Film Photos of Japan

This post are my fav film shots I took in Japan, mind you I only took 3 rolls and 2 were already half used but I'm still happy I have a bunch of photos to share today with you guys. 

 You'll probably recognise a lot of these locations from my other Japan trip posts so I won't go over all the details but I will say, I used my canon 1000f film camera and three different film types. If you're curious about which film I used for what photo, you can individual click on any photo and it will take you to my Flickr page where I have the relevant tags. I tried a new technique this trip, where you rate a film (in camera) one or two stops under its rated speed and then have it processed at its normal speed. I think I will continue to do this because I found when scanning and editing the photos that they seemed to be lighter and softer, which is something I love about film. I also make sure I overexpose by two stops when I'm taking film too! 

Okay enough technical ranting, time for photos!

note: Those few black and white photos I digitally in lightroom oh and how great is that shot with Ben and those kimono dressed ladies!!!  I may of kind of stalked them for a photo and next thing you know Ben and I spent a good 15 minutes with the group taking there photos on everyone's cameras and phones.  I may even be in a few!

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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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OM1 - Kodak 400 Film

Wow I dug these photos out of the graveyard and to be honest I can't even remember shooting with kodak 400 - I'm happy I found out there was more film available than what you could buy at the supermarket -not that kodak 400 is horrid, just because I like to play :)

I think this was when I was still scanning the prints too and not the digital file.  It's fun anyway when you have a hobby to see your beginnings :)

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135bc Holga - Ektar 100

We're moving onto the toy cameras now, which in some ways are my favourite and in other ways make me want to cry with their unpredictable nature :p I picked up the 135bc holga because I wanted a cheap holga that took 35mm film, my other holga which takes medium format film was a pain in the arse to find processing for.   Luckily processing is much more available especially in the online world than it was in 2005, so I definitely want to get back into playing around with my old holga! but anyways I digress!

The 135bc is the cheapest holga you can get it's all plastic and the "bc" bit just means it has forced vignetting (vin-yet-ing) so instead of the black edges occurring naturally on the film the 135bc has black inserts to stop the corners being exposed. Some people might find this cheating or tacky but I'm all for it :p

STATS

14 keeps - 12 Fails (+10 never exposed)

Fails Reasons

I tried googling to see why 10 frames never exposed I thought maybe I had left the cap on and the shutter had clicked in my bag but then I read this guy's suggestion about never putting in a roll of 36 exposure because there is too much film being wound onto the spool and could cause you to break your camera. Maybe it just didn't wind on? Mystery ... next time I'm going to stick with 24 exposure film just in case it was the 36 roll issue!

The other reasons for the fails were that people's heads were cut off - the view finder doesn't accurately describe what will translate onto the film.  I also found myself with lots of underexposed shots - this camera needs lots of light! It does have two nifty features for helping the light situation, firstly, you can change the shutter speed to "b" which basically means as long as you are holding the shutter release button down it will stay open thus letting in lots of light but also may result in blurry pictures unless you are using a tripod! The second is that some toy cameras won't let you take more than one exposure once you hit the shutter relase button but the holga 135 will, which means you can take heaps of exposures on one frame equalling lots of light! The photos above I took in Singapore - for the overcast days I used triple exposure and even on the fairly sunny day I still used double exposure (the lilly pads bottom right)

Things to remember: Aim high when shooting to avoid cutting off people's heads! Use 24 exposure rolls and only use on super sunny days( I'd even double exposure on super sunny days!)  Finally  make sure what setting you're on, if you're on the bulb 'b' setting and you just want to be on the normal 'n' setting this could mean a lot of your photos come out blurry - depending on how long that finger of yours lingers on the shutter release button. I'm actually still not 100% in love with holgas I find they produce soft images but if you're aware of this you can definitely use it to your advantage! I also have a flash for my holga which I'll talk about later as it's an add on I love and would recommend :)

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