The camera in question is a Honeywell Pentax ES, the US version of the Asahi Pentax Spotomatic. For those not interested in Wikipedia, essentially it’s a manual 35mm camera with a built in light meter. The camera uses m42 screw mount lenses, which meant that I could use my growing collection of vintage glass on it.

After having discovered that the light meter was broken, I left the camera alone for a while with a roll of Kodak Tri-X black and white film loaded. Since I had to use my external light meter with it, I rarely took the camera out with me. What follows are the images from that roll that was in the camera for about a month. As a result, it’s a random mishmash of things.

Rachel taking a light meter reading of a squirrel, which unfortunately was on the other side of the branch.

One of the hard things about shooting black and white film is that you do not have any color to help differentiate items in your shot; you have to separate out everything by texture. This shot is a prime example of doing it wrong™.

This, however, is doing it right.

The downside of using a manual light meter is you have to be extra careful of how you take readings. While the succulents in the front are mostly exposed correctly, the background is completely blown out.

I like park benches for whatever reason.

This whole time I’ve had the Pentacon auto 1.8/50 attached, and being on a m42 mount camera really lets it shine.

Wide open.

This shot is a little weird, and I’m just now noticing it as I’m typing this. If you notice, the bokeh is hexagonally shaped which isn’t really as apparent in other images.

…though now I’m noticing it everywhere.

Another disadvantage of this camera is that it only goes up to 1/1000 shutter speed which means that in very bright light, it’s difficult to use.

GEESE!

Another example of not distinguishing textures enough.

This looked cooler in real life than it does on film.

Rachel focusing on some flowers.

Despite the HUGE viewfinder, I managed to not focus on this correctly. It still sort of looks cool, though.

Not quite sure what I was going for here.

This plant always looks cool.

This image is the first from a different day. This is Ocean Beach. One of my 365 pictures is almost exactly this image, and I believe they were taken on the same day.

Another example of that here. This was a loaf of rye bread that I never finished.

One of my favorite places around here: Mussel Rock.

And now without the vehicle.

This is my new office in the Library on campus. I figured I’d finish the roll here before it opened to give a sort of “lonely” feeling.

This is seating right outside my office.

As of Thursday of last week, the building still wasn’t finished.

More offices.

A short staircase between the 2nd and 3rd floors.

Student study area on the 3rd floor.

One of very few places in the library that still has stacks.

Lunchtime in the break room.

Stacks on the 4th floor.

More study area.

Equipment racks down in the basement.

The media catalog.

“May I take a picture of you working?” “Sure.”

A lot of these are crooked, and I’m not entirely sure why.

Faculty work area.

Faculty training area.

Exit.

For those of you keeping track, yes, that is 38 frames from a roll of 36 exposures. Given that it’s a manual camera, the film only advances as much as you wind it, and if you’re very careful, you can squeeze out an extra frame or two from a roll. An automatic camera winds film to a very specific length, so it’s extremely rare to get an extra frame.

I probably will not be using this camera very often. The broken light meter makes using the camera a pain to use, but it does have the upside of forcing you to really think about what you’re shooting. However, to fill my desire for a functional manual camera, I’ve picked up a Pentax K1000. Next post will most likely be about that.

Until next time…

A while back, I got it into my head that I wanted to do a 365 project. The idea was that forcing myself to take one picture per day would help me be more creative with photography and perhaps force myself to learn something new and fun.

That was the idea, at least. The reality was that working full time and going to grad school at the same time isn’t quite the proper environment for such an ambitious project, especially one that was as poorly planned as this. I had no theme or direction, and found myself getting frustrated trying to find subjects to photograph. In the end, it didn’t matter because due to a glitch in my camera, almost all of my photos were shot out of focus anyway. I had somehow messed up the diopter in my viewfinder, and combined with the fact that I was using a manual focus lens (the helios 40m-6 to be precise), I couldn’t ever tell what was in focus. I only realized and corrected it near the end.

Enough of my excuses. Here are the photographs in all of their blurry glory:

I started this project on January 1, 2012, shortly after midnight.

Day 2 thought process: “I’ll go for some high key lighting on a round object with a dark background. *click* Oh crap, I have color film loaded.”

Day 3: “This will be great. I’ll do a sort of day in the life type deal…”

Day 4: “Yesterday I did a lit hallway, today I’ll do the basement. Wait, why is my shutter not closing all the way?”

Turns out that if you focus to infinity on this lens, the inner elements stick out just far enough into my camera’s body to stop the mirror from flipping back to the neutral position. However, I hadn’t quite realized this yet.

Day 5: “Well, this will be an interesting shape”

Day 6: “Maybe I’ll take a picture of this construction site every day until they finish the path” (it was done by the next time I walked by here)

Day 7: Went out shooting in the botanical gardens with two cameras, including this one. Couldn’t think of what I wanted to keep as a project photo, so I went with this rather boring tree.

Day 8: “Oh crap, I didn’t take the picture yet today”

Day 9: It’s a red filter… that came with my soviet 135mm lens. There’s a “in soviet russia” joke in here somewhere.

Day 10: There’s an arcade at the bottom of the student center. I knew the DoF was shallow, but I didn’t realize it was THIS shallow.

Day 11: “*Clunk* What the hell was that noise? Why is my viewfinder black?” (this is where I discovered the infinity focus problem)

Day 12: More day in the life type stuff. This was lunch.

Day 13: Oh wait, there is no day 13 because I forgot to take a photo that day. Not wanting to screw up my frame count, I shot a black frame which my lab helpfully didn’t scan. Imagine infinite darkness…

Day 14: View off the coast of Pacifica

Day 15: “Oh crap, it’s 10PM and I haven’t shot my photo yet. I know, I’ll put a blue marble in front of a flashlight!”

Day 16: Botanical Garden 2 – New Zealand Christmas Tree

Day 17: More day in the life type stuff. This is what my weekday evenings look like for the most part as I wait for Rachel to come home.

Day 18: And this is what it looks like when I drop her off in the morning. Sort of. This is also a good example of how screwed up my diopter was. In my viewfinder, the train was in focus.

Day 19: Spicy

Day 20: Not spicy

Day 21: Near the SF Zoo, looking towards Ocean Beach in the distance

Day 22: Looking towards Pacifica Pier

Day 23: Lorem Ipsum sit dolor amet

Day 24: Leaving campus after 9 hours at work and 3 hours in class

Day 25: A roll of film I may never actually shoot because it’s a weird chemical process that doesn’t exist anymore

Day 27: The new SF State library. I will be moving in here about a week from this post.

Day 28: “Crap, there’s a fence in the way. I know, I’ll put the camera over my head while standing on my truck!”

Day 29: Shallow depth of field makes video games classy?

Day 30: GEESE!

Day 31: “Oh crap, I almost forgot to take my picture today…”

Day 32: I swear this was in focus in my viewfinder.

Day 33: I figured out that my diopter was messed up, finally.

Day 34: The first floor of the library had opened, so I went to take a look

Day 35: No time for breakfast at home before leaving for work, so I did breakfast at my desk.

Day 36: I have no idea how I managed to get this in focus. I’m right handed and my left hand was tweaking out while trying to balance the chopsticks.

Day 37: Wait, I thought this was a roll of 36, why the hell was I able to get a picture of these bears?

That was supposed to be my first roll of many in a year long project. However, I have decided to stop as I need to go back and re-think how I’m going to actually do this. Once I figure that out, I’ll restart the project from scratch.

These first shots were an experiment. I’m still working through the large order of Legacy Pro 400 film, half of which is now completely expired. I decided I was going to play around with this roll, though.

When I shot the film, I exposed it at ISO 200, even though it’s an ISO 400 film and I had my lab pull it one stop. My intention was to lessen the crazy contrast this film had before, and I think it worked.

It was slightly overcast that day, but still enough sun to pose a problem. However, the details of the windmill came out rather nicely here.

There’s a lot of texture here.

Sometimes when you’re wandering around Golden Gate park, it feels like you’re lost in the woods.

The more I look at this image, the more it weirds me out. The fact that it’s out of focus almost makes it seem like those tilt-shift miniatures that have become so popular lately, but in reality, this building is much taller than I am.

If I’m in the park, I can’t resist paying the squirrels a visit.

These two were chasing each other around.

It seems so cold…

I’m not even entirely sure what happened here aside from crazy lighting.

The black and white makes this bridge seem a lot more dramatic than it actually is.

Most of these were shot using my pentagon 50mm f1.8. Now that I know how to use it, I’ve been experimenting with it more.

The bokeh of this lens is pretty crazy and shows it’s Zeiss roots.

I really like the clover around the redwoods for some reason.

The detail in the leaf is pretty amazing.

After this trip, I went down south for the holidays.

One of my family’s traditions is making tamales. Being Guatemalan, our tamales are quite different than the Mexican kind that are more common in California.

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A leftover banana leaf.

Since neither my sister nor I were down early enough, my mother conscripted my father into helping cook them.

Cooking takes a rather long time and is done over a flame. At this point I had run out of black and white film and had transitioned into my standby favorite, Kodak Portra 400.

My mother, as always, sets an amazing table.

Festivities were had and I came back up north to celebrate the new year. On new year’s day, we decided that we needed to get SF Zoo membership, so we did.

Not having exhausted the roll down south, I decided to press on.

The zoo pictures were mostly taken with my Pentacon 135mm, as it’s hard to get up close to a zoo creature.

Contrary to popular belief, this is not a turkey.

The squirrel’s South American cousin, capybara.

Some of the Zoo’s rather large penguin population.

It amused us how much the tiger was acting like a plain, domestic cat.

Inside the cat house, however, it was dinner time.

And outside…

…the fishing cat was just chilling out.

Zebra.

These photos were just a random selection from over the winter. I’ve started working on a 366 project this year where I take one photograph per day, but as I’m shooting on film, I probably won’t be able to post until about a week into each month, starting in February. This month has been a little difficult to get started, but I’m sure I’ll find some focus over the coming months.

The botanical garden in Golden Gate park isn’t as much fun in the Fall/Winter, but you do get to see squirrels in full winter fur.

My 35mm camera has a built in meter, so getting exposure was less of a challenge. However, my Yashica D does not, so I was taking exposure with a hand held light meter that I used in film school. This, combined with the lack of latitude of the film stock made for a really challenging photo shoot.

I love the way this looks, but this is a good example of how challenging it is. I exposed for the bright part of the bark, but you lose detail in pretty much everything else.

This was more of a focus challenge, as I think the Yashica D has to be at least a meter away from something to be able to focus on it properly.

It still amazes me how sharp you can get things in focus with this camera. The lens is 80mm, but because the film is so huge, the depth of field is pretty tiny.

This almost looks like it’s underwater.

This is my favorite out of the whole bunch from this shoot. I absolutely love the colors and the way you can see the light through the clover leaves. I mentioned last time I shot this stock that the colors were more life-like than with negative film, but I think this shows that it could be “larger than life” as well.

Squirrels are hard enough to focus on with a normal lens. With the TLR focusing system, it’s almost impossible.

Who says we don’t have real Fall in the Bay Area?

This film’s treatment of green is pretty good. Once it warms up again I need to take some up to the Muir Woods and see what it can really do.

I’m noticing that the bokeh of the lens of this camera is football shaped. I hadn’t really noticed it before. It’s also pretty swirly. I’m not entirely certain I like it, though.

I like to believe that this hat belongs to the same person that left their pink shoes on the beach at Crissy Field.

Most of the botanical gardens looks like this at the moment.

There are, however, some small splashes of color.

I feel like the background is rotating around the focus point here.

There was a ray of light shining right on these flowers and I couldn’t pass it up.

Enlarged to show texture.

Good old California native plants.

This is another example of the background swirling around the focal point.

After shooting through four rolls of this film (2 35mm and 2 120), I think I really like it, but it is extremely difficult to shoot. If I had more control over the light (aka wasn’t being stupid and shooting in broad daylight) I think I could make some better images. I still have many more rolls of this stock left, but I think I need to shoot some black and white film next.

This post is a little different. If you would like, I’ve included an audio player below with a selection from archive.org titled “Figure Dance: The Fairy reel” recorded in 1933. The digital recording is under a Creative Commons 3.0 attribution license, so you can find the original source page here if you’d like. The music is just a bit of fun and in no way is related to the story that is to unfold here.

Given the fact that I tend to be a bit loyal to Kodak for film stocks since film school, my first stop when looking for a slide film to shoot was the Kodak Ektachrome line. Slide, or reversal film differs from negative film in that the process produces a positive slide that can either be projected or seen on a light table without needing to invert the colors. Unlike color negative film which uses the C41 chemical process and can be developed at every corner drugstore, slide film must be sent off to a lab to be processed with E6 chemicals. Some slide films, like the Ektachrome, can also be cross-processed, that is to say processed with the color negative chemicals to produce an effect that’s different than what a traditional slide would offer. Put a bookmark there, as I did not do that this time around, but probably will in the near future.

After having a rather stressful start to my fall semester (one of the joys of working in higher education), I decided to take two days off to go out into the city and shoot. The first day, unfortunately, I was rained out, but I managed to get a few shots in before the weather forced me home, giving me some interesting frames with really soft light.

When I was told that slide film was extremely unforgiving, the people weren’t lying. You have to nail the exposure completely, or you end up with situations like the above, where the sign is overexposed because it was a light source.

On the other side of the spectrum there is this shot which was about a stop or two underexposed. The only reason it’s visible here is because the lab pushed it during the scanning process as is evident by the large grain if you click to enlarge it.

This, however, started giving me an indication of what the film was capable of. The color reproduction is amazing and much more true to life than the negative films I had been shooting with before.

Never a dull (or quiet) moment in San Francisco…

Of the images taken this day, this is probably my favorite. The blue glass reflected the gray sky just perfectly, giving a very melancholy feel.

This was a test of one of my lenses. I went out with the Pentacon 50 and the Pentacon 135mm. I made a discovery about my adaptor rings a few days back that made me realize that I was using the 50mm completely wrong. Now that I know how to use it, it’s an amazing lens.

This shot I could not resist. There was a flock of about five of these meter maid tricycles parked in front of a coffee shop.

With the rain coming down, I hopped a Muni Metro back to downtown and caught a glimpse of this aircraft carrier, in town for fleet week. Quasi-defeated, I decided that if the weather was nice the following day, I would go out and try again, this time with a planned route.

The following day the weather cleared up and I decided to start my journey where else, but at our local landmark. My route was going to take me from Crissy Field all the way to the Ferry Building, a 5.4 mile walk.

View Larger Map

First, however, I was going to shoot around Crissy Field, as I had a point of comparison between the slide film and other stocks I’ve shot there.

One thing that immediately impressed me upon viewing the pictures was the stock’s handling of fog. For some reason the fog seems more translucent with this stock, allowing for more to be seen behind it.

A point of comparison from my previous expeditions here.

Where this film simply blows everything else I’ve shot out of the water, however, is the reproduction of skin tones and the color blue. It’s absolutely amazing how those turn out if you get the exposure right.

The sky looked a bit gloomy and I was halfway paranoid if it starting to rain again.

It’s cliché, I know, but I couldn’t resist.

The walk down Crissy Field and into the Marina area provides a few good vantage points of the bay.

The receding fog and high humidity in the air produced a weird effect when looking out at Alcatraz, making it seem like a sort of magical island.

Combined with the telephoto lens effect, the island just looms over these workers installing a sea wall.

A park bench, because I felt like it.

Now that the fog was mostly cleared up, I was starting to have some problems. The absolute worst time of day to shoot is at noon due to the sun being almost directly overhead and causing really harsh lighting conditions. Combined with how tricky the exposure is with this film, I ended up with many shots looking like this.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

However, when correctly compensated for, the results were pretty amazing.

After winding my way through the Marina, I cut through the park at Fort Mason.

In this picture, I fail as a photo journalist, as I didn’t write down who statue guy was.

Now in the Fisherman’s Wharf area, I started getting hungry.

First, however, I had some color pinwheels to photograph.

It amuses me going back and looking at these knowing that the wind was actually blowing fairly rapidly, but the pinwheels are completely still. Due to the light being so harsh, I had my shutter speed up really high, which completely froze any motion these things had.

The source.

The first leg of my hike was over, and I needed some seafood. This place, despite being on the tourist trap that is Pier 39 is actually pretty good.

Extremely shallow depth of field due to shooting with the 50mm at f1.8, which is wide open on that lens.

This donut shop is good too, but I did not partake after that epic lunch. I needed to walk those calories off, so I continued on my journey.

Somewhere near there on the fence there is a Kodak “photo op” sign.

It has eyes.

The Bay Bridge.

This fire truck came screaming down the street…

…only to have the crew inside calmly stroll down this pier.

At last, I had reached the Ferry Building. Given how hot of a day it was and how tired I feld after the hike, I decided I needed a cold beverage.

If you’re in the area and you get a chance, get one of their iced coffees. It’s worth it.

While the film performed very well outdoors in sunlight, indoors with muted lights it didn’t do so well.

After I left the Ferry building, I made my way across Justin Herman plaza to take the train home. Justin Herman is usually populated by skateboarders and BMX bikers, and that day was no different. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a skateboarder preparing to do a trick, so I whipped around and prayed that my focus was right…

…and out of sheer luck managed to grab that shot. I looked for other opportunities to grab some more action shots, but none arose.

The afternoon light was much less harsh, but still too difficult to shoot in. I made my way to the entrance of the BART station and found myself smack in the middle of the OccupySF protest.

I finally made my way back to the lab to drop off my film.

Ektachrome is a really interesting film stock to shoot with. I absolutely love the colors and the way the entire stock looks and feels. I think I may need to try this stock in 120 format. The next roll I shoot, however, will be cross processed, just so I can see what that looks like.

Until next time…

One of the tricky things about shooting film once you’ve gotten used to digital is that you only have a limited amount of shots. With 35mm film it’s not such a bad thing, as you can buy rolls of 36 exposures. With 120 film, however, it’s different story. You only have 12 shots per roll, but it costs about the same as a roll of 35mm to develop. Under normal circumstances, you would want to be stingier with your shots. However, I couldn’t pass up the chance to take multiple shots of the amazing rays of light behind the cityscape.

The Yashica D, as explained last time, has no light meter, so taking photos is a matter of guessing, or as in this past case, using your own external light meter. Luckily I went to film school and had a girlfriend who went through film school too, so we’re covered.

Of the three shots I took of the view, I think this one is my absolute favorite. The rays of light are clearly defined, and there’s just the hint of orange in the blue clouds.

I should have stopped this down further as it is a bit difficult to see, but you can sort of make out a single ray of sunshine hitting Alcatraz.

After the initial excitement at the beautiful lighting at sunrise, I went around the rest of Crissy Field, testing out the camera.

Ektar, I think, remains one of my favorite film stocks, and I love it even more in 120 format. There’s a richness and vibrancy that you get out of this stock that you just don’t get anywhere else. The fact that Kodak films tend to favor reds also help with our local landmark.

However, I am finding that getting the horizons aligned is very difficult with the waist level finder. Not only do you have to look down instead of straight but because the camera is sitting essentially at your waist, you have to balance it out. A brief, non-film interlude:

That is what it looks like through the waist level finder. You get guidelines, but they don’t really help much. The other thing is that you can’t gauge exposure through the finder, I’ve found, so things always look much darker than they really are.

This is a prime example. Looking through the finder I was actually paranoid that it was going to be under exposed as it looked very dark.

The other difficulty, of course, is balancing the thing vertically while crouching isn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world.

When everything works together, though, you get something unexpectedly amazing.

This particular shot doesn’t really have any artistic merit, but come on, how could I not take a picture of a minivan with sharks on it? Speaking of which…

SHARK!

The bench just fit perfectly in the frame, so I had to take a shot of it.

All in all, I enjoyed my second time out with the Yashica D, but I think I’m going back to 35mm photography for a while. The TLR is fun, and 120 film is amazing, but ultimately shooting on a camera with manual everything is really only when you can spend the time to get something looking really nice and doesn’t lend itself to spontaneity like the Elan7 does. It’s a shame, too, as I really like the way the images come out.

Lately, I’ve been shooting almost exclusively 35mm film. This has afforded me many opportunities to experiment with different stocks and techniques. However, I knew that 35mm film wasn’t the only type of still film still out there, so I decided to take the plunge and buy myself a vintage medium format TLR.

A TLR is defined as a camera with two lenses, a viewing lens and a taking lens that has a mirror so you can view through the lens. This is different than a SLR, or single lens reflex camera in that you are not directly viewing through the same lens you will be shooting the picture with.

Medium format film is much larger than 35mm.

(please excuse the flash)

The strip on the top is the 120 or medium format film, compared to the strip at the bottom, a 35mm film. Both stocks are Kodak Ektar.

Photoworks in San Francisco was sponsoring a photowalk based around the Holga toy cameras that Rachel had signed up for. I wanted to tag along, so I bought myself a Yashica D TLR. Each roll of film only has space for 12 shots if you shoot in the 6cm x 6cm square format. Different medium format cameras shoot different ratios which yield different numbers of frames. For this shoot, I took some Kodak Ektar, Kodak Tri-X black and white film, and Kodak Portra 400. I loaded up and we went off to the Pacifica Pier. My first roll was Kodak Ektar. As always, click on any of the pictures for a larger view on Flickr.

The Yashica D is a completely manual camera without a light meter. This means that you need to either have your own light meter, or use something like the sunny 16 rule to figure out what your exposure is going to be. Unfortunately, I was unaware of such a rule, so I calculated exposure on my phone, and hoped it was right. For this first shot, I completely forgot about having to calculate exposure. The fact that you can even see anything is due to the lab bringing up the exposure for the scan. On the negative, this image is barely visible.

I had better luck with the rest of my shots on this particular roll, though, after that first mishap.

The square format allows for some interesting and refreshingly different framing options.

One of the things I knew theoretically but didn’t really quite grasp was the fact that images shot on 120 film would be way more detailed than their 35mm counterparts due to having a larger area to capture light. This image in particular shows me just how much detail can be captured on this film.

Another thing I quickly learned about shooting 120 is that due to the larger image area, the depth of field is also much shallower. All of the Ektar shots were at f8, which on a 35mm camera would yield a rather large in focus area. In this example, the wing is slightly out of focus, while the head is in sharp focus.

We stopped for a snack at the cafe on the pier.

One of the lessons I’ve taken away from this shoot is that with this camera, it is quite difficult to get the horizon straight. Sure the waist level viewfinder has lines to help guide and frame, but the camera is just awkward to hold.

This guy was waiting for some free lunch, courtesy of some of the people fishing off of the pier.

Neither Rachel nor I remember the water being this green, but that may be an example of the Ektar over-saturating colors.

On the beach, there was a seagull eating what looked to be a dead pigeon. I couldn’t resist, so I took a shot of the carcass when I walked by. Click to see the picture.

David from Photoworks helping Rachel load the Holga. She hasn’t gotten her photos back yet, but she shot Fuji stocks, including one slide stock provided by Photoworks for the purposes of the walk.

The last frame of the roll showing how much latitude this stock has.

Once my twelve frames were up, I switched out to Kodak Tri-X, a ISO400 speed black and white film. Unfortunately, this is where me doing my manual calculations came back to bite me.

Almost all of my shots on this roll were over-exposed by about half a stop.

This one by probably one and a half stops.

Once again taking advantage of the square format.

It’s incredibly hard to take pictures with this camera of moving subjects. There are too many knobs to fiddle with and you have to set the shutter release before you can press the shutter button to take the picture.

This shot surprised me for a few reasons. The biggest, of course, was how shallow the depth of field is. All of the Tri-X shots were at f16, which would have made the entire frame be in focus on a 35mm camera. The bokeh of the camera also looks suspiciously like the Zeiss lens I rented a while back.

As always with black and white, it’s important to look for texture.

This shot looked right through the viewing lens, but came back with a branch on the bottom which was partially blocking the taking lens. Just another thing to keep in mind when shooting with this camera, I suppose.

More interesting textures.

The photo walk group reloading their Holgas.

Rachel loading some 35mm film into the Holga for sprocket exposures.

Grass.

Winding face.

My twelve shots up, I switched rolls to Kodak Portra 400. These are also partially over exposed, but not by as much as the Tri-X was, oddly enough.

More fun with the square framing.

This tree was useful.

Because you have to manually advance the film in this camera, it’s possible to take multiple exposures on one frame. This one, however, was done completely by accident due to forgetting to wind the film after taking my shot.

Ducks in a pond.

This shot was actually intentionally multi-exposure. I shot three frames at different f-stops to try to get more detail. However, I must have moved during each shot, so they don’t quite align.

Playing with the depth of field.

The range in this film is amazing.

More of the photo walk group.

A still lake.

She makes for a good subject.

When I took the shot, I remembered the horizon being straight. However, I must have moved as I hit the shutter release.

Last shot of the day, and a tranquil one at that.

Exposure issues aside, I really enjoyed shooting with this camera, and will probably take it out more often. The waist level finder is amazing to use, and 120 film is great to work with. The only problem, of course, is the fact that it’s only 12 shots per roll.

None of these pictures are particularly good, but it was a good way of experimenting and seeing just what the camera is capable of. I’ll try for more interesting shots in the future.

Some of the shots are extremely grainy. I’m not exactly sure why, as the exposure is proper, or at least looked proper through the viewfinder.

I don’t typically shoot images of people. Call me shy or whatever, but I usually don’t like getting in people’s faces. I did end up using a lot of this roll on people, though. However…

This crab looked dead. I took the shot and then it moved. I had a strong urge to throw it back in the bay as it didn’t seem to be anyone’s catch, but was conflicted as to whether or not I should interfere.

Plenty of gulls waiting.

I have to admit, this is the first time I’ve ever seen a gull eat “natural” food and not random garbage.

Gulls make for interesting subjects in black and white.

This one, however, was trying to get away.

These two probably felt like I was intruding. Now, what was I saying about people?

I’m actually slightly disappointed in this shot. I wanted to catch him blowing a puff of smoke from the cigarette he was smoking, but due to the lack of autofocus, I missed out while fiddling with the focus ring. I still got the focus wrong.

I don’t know why, but I have a lot of images of people walking away. Not really in this roll as much, but in general.

Not much to say here except for the fact that I may come back early in the morning to catch people fishing. Of course, my main goal that day was to catch the sunrise. Unfortunately, it was supremely foggy, so I decided to make the most of it, I should go up to the bridge itself.

The Golden Gate bridge is a bit scary when it’s foggy. It seems to disappear into nothingness.

Case in point.

I really like signs for some reason. However, people…

There were a ton of cyclists on the bridge. I kept having to dodge out of the way. On a few occasions I set myself up to grab some shots.

Action photographer I am not, especially not with that lens.

On my way up to the bridge, I met up with two random people also taking photos. Evidence of this in the previous frame and someone’s ghostly hand in this one.

They seemed to come out of the fog and disappear back into it.

Some did notice me.

There were also joggers on the bridge. Ironically, though, they were harder to catch.

These surfers, though, were not.

I actually really enjoyed my jaunt out to the bridge that early in the morning, and I may do it again. Depending on weather and mood, I may shoot color, though I think I finally found what Legacy Pro is good for: fog.

This post is a little different. All posts before this have been focused on a particular film stock, but today I decided to talk a little bit about a specific lens. The past two shoots I decided that I was going to use the first lens I bought, a m42 mount Pentacon 1.8/50. Like my ЮПИТЕР 37А, it requires an adaptor to be used on my EOS Canon bodies and is fully manual focus and aperture.

Last week we went back to the Conservatory of Flowers located in Golden Gate Park.

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Given the fact that flowers are extremely vibrant in color, I decided to shoot some trusty Kodak Ektar 100 using the 50mm. Boy was I in for a rough time.

Wide open (which I had to be due to the low light in the conservatory), this lens has an extremely shallow depth of field. Through a viewfinder, it’s nearly impossible to tell if something is completely in focus or not. Combined with a slightly sticky focus ring, shooting with this lens is pretty difficult. However, when the stars align and everything goes right, the images are amazing.

If you notice, the flower in the center is razor sharp.

This is another good example.

The framing could have used some work here.

This is a pitcher plant.

The bokeh of this lens is really nice.

The bokeh almost looks like fog in this image.

The petals are in focus, but the stamen is not.

This lens looks great in color. This past weekend I went out with some Legacy Pro 400 black and white film to Fort Miley.

The really shallow depth of field combined with the black and white gives a really dreamy, almost etherial look. Many of the images I came back with were unusable as a result.

Getting the exposure right in a the middle of a bunch of trees is very difficult.

This building is awesome. I’ve used it as a set piece before.

Weirdly enough, I almost wished I had a wider lens here. I’ve gotten used to shooting with my 135mm, but I couldn’t get the right angle here.

This is one of those weird lighting and shallow depth of field situations. The only thing in focus is that window in the distance.

And in this example the wall in the back is the only thing in focus.

Occasionally the focus is OK.

Like in this example.

A good example of the bokeh of this lens. This almost looks like the Zeiss 50mm I was shooting with a few months ago.

Last shot of the set. This is another good example of the bokeh. I think this lens is nice, but it’s extremely difficult to use. I’m not sure how often it’ll see any use on my gear, but when the everything works together, the images are amazing.

The first day was a warm, sunny Saturday, with very little cloud cover and fog hanging out on the bay. Shooting ISO 400 film in broad daylight at noon isn’t exactly the smartest idea, but it produced some interesting results. For most of these shots I was using a Canon 28mm f1.4L MKII that I ended up renting thinking it would be great for city shots. I was wrong.

Like the last jaunt through downtown San Francisco, we started on Montgomery Street. The tall buildings give an interesting contrast with the light on the street below.

One thing I noticed very quickly when I got my film back was the fact that both Rachel and my shots from this day looked extremely contrasty. None of the images were altered digitally, so this is actually what they look like. This is what happens when you shoot ISO 400 at noon.

Transamerica pyramid, and one of the few shots I wasn’t cursing having such a wide lens.

Old transamerica building is on the right. That boat/bus thing was stalking us all day.

This alleyway looks really out of place with the rest of Montgomery street.

In order to get this shot, I had to be about half a foot away from the statue’s face.

Segway tours going up and down a very steep hill. I don’t think that this is a very good idea.

This shot, aside from having the interesting looking medical military vehicle, shows just how steep this hill was. It was a struggle to try to keep the horizon straight while shooting this.

Our goal was Coit Tower, as neither of us had been there before. However, walking up Montgomery Street isn’t exactly the brightest idea. Montgomery becomes a very steep hill, and then in order to get up to the tower, there are many many stairs.

We reached our goal.

Columbus guards the tower.

Columbus loves America… and fog. (taken with my 135mm)

One of the things you need to look out for when shooting black and white are items with interesting textures. This construction site fit the bill.

City pigeons are so used to people that they let me become one with their flock while I took this photo.

I both like and hate this photo. It’s so incredibly contrasty that you lose the detail in everything, but the composition is nice and it looks OK despite the lack of grays.

Nautical museum.

A cable car we didn’t get to ride because the queue was 1 hour long.

Chinatown.

I took a photo of this alleyway last time, and I wanted to shoot it again to compare the film stocks. This image was shot with the legacy pro.

This image was with HP5 400. In all honesty, they look very similar, with the exception of the HP5 having a more noticeable grain.

Chinatown is full of fun things to shoot in black and white.

Lots of things.

This was one of those “why don’t I have color film” moments. This car was blue with a very intricate design on it. It was followed by two brightly colored Lamborghinis.

End of side A. Please flip the tape over to side B.

When we entered Chinatown, I switched to a new roll. I still had lots of film left over, so we ended up at the SF Zoo on a later date. Flamingos look weird in black and white. An important distinction to make from here on in was that most of these were shot with my 135mm and it was overcast. These have much nicer tones than the ones shot downtown.

This kangaroo looks like it’s growing out of the grass.

Peacocks: still impressive in black and white.

Cassowary: Don’t mess.

An interesting exhibit happening this summer at the zoo is one on Tarantulas.

This could be the cover of a horror film.

What I love about black and white is that it makes you pay attention to textures. This macaw was red.

Sea lion.

Lioness in the cat house.

Tiger, not in the cat house.

Crowd gathered around a zookeeper with an eagle.

A closer look. You don’t really think about how large bald eagles are until you see one up close.

Penguin, in it’s natural colors.

Ostriches.

You cannot auto-focus zebras. Also, gaze and be hypnotized.

One of the neat things at the SF Zoo is the giraffe barn. It allows you to get up close to the giraffes.

And that’s it for this post. I still have a TON of the legacy pro film, but I need to find better subject matter for it. Until next time…