Malta on Cinestill 400D

Here are a bit too many pictures of my first ever Cinestill 400D roll for my first ever trip to Malta.

I bought this roll a while back, maybe 6 months, from Analogue Labs ( where this roll was processed) for what seemed to a bit too much money ( about 18 GBP).

Marsaxlokk

I waited for the correct opportunity and here I am going to sunny Malta for a family holiday.

Marsaxlokk Sunday market

The D in 400D stands for daylight, and the film is described as a fine grain color film with daylight balance. It has soft tones, natural saturation, warm skin tones. The film can be shot between 200 and 800 without push process and up to 3200 with push process.

Marsaxlokk Sunday market cleaning up

I loaded the film in the faithful Leica M6 classic, fitted with the Summicron 50mm v5. ( some shots may have been taken with the 35 Asph v2 or the 38 Asph v1, but generally the 50 is attached to the M6 and the others to the M262)

I set the ISO dial of the camera to 400, not knowing what was best for my situation, the box speed seems to always be a safe bet.

Valetta

The days were very sunny so a lot of the shots were done with high speed and smaller apertures. The colors remind of Kodak Portra ( warm tones) maybe and surely has a certain vintage look to them. Is this expected or not, I am not sure.

The film surely has very fine grain and shows a lot of details.

I also find the shots to have a lot of contrast, maybe just bit too much for my taste. But it is a very nice result I think. I an already looking to buy some more.

Oh and Malta in this story? Malta is a small country consisting in a few islands, the capital Valetta is where we stayed. If you are open minded there are plenty of things to do, mostly around history and architecture.

There are also plenty of outdoors activities.

Diving just outside the city walls is one of them.

The place is attracting quite a crowd of tourists, in this mid-term holidays the place was packed with French and Britons.

A street photographer with his box camera

A couple of steep streets with stairs are hosting several bars and eateries.

Our first stop was Marsaxlokk with a famous Sunday fish market. You can access from Valetta by bus or Uber. From the ferry terminal in Valetta you can access the northern island of Gozo ( we missed because the schedule changed the day we planned to go) or you can take a 2 Euros ride across to the 3 cities.

Tourist boat touring the harbour

Boats in the Three Cities marina.

Typical houses with their bow windows

The fortifications and the war museum

Wuestenwinds beach

At night

Finally on the light picture, you can see a very special effect around the led lights. I think its called halation. Very common on the 800T film, but I was not aware that the 400D would also produce it. Anyway, this picture managed to go in Explore on flickr, so thank you Cinestill.

I hope you enjoyed the reading.

Bye Bye Paris

Paris by night

If you read the last two posts, you get that I fell in love with Paris for the second time (or the third maybe, one shall not count when it comes to love).

Palais Royal

So this is my last post of the digital shots made with the M262 and the Elmar 50 or the Summicron 35.

Goldilocks was here

You guess by this last sentence that there are indeed some analogue shots of Paris but that will be for another post.

Goldilocks’ car a pre WWII Citroen Rosalie I think

To each his (her) own

6 or 7 weeks after these pictured le M11 is out and the M262 really feels like an antique. But I still really like it, faithful device, my goto camera.

The model and her phographers.

False hopes?

I did not go camera shopping in Paris. Err, ok I went to the Leica shop on the Faubourg Saint Honoré, to check on the film MP prices in France. This camera is a beauty, but do I really need it? Ah let’s wait a bit longer…

That week Josephine Baker made it to the Panthéon. A bit of history captured here.

Patron un p’tit coup on a soif

Probably translate literally to “Boss pour us a little one, we are thirsty”. Paris and its bistro’s could fill a life of photography.

Paris by night again and again

Bye Bye Paris

Bye bye, but don’t be sad I will be back soon.

New place, new life, new photos?

So that’s it after 14 years in Asia I am moving back to Europe, UK to be precise. I have now been 6 weeks on the old continent, and a first post is long overdue. While all my stuff is in transit, I have carried in my hand luggage the M6 and the M262 with 3 summicrons, the 28, 35 and 50.

I have finished my first roll of expired Fuji Across 100 and had it process at the first shot I could find for the whooping price of 16 GBP. I could hardly believe it, but I will be back to Cafenol soon so this is a one off. It seems however that prices of film are a bit higher that in Singapore.

Shooting in a new country is both exhilarating and inhibiting : I can see so many new things to capture but also I am a bit camera shy these days, and don’t really know how people will react to the camera. I have engaged a couple of photographers in the street and they assured me there was no problem with this, but I have to get into the mood.

Strange enough, I don’t see many people with cameras in the street and I am yet to meet a Leica shooter, but I am keeping my eyes open.

The shots were scanned by the shop (Snappy Snap), it seems they did an ok job at it.

I hope you’ll enjoy the reading, my second roll is nearly done and I start having a backlog of digital, so get ready for more posts. All shots Leia M6 + summicron 28 Asph v1