The familiar Rollei film (I still have to decide if I like it or not), developed this time in a Kodak HC-110 developer. Results are finally decent regarding contrast, but obviously questionable regarding anything else: subjects, composition, supposed photographer’s skill and whatever you think applies. My cat is superb though.
Another Rollei, maybe too many Rolleis but they’re very cheap and I shot too many Ilfords years ago so I’m, like, recovering. I suppose I have to apologize because the subjects too, they are very common for this blog: friends, kids, park, trees, you know. But there’s big news hidden in this gallery: I used a new developer, the Ars-Imago FE, without even knowing a reliable developing time. So, the gentle folks at the Ars-Imago shop told me to try 12 minutes, but I’m slow so at the end it was around 30 seconds more… and not bad, not bad […]
WhenI buy film I usually put them in the cart in pairs. I don’t know why but I don’t feel OK to buy just one roll for each emulsion. So this is the “other” Superpan 200 and it’s just another batch of my “pictures in parks” super-cool project about, you know, pictures taken inside parks – woods, grass fields, kids running and so on. So interesting, I know.
Another Rollei RPX and another mess of i-dont-know-what-happened-in-the-tank – yes, the infamous IDKWHITT sindrome that every home-developer is sometimes affected by. Probably the D76 in the bottle wasn’t fresh enough or clean enough so I’m happy it’s finished. Regarding the flat boring pictures in the gallery below I don’t want to say it’s entirely developer’s fault, I’m accountable too. And the weather. And my self-portrait is not going to make it better anyway.
Hello Superpan 200, it’s been a long time, isn’t it? I like this film but I’m definitely not impressed by its behaviour in low light – and I have my share of fault of course. Grain is absolutely visible and, at this point, I would suggest to use any developer that can mitigate it. In this case I used D76 but it’s been a pain to scan because the negative came out with poor density and the scenes were all very flat and boring. This guy needs contrast – and a lot more sun.
It’s inusual for me to push film but this time I felt it was safer to begin the roll with a more versatile setting, just in case. And it’s been a good choice because the day at the beach wasn’t really sunny, but most of all because I’m generally more comfortable shooting at 1/250 and above. 100 ASA is’nt really flexible enough for handling heavy old cameras like my Yashica FR1 in a not-so-sunny day. Another reason to be happy is that Kentmere 100 seems to appreciate a lot to be pushed to 200: it does produce a very fine […]
Probably not a super-interesting batch because sometimes it happens you just have a b/n film loaded but you’re visiting a place that’s more interesting in colors. So, if you’re wondering what’s this sort of a crater with some milky-looking water springing in the middle, that’s the “caldara” you can read about in this wikipedia page. I was expecting stranger pictures, probably, shooting that day, but it’s ok anyway. Shooting green areas in b/w is always a mixed bag and not everyone’s cup of tea. Oh, I have not digitally removed the usual amount of dirt and scratches (how many!) from […]
Ladies and gentlemen, The Last Perutz On This Blog! And this is quite a significant roll because it was shot between the last “normal” days in Rome, in February 2020, and the first days in full Sicilian lockdown because of the pandemic. What’s clearly missing – because I wasn’t really thinking about documenting what was going on – is the fast relocation in Siracusa, following the announcement that schools were closing for weeks. The single best decision ever taken in my life. I have a lot to regret for many things I did wrong but that move was instinctively right, […]
Finally a good old Kodak Gold 200 on this blog! You can find plenty of them in the old blog, actually. Being one of the most easy to find film in brick-and-mortar stores, it’s inevitable to use it sometimes. Unfortunately this is just a sample of the 37 shots I was able to capture with my adorable Canon compact: they are mostly shots of my daughters and my friends on the beach (or in a swimming pool), so very undressed, so I don’t want to publish them. But how NOT lo love a Kodak Gold 200, even from just 4 […]
Not too much to say. Just a Silvermax shot during a couple of weekends out for walks with the kids, in the surroundings of the Bracciano lake and in the Caffarella park. All shots by me and my Canon Sureshot compact. Developed in D76. I think I like this Adox emulsion but I’m not very impressed. I mean… it’s versatile, very flexible, it’s easy to correct the scan if they are not perfectly exposed. It’s a reliable tool but I don’t know, I’m not seeing myself buying a lot of them in the future. But who knows.
Here we go, the first roll on this blog that’s been entirely NOT shot by me. Yes, the 12 years old daughter decided to use something like half-an-hour to totally waste a precious Rollei Retro 400 S just goin around our “quarantine in the country” house, in a not-so-sunny morning, framing just plants and buildings in black and white. Isn’t she crazy? The funny thing is: i would never ever do that, she did, and some result is very interesting and unexpected. It’s not the “totally wasted roll” I was presuming before scanning the negative. There’s something, I think.
My “Rome” rolls are almost quite predictable regarding subjects and locations. But for this beautiful Rollei Retro 400 S I did my best trying to be not-too-much predictable. And not everything has been shot in Rome, to be honest. So, what we have here: a moody and almost unintelligible picture of my daughters on a ice-skating rink; people playing traditional afro or south-american music (I don’t remember well) and dancing inside Forte Prenestino (google it, it’s a beautiful place); my daughter Daria with a unicorn hairband; a brilliant painting on a Potenza city wall. On a technical side-note: this film […]
Oh well, another Perutz expired film shot in Siracusa, what a novelty! I was actually and seriously looking forward to see these pictures because there’s a good shot of my first daughter and a couple of nice pictures with Piero playing the piano. And now that it’s winter it’s also nice to see some warm Sicilian color on screen.
Ok, it seems I still have unpublished scans from an expired Fujifilm Neopan 400 I shot in June 2019 for a wedding and… as it always happens with films, there’s some unrelated picture because the roll was already in the camera when I did the shooting. I love when I find a random/family picture I forgot to have because it was at the beginning (or at the end) of a “serious” roll. First picture above and below is my lovely friend Francesco in his best shadowy pose, in my kitchen in Rome, and with a guitar.
A good vibe on film it’s pure magic when you have it in front of your eyes. On this roll there are a couple of shots with some magic. The others are not bad but the poor Sure Shot Supreme – contrary to what its name boldly suggests – had quite an hard time trying to focus, in fact it missed focus a lot, so I discarded many pictures. And I have to say that the only good shots are the ones when there’s still some light from the sunset, and the flash was off. With sun down, and flash […]
Pictures from Siracusa, last spring, nothing special except a couple of shots I’m really in love with. And other pictures from Rome, but in this case I’m in love with the subjects (my daughters). Technically speaking, there’s a problem with the scanner, a sort of vertical striping that occurs with blue even surfaces (like the sky and/or the sea). And I hate this mostly because it happened with the only picture I really like, that’s arguably the one I chose as the highlight of this set. But I have to add that I don’t really care about the scans, they […]
This is one of those rolls that begins in a place and ends in a totally different place, with another place in between the two. It’s a tripping roll! Well, you can read the dates if you want to know but they’re printed the English way – because the poorly placed button on the back of my camera keeps pressing itself accidentally switching between options. This film roll begins at home in Rome, goes through a working week in Sicily and ends with a groom at the barber on his wedding day (I was one of the two photographers for […]
This could be my last Neopan 400, unless Fuji is planning an unlikely comeback in the future. Maybe I shot it with a bit of melancholy, I don’t know, but it seems like these pictures are more sad than usual for some reason. Half roll was used during a wedding in June and the other half is here, split (in half again) between the bicycle lane and the marina in Siracusa city. There’s even some picture I really appreciate, like the nun in white hiding her face with a big hat, or “fuck the police” written on the bicycle lane […]
A day at the zoo with my glorious grandpa’s autofocus Olympus and a Perutz 200 inside. Not much to write home about but ok. The white tiger is cool. The shot with the penguin is my favourite. Zoos are kinda sad, anyway.
There’s something I’m slowly realizing: that it’s possible to come back home after a short vacation, see the pictures (slides and negatives in this case) and not needing the digital “coverage”. I have hundreds of digital raw files still to edit, mainly shot by my daughter, and there’s also something nice there. But I’m not feeling the pressure to look at those files, to edit and publish them. It’s like I’m already satisfied, I don’t need “more”. I need to shoot better pictures indeed, but it’s not a matter of quantity.
Here we go again with expired slides, this time with no terrible defects except a strong magenta cast that had to be corrected after scanning. I mean, nobody is forcing me to correct anything, it’s just that I find my pictures more pleasing this way. Nonetheless, colors are completely fucked up. As always, there’s some reason why I like so much this analogically unpredictable color shifting. But it’s true that every “glitch” is boring when you over-use it so… I’m almost happy not to have other expired slides to shoot in the near future. Maybe I’ll try some fresh slide […]
Ok, this time I swear I did it right, I followed the instructions! The Ferrania P30 is a very delicate beast and although I really followed the “cooking recipe” by Ferrania, the results are again too contrasty and apparently underexposed. But I didn’t actually underxpose a single frame on this roll. On the contrary, I overexposed everything by lowering the iso setting to 50 (instead of 80) and giving another +1 of exposure just in case. So, why this mess, you may ask? Well, it seems I did something wrong anyway, and that is shooting with the sun behind my […]
Neopan 400 will be missed (and it’s already missing) a lot but I will eventually find a way to replace it in my heart. This roll that you see here has been developed in Rodinal “stand” (the lowest concentration of just 1ml every 99ml of water) for 1 hour to compensate for the (in)famous Rodinal super-grainy special effect and it’s in fact not that grainy. Shot in Rome (Aniene, Villa Ada, CSA La Torre and Villa Leopardi) with a Canon one-button 35mm fixed-lens compact.
Developed in 2017, when I decided to try C41 and E6 chemicals at home (and almost instantly I gave up), this roll has been scanned and “digitally restored” because the original colors were badly messed up. This way of dealing with analog materials could be rightfully dismissed as nonsense, considering how easily everyone can obtain the same results shooting digitally and saving a lot of time, money and pain in the ass. But I think it still makes sense because when you work with these files they have already some kind of “voice” and it’s just a matter of making […]
Surprise! I had another two rolls of Plus-X in the bag and (double surprise) they were in a lovely state of preservation, without the dark spots of the previous roll. Now I can really say my story with the Plus-X ends here, with these scans you see below. They also look very different from the other scans, and for an obvious reason: I developed them in a punchy Rodinal 1+25 bath, and even over-deloped a bit (like one minute and half more) so, yes, contrast and grain are quite evident. I would not say I “ruined” this classic emulsion in […]
