The day before yesterday ended a month of shooting exclusively low ISO film. Unsurprisingly the low speeds were encouraging me to shoot a lot of medium format, including 4 rolls in the Mamiya, 3 rolls in the Rollei and 10 rolls with the Super Ikonta. I used a range of emulsions, Velvia 50, Provia 100F, Pan F+ 50 and Rollei Retro 80s, and went as low as metering at ISO 20 when shooting the Retro 80s with a filter. It turns out that it was actually no problem at all and I only needed to go to longer exposure times 3 times in the whole month. Since I was trying to really get the hang of my new Super Ikonta, I actually shot less 35mm than I expected, less rolls than in medium format for the first time ever! In 35mm I finished off my last rolls of Rollei RPX 100 and then moved on to Rollei Retro 80s, which amounted to a total of 14 rolls in the end. Since this is somewhat less than I expected I will stick with the Retro 80s for a few more rolls before I can continue with ISO 400 film in 35mm. Next up on my list is testing Rollei Retro 400s which will probably have the same light piping issues as the Retro 80s thanks to the clear base. Light leaks and spillage are somewhat normal even in subdued light with these emulsions, so I need to free some of the black plastic canisters before I can roll the 400s and right now they’re almost all taken up by rolls of 80s. I guess the Retro emulsions aren’t the best emulsions to bulk load. In any case, my month of low ISO was a success and from now on I’ll no longer feel intimidated by slow film.

I also performed an experiment the other day. For the first time I developed some ECN2 film – Kodak Vision 3 250D and 50D in some RA4 chemicals, as suggested by Nik and Trick Photography who supplied me with the rolls in question. Apparently the developer for RA4 – meant for colour paper – is much closer to the intended developer for these cine films and I had much less problems with the contrast with them. I’m not quite sure whether I nailed the blix times for RA4 blix yet, but it’s a promising start. Also, I finally figured out a way to clean off leftover remjet gunk: Alcohol! Last time I tried removing remjet I couldn’t get rid of it after it mixed with the stabiliser, but this time I went with some more aggressive measures with more success. I hope that next time I do a better job at removing the remjet in the first place, since cleaning the emulsion side of negatives is certainly somewhat annoying and disconcerting. Yet, it was still a successful experiment and I’m looking forward to shooting more Kodak Vision 3 films in the future.

Enough of all this babble though, let’s get on with the pictures. This time I’m showing you pictures from last year October and November. During that time I had a flare of bad health, so my output was way down. Instead of only covering the output of half a month in a post, this is actually 1 1/2. This means that I’ll be done with all the pictures from last year by the next post. So, soon you’ll finally get to see some more results from my Nokton 50mm f/1.1 lens which I got in January. About half my 35mm rolls this year were taken with the Nokton and it really has quite a different character. It took me a while to get really comfortable shooting with it, but by now I’m pretty happy with my results.

All pictures taken with: Leica M6, Zeiss ZM C-Biogon 35mm f/2.8.

Starting off with Argenti ARF+ 400 @800 / Rodinal stand.

Oh the rain in Spain … we get a lot of that in winter.

Note the “harm my kitty” in the background.

Cigarette break.

Strange thing to put on a kids shirt.

Not touching the ground.

This one is so odd.

Style.

Surfer nowhere near the beach.

Printed this one and it turned out lovely.

Dance!

Strange looks all around.

Pushing this film a stop convinces me even more that this isn’t actually ISO 400 film. The shadows suffered a little too much for a one stop push.

ARF+ / HC-110 dil B.

The local bees.

I liked the light here.

Action shot.

Nope, not it focus.

I love how they have the exact same position!

Self-portrait with Leica and Muybridge t-shirt.

What a look!

More crazy looks.

Busted.

After work happiness.

Nature.

The kid in the background has it all figured out.

I love that shadow.

The dog!!!

Shoving each other around a little bit.

Time travellers.

Hanging around.

Another one of those looks that could kill.

Dogs guarding the shoes.

This little guy was definitely swimming in the sea.

Uhm … weird.

Fruit.

Checking the red light.

Creepy doll anyone?

Tickled my BW fancy.

Too bright.

Yum?

Rare flare. My Zeiss almost never does that.

This looks almost choreographed.

Oops, a mobile phone in my picture.

Still too bright.

Wrong city.