This is a small follow-up to Notting Hill Carnival 2023. I also carried with me the Leica M4 and Summicron 50mm v5 loaded with a roll of Kosmo Photo Agent Shadow.
This is the first time I use this 400 ISO film, and I don’t have a lot of info on it. Is it a knock-off of some existing formula ? I am not sure. It is said to be a 400-ISO panchromatic black-and-white film, so far so good. I read that the Mono 100 was some rebranded Fomapan 100, so it is likely to be a rebranded film, maybe Kentmere or Fomapan, I cannot find any decisive information.
The day was super bright anyway so al these shots were taken around F8 and 1/250th. I don’t this I measured for each shot, rather once for all.
These shots turn out to be quite pleasing to my taste, with good contrast and a lot of details. I would say probably a bit better that my average Ilford HP5 rolls, but once again the conditions were very good that day.
As the proverb says “errare humanum est perseverare diabolicum“, so here my second post with the second roll shot in Paris ( in the spring) with the Leica IIIC and its curtain problem
Of course I did no knew at the time that the infamous back curtain was lazy and that my pictures would be overexposed on the left and underexposed on the right.
I was so happy shooting away because as per my last post ( 2023 ROLL#04 – PARIS IN THE SPRING ) Paris and Leica III make for happy shooting. Particularly when a jazz band is playing at the foot of a giant Kuzama painting in the sky ( courtesy of LVMH advertising) .
We made a particularly long walk that day from the Seine to the Canal Saint Martin, aiming to reach la Villette ( we stopped before and turned back, that was already a 10 km plus walk).
When I lived in Paris, I rarely ventures in this area, I probably did not set foot there in 20 years. For the cinema aficionados along the canal is the famous “Hotel Du Nord” from eponymous movie by Marcel Carné with Arletty.
The canal seems to have become a fashionable leisure area where the young and the less young go for a stroll, a ciggie or a drink on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Particularly if the sun is out.
.. playing pétanque, reading, lounging, studying, making music, drinking again, sunbathing, all typeof activities seems to fit along this calm water piece.
Our road ended at the “base nautique de la Villette”, visiting the park of la Vilette will be for another time.
Next day was the last day in Paris, time for a couple of snaps like the creperie above of the other jazz band below.
Ok I did not emphasize too much but the all the shots show signs of the curtain problem, at various level, depending on the speed of the shutter. I played a bit with Lightroom trying to balance highlights and underexposed areas, but I think as the scanner was fooled by the problem, there is just that much I can do. I think I can try to rescan some shots twice and blend… not sure there as any worthy of such work, maybe the next one…
Back in London I still had a few shots in the roll. I changed the lens for the Voigtlander Color Skopar 21mmF4 and shoot away on a Saturday stroll. The mounted police above is quite nice, very dynamic, the 21 has some charm.
This roll was shot on Kodak Tri-X (ROll 04 was TMY 400).
So the Leica IIIC went to Aperture UK for a CLA and they called me after a little more than a week to announce it was ready. I went to collect it yesterday and put a roll on it so I am checking that its definitely ok. The CLA cost 240 GBP, already the cleaning of the rangefinder is awesome, even if the window is small, it is super bright, focusing is a bliss. It looks like I have anew curtain also.
Is it worth it? Well how long is a piece of string? The gentleman from the shop told me a IIIC is about 250 GBP, so I could buy a new non CLA’d one instead of fixing mine : that’s an easy answer. Now on the other hand this starts to be an expensive camera. I bought it for about 200£ 10 years ago, had an initial service of about 200£ and now an 240, that’s a 640£ body. On the plus side its newly CLA’d, is in good condition. I shot something north of 40 rolls over 10 years, you can try to make some maths see how much vintage shooting costs.
“Are you feeling lucky punk?”, the famous line of Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry was probably a warning. How lucky was I feeling picking up the Leica IIIc for a week end in Paris?
I had not used my oldest Leica for a good year, so it was time for a walk outside the cupboard. I attached the Elmar 50mm3.5 and took a couple of rolls of Kodak film. One TMY 400 (this one), one Tri-X (the next one).
I also packed the Sekonik 308x light meter, as I cannot guesstimate and I found it easier to use than the flash shoe one I use from time to time.
The IIIC is charm to use, and shooting with it you really feel lucky (I do). The Elmar itself is another story, the aperture setting at the front of the lens is not very user friendly, and it puts me in a mode where I set my speed and aperture only every few shots.
So far so good, and I can add, probably for the 10th time, that the camera is quiet small and funky so it is quite appropriate for street photography ( I don’t like the term cause I am a bit snobbish, but that’s what I kind of do).
So where does it go wrong? As usual with film photography it goes wrong when you get home, wait a week for the lab to process your film and you discover that the film has not turned out quiet as expected.
With some reframing and photoshopping I managed to minimized it, but on that beautiful week-end where most of the shots were done at high speed ( for the IIIC that means 1/100, 2/100 or 1/500, I never trust the 1/1000) the left of the pictures is constantly overexposed and the right underexposed.
It is more noticeable in the scenes which are brightly lit, like those at the market, not at all in the one below shot in dim light. This is due in my experience to the back curtain being lazy.
The two pictures above were actually shot in landscape and resized, as half the frame is black.
So what happens next? Well first thing I shot a second roll because I did not knew, and you will see it in a couple of days.
Then last week I brought the camera to Aperture UK in London to have it serviced. For the second time this little fellow will cost me more than I paid for it in the first place (230 USD back in 2013). Ok I realised that this is 10 years back! I can’t believe it. I think I shot about 35 rolls with it, so we’ll probably say that each roll cost me 20$ of camera usage, not counting the lenses. Film is definitely not cheap.
I hope you enjoyed the reading, be patient, next roll is coming
We are entering the rainy season in Singapore now, and film rolls are not easy to finish. So the roll of Kodak Ultramax 400 I loaded in the Leica M4 took a little time to finish. Particularly with a F4 lens and less light, not all opportunities are good,
I very rarely shot the Ultramax before, it is a quite cheap film you can still buy in supermarkets in France. My friend Felix, gave me a roll last time I met him, and he get a quantity of them for the same reason.
The Leica M4 has no meter so I used my new Sekonic handheld light meter. All in it is doing quite a good job.
The Ultramax end up being quite a different beast compare to the Portra 400. The grain is more accentuated, the colors get a bit more pink / green hue, the film I got from the lab was a bit more curly, but I am not sure it affected the scanning (with Epson v800).
The 21mm gave good results again, thanks to the viewfinder again I think. The vertical shots of cross roads gave what I called “dynamic” in my last post; I think they would benefit in being shot a bit lower, like wait level…
… but OK hand metering, range-finding (or pre-focusing or hyper focusing) and view finding are already a lot of actions for a single shot.
With the 21mm the subject is often too far as above, unless you come really close to unsuspected subject …
… for everybody’s fun.
Or willing models as above.
Or you meet the Fuji Instax team (I did not enter the discussion about Fuji vs Kodak with them).
I also had the opportunity to take a few shots at night in a fancy fair and I must say the result is quite pleasant. A bit Saturated, but it looks the film reacted well to artificial light.
Interesting story here, aspirant photographer and aspiring make up artists from Indonesia using their friend as a model.
A few weeks after the first shot back at the SMU (Singapore Management University).
In case you directly jumped here: all shots on Kodak Ultramax 400 (not expired), with Voigtlander 21mm F4, VC viewfinder 21-25mm on Leica M4.
This is my third post about the Polypan 50 and thanks to my friend Felix who is always eager to feed me some more this is probably the 10th roll I have shot.
This roll is a bit old and traveled in and out of the fridge a few time, also Felix warned me about the first two frames to generally better be avoided. Finally the film is quite thin and this may result in a bit of struggle when loading the film on the reel. so one or two early
So this particular roll I decided to shoot with the Leica IIIc and the Color Skopar 21mm. I am still trying hard to love this lens and the camera looks super good with the VC finder I bought last summer.
At this point I have small problem because I am not really able to guesstimate the light and I have relied on my Sekonic 308, that i bought new in 2010 with my first Leica. The little fellow is now more dead than alive, draining batteries like hell and giving random measures. So after the first half of the film I decided to go the the shop and get a new light-meter. To cut it short I bough the same one, lets hope it last as long.
So this is a recipe for disaster, a slow film, an old camera, and a slow lens. Luckily last Saturday the weather was nice when I hit Chinatown and came across Felix of course.
I am not a big theoretician, but what i like with the 21mm is the dynamic it gives to (rather mundane) pictures where people are moving like above or below.
Chinatown is also the opportunity to catch again and again the old folks playing Chinese checkers or chess. Some slow action going on, so speed can be lessen, perfect for my set-up.
Another obvious thing with the 21 : you need to be close to your subject. How close is close? Probably all the pictures in this post are done between 2 and 4 meters ; the one below more like 1 meter.
And finally a bit more panning for that young lady.