Film Camera a Month - May

For May I chose to use my Canon 1000f film camera. 
 As I mentioned before, I was really looking forward to using a more reliable film camera for this month.

For my film I decided to use slide x-pro 200 by lomography. I then decided to go a step further and have it developed in normal colour settings aka having it cross processed. I also did my normal trick of over exposing in camera by two stops which honestly was this month's biggest downfall. If I use this slide film again, I will just shoot at normal exposure as a lot of the shots from this roll were way too washed out to even share :( In saying that I'm still super excited to share my favourites, which I do really love!!

The reds ended up being super bright which I think is so pretty :)
You may also recognise this shot from my insta :P

Don't think I explained the focus to Ben :P

Can you spy the corn! My bro visited and we opened one and I'd say it was 70% ready but he still gave it two thumbs up for taste wise :)

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Canon EOS 3 - 400 Lomo (digitally converted)

And here are some more of my roll from yesterday's post that I converted to black and white digitally

Warned you that roll had a lot of cats :p  Mainly Peachy too because she likes being around me/people more than Gremlin does. You'll often find Gremlin under a tree or watching things from afar whilst Peachy needs constant love and reassurance and companionship! Every once in a while Gremlin will meow for pats or even jump up on my lap and I make sure to give him lots and lots of love!

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Canon 1000f - Lomography 100 /02

I'm back with some more film that's not part of my monthly series but leftover from last year. I've shot a roll of Lomo 100 in my canon film camera (1000f) before with happy results you can see here and I was just as happy this time round :)

These shots are from our last Fraser Island trip which you can read more about over here too.

Tomorrow I'm going to throw up a few extra photos from the roll that I thought warranted being converted to black and white :)

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Kodak GC 400 rated at 200

I know I showed you guys some shots of this roll in my Japan film post but I wanted to expand a bit more and then pop that info into my film guide tab above. I've been a bit slack on updating that guide, so this is my push to keep it active and hopefully inspire myself to take more film!

The images are from a roll of kodak GC (ultra max) 400 that I used in my 1000f canon camera (which on a side note, takes my digital camera's lenses - a big plus in my opinion!).  The film is a standard type, jack of all trade, sold to the masses as opposed to something like Kodak's Portra aimed towards professional shooters. I have a horrible memory but I believe I picked up this roll whilst thrifting, so I have no idea of age but I would say colour and grain haven't been negatively affected.

I've come to learn that film loves light and that I have a particular love affair with film photos that fall on the over exposed side. When I shot film, I overexpose the metering by two stops which I have been loving but I decided to push it further and try an extra add on trick. It's a trick I discovered whilst reading about, José Villa's technique and how he creates his beautiful light and dreamy photos. He shoots 400 film but sets the ISO manually in his camera to 200. This means that your camera is going to work out the metering for 200 film, which is going to need more light and therefore you'll hopefully end up with lovely dreamy and bright shots. I've found film to be extremely forgiving, especially with highlights and the only time I've majorly stuffed up is when I've underexposed and my shadows (the blacks in the film) lost all details. Although dark shots might be your thing and a large joy of film is experimenting!

 

I scan my film using this method but I've got some supplies coming so I can try out the DSLR scanning method - I shall report back with how I go!

I'm really happy with this method of rating (in camera) your film at half its ISO and the processing per its original ISO. In other words, I loaded this kodak 400 into my camera, manually changed the ISO in camera to be 200, took it down to get processed and told them to process as normal at the rated 400 ISO.

I also wouldn't hesitate to pick up some more kodak 400 GC (ultramax) knowing it's cheaper than portra but still has pleasing colours and grain :)

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Canon 1000f - Portra 160

 Another film review for you guys today!

So I've tried Portra 400 with the 1000f but now it's 160 chance to shine. I like 160 more than 400, I know 160 means finer grain but I don't think that's the reason alone, perhaps more to do with the colour?

Portra is sold as being great for Portrait Photography, which means the oranges and reds aren't too crazy! Even though I know there are a lot of reds in these photos below you can kind of see more of a blue tone to the images :)

(okay I probably didn't pick the best photos to explain that :P oops!)

STATS

25 keeps 11 fails

Fail reasons: 5 of those shots were taken inside and suffered from being blurry or what I wanted to be in focus wasn't and I also didn't focus correctly on a few other things.

Things to remember: Unfortunately at 160 speed you probably won't have enough light indoors to get away with blur unless the indoor lighting is amazing or you have a flash, or a tripod or super non shakey hands - or like in that photo at the bottom you use double exposure! Sometimes I know I'm dipping way under my lens length, aka if you using a 50mm don't let your shutter go below 50 but I think - ah it will be alright! *shakes head* it probably won't be alright! 

I find that to be the hard thing about film. With digital you can just up the ISO with a button but with film you have to finish a roll or change a roll (though I don't think I'd be brave enough to do that!).

I really like portra 160 and I know it's going to give me the most quality and reliable shots out of all the films I've tried, it, funnily enough, is also the most expensive though :P

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Canon 1000f - Kodak Ektar 100 film

Almost finished my film reviews and today it's another no brainer combo, my Canon 1000f using Ektar film. 

You might notice these recent photos below!

STATS

29 keeps 7 fails

Fail Reasons

The fail reasons were not having a fast enough shutter for pet photography - can't believe I keep forgetting that :p I also had a couple of shots overexposed and a couple underexposed

Things to Remember

Using an aperture of 3 or more for portraits really helps with focus issues (thanks Dani again!).
Using AV on this camera at night with the built in flash left some happy accidents of light trails :)

The flash was able to exposure our faces but the shutter which stayed open for what felt like a minute let in all those pretty light streaks :) Also remembering to overexpose by two stops seems to be the winning formula!

I feel like I've learned a lot over the last year or so and am super excited to keep learning and experimenting :)

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Canon EOS 3 - Fuji Superia x-tra 800 - expired

Okay I'm back on the Fuji game this time with 800 film (fast film ideal for lower light situations). A bit of a disclaimer first - before buying this film I didn't realised it was expired, so in all Fuji fairness I really need to try some non-expired film before making final judgements :p Perhaps the reason I don't like Fuji (weird contrasts, not so flattering colours) are because the films I've tried have been expired.

STATS
7 keeps 16 fails (wah wah wah)

Fail Reasons: I took most of the roll inside a bowling alley for J's birthday I was hoping it would react like the Lomo 800 film indoors and really make those colours pop and crazy. I found most of my shots were just boring. Now this could of been the lighting (it's a pretty loose experiment when you are doing your test shots in two different locations) but this roll back (possible my worst ever) gave me little reason to buy Fuji again. The two shots I did like (posted above) would of been impossible not to be exciting because of the colours but the film didn't enhance them - just delivered as is. I enjoy film for its ability to manipulate colours but if on the otherhand you are someone who wants to record more accurately a scene than perhaps Fuji is for you :)

Things to remember: Don't rely on this film to make the real world more exciting :P

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Canon 3 - Ektar 100

I'm back on that film review train and this time it's my Canon eos 3 camera with Kodak Ektar 100 film. I think this is a no brainer combination for returning good results :) Quality camera, with quality lenses and quality film - ticking all those good boxes!

I don't have the actual stats on how many shots turned out from this roll but all those 'a film photo a day' shots I posted whilst I was in Singapore were from that roll and if memory serves me it was a happy batch of film. If I want predictable photos I'll shoot with this combo knowing also that Ektar does some nice colours for landscape shots :)

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Canon 1000f - lomography 800 film

The last time I used the lomography 800 film it was largely indoors, so it was interesting to test out the film purely outdoors. I finished the roll at the wedding and was overall happy with the results.

STATS

25 keeps 11 fails

Fail Reasons: cats that move too fast

Things to remember: cats are hard to photograph :p
In all seriousness though I enjoyed how the Lomo 800 performed more with the inside shots than the outside ones. Having been using Ektar 100 film since I first got into film photography, I would say (and since it's designed for landscapes) it definitely performs so much better for outdoor scenes and I would definitely go for a film like that instead of 800 Lomo. 

To be honest who would shoot 800 lomography outside on a sunny day for landscape shots, no one except me that's who!  In my defense the 800 was in my camera and I had to use it up before I could change rolls. I was honestly expecting (and had packed) to shoot a gazillion rolls of film at the wedding but ended up coming home with just three!  One other thing I can laugh at myself for I tried to used the 800 film in my camera up the day before the wedding knowing that I didn't want to start the day which such high speed film.  I actually thought it was nearly finished too but the 1000F camera, winds on the film backwards and thus the counter clock which I thought was nearly finished had only just begun - classic fee! lol lol

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Canon 1000F - Lomography 100

Okay I picked up another film camera this time for $10 which is funny because although reasonable was still more expensive than my three dollar camera and yet not as good quality. When I say not good quality I just mean it has some limitations, it has a slower shutter, resulting in the inability to use my lenses wide open in the sun (they let in too much light which the shutter can't counteract with speed). It definitely doesn't have the bells and whistles of the EOS 3 but in some ways I like it better because it's so simple! It is also capable of double exposures which is fun!  

You can pick up the 1000F from eBay for really cheap, under 50 bucks - just saying! You do have to watch though with second hand cameras as the shutter only has so many clicks until it dies!

STATS

27 Keeps 11 Fails

Fails Reasons: The cool things about the 1000F is it has a built in flash which to some is probably hideous but I actually like that cheesy Terry Richardson-esq bad flash style :p I tested the flash out with a few self portraits (using the self timer) at night and they would of been fine except for the fact that I was using my 35mm lens with lens hood (making the lens length too long for the flash range, aka the lens hood left a big black shadow on each image). So next time I'm going to use my 50mm without the hood and see if that works out! The other fail reasons where just ugly double exposures but that wasn't the film or the camera's fault

Things to remember: I got super excited when I got this roll back! I'd finally felt like I had understood the need to overexposed colour film. I had read about not doing double exposures of flowers in full sunlight and about how much to underexposed per double exposure shot but in the end I just thought, more light more light and that seemed to do the trick! I did shoot most of the roll at a very picturesque location so it was hard to mess up but still I liked how the film performed and will (and have!) bought the lomo 100 again :)

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