October 4, 2011
Back in March I bought a 50mm 1.7 for my old Minolta Maxxum 50…. I bought it on a whim, and really didn’t know what to expect. I started to read about film… again. I shot true black and white for years through high school & college, but never color. I started reading about this new Kodak Portra film, so I looked it up on Amazon & bought a 5 pack. Karen & Paul were coming to town for their portrait session, so we broke it out for a frame or two that day. I put the camera back in my bag & would break it out occasionally over the next few months. It took me from March to September to finish that first roll. I then quickly shot a 2nd roll & sent them off to Richard Photo Lab, holding my breath & hoping for the best. ** Let me just stop & say the people at Richard Photo Lab are amazing…. theywill hold your hand and walk you through everything, or point you to a place that will answer your questions…. They aren’t cheap, but they know their stuff. Of course I had a few frames that were less than desirable, as I was experimenting with my settings, but I had a few come out that I really love…. My little lens is an auto focus, but focusing it manually gives me a lot more freedom…. however, the focus ring isn’t smooth, so it can be hard to tell when you have your focus locked in where you want it…. I couldn’t believe how sharp my photos were, despite the rough focus ring. I mean… just look at the petals on those spider mums! I really like these images of Karen & Paul… They’re a little dark & murky but I think we were probably playing with rating our film higher that it actually was (ie: we were shooting 400 speed film, but told the camera it was 1600) Me and Jer at a wedding in Savannah 🙂 I’m really excited to shoot more film now 🙂 I splurged yesterday and bought a Nikon F5! This camera was the top of the line in 2004 when it came out, and cost about $3k. I bought one yesterday for $325! I cannot wait to play with it, and use our current lens line up with it. We plan on breaking out the F5 at our shoots & take a few frames with it each time. Maybe one day we’ll get brave & do a whole shoot on film.
