Scenic View in Black and White

Somewhere in Vermont, 2016

The color version of this scene was first posted over a year ago and can be found here.

Gazebo

Gorham, NH  2016

Birch Trees

Gorham, NH  2016

Birch trees were made to be photographed using black and white film, don't you think?   One problem  I've run across with using film is that I tend to forget to finish the roll in a timely fashion.  This image sat in my Pentax ME Super for a year until I finally got around to finishing the roll and had it processed.  

Seaport Street

Mystic Seaport, 2017

Greenmanville Church

Mystic Seaport, 2017

Shot with Ilford 400 Professional black and white film.  

The Morgan in Black and White

Mystic Seaport, 2017

For a change of pace, I like to shoot black and white film from time to time.  Scenes around Mystic Seaport just look right when shot in Black and White.  

First Congregational Church

New London, CT  2016

One of the images above is a digital image, converted to black and white using the program Silver Efex Pro with a preset that is supposed to emulate Ilford Delta 400.  I'm sure trained eyes can spot the digital image.  Care to make a choice? 

Whale Oil Row

New London, CT  2016

These buildings were built between 1835 and 1834 in the Greek Revival Style.  They were originally owned by whale shipowners who became very wealthy selling whale oil.  Today the buildings house various attorneys' offices.

Two More Black & White Images

Rocky Neck State Park, Niantic, CT  2016

I've posted many pictures of the pavilion at Rocky Neck State Park.  I think it looks better in black and white. 

My Summer Project V

Allow me some final photos taken this past summer using a "vintage" Pentax ME Super with Kodak TMax 400 film.  These were all taken ignoring the camera's light meter and just using the "Sunny 16" rule for exposure.

New London, CT  2015

So, what did I learn?  Having spent some time shooting film, I now have a greater appreciation for photographers who still use film in this digital age.  Shooting digital does tend to spoil one.  Digital images are instantly available.  All the important information is captured in the digital file and can be recalled when processing the images on a computer. It's easier to correct mistakes in the field when shooting digital. I can't tell you how many times I looked at the back of the ME Super expecting to see my recently shot image and seeing only the back of the camera and not the LCD screen!  I found myself thinking more about each picture I took when I was using film.  I tend to take way too many pictures when I shoot digital, since there is no film cost or processing cost. I'm not sure if my images captured on film are any better than the ones I captured digitally.  I do like the look of the black and white images I made using film though.

  Niantic, CT  2015

My next steps will be to have my Pentax ME Super taken in for cleaning and some maintenance, and perhaps calibrate the light meter, if that can even be done.  Then I have two rolls  Ilford Delta 400 film to shoot.  If  I get really ambitious I  might get into scanning the negatives myself,  and maybe, just maybe, make some prints.  That will become my Autumn and Winter Projects.  Thanks for reading! 

My Summer Project IV

Scenes at Mystic Seaport look great in black and white.  Here are a couple more examples from my last roll of Kodak TMax 400.

Mystic Seaport, Mystic, CT  2015

During this entire exercise, I've been interested in doing some of my own scans.  All the photos I've posted here were processed by a company called The DarkRoom and I ordered their enhanced scans which provide images at 2048 x 3072 pixels.  So far, I'm pretty satisfied, but I'm wondering if I could improve upon the quality by doing my own scans.  After all, I do have the negatives.  I might make that my winter project.

My Summer Project III

I would like to thank my followers for all of the comments left on my last two posts.  I appreciate all the tips as I continue to trouble shoot my Pentax ME Super.   One of the first things I did, after looking at the first two rolls of film I shot was to visit Flickr and search for photos that were tagged with "Pentax ME Super" and "Kodak TMax 400".  This is very easy to do in Flickr and returned many photos which gave me an idea of how my photos should look.  After looking at the Flickr photos, I was encouraged, since many of the photos look pretty close to my better shots.  I had more success with my second roll of film, but still felt the light meter was erratic, and could not be trusted. Researching the many on-line forums I found that this is a common problem with the Pentax ME Super.  It also appears that this can be easily fixed.  Before I send off  the camera for repair I decided to shoot one more roll of film and not rely on the camera's light meter to set my aperture and shutter speed.  To do this, I used the tried and true "Sunny 16 Rule" for exposure, which just about every good photographer knows about.  So I loaded the camera with my last roll of Kodak TMax 400,  and with the ISO set to 400, I set my aperture to f16 and my shutter speed 1/500 of a second off I went on a bright sunny day.  This was my most successful roll, containing many more keepers.  Some of the better shots are below.

Mystic Seaport, Mystic, CT  2015

I'm encouraged by these results, and I plan to have the camera sent off to a local shop for some cleaning and maintenance before I shoot anymore film.  At least know I know I can't rely on the camera's light meter, and will determine my exposures in other ways.  

My Summer Project II

I fared a little better with my second roll of Kodak Tmax400 film with a lot more pictures closer to what I was expecting to see.  However I found it a little tricky using the Pentax ME Super's light meter which varied wildly from shot to shot.  Most of the shots looked like the  the following two images.

Mystic Seaport, Mystic, CT

I expected to see some grain in the photos, but there were a lot of these images which appeared to be washed out, and of very low contrast.  I wasn't really sure if the images were over exposed or not.  But from that same roll, I also got the following image, more to my liking.

It appeared to me that I might have a problem with the light meter.  

My Summer Project

Like many of my generation, we grew up using film for photography and more than likely one of the many simple "point and shoot" cameras of the day made by the Kodak company.  If one really developed an interest in photography back then, and had the resources you might be able shoot with a Nikon, Olympus or Pentax 35 mm film camera.  Digital photography has changed everything, allowing just about everyone with a phone to take high quality photographs which are instantly viewable and shared around the world.  Still there is a market for analog film photography and many photographers prefer film to digital.  I'm not going to argue the merits of either, or which is better.  They both are just ways to produce images and after all, it's the photograph that's important, not how it was captured.  Having learned a lot more about photography using my Nikon D90, I thought it was time to try my hand at some film photography.  I had an old Pentax ME Super sitting around for about 30 years in a case and thought I'd break it out again to see first of all if it would still work, and then try to take some images.   I bought a reconditioned 50 mm lens from Ebay, some Kodak Tmax 400 film from B&H, loaded the camera with fresh batteries and the film and off I went.

Surprisingly, with fresh batteries, the light meter appeared to work.  The Pentax ME Super allows for Automatic shooting or manual shooting.  One sets the aperture and then adjusts the shutter speed by pressing one of two buttons on top until the light meter in the view finder is green.  After I shot my first roll of film, I sent it off to be processed.  The negatives were scanned digitally and within I week I received the negatives, and a CD containing the scanned images.  The results of my first efforts were less than spectacular and to me, a little disappointing.  Below is perhaps the best shot from that first roll.

North Stonington, CT  2015

Without the aid of all the metadata that's stored in today's digital files, it was hard to determine what went wrong with a lot of the pictures on this roll.  I neglected to write down things like aperture, shutter speed, etc.  So after one roll of film I wasn't sure if the camera was working properly or not.  In addition, perhaps I was so used to looking at digital black and white photos, that I wasn't really sure what to expect.  Clearly some troubleshooting was in order.  I'll be posting some more examples this week of my film work.