Back from Tokyo... and a reflection on Dynamic Range

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

Now, that is really, really good. You obviously chose your tools well.

Tools. They are all tools. Cameras, lenses, film and digital.

Obsolete. Yeah. You know, that term doesn't mean that it no longers works. As you have proven here.

I have many things here which are obsolete. Electronics stuff, mechanical stuff, machine shop stuff, and even agricultural and industrial stuff. All of it still works and work in ways that the stuff which replaced it cannot work.




1950 JD model M

Here is very obsolete. 1950. John Deere 2-cylinder kerosene engine. All of 18 HP. Thermosiphon cooling (no water pump). Can, and does, run on gasoline as well as kerosene. Straight cut gear crash box transmission. It was intended, when it came out in 1947, to replace the horse on a one horse farm.

Why do I keep it? Note those rigs in the center between the wheels. Cultivator rigs. Shovels that run alongside rows of crops and pull out the weeds when the crops are young. The tractor is high enough and narrow enough to miss the plants. The rigs are in the center so one can watch what the shovels are doing and so not dig up the crop plants. The tractor is narrow and open to aid in the seeing.

Can't do that with modern diesel engine, hydrostatic transmission, tractors with those comfortable operator platforms.

This type hasn't been made in several decades. Farmers turned to chemical weed control and don't need cultivators. I don't wish to mess with chemicals, so Old School it is.

And, keeping it going? Fortunately I have equally obsolete machine shop tools inherited from my dad. I can make my own parts given they are relatively simple parts to make.

Stan

--
Amateur Photographer
Professional Electronics Development Engineer

 

[Crispy_Bee]

Hi,

Now, that is really, really good. You obviously chose your tools well.

Tools. They are all tools. Cameras, lenses, film and digital.

Obsolete. Yeah. You know, that term doesn't mean that it no longers works. As you have proven here.

I have many things here which are obsolete. Electronics stuff, mechanical stuff, machine shop stuff, and even agricultural and industrial stuff. All of it still works and work in ways that the stuff which replaced it cannot work.


1950 JD model M

Here is very obsolete. 1950. John Deere 2-cylinder kerosene engine. All of 18 HP. Thermosiphon cooling (no water pump). Can, and does, run on gasoline as well as kerosene. Straight cut gear crash box transmission. It was intended, when it came out in 1947, to replace the horse on a one horse farm.

Why do I keep it? Note those rigs in the center between the wheels. Cultivator rigs. Shovels that run alongside rows of crops and pull out the weeds when the crops are young. The tractor is high enough and narrow enough to miss the plants. The rigs are in the center so one can watch what the shovels are doing and so not dig up the crop plants. The tractor is narrow and open to aid in the seeing.

Can't do that with modern diesel engine, hydrostatic transmission, tractors with those comfortable operator platforms.

This type hasn't been made in several decades. Farmers turned to chemical weed control and don't need cultivators. I don't wish to mess with chemicals, so Old School it is.

And, keeping it going? Fortunately I have equally obsolete machine shop tools inherited from my dad. I can make my own parts given they are relatively simple parts to make.

Stan

That's pretty modern.

I use a horse and a wooden plough, it's very magical and so much more connected to the dirt and earth. Can't get that same feel with that kind of modern machinery. I think the real feel for farming got lost somewhere along the way. Also the hay and water for old Bessy is cheaper than gasoline or diesel.
And that's what you should use if you really want to master cultivating plants and pulling weeds, it's much less forgiving because if you don't pay attention and mess you, you have to redo the whole field.

Now all I need are a few more horses, in case the one I have breaks down, maybe I'll inherit some.

Isn't it great when you can romanticise stuff?

 

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

Yeah. Horses. Hay isn't cheaper than gas or diesel. It's far, far more expensive. You have to feed that horse when it's in the barn doing zero work. You don't have to feed that tractor when it's in the barn.

If the tractor wasn't better, it'd never have replaced the horse after WWII when the leftover manufacturing infrastructure from the war made the tractor dirt cheap. And it was the small models like the JD M here, and the Farmall A that did the trick.

Growing up, my great uncle still used horses on his truck garden farm. For cultivating only. He had a Farmall A in the barn for everything else. He kept the two horses because they were part.of the family before the tractor came, and cultivating with them was more akon to playing with his kids than actual work.

When they passed , he used the tractor. Until he passed.

One thing he did, which makes sense, was pull the horse drawn sickle bar and hay rake with the tractor. My great aunt drove and he operated the horse drawn implements. He also had a New Holland self powered hay baler and gave up using the stationary engine and hay press. Less work to use the baler.

Of course the hay fields were for the two horses. Once they passed, he quit haying.

 

[Crispy_Bee]

Hi,

Yeah. Horses. Hay isn't cheaper than gas or diesel. It's far, far more expensive. You have to feed that horse when it's in the barn doing zero work. You don't have to feed that tractor when it's in the barn.

If the tractor wasn't better, it'd never have replaced the horse after WWII when the leftover manufacturing infrastructure from the war made the tractor dirt cheap. And it was the small models like the JD M here, and the Farmall A that did the trick.

Growing up, my great uncle still used horses on his truck garden farm. For cultivating only. He had a Farmall A in the barn for everything else. He kept the two horses because they were part.of the family before the tractor came, and cultivating with them was more akon to playing with his kids than actual work.

When they passed , he used the tractor. Until he passed.

One thing he did, which makes sense, was pull the horse drawn sickle bar and hay rake with the tractor. My great aunt drove and he operated the horse drawn implements. He also had a New Holland self powered hay baler and gave up using the stationary engine and hay press. Less work to use the baler.

Of course the hay fields were for the two horses. Once they passed, he quit haying.

I'm not sure you got the analogy:
horse = film
tractor = digital
sickle bar & hay rake = lenses

 

[marco1974]

Hi,

Now, that is really, really good. You obviously chose your tools well.

Tools. They are all tools. Cameras, lenses, film and digital.

Obsolete. Yeah. You know, that term doesn't mean that it no longers works. As you have proven here.

I have many things here which are obsolete. Electronics stuff, mechanical stuff, machine shop stuff, and even agricultural and industrial stuff. All of it still works and work in ways that the stuff which replaced it cannot work.


1950 JD model M

Here is very obsolete. 1950. John Deere 2-cylinder kerosene engine. All of 18 HP. Thermosiphon cooling (no water pump). Can, and does, run on gasoline as well as kerosene. Straight cut gear crash box transmission. It was intended, when it came out in 1947, to replace the horse on a one horse farm.

Why do I keep it? Note those rigs in the center between the wheels. Cultivator rigs. Shovels that run alongside rows of crops and pull out the weeds when the crops are young. The tractor is high enough and narrow enough to miss the plants. The rigs are in the center so one can watch what the shovels are doing and so not dig up the crop plants. The tractor is narrow and open to aid in the seeing.

Can't do that with modern diesel engine, hydrostatic transmission, tractors with those comfortable operator platforms.

This type hasn't been made in several decades. Farmers turned to chemical weed control and don't need cultivators. I don't wish to mess with chemicals, so Old School it is.

And, keeping it going? Fortunately I have equally obsolete machine shop tools inherited from my dad. I can make my own parts given they are relatively simple parts to make.

Stan

That's pretty modern.

I use a horse and a wooden plough, it's very magical and so much more connected to the dirt and earth. Can't get that same feel with that kind of modern machinery. I think the real feel for farming got lost somewhere along the way. Also the hay and water for old Bessy is cheaper than gasoline or diesel.
And that's what you should use if you really want to master cultivating plants and pulling weeds, it's much less forgiving because if you don't pay attention and mess you, you have to redo the whole field.

Now all I need are a few more horses, in case the one I have breaks down, maybe I'll inherit some.

Isn't it great when you can romanticise stuff?

I think your thinly veiled sneering about anyone who dares to use tools that you personally aren't interested in is starting to get a bit old.

Respectfully, I would suggest dialling it down a notch.

--
Marco

Galleries by Marco Raugei

pbase.com

 

[marco1974]

Hi,

Yeah. Horses. Hay isn't cheaper than gas or diesel. It's far, far more expensive. You have to feed that horse when it's in the barn doing zero work. You don't have to feed that tractor when it's in the barn.

If the tractor wasn't better, it'd never have replaced the horse after WWII when the leftover manufacturing infrastructure from the war made the tractor dirt cheap. And it was the small models like the JD M here, and the Farmall A that did the trick.

Growing up, my great uncle still used horses on his truck garden farm. For cultivating only. He had a Farmall A in the barn for everything else. He kept the two horses because they were part.of the family before the tractor came, and cultivating with them was more akon to playing with his kids than actual work.

When they passed , he used the tractor. Until he passed.

One thing he did, which makes sense, was pull the horse drawn sickle bar and hay rake with the tractor. My great aunt drove and he operated the horse drawn implements. He also had a New Holland self powered hay baler and gave up using the stationary engine and hay press. Less work to use the baler.

Of course the hay fields were for the two horses. Once they passed, he quit haying.

I'm not sure you got the analogy:
horse = film
tractor = digital
sickle bar & hay rake = lenses

Poor analogy, and presumptuous humour.

 

[Crispy_Bee]

Hi,

Now, that is really, really good. You obviously chose your tools well.

Tools. They are all tools. Cameras, lenses, film and digital.

Obsolete. Yeah. You know, that term doesn't mean that it no longers works. As you have proven here.

I have many things here which are obsolete. Electronics stuff, mechanical stuff, machine shop stuff, and even agricultural and industrial stuff. All of it still works and work in ways that the stuff which replaced it cannot work.


1950 JD model M

Here is very obsolete. 1950. John Deere 2-cylinder kerosene engine. All of 18 HP. Thermosiphon cooling (no water pump). Can, and does, run on gasoline as well as kerosene. Straight cut gear crash box transmission. It was intended, when it came out in 1947, to replace the horse on a one horse farm.

Why do I keep it? Note those rigs in the center between the wheels. Cultivator rigs. Shovels that run alongside rows of crops and pull out the weeds when the crops are young. The tractor is high enough and narrow enough to miss the plants. The rigs are in the center so one can watch what the shovels are doing and so not dig up the crop plants. The tractor is narrow and open to aid in the seeing.

Can't do that with modern diesel engine, hydrostatic transmission, tractors with those comfortable operator platforms.

This type hasn't been made in several decades. Farmers turned to chemical weed control and don't need cultivators. I don't wish to mess with chemicals, so Old School it is.

And, keeping it going? Fortunately I have equally obsolete machine shop tools inherited from my dad. I can make my own parts given they are relatively simple parts to make.

Stan

That's pretty modern.

I use a horse and a wooden plough, it's very magical and so much more connected to the dirt and earth. Can't get that same feel with that kind of modern machinery. I think the real feel for farming got lost somewhere along the way. Also the hay and water for old Bessy is cheaper than gasoline or diesel.
And that's what you should use if you really want to master cultivating plants and pulling weeds, it's much less forgiving because if you don't pay attention and mess you, you have to redo the whole field.

Now all I need are a few more horses, in case the one I have breaks down, maybe I'll inherit some.

Isn't it great when you can romanticise stuff?

I think your thinly veiled sneering about anyone who dares to use tools that you personally aren't interested in is starting to get a bit old.

Respectfully, I would suggest dialling it down a notch.

Oh come one, I think it's a valid point to highlight certain realities.

Film is nice, film is good but when it's romanticized and depicted as "the medium to master" because of the inherent difficulties and many issues that can occur, some sneering is more than necessary.

 

[marco1974]

Hi,

Now, that is really, really good. You obviously chose your tools well.

Tools. They are all tools. Cameras, lenses, film and digital.

Obsolete. Yeah. You know, that term doesn't mean that it no longers works. As you have proven here.

I have many things here which are obsolete. Electronics stuff, mechanical stuff, machine shop stuff, and even agricultural and industrial stuff. All of it still works and work in ways that the stuff which replaced it cannot work.


1950 JD model M

Here is very obsolete. 1950. John Deere 2-cylinder kerosene engine. All of 18 HP. Thermosiphon cooling (no water pump). Can, and does, run on gasoline as well as kerosene. Straight cut gear crash box transmission. It was intended, when it came out in 1947, to replace the horse on a one horse farm.

Why do I keep it? Note those rigs in the center between the wheels. Cultivator rigs. Shovels that run alongside rows of crops and pull out the weeds when the crops are young. The tractor is high enough and narrow enough to miss the plants. The rigs are in the center so one can watch what the shovels are doing and so not dig up the crop plants. The tractor is narrow and open to aid in the seeing.

Can't do that with modern diesel engine, hydrostatic transmission, tractors with those comfortable operator platforms.

This type hasn't been made in several decades. Farmers turned to chemical weed control and don't need cultivators. I don't wish to mess with chemicals, so Old School it is.

And, keeping it going? Fortunately I have equally obsolete machine shop tools inherited from my dad. I can make my own parts given they are relatively simple parts to make.

Stan

That's pretty modern.

I use a horse and a wooden plough, it's very magical and so much more connected to the dirt and earth. Can't get that same feel with that kind of modern machinery. I think the real feel for farming got lost somewhere along the way. Also the hay and water for old Bessy is cheaper than gasoline or diesel.
And that's what you should use if you really want to master cultivating plants and pulling weeds, it's much less forgiving because if you don't pay attention and mess you, you have to redo the whole field.

Now all I need are a few more horses, in case the one I have breaks down, maybe I'll inherit some.

Isn't it great when you can romanticise stuff?

I think your thinly veiled sneering about anyone who dares to use tools that you personally aren't interested in is starting to get a bit old.

Respectfully, I would suggest dialling it down a notch.

Oh come one, I think it's a valid point to highlight certain realities.

Film is nice, film is good but when it's romanticized and depicted as "the medium to master" because of the inherent difficulties and many issues that can occur, some sneering is more than necessary.

Come two, neither I nor Stan (to whom you were responding) romanticised anything.

Straw man argument.

But maybe you were harbouring some resentment already and felt the need to sneer.

Hopefully you feel better now and we can all get on with using whatever tools and media to produce our images without undue commotion.

--
Marco

Galleries by Marco Raugei

pbase.com

 

[SeeingSomeThingsMissingMany]

Hi,

Why stop there? Go sit with whatever medium and whatever stylus floats your boat and just draw or paint that scene!

Seriously good skills and talent are required. One can develop (pun unintended) those skills and talent, but it takes a lot of time.

My wife does this. Her boat is floated by Pen and Ink. So much so, that's her nickname.

Here is the kicker. My first foray, 25 years ago, to the coast of North Carolina was to shoot lighthouses with a then brand-new Nikon D1. The goal was to produce a pile of 5x7 prints of not only the entire house, but many detail shots. Because the camera didn't sport the resolution necessary to print large and see the details in a single image.

Why? So Pen&Ink here could work up a series of lighthouse drawings. At her drawing table here at home and not rushing to make one sitting there on site. We shot three houses in one day as opposed to her having to spend one day at each.

Similarly to yourself and your Dear Pen & Ink, I have painted have ready for painting several of my photographs. I have a fair amount I haven't got round to painting.

I photograph certain way sometimes, knowing I will likely paint it.

Now I have a series of lighthouse quilt blocks shot with a MF camera and printed on a specialty printer (quilting fabric). They do sell. But her screenprinted blocks from her hand drawings outsell the photographic ones 6:1.

Stan

Although I value my photographs as much as my paintings of them, I'm aware there are some others would value my paintings more than the photographs from which I painted. Were I to sell, I would sell the paintings.

--
Photography after all is interplay of light alongside perspective.

 

[Crispy_Bee]

Hi,

Now, that is really, really good. You obviously chose your tools well.

Tools. They are all tools. Cameras, lenses, film and digital.

Obsolete. Yeah. You know, that term doesn't mean that it no longers works. As you have proven here.

I have many things here which are obsolete. Electronics stuff, mechanical stuff, machine shop stuff, and even agricultural and industrial stuff. All of it still works and work in ways that the stuff which replaced it cannot work.


1950 JD model M

Here is very obsolete. 1950. John Deere 2-cylinder kerosene engine. All of 18 HP. Thermosiphon cooling (no water pump). Can, and does, run on gasoline as well as kerosene. Straight cut gear crash box transmission. It was intended, when it came out in 1947, to replace the horse on a one horse farm.

Why do I keep it? Note those rigs in the center between the wheels. Cultivator rigs. Shovels that run alongside rows of crops and pull out the weeds when the crops are young. The tractor is high enough and narrow enough to miss the plants. The rigs are in the center so one can watch what the shovels are doing and so not dig up the crop plants. The tractor is narrow and open to aid in the seeing.

Can't do that with modern diesel engine, hydrostatic transmission, tractors with those comfortable operator platforms.

This type hasn't been made in several decades. Farmers turned to chemical weed control and don't need cultivators. I don't wish to mess with chemicals, so Old School it is.

And, keeping it going? Fortunately I have equally obsolete machine shop tools inherited from my dad. I can make my own parts given they are relatively simple parts to make.

Stan

That's pretty modern.

I use a horse and a wooden plough, it's very magical and so much more connected to the dirt and earth. Can't get that same feel with that kind of modern machinery. I think the real feel for farming got lost somewhere along the way. Also the hay and water for old Bessy is cheaper than gasoline or diesel.
And that's what you should use if you really want to master cultivating plants and pulling weeds, it's much less forgiving because if you don't pay attention and mess you, you have to redo the whole field.

Now all I need are a few more horses, in case the one I have breaks down, maybe I'll inherit some.

Isn't it great when you can romanticise stuff?

I think your thinly veiled sneering about anyone who dares to use tools that you personally aren't interested in is starting to get a bit old.

Respectfully, I would suggest dialling it down a notch.

Oh come one, I think it's a valid point to highlight certain realities.

Film is nice, film is good but when it's romanticized and depicted as "the medium to master" because of the inherent difficulties and many issues that can occur, some sneering is more than necessary.

Come two, neither I nor Stan (to whom you were responding) romanticised anything.

Straw man argument.

But maybe you were harbouring some resentment already and felt the need to sneer.

Hopefully you feel better now and we can all get on with using whatever tools and media to produce our images without undue commotion.

Yes, we're not all native speakers here, thanks for pointing that out! I do my best but occasionally I misspell stuff just like everyone else.

It's not a straw man argument, there have been quite a few comments in this very thread talking about this stuff - and your tractor-analogy followed a similar trajectory, which is why I used the hose vs tractor as a more precise analogy of 'obsolete technology'. Because even though the 1950 tractor isn't being produced any more, it's still closer to a newer tractor than a horse, just like an older digital camera is still closer to a newer digital camera than a film camera.

Anyway, the point is that people who use horses these days mainly do so for fun and pleasure or to provide a special romanticized service (horse-drawn carriage rides), pretty much exactly like film photographers.
But other than that people don't ride to their office on horseback or haul containers on a horse-drawn carriage, they use cars/trucks/trains/... - for the same reason people have switched to digital cameras.

 

[Crispy_Bee]

So, I'm back from Tokyo (IMHO, the best city in the whole world)... and I'm just starting to go through the photos I made.

12 rolls of 120 film, at 16 shots per roll = 192 scans. This will take a while...

But as a first sample of what's to come, I'm posting here a first scan, of a contre-jour cityscape taken from atop Tokyo's Sky Tree.

Shot straight into the setting sun, this image is also a good showcase of the kind of dynamic range that colour negative film can effortlessly handle.

Yes, there is some grain in the shadows (this was shot on Cinestill 800T), but I didn't have to "push" or otherwise heavily post-process the image in any way. This is essentially a fairly "straight" / plain vanilla scan (only cropped from 645 to square).

Of course, everything is subjective, but I personally like the rendering, which, to me, comes across as more "realistic" and enjoyable than most "HDR"-style pictures that I often see on the internet.

And all in all, I'd say not bad for obsolete technology.


Pentax 645N + FA 150mm f/2.8, Cinestill 800T, hand-held

Almost forgot to say: fantastic image! Really beautiful!

I notice it's flipped - was that on purpose? I think the composition works really well both ways.

 

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

And then, in our analogy, were Oxen? They predated horses for agricultural use. They even have us land measurements. Such as the Furlong, one furrow long, before you had to rest the Ox. And that forms one side of an acre, which is a square furlong.

Maybe the Ox was the sitting there and drawing or painting the scene.

And, no. I don't wanna use Oxen on the farm. Even less so than horses!

 

[Crispy_Bee]

Hi,

And then, in our analogy, were Oxen? They predated horses for agricultural use. They even have us land measurements. Such as the Furlong, one furrow long, before you had to rest the Ox. And that forms one side of an acre, which is a square furlong.

Maybe the Ox was the sitting there and drawing or painting the scene.

And, no. I don't wanna use Oxen on the farm. Even less so than horses!

Good question.

Oxen = b&w neg
Horses = colour neg




I think most professional photographers wouldn't want to use analog either (and b&w even less so than colour film).

But I think we're getting too far off topic ;-)

 

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

Yes we are. It was only meant to be a illustration that Old School is just fine if it works out for someone. As it clearly did in the first post for the OP.

Stan

 

[marco1974]

Hi,

Now, that is really, really good. You obviously chose your tools well.

Tools. They are all tools. Cameras, lenses, film and digital.

Obsolete. Yeah. You know, that term doesn't mean that it no longers works. As you have proven here.

I have many things here which are obsolete. Electronics stuff, mechanical stuff, machine shop stuff, and even agricultural and industrial stuff. All of it still works and work in ways that the stuff which replaced it cannot work.


1950 JD model M

Here is very obsolete. 1950. John Deere 2-cylinder kerosene engine. All of 18 HP. Thermosiphon cooling (no water pump). Can, and does, run on gasoline as well as kerosene. Straight cut gear crash box transmission. It was intended, when it came out in 1947, to replace the horse on a one horse farm.

Why do I keep it? Note those rigs in the center between the wheels. Cultivator rigs. Shovels that run alongside rows of crops and pull out the weeds when the crops are young. The tractor is high enough and narrow enough to miss the plants. The rigs are in the center so one can watch what the shovels are doing and so not dig up the crop plants. The tractor is narrow and open to aid in the seeing.

Can't do that with modern diesel engine, hydrostatic transmission, tractors with those comfortable operator platforms.

This type hasn't been made in several decades. Farmers turned to chemical weed control and don't need cultivators. I don't wish to mess with chemicals, so Old School it is.

And, keeping it going? Fortunately I have equally obsolete machine shop tools inherited from my dad. I can make my own parts given they are relatively simple parts to make.

Stan

That's pretty modern.

I use a horse and a wooden plough, it's very magical and so much more connected to the dirt and earth. Can't get that same feel with that kind of modern machinery. I think the real feel for farming got lost somewhere along the way. Also the hay and water for old Bessy is cheaper than gasoline or diesel.
And that's what you should use if you really want to master cultivating plants and pulling weeds, it's much less forgiving because if you don't pay attention and mess you, you have to redo the whole field.

Now all I need are a few more horses, in case the one I have breaks down, maybe I'll inherit some.

Isn't it great when you can romanticise stuff?

I think your thinly veiled sneering about anyone who dares to use tools that you personally aren't interested in is starting to get a bit old.

Respectfully, I would suggest dialling it down a notch.

Oh come one, I think it's a valid point to highlight certain realities.

Film is nice, film is good but when it's romanticized and depicted as "the medium to master" because of the inherent difficulties and many issues that can occur, some sneering is more than necessary.

Come two, neither I nor Stan (to whom you were responding) romanticised anything.

Straw man argument.

But maybe you were harbouring some resentment already and felt the need to sneer.

Hopefully you feel better now and we can all get on with using whatever tools and media to produce our images without undue commotion.

Yes, we're not all native speakers here, thanks for pointing that out! I do my best but occasionally I misspell stuff just like everyone else.

Sure! BTW - I'm not a native speaker either ;-)

It's not a straw man argument, there have been quite a few comments in this very thread talking about this stuff - and your tractor-analogy followed a similar trajectory, which is why I used the hose vs tractor as a more precise analogy of 'obsolete technology'. Because even though the 1950 tractor isn't being produced any more, it's still closer to a newer tractor than a horse, just like an older digital camera is still closer to a newer digital camera than a film camera.

Anyway, the point is that people who use horses these days mainly do so for fun and pleasure or to provide a special romanticized service (horse-drawn carriage rides), pretty much exactly like film photographers.
But other than that people don't ride to their office on horseback or haul containers on a horse-drawn carriage, they use cars/trucks/trains/... - for the same reason people have switched to digital cameras.

I don't have a problem with this way of framing it - I freely admit that 90% of why I choose to shoot film myself is for my own entertainment ("fun").

I just happen to like the results also, and I don't necessarily consider them to be "inferior" to digital, that's all.

--
Marco

Galleries by Marco Raugei

pbase.com

 

[marco1974]

So, I'm back from Tokyo (IMHO, the best city in the whole world)... and I'm just starting to go through the photos I made.

12 rolls of 120 film, at 16 shots per roll = 192 scans. This will take a while...

But as a first sample of what's to come, I'm posting here a first scan, of a contre-jour cityscape taken from atop Tokyo's Sky Tree.

Shot straight into the setting sun, this image is also a good showcase of the kind of dynamic range that colour negative film can effortlessly handle.

Yes, there is some grain in the shadows (this was shot on Cinestill 800T), but I didn't have to "push" or otherwise heavily post-process the image in any way. This is essentially a fairly "straight" / plain vanilla scan (only cropped from 645 to square).

Of course, everything is subjective, but I personally like the rendering, which, to me, comes across as more "realistic" and enjoyable than most "HDR"-style pictures that I often see on the internet.

And all in all, I'd say not bad for obsolete technology.


Pentax 645N + FA 150mm f/2.8, Cinestill 800T, hand-held

Almost forgot to say: fantastic image! Really beautiful!

Thank you! I appreciate your positive feedback on my image.

I notice it's flipped - was that on purpose? I think the composition works really well both ways.

Well spotted, thanks. Actually, it was unintentional - I just placed the negative upside-down in the scanner holder by mistake :-D



--
Marco

Galleries by Marco Raugei

pbase.com

 

[Gandolphi]

Quite right. I was ten before I started processing my own films.

Well, yes of course, but my point was that digital just works, while film requires excellent equipment and technique; there is a lot more craft involved.

If you take satisfaction from mastering craft, then film is an obvious fit. If you just want results, digital is a lot easier: 2 year old kids can pull it it off. I wouldn't trust many 2 year olds with loading a film reel!

 

[bobby350z]

Like this shot.