I love London Pride and i’m sad to see that this year it has been cancelled due to COVID-19. This will be the first time since the first pride march in 1972 that there wont be a march. It’s very sad and feels like the right time to post this roll of film which I shot last year at London Pride 2019 and then a few frames after at the London Wetland Centre.
Hey there!
Below is a collection of photographs taken in Devon, 2019. To see how I developed the C-41 please check out the Lomography Colour 100 post.
Hey there!
In 2013 I bought 2 rolls of Fuji Velvia 50. I shot the first roll pretty quickly on a trip to New York City…to my surprise i’ve not uploaded that roll to the blog so at a later date will go back and rescan the negative for you all to see. Fast forward to 2020 and i’m shocked it took me 7 years to shoot the other roll (London Pride 2019)…I remember thinking it’s because Velvia is an E6 process. Which for the colour noobies out there E6 is a film processing technique using a different variation of chemicals and timings. The end results is a positive image instead of a negative image created with C-41.
E6 film is usually very fine grain, pin sharp image quality and vivid colours. However it doesn’t have the exposure latitude of C-41 colour negatives so your shots need to be perfectly exposed each time! For more information on the differences between E6 and C-41 check out this blog post from The Darkroom
As I don’t own E6 chemicals and wasn’t going to invest in any for 1 roll of film I decided to cross process with Tetenal C-41. Cross Processing is where you develop a roll of E6 > C-41 or C-41 with E6. For E6 > C-41 process you will usually get strong contrast and a lot of colour cast. For C-41 > E6 you’d normally see a flatter image with muted colours.
For my process I have a very prominent green colour cast.
Changing settings in Silverfast to compensate for Green Colour Cast.
You can see from the images below the highlights are blown out and the contrast is really high in places but overall i’m happy with the results!
Last year I visited Chedder Gorge and Woolacombe in Devon. The weather was rainy & overcast….fantastic for diffusing light and creating soft shadows…an opportunity for me to push a roll of Portra to 1600. To follow steps on how to develop colour film check out my other post on Lomography Color Film
I’m very impressed with how this roll of Kodak Portra held up. I was expecting the shadows to be muddier but the contrasts and colours are looking great. The photos in Chedder Gorge on a rainy day work better than on a sunnier day in Woolacombe. On brighter days the contrast looses detail in the shadows.
Hey there!
Here is a collection of photographs from a visit to London Zoo, Devon and Trafalgar Square. To see the development recipe please check out my blog post Lomography 100 Color which uses the same Tetenal C-41 Developer
Southend Arcade, UK.
Welcome light leaks.
When I was a child my parents took my sister and I to Majorca for a family holiday. They gave us both a disposable camera to use and when we returned and had the film processed we found my roll had tons of light leaks. My father explained the reasons why this happened and seemed upset – but I loved them!
The Canon EOS 620 I use today has good light seals so I seldom see them anymore. So I bought a roll of Dubblefilm Sunstroke which is partially exposed Kodak film that simulates light leaks.
Dubblefilm comes in a variety of film types including:
Bubblegum 200 – Added tones
Pacific 200 – Added tones
Jelly 200 – Added mix of colour tones
Apollo 200 – Added tone to make highlights pop
Stereo 200 – Full red to blue tint across the negative
Solar 200 – Lightleaks
KONO! and Dubblefilm also paired up to created Moonstruck, Monsoon and Sunstroke film types. You will see on the Dubblefilm website they’re currently teamed up with Revlog.
Southend Arcade, UK.
Southend Arcade, UK.
London Zoo
During the summer my sister convinced my niece in to thinking she was coming to London to watch a rugby game with her. My niece was not impressed – complaining the entire run up to the weekend and wanting to stay at home. What she was unaware of was this ruse was because my partner and I had planned to have her stay over the weekend but wanted to keep it a surprise. My sister was still going to the rugby game with her partner but we surprised my niece at the train station…it took her a few minutes to work out what was going on but she was soooooo happy to NOT be going to rugby! Instead she had a weekend of fun things to do around London. Which included the zoo đ
Normal Reciprocity
Normal reciprocity is when your camera settings are balanced to allow light entering the lens to hit the light sensitive film evenly thus creating an image that is correctly exposed with no muddy shadows, high grain or blown out highlights – if you’re using colour film this will include no colour shift or colour cast.
So exposure settings of 1/60 at f/11 will give the same amount of light as 1/125 at f/8 as 1/250 at f/5.6. Remember to take in to consideration changing your aperture will affect depth of field and sharpness so if you are shooting at f/16 you’ll need to compensate using your shutter speed alone but hopefully from this example you’ll understand…
What is Reciprocity Failure?
Reciprocity Failure is when your camera settings aren’t balanced which results in an incorrect amount of light hitting the light sensitive film for an incorrect duration of time. So If you’re unable to adjust your camera settings to compensate this will cause reciprocity failure. Failure can also occur when an ND filter is used and the incorrect meter reading / exposure settings are set.
The cut off point for each film type varies but there’s a reciprocity failure point for all film types – for black and white film this results in less dense images with increased grain, muddy shadows and blown out highlights. To compensate for this you will need to extend the exposure time and pull the processing time so highlights aren’t blown out but detail is retained in the shadows. Colour film requires similar time and processing adjustments to B&W but with the added bonus of colour shift. This can be corrected during post by adding more saturation and colour adjustments.
Interestingly reciprocity failure doesn’t occur in digital cameras – this is because light hits the sensor and is recorded in the camera whereas light can scatter and bleed into other layers on sensitive film. However a side effect of long exposures using digital is increased noise.
Credit graph: Isaac Sachs on Flickr Chat: https://www.flickr.com/groups/477426@N23/discuss/72157635197694957/
There are plenty of people who’ve taken the time to study different film stocks over the years and measure reciprocity. I used this graph by Isaac Sachs to reference Kodak Portra 160 & 400 to calculate how much time I would need to extend my exposures.
For Portra 400 reciprocity failure starts around 4s which would result in a 0.5x increase in exposure time. For those who want to see some results of over and under exposing Portra watch this video by Kyle McDougall.
The Shoot
This was a simple test shoot of 10 frames just to give me a baseline for future experimentation and to see what mistakes I make now so I can make informed decisions on a future project.
Firstly I should’ve shot a lot more, like the entire roll more! Secondly the changes in colour shift aren’t nearly as dramatic as I was expecting. Frame 6 (bus stop) is too bright from what I wanted. I love that the shady bushes behind have retained detail but the moodiness and amber light that was cast over the road has been lost. I could fix this in post – but showing accurate test results is what i’m presenting here – not a prize winning photo. Thirdly I should’ve experimented with longer exposures (20, 30s + etc) in darker areas using a cable release to really stretch the film and experiment with the same subject using different settings to set a baseline for reference.
Metering was taken using the camera internal ETTL as well as a Light Meter app. I used Tetenal C41 developer using the standard development time of 3m 15s at 38Âșc. I did not pull the process. Full Tetenal development details can be found here
Frame 1
Frame 2
Frame 3
Frame 4 – feels too bright and saturated compared to the rest of the test
Frame 5 – I actually like the tones in this shot. Muted yet amber of the lighting nearby. Could do with a punch of saturation.
Frame 6 – getting washed out. Good shadow detail but lost amber glow and ambience of the environment. Too bright
Frame 7 – shifting towards yellow
Frame 8 – deeper reds
Frame 9 – more red tones
Frame 10 – shifting towards green
Have I missed anything out?
If you think I have missed something out or not give the correct credits please let me know on Twitter or the comments box below.
Resources
Ilford Low Intensity Reciprocity Failure
Being so young at the time these were taken I do not know some of the people in these photographs. However they were taken in a small town called Brightlingsea on the Essex Coast during the 1980s. These photos are of my Aunts, Sister, Mother, Great Grandmother and Cousin – oh and the happy baby is me!
The 35mm Project 