conditions (like in one of your lots of future weddings) I increase a little the minimum apperture in order to get a wider dof (for instance, I usually don't take pics less than 2.2 with our 50mm 1.4, but if I don't want to miss the focus I try not going down of 2.8).
    3) Or...I ask Damaris to take it xD Don't know her trick but she is usually more focused ;)

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  7. Thanks Dani! It's really opened my eyes (little pun intended) about bumping up the aperture, I always use to shoot at 1.4 but now I'm starting to think about times when that might not be a good idea!

    Even though I'm not 100 percent believer in things needing to be in focus, sometimes, especially with portraits focus is important so it's something i'd like to improve on :)

    I might just have to steal Damaris's magic!

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