Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone. Whether you celebrate the occasion or not, I hope you all have a very happy day!

Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 50mm f/2.8 MC & Cinestill 800T. Grain2Pixel conversion.

Taken on 11 December 2020

Tail lights

Today’s photo is another of those that I really like without really being able to say why – although I think it’s probably the swipe of the red tail-lights across the scene on a jaunty diagonal. The red contrasts nicely with the overall blue tint that the photo has.

Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 50mm f/2.8 MC & Cinestill 800T. Grain2Pixel conversion.

Taken on 11 December 2020

Popping my Cinestill 800T cherry

I think there’s some sort of law that says you must make a photograph of a petrol station* at night when you shoot some Cinestill 800T. Anyway, here’s mine out of the way. I don’t think it’s the best example by a very long chalk, but I can cross it off the list**. Bonus points for the fog.

Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 50mm f/2.8 MC & Cinestill 800T. Grain2Pixel conversion.

Taken on 11 December 2020

_{*”gas station” for my friends across the pond}.
_{**I don’t have a list}.

Christmas lights

A photo from my first ever roll of Cinestill 800T. I rarely shoot at night, this outing being only the second time I’ve done so (not counting at nightime events using flash). I took my GX7 digital camera in order to meter the shots, setting the ISO to 800 and the aperture to the one I wanted to use on the Bronica. This gave me the approximate shutter speed I needed to use. It was only later that I realised – due to not being able to read the shutter speed dial properly in the dark, that I’d overexposed by a full stop. Thankfully it seems that Cinestill 800T has really good latitude, so all the images pretty much turned out ok.

My family and I refer to the street where this house (and several others similarly decorated with large numbers of lights) as “Christmas Street”. At this time of year you will see people walking down there just to get a look at the lights. It used to be quite unique in the amount of decorations the residents would put on their homes, but in recent years more and more households are going to ever more extravagant lengths to light their houses.

In other news, I’m now on leave for the festive period, so I’m hoping to relax, enjoy Christmas, and (hopefully) make lots of photographs. And my Emulsive Secret Santa gift arrived today, so extra bonus! 🙂

Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 50mm f/2.8 MC & Cinestill 800T. Grain2Pixel conversion.

Taken on 11 December 2020

Winter sun and waterski structure

The last frame from the roll of Colorplus that had been left in the DL-270 – literally so in two cases (I don’t think I’ll be posting any of the others AND it was the last frame on the roll, hence why it’s cropped to a slightly stunted ratio).

I tested the capability of the lens on the camera quite strongly by deliberately making a number of shots straight towards the sun, albeit trying to obscure its disk behind scenery – in this case the counterweight that helps balance the cable-pulled waterski structures. It passed all tests in this regard.

Fuji DL-270 Zoom Super & Kodak Colorplus. Grain2Pixel conversion.

Taken on 26 November 2020

Life ring

Dotter around the shore of the lakes at Rother Valley Country Park are these life ring holders. They all show environmental wear with cracked paint and algae growth. I expect that they are regularly checked to ensure that they’re fit for purpose, but they have a definite patina’d look about them now.

Although the lens on this compact camera doesn’t feel as sharp as some others I use, it still has a nice took to it. There’s a painterly feel to some of the images it’s made and I like the way it has rendered the waterski cafe on the opposite side of the lake, along with the caravan and (way back on the top of the hill) a white-sided building.

Fuji DL-270 Zoom Super & Kodak Colorplus. Grain2Pixel conversion.

Taken on 26 November 2020

Golden willow and white swan

Another photo from my “Whoah! Where the heck did those colours come from?!?!” series. I know I’ve mentioned it on more than one occasion already but, just, wow. The shots with this willow lit by the rising sun have got beautiful complementary tones – that classic, and perhaps over-used, orange and teal thing. I’ve not tinkered with the colours at all in these shots – it’s how they popped into being after converting the negatives with Grain2Pixel. Sometimes I can have to work at things with certain film stocks and Grain2Pixel, but these just landed perfectly.

I will confess to a bit of Photoshoppery to remove a trio of distracting ducks (or maybe they were gulls) bobbing about in the water behind the swan. I’m usually relucant to edit my photos in this way (apart from getting rid of bits of debris), but in this case I think it made the picture a lot better.

Fuji DL-270 Zoom Super & Kodak Colorplus. Grain2Pixel conversion.

Taken on 26 November 2020

Once more through the willow and into the sun

This is almost the same composition as the one I published last week here, albeit that being a medium format black and white image made with the Bronica. Again, the colours on this Colorplus shot are, I think, beautiful. While it might not have the detail of the medium format version, and I’m slightly miffed that I cut off the tree on the left (I should have kept all of it in frame, or omitted it altogether, but I think I was too busy concentrating on getting the sun behind the trunk of the willow to have noticed at the time), I think that this version is more impactful. The colour film has captured the lovely subtle tones in the clouds and the golden light on the grasses of the lake side.

Fuji DL-270 Zoom Super & Kodak Colorplus. Grain2Pixel conversion.

Taken on 26 November 2020

More woodland mist

These shots were take on the same day as the ones made with the Bronica which I posted about here. These were a bit of an afterthought really – I had the Fuji in my coat pocket and decided to make a few photos. I wasn’t really expecting much for a number of reasons: I had no idea of the provenance of the film; the camera had not been tested by myself; and because the lens is somewhat slow (starting at f/5.6 at the wide end I think), so I doubted I’d have much joy on a dimly lit morning with 200asa film. As it happened, they turned out very well. They maybe don’t stand up to close , pixel-peepy, scrutiny, but otherwise they are nice pictures. The colours from this roll, as I think I mentioned yesterday, are really nice.

Fuji DL-270 Zoom Super & Kodak Colorplus. Grain2Pixel conversion.

Taken on 7 November 2020

An end to autumn’s colour

Ok, maybe not the most autumnal shades here – more a yellow green than fiery shades of red and orange – but it’s probably the last shot from this year’s clutch of seasonal images where the trees still bear foliage. Today, as I type this, most of the leaves have fallen, littering the pavements and roadsides where they’ll release that rich scent of autumn so evokative of this time of year. There are still some late straggling leaves on the limbs of silver birches – some still green in fact – but most trees have revealed the skeletal form of their branches now.

I still have autumnal images yet to come, but they are of the misty, damp, almost monochromatic feel of late autumn as it rolls over into winter.

Yashica Mat 124G & Lomography Color Negative 100. Grain2Pixel conversion.

Taken on 10 October 2020