Return to Analog
I’ve been dipping my toes into the world of film lately. My photography journey began this way being surround by the craft from my beginning. I recall memories of wondering what happened in that small room which generally had the door closed with a sign something about not letting the darkness escape, and soon after the seemingly regular visits to the local newsagency either to drop off little canisters or collect a pack of 6x4”.
At that stage my experience of shooting was based around a 35mm camera with a fixed 35mm lens, automatic metering, focus and advancing, it was simple. All I had to do was select a film, it was always colour, 100 or 400 speed (it really didn’t matter as I shot mostly around midday anyway), loading the roll and pressing the shutter, that was all. I continued to use this camera even after being gifted the first few digital cameras, although those initial digitals were barely more than gimmicks at the time.
I’ve occasionally returned to dabble in the medium in recent years, but I was finding I was either too concerned about wasting a frame and not take a photo, overthinking and overcalculating the exposure, having an expectation of the final image only to feel disappointed when the scan didn’t result in what I imagined, or the film wouldn’t advance completely making for an unintentional double exposure (which happened fairly regularly). Digital didn’t have these issues. So once again the film cameras would return to the shelf.
Now to the current day, I’ve always had a desire to learn in the field of photography, trying new things and expanding my knowledge. Recently Karen picked up a camera and got her hands on a handful of film, returning to her roots of analog photography. Around a similar time, I found myself going through the family’s collection of photography equipment that’s been hidden away in cupboards, so it was time to give it another shot.
The first completed roll has been Ektar 100 shot on the Rolleiflex SL66. The rollei is a ~2kg completely mechanical camera with no metering and apparently almost 1000 individual parts (That’s one well engineered box of light!), so the initial roll has been a learning curve, first time working with medium format, external metering, tilt movements and reverse mounting lenses.
These first few frames were taken at Philosopher Falls on a macro workshop with Phil O’Neil.
Rolleifex SL66 + Zeiss Distagon 50mm f4 and Zeiss Planar 80mm f/2.8, Ektar 100.
Rolleifex SL66 + Zeiss Distagon 50mm f4, Ektar 100.
It appears I overcompensated the tilt movements in this frame, as both the Valoi and flatbed scan systems produced the same soft spots removing the possibility of the negative not sitting flat.
The following image was taken within the footprint of the proposed MMG tailings dam.
Rolleifex SL66 + Zeiss Distagon 50mm f4, Ektar 100.
And a final frame of Bob Brown in the logging coupe BO092C. I had intended to shoot this frame in B/W, but left the film back loaded with B/W in the car, so colour it is.
Rolleifex SL66 + Zeiss Planar 80mm f/2.8, Ektar 100.
This roll was developed by Ikigai film lab and scanned with the Valoi film scanning system with the Fuji X-T3 + XF60mm f/2.4 Macro (Thanks Karen). I did also try scanning with a flatbed (Canon 9000F Mark II) and while it produced more accurate colours and a higher resolution, the process was much slower and the resulting files were not as sharp as the Valoi system. My colour correction skills of negative scans do still require work!
I initially thought I had another roll to show in this post, but I believe I failed to load the film correctly, so I don’t think I actually took the photos I thought I did (either that or the next post will be a tale of double exposures). The joys of learning!
On another note, here’s Karen checking out her first roll in recent times. For me, sharing this journey is the best part of this adventure on film. Check out her work at karenkeefe.au
