Ok, i'm obsessed

This is a seriously overkill post, but I'm going ahead with it anyway. Remember the behind the scenes post a few days ago? Well, I almost forgot I shot that gorgeous bouquet in THREE different films. I thought this post would be a fun look at the nature of a few films - the Fuji Provia 100f, Kodak Portra 400NC (discontinued) and the Kodak Portra 400. Plus this bouquet was so insanely pretty it made my life easy. I'd liken it to a fashion photographer shooting an experienced, beautiful model. This bouquet could do no wrong (ok with the minor exception that it's hard to properly expose the super light pink flowers and the rest of the scene properly).

Just a note that I will sometimes do some in-scanner color adjustments but other than that, I don't touch much in Photoshop except cleaning the million specks of dust and maybe bumping the black levels a smidgen.

Below is the Provia, a slide film I tried for the first time this past weekend and gushed over in the last two posts. In print film, it's pretty hard to get harsh blown-out highlights, but you can see in these first two that there definitely are some blown out bits and there is little hope in recovering them. I love the overall dreamy feel of this film though. And if I didn't see the results with the Kodak, I would say I liked the colors here.

But then below, we have the ever lovely Portra NC and I can't get over the colors in this. I mean I don't even think they look this nice in real life. This film did something seriously magical here and I love the shades of green it brought out. This third picture just screams "spring," doesn't it? I'm sad this film is being replaced because I really do love the results I've gotten from it from the Contax as well as my 35mm.

I do, of course, give the new Portra (below) credit for being able to handle some extreme under- and overexposing. In these first two shots, I still had the camera rated for ISO 100 from the Provia (ah, rookie mistake!) and exposed properly for that, but scanned properly, they don't look too badly overexposed at all. The colors aren't as rich as they could be, but this probably would have looked horrendous on digital. And then the last few here were a bit underexposed. The color range is pretty crazy.

While I do like these deep jewel tones, overall the Portra NC feels most like my style. What do you guys think?

In a way I feel like I can't take full credit for these because really, the Contax, the film and the subject did all the work. :D

More provia, coffee + ice cream

Not much time for a long commentary tonight but here are a few more shots from that roll of Provia 100f. I get the sense that slide film looks more "filmy" in a way. And to answer a comment on the last post, you don't need a projector to view these. All you really need is some sort of lit white background to hold the slide against (a computer screen works just great). I scan them just like my normal negatives and tell my scanner that it's positive film so it knows what to do with them.

I love coming across the Van Leeuwen ice cream truck. That characteristic shade of mellow banana yellow is recognizable anywhere. Even though it was quite chilly that day, I rebelled against the weather with an affogato, choosing hazelnut ice cream for the base. Though, I quickly sought indoor warmth after that.

Love their stamped cups!

Abraço on fuji provia

Slide film is wicked cool. And it's extra cool on medium format because each exposure is a pretty sizable little picture ready to be viewed with the help of a lit white background. Note, by cool I mean 'awesome.' No one would seriously wonder which definition I meant, but I was chatting a certain someone earlier about how "cool" the Provia results were, and what followed went something like this:

J: As in high white balance temperature
Or in a good way?
A: X_X
J: That's a legitimate question!

So I figured I'd clarify.

I guess the problem with slide film is you have a lot less room to screw up. If you overexpose, that's no bueno. If you underexpose, that's no bueno either. There's much more freedom with print film. Oh yeah, and slide film costs more to develop. Oh well, I still think the results are neat and really want to try the Provia 400x (these results are from the Provia 100f). I've got some Astia in the Contax right now so I have that to look forward to for now.

I don't need to explain Abraço and my addiction, right? :)