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I recently picked up a Nikon FE body on eBay and shot film seriously for the first time in years. These photos are from the first test roll I ran through the camera to check it was still working and to see if I could remember what all the fuss is about.
Fair enough, I am convinced, when it comes to black and white at least.
There are a lot of people out there who hate digital black and white because it’s so smooth because of the lack of grain but that is exactly why I like it. I love being about to really crank up the contrast without having to worry about losing detail, fuzzy shadows or sullying the bokeh.
These images are different. That punchy contrast might be unavailable but they have a charm of their own that current digital cameras can’t seem to capture.
There is a delicacy of touch, these are sketches in 2H compared to the 6B of digital.
06/11/2010
Really liking these.
Try Ilford XP2 if you want strong contrast, plus it is C41 processing too if you want to be lazy like me
06/14/2010
Thanks Paul.
I’ve been reading up on XP2 but I could only find the Kodak equivalent in town. This stuff still has an orange mask like film so some of the negative have a colour cast.
The Ilford film is supposed to much greater latitude than ‘normal’ b&w so you can push and pull the ISO. I think I shot this roll at 400 but I’m going to pull the next roll so I can use a wider aperture.
Actually, I really need to finish this film so that I can try and replace all the light seals and the shutter cushion thingy.