On The Road with Vicky Lamburn

I would have written this a week or more ago but with the recent illness and slowly recovering I have been slow to do anything, let along spend any time really on my blog. (Bar the Olympus Trip 35 which is by the way — proving to be a rather versatile little camera, quite odd though when one fires the shutter and here’s a ‘puny’ click when one is used to all the clack and whizz of a fancy 35mm SLR….)

So here goes, and you might just notice a trend in this…No Kodak. I’ve never needed to reach outside of the results Fujichrome provides, but maybe I should do someday…

• Fujichrome Astia 100F
  Not everyone’s cup of tea this, but on the odd occasion this is great for demure portraiture and slightly downbeat atmospheres. It’s a low saturation delicate slide film that when used right is incredibly powerful in a way that even Provia 100F doesn’t capture for me.
  ‘la vita e bella ma la mia ragazza ne piu’ – by esmus (Flickr)
  
• Fujichrome Provia 100F Low grain, excellent colour saturation and a very good general purpose slide film (in my terms.) Fine detail and very good for portraiture. Also good for landscapes when you don’t want the blown out ‘Disney’ effect that some people apply to Velvia 50/100. I’m not a big user of Provia 400F as I rarely shoot colour shots needing high speed film, that is usually down to Tri-X 400, Ilford XP2 or Delta 3200 at either 1600 or 3200.
• Fujichrome Velvia 50
  There was a time when god bless it, old Velvia RVP was RIP. Replaced by Velvia 100 and 100F. Velvia 100 is quite nice but just not quite the same and 100F is something I have not quite fallen for, as I will always reach for Provia 100F instead. However, Fuji was so inundated with demand for the old Velvia 50 that they managed to source new chemicals or something, but the main thing is its back and just as good as it always was.Velvia is a famous slide film, lush greens, rich blues, sock it to them reds and happy yellows. It does exagerate colour but in a way that I love, as its often said Velvia captures the scene how people remember a scene after a few days i.e. much more saturated than it really was.
  This slide film only works on bright sunny days. I have never been impressed by a Velvia slide shot in overcast/dull conditions. I tend to shoot this at ISO 50 close to sunrise and sunset, and ISO 50 during the rest of the day. If I use a polariser which isn’t really needed for Velvia IMHO, I even sometimes step sunset shots down to ISO 32 which can have a good effect and save shadows turning black and skies turning deep blue if not inky black themselves.

  Velvia is poor for portraiture as a rule of thumb but I’ve shot a few parades with it in Summer and the result whilst a little OTT, has been very fun. My main use for Velvia is landscapes on bright days throughout the year, and evening street shots when I want a bit of that summer zest and punch at 7pm in Brighton’s North Laine or that ilk!

  
  Red Sky at Night Panorama (2) by myself
  Canon EOS 3 + Velvia RVP 50 + 24mm Sigma Lens
• Velvia 50 to me is the polar opposite to my sheer love for black and white. I currently don’t find any difference between RVP and RVP 50, though my current fridge levels shows I only have 10 rolls of old RVP left (2 refrigerated, 8 frozen) and 1 roll of new RVP 50 (refrigerated) so… yikes. Need more

My current stock levels

They’re fairly healthy but lacking in two key areas:

1. 21 rolls of Reala Superia 100
2. 1 roll of Provia 100F (what?!)
3. 0 rolls of Astia 100F (not unusual…)
4. 0 rolls of Delta 100
5. 1 roll of XP2 (what?!)
6. 2 rolls of FP4
7. 3 rolls of Tri-X
8. 1 part used roll of Delta 3200
9. 1 roll of Velvia RVP 50
10. 10 rolls of Velvia RVP (old Velvia 50)

Bit concerned at the lack of XP2 and Provia 100F. But the level of Reala 100, Velvia 50 and Tri-X is good And for irony… a picture captured with a digital camera of this…

I’ll paste it here in a few days time, the Windows PC is refusing to acknowledge my phone is plugged in and right now I don’t have the patience to get it to see sense

Pending the receipt of my first batch of Velvia 50 slides shot with my EOS 3 back from the lab, I’m close to being able to formulate an opinion on the EOS 3’s overall performance.

I’m absolutely adamant that the copy I have is not one that underexposed by 2/3rd stop as it’s not one of the first ones (produced in May 2000) but instead it really is one that was probably a pro’s backup or an amateur who never used it or looked after it very well*. Of course this will be born out when I receive the slidefilm back due to its sensitivity to exposure, particularly Velvia. Whichever way I look at it thoug, the EOS 3 is seriously a very good camera.

My Favourites

Now I have comparatively been shooting for a short time, about four years so I’m sure many long timers will scoff at this ‘immaturity’ of opinion but I think it’s quite well founded and reasoned.

Print Film (Negative):

I do use a lot of print film particularly because of my heavy black and white persuasions, but even colour has a place here (albeit only one):

• Ilford Delta 100 For a good, high detail medium contrast and low grain black and white film I find this is a great option. I find personally this is a versatile film for portraits and landscapes.
  
• Ilford FP4 125 This is another great film that I would say for my tastes is better than Delta 100 for landscapes and architectural shots due to my perceived marginally higher contrast. They are however quite similar but different enough in my eyes.
• Ilford XP2 Super 400 A chromogenic (C41) process black and white film which aside from the obvious benefit of processing available everywhere, is fantastic for long exposures particularly at night as it has a very nice grain. It is also very good as a general purpose black and white option and can produce nice portraiture.
  
• Kodak Tri-X Need I say any more? But if you insist – the allure of Tri-X is that distinctive grain that this film gives to anything that it graces. Fabulous for candid street photography and documentary style photographic subjects. That’s the key reason for me.
• Ilford Delta 3200 This is much better than T-MAX 3200 but is still a grainy film when developed at 3200. A life saver for low light photography without a tripod, I have captured some great street scenes in Brighton (which I must scan) with Delta 3200 that I would never have got. The grain is the allure for this and also I find it a very contrasty film which also ticks the boxes for me.
• Fujifilm Superia Reala 100 The first and only colour print film that I actively use and love. This is not far off of being the Velvia 50 of the print film world in some respects in that the colour latitude is great, and the colours are very vibrant. I particularly enjoy this film’s green and yellow hues. I have about 25 rolls of this in the freezer at the moment because I use this as my general purpose colour film for walk about when I’m not in the black and white mood. Low levels of grain too but enough to give character.
   

  This makes a good combination for portraiture (though perhaps a tad too punchy in some cases) but also with a macro lens and flower/foliage photography (one such subject Fuji recommends with this as it happens.)

Colour Slide Film

Check back tomorrow when I’ll run through these

(* : I had concerns it was in good nick because it underexposed and the owner never had it sorted and it languished on a shelf…)

I’ve been meaning to check this out for a while but I finally got around to it last night — working out the age of my cameras. The EOS 5 was an early one, April 1993 and the EOS 3 is not that old, May 2000.

Anyway I’m off, going to hike up to Amberley from Arundel, up by the Arun river, up onto Amberley Mount and back down again through Wepham and Warningcamp.

There’s what looks to be a nice pub in Burpham, George & Dragon but I don’t think I’ll be passing at a good time (i.e. at the end of the walk…)

I have one roll of Velvia to shoot, so I’ll also take some Reala 100 in case.

I love this cold crisp weather we’re having at the moment!