Bermuda!

Plain and simple, Bermuda is beautiful.

I was there for part of my vacation a couple of weeks ago and I still look back on the time spent.

This picture was taken near Tobacco Bay in St. Georges - a spot that a local had tipped me off.  Every place I went to I chatted with some of the people from the area because, of course, if they think something is worth checking out, then surely it is worth checking out.

Hamilton, the capital of Bermuda, is nice, but is just a city, so I recommend St. Georges.  St. Georges has more breathing space and is less off the beaten path, so that is the place to go if you want to get away from other vacationers.

One thing that bugs me about this picture is that there has to be a tiny light leak in the bellows which caused that magenta shift in the upper right hand corner.  Despite the leak, the Perkeo I is still one of my favorite cameras.  Great lens.  Light weight.  Small.  Medium format.  Pair it up with some Portra 400 or Tri-X and you are good to go.

Voigtlander Perkeo I
Color-Skopar 80mm f/3.5
Kodak Portra 400

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Thoughts on the New Kodak Portra 400

Well, this review is hyper late as the film was released months and months ago, yet I still felt like writing about it. I just finished the roll of 120 that I had popped into my Voigtlander Perkeo I back in mid May, but better late than never.

So I will preface this by saying that I loved the old NC (neutral color) variant of Portra because of the warm and neutral tones it imparted on an image. When I had heard that Kodak was consolidating their NC with VC (vibrant color) films into one flavor I was a little concerned, but in the back of my head I had a feeling that Kodak would not let down the film community. In many ways, I think they far surpassed everyone's expectations.

I had seen numerous reviews of the stuff and all were very positive, but ultimately I needed to decide for myself.

Here are a few images from my first roll:



Yogi/acrobat/contortionist in Washington Square Park collecting money after a show.



That is impressive.



Some cherry blossoms at the Sakura Matsuri festival in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden

All in all, great colors and skin tones with an incredibly fine grain. Colors seem to pop where you want them and are subdued elsewhere - somehow a mixture of the aforementioned VC and NC is achieved.

I am also interested in a claim by Mat Marrash from the Film Photography Podcast who says you can shoot the film at an ISO of 3200 after pushing the film only one stop (i.e. shooting at ISO 3200 and developing it as if shot at ISO 800). There is another photographer who shot and developed the new Portra at 3200 with great results. Extraordinary, really.

I want to test the film out some more, but I have a feeling this will be my color negative of choice.

So there it is. I did not put the film through the ringer with overexposure and underexposure tests, but all signs lead to a high performance and flexible film. A bit more punch than NC and not quite as vivid as VC. I like it a lot.

Not to detract from the film, but I want to say that the 50+ year old Voigtlander lens performed quite nicely as well.

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Camera News and New Work

The repairs on my Olympus OM-1 are going to be a bit pricey, but I am going to bear their burden. I already have money invested into the camera from the purchase alone and I could not guarantee that another one would be in much better condition. The meter and prism needs replacing, the battery chamber needs conversion, and a CLA (clean lubricate adjust) is needed because shutter speeds are off. Argh. Well, I think it would be worth it since the camera and lenses are small and indiscreet while maintaining an altogether different look than Nikon has provided me thus far.

I took my Nikon FE out today with an off-brand 28mm f/2.8 lens today and I am quite dismayed. Something seems to be off - either the lens or the camera. Focusing to infinity did not seem to align properly so I am wondering what about the problem. I need to investigate further, but I would hate to put more money into another camera.

All that being said, I am excited about getting the OM-1 back. If you do not know, it is a completely manual camera (only having a battery for the meter). The ergonomics are excellent by having the shutter speed and aperture adjustable easily adjustable with one hand. The viewfinder is larger than any other camera I have ever used. The OM-10 (its little brother) comes close.

Why not just use the OM-10? Well, there are a few issues that I would need to sink money into and it is not as well built as the OM-1. The meter on my sample is off and it eats the batteries within a matter of days, so I constantly need to take them out after use because the shutter will not fire otherwise. The OM-10 was built as a consumer camera that gave you aperture priority, and if you wanted to control the shutter speed you would need to purchase an accessory (which I have) that is in an unusual shot, and not too conductive to use in manual mode.

I have a Zuiko single coated 35mm f/2.8 lens coming in the mail and I am looking forward to using that focal length - so far I have used 20mm, 28mm, 40mm, 50mm, and 55mm primes, so this will be new and different :)

I am getting the single-coated version (though mixed reviews abound) because black and white photographs come out less contrasty and color photographs come out a little more subtle. Due to the lessened contrast, single-coated lenses appear to be a little less sharp than multi-coated lenses - but I do not find myself losing sleep over that kind of thing, and in fact I am a fan of a slightly melty look.

Well, I think I have meandered enough, so let me show some photos from my Voigtlander Perkeo I with the single-coated Color-Skopar 75mm f/3.5 lens!


This is my black and white photography classmate that was kind enough to help me finish my roll of film. I love how the blur came out! Humorously enough the teacher showed us that night some work from a portraitist who always blurred his subjects.



I saw this girl standing on a rock and looking at the tree, so I got my camera ready to take an indiscreet shot, but as I was setting up she got off the rock and started leaving. I said "Excuse me, would you mind if you get back on the rock and look at the tree so that I can take a picture?" a silence, "Are you a photographer?" "Yes." "Okay." "Is that a little weird?", "A little, but I can see why you would want the picture." Now I have this image, which I am quite happy with, but to me it is not as honest as the clandestine shot I was aiming for.



A Washington Square Park pianist.


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The Perkeo and Light *EDIT*

My next suggest assignment was to look for the interaction of light and shadow. Usually, I always try to find interesting light to some degree, but I was really cognisant this time out.

I used the Voigtlander Perkeo I on this assignment and here are some of my favorites from the roll:


*edit* This is my favorite of the bunch. I like the forced perspective of looking through the subway doors. In a way, it is almost telling my story as much as this person's, and is, as Sara mentions below, voyeuristic. The angle gives the image a sense of immediacy on my end. Truth be told I was going to take a rather boring picture of this scene without this person, but I noticed this lady moving about and waited for her to get into the position I wanted. I kept the camera on my lap and pretended to fiddle with it to make it look like I was not planning on taking a picture of her. I feel this was a better option than keeping the camera up to my face looking making it look like I was going to intentionally take a picture. I also wanted the angle from my lap because it would give a much different feel than if shot at eye level. *edit*



I started to analyze my own shots, but I would not want to impose my thoughts onto the viewer. Do you like any of these? Do you have a reason?

I will tell you, however, that I really like the signature of this lens. The images are rendered gently, but are perfectly sharp where it matters. Even blown up to 100% on my computer the detail held up. That is quite a testament to a sixty year old camera with a hundred year old lens design.

On Sunday I ventured to the darkroom to do some printing some shots for the print exchange and, on a whim, tried my hand at making a print of the first shot; I was really blown away by the smooth tones on 8x10. It does not translate well onto a computer screen, but it really is worth it to make a print from some 120 film.

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Classic Camera and Photo Class

Today was an absolutely wonderful day. I took my old Voigtlander Perkeo I out to take pictures at one of my favorite parks to make a study of light and shadow. I am very anxious to see how these pictures turn out as I love the look that comes from the type of lens on this camera.

1) The lens on the Perkeo (Voigtlander Color-Skopar) has a Tessar type formula (4 elements in 3 groups) that renders images somewhat soft at open apertures and very sharp when stopped down to the mid apertures. It is this bipolar element that is unlike anything made today - it is like getting two lenses in one!

2) This lens has a single coating which reduces flare, but should still render shadow detail very nicely and this is especially good for black and white photography. I have even been thinking of getting some single coated lenses for my Nikon and Olympus cameras because the ever present multi-coated lenses have a high degree of contrast which is not especially to my liking.

Walking about and taking pictures felt so nice, even though it was a little bit cold. I ended up in the café drinking a mildly expensive, but nonetheless excellent, cup of coffee to cap off the morning. On the way back to my apartment I entered the library on a whim to check out their photography books, and though they did not have that great of a selection I picked out two: Icons of Photography and The Book of Photography. Perhaps a review down the road...

Switching gears a little bit, I would say my black and white photography class is going well. I now know how to develop film and print pictures, but need oh so much more practice at both.

The teacher had assigned (more like suggested) us to do some self portraits, intentional composition shots, and studies of depth of field so here are a few scans of my negatives that I think turned out well:


I tried to print this picture, and am semi-pleased with the result. I am going to try and get this one right.


This was the other picture I tried to print, but failed hard. Again, I am also going to try this one out again.


I will try printing this one - though it might be a dodging and burning nightmare!

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Images From Figment and Bronica SQ-A

I finished up the roll of film housed in the Voigtlander Perkeo I for many many months, finally. These are some shots at Figment (which I talked about in my last entry):



This is one of my favorite shots I have taken of John. He looks very relaxed and I think I caught a great expression.

The colors are a little bit off because the film (Kodak Portra 400VC) used expired a decade ago. They had a bluish cast (the fact that we were under cloudy light did not help either), so I had to warm them up a bit, but still, I was very pleased that I pulled usable images from the roll.

The performance of the camera, the smallest 6x6 I have ever seen, can not be accurately judged because of the film's age. If I was forced to make an assessment of what I saw so far, the lens might have low contrast as it seemed like I had to add a fair amount to every image. I also have to figure out what is going on with the flash sync, as it did not seem to work even though a flash fired off. The good news is that the images look to be exposed fairly correctly, so I probably will not have to break into the shutter and lube it up. There are also no light leaks! These old folding cameras can have a problem with their bellows after so many years, but I may still want to apply some product to keep the leather supple.

In other news, last night I received the Bronica SQ-A outfit I had purchased through the classified section of the Rangefinder Forum. I had been holding out on buying another real camera (ie Leica M2 or Canon P) so that I could afford a medium format slr with all of my requirements. I was not going to purchase one unless it had a built in meter (or came with a metered prism), a couple of lenses, and was 6x6. This one fulfilled all of my needs and the entire system cost less than a well used M2 body alone - beyond a great deal. I will take some shots of it soon with my digital so that you can see what mine looks like, should you be curious. I will absolutely post some images from the roll I have in there once developed.

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