I’ve finally had a minute to finish editing the images from our trip to Washington D.C. earlier this month (ostensibly to attend a conference).  For this trip, I took my X-Pro1 with the 18, 35, and 60mm primes, my Leica M6 with the Voigtlander 35/2.5 Color-Skopar and Nokton 50/1.5, and my Mamiya 7 with the 80/4.0, along with a bunch of film (mainly Portra 400, Fuji 400H, and a bunch of different reversal films.  The plan was not to carry all of this around with me all the time, but to afford me the choice of what to bring, packed into my Billingham Hadley Small, based on the shooting circumstances.  I’d have the M6 for general use, the Mamiya for more structured shooting, and the X-Pro1 for low light and when I felt like shooting a digital camera.  All of this gear still only occupies the same amount of space in my Domke F2 as the  old Canon 5D Mark II kit I took to Asia in 2011, and I *MUCH* prefer this kit.

Sharp-eyed readers will notice that some of these images have some pretty nasty scratches on them.  I wont mention the name of the lab that is responsible for this (email me if you live in Toronto and want to be spared this agony), but suffice it to say I got a bit anxious to see the images off of one roll and took the film to a cheapo lab, instead of Toronto Image Works, which is my normal lab.  Sure, it was cheaper, but the results were terrible, and I eventually just got tired of trying to fix every last scratch in Photoshop.  I wont cheap out like this again; in fact, I’m going to be experimenting with a Tetenal C-41 home developing kit next week.  Stay tuned…

Portra 400

Leica M6 – CV 35 f/2.5 – Kodak Portra 400

I was in D.C. to attend the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), of which I am a member.  This is a massive, 20-30,000 people-type conference, and can get very overwhelming, very quickly.  One ends up attending certain sessions of interest, and then steering clear for a good part of the rest of the meeting, which allowed me to do a bit of time to do some roaming and shooting.  Fortunately, the weather was fabulous (warmer, in fact, than it was in Naples, Florida the week before).

X-Pro1 – 60mm f/2.4 – VSCO

Mamiya 7 – 80 f/4 – Fujicolor 400H

X-Pro1 – 60 f/2.4 – VSCO

More X-Pro1

Mamiya 7 – 80 f/4 – Fujicolor 400H
This is a good example of the excellent dynamic range of negative film. I exposed for the bus driver, but managed to retain the brightest highlights.

Mamiya 7 – 80 f/4 – Fujicolor 400H

Mamiya 7 – 80 f/4 – Fujicolor 400H
I generally use ColorPerfect to invert and colour manage my negative film scans, but with 400H, I was able to achieve a great result just using Lightroom 5 (beta). The same workflow did not give good results with Portra 400, which I found quite odd.

Leica M6 – CV 35 f/2.5 – Kodak Portra 400 (pushed 1 stop)

Leica M6 – CV 35 f/2.5 – Kodak Portra 400 (pushed 1 stop)
Gen at the White House

X-Pro1 – 18 f/2 – VSCO
The cherry blossoms were quite impressive. Shame about the scaffolding on the monument…

Leica M6 – CV 50 f/1.5 – Kodak Portra 400
Loving those Portra 400 tones…

Here’s a great example of why I love film so much.  We had lunch at a great little Italian place in Georgetown, and I had both my X-Pro1 and Leica with me (some would call this overkill…I would not).  Check out the differences:

X-Pro1 – 18 f/2 – VSC) (Kodak Portra 160 setting)

The X-Pro1 is a wonderful camera, and the Fuji colours are absolutely incredible.  This image took the very smallest amount of work in Lightroom to get right.  The background is blowing out, but the muted colours are very Portra-like.  I’m thrilled with the output of the X-Pro1.

On the other hand…

Leica M6 – CV 50 f/1.5 – Kodak Portra 400
These skin tones are outstanding.

 
 What can I say about these colours?  I’m absolutely blown away by how nice the Portra 400 tones are, and especially by how much better they are than the already-excellent X-Pro1.  If you’re shooting portraits and you’re not using Portra 400, you’re missing out.  Oh, and the Nokton 50/1.5?  What a beautiful lens.

Mamiya 7 – 80 f/4 – Fujichrome Provia 400X
I had to get up stupidly early to catch this light. I love the tones of Provia 400X; slightly less garish than Velvia, but still offering all the wonderful colours of a great slide film. If only it weren’t so damn expensive…

Mamiya 7 – 80 f/4 – Fujichrome Velvia 50
It’s not for everything, but when you need Velvia, nothing else will suffice.

Leica M6 – CV 50 f/1.5 – Kodak Portra 400

X-Pro1 – 60 f/2.4 – VSCO

I’ve still got a roll of Ilford PanF+ (120 format) and of Kodak Tri-X (35mm) sitting in my fridge, waiting for me to get off my lazy bum and develop them.  I’ll post the best of those rolls as soon as they’re ready.