red and green

Late last night at about 2am I was dealing with quite a bit of panic: What if I run out of film on our trip to Argentina? I checked the prices of film over there and realised that it would be much more sensible to take too much and use some of it later than paying double due to bad planning. I also decided that I will shoot mostly colour film over there, so I also ordered some more Portra 400 for Rollinda – my Rollei. Oh yes, did I mention that a couple more of my cameras have names now? You already know that my Leica is called Nancy, but you probably don’t know that the Rolleicord is called Rollinda and the XA has the wonderful name Olympia. Yes, they’re all girls! And please don’t go into a Freudian analysis over the fact that my scanner is called Paco and a boy!

This roll was a difficult one because we were out in the rain and there wasn’t much going on. In the end I even forgot to push this roll in development although I shot it at 1600. Interestingly it didn’t turn out grainy at all which tells me that there is something different going on with grain and C41. They wouldn’t have been less grainy if I had pushed the roll as I originally planned. In black and white there is actually a relationship between grain and density: The less density to the negative, the more grain will come up. In C41 this doesn’t seem to be the case to the same extent and density almost only relates to contrast. This doesn’t mean that there won’t be grain if you underexpose enough, but even this cheap film has enough latitude to allow for a 2 stop underexposure without much quality loss even when not pushing. Also, pushing doesn’t really affect shadow detail in C41 so that it actually only seems to make sense if you’re planning to print under the enlarger. I never knew! I wonder then how some of my more bold experiments will turn out. I think I have a roll of C41 film pushed to 3200 somewhere that might be quite interesting.

All pictures taken with: Leica M6 + Zeiss ZM C-Biogon 35mm f/2.8.
dm Paradies 400 @1600 developed in Tetenal C41 Kit, no push.

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

This was my husband’s idea. After all, it was colour film!

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

It was Christmas also for the birds.

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

Grey and rainy, but it had some atmosphere to it.

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

Weird!

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

We actually didn’t hide from the rain like this.

Comments

  • Maybe you want some Fuji Superia 100 135-24 films. I just “found” back a box of 256 Superia films at the closed Fuji factory in Tilburg. I am selling these for Eur. 1,67 each / 20 pcs.

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