Stikkord: frozen nature

Capturing snow and fog

Yet again, the persistent winter of 2021 struck  back at us with all its wreath. After a few weeks of impeccable weather and a really pleasant spring mood, we were once again confronted with the face of King Winter. When I went out yesterday, it was blowing a gale and the snow flew thick in the air. Thicker than horse-flies at a swamp in the summer. The weather was bland and uninspiring  and being out there was nasty and uncomfortable. Yet, I had something in mind.

I wanted to capture the foggy and snowy day with a gritty and grainy mood. I chose to go for a BW film. The Rollei Retro 400s, which is a film I have used a bit before and that I find to suit my way of shooting very well. My thinking was that the 400 ISO film would give me just the right amount of grain and contrast, as well as giving me the opportunity to shoot hand-held, which is very handy in windy conditions, where camera-shake due to wind is a real danger, even with  a sturdy tripod.

A fallen branch – Olympus OM-1 w 50mm Zuiko f1,8 – Rollei Retro 400s – Rodinal 1+100

I shot about half a roll of film, focussing on making quick compositions around branches that, over the winter with heavy snow, has broken off bigger trees. The foggy and snowy conditions makes these branches stand out as interesting shapes, and shows them for the beauty they are. WIth the added grain from the film and the additional grain and contrast from the use of Rodinal 1+100 Semi-Stand gave that somewhat “raw” look I was going for.

Reklamer

The camera I chose to use, was my brilliant Olympus OM-1. This is a camera I trust at all shutter-speeds and that I know will work regardless of conditions. However, I noticed two issues on this particular outing. first and foremost, there was a little piece of dust that obstructed my view through the viewfinder. I used it as it was when out shooting, because I did not want to take the lens off in the middle of the show-storm. When I took the lens off, there was a little piece of dust on the focussing glass. How this ended up there is unknown to me, I have not taken the lens off this camera for months, and it has not been there before.

A fallen branch – Olympus OM-1 w 50mm Zuiko f1,8 – Rollei Retro 400s – Rodinal 1+100

It also seems to give uneven exposures at the highest shutter-speed 1/1000th, I even got a blank frame that I know was shot with this shutter-speed. This has also never happened to me before, and I will keep an eye on this in better conditions. 

All in all, I got the images I wanted, and all in the matter of around 15 minutes in the snowy gale. Thank you for following and reading, I hope you enjoy my images.

Olympus OM-1 w 50mm Zuiko f1,8 – Rollei Retro 400s – Rodinal 1+100

Shooting Boots film?

A short while ago, I shot a roll of expired medium format film and got «interesting» results with a lot of mottling and so on. I am not a very frequent user of expired films, but once in a while, I get hold of some expired film, and I do not mind trying it out either. Normally, the expired films you get hold of are your big manufacturers such as; Kodak, Ilford, Fuji and their friends. However, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, there were a huge number of rebranded films and budget options that are not present today.

In this entry, I am writing about my tryout of one of these films. A film sold in the pharmacies back in the day. The Boots Universal 400. Which film this actually is, is not easy to read out of the packaging or negatives. The negatives are fairly anonymous without much writing on them, and on the box, it only says that it is made in the EU for Boots Pharmacies in England. The EU-part leads my suspicion to either Agfa or Ferrania as the real producer of this film, but I will not make any claims. Please let me know in the comments if you know.

My equipment and film for this entry. Olympus OM-1 and the Boots Universal 400. Sadly, I did not get the extra 100 advantage card points from Boots, because I developed the film myself at home.

I chose to go with the Olympus OM-1 as it was a very cold morning. The temperature was -20 degrees when I arrived at the location, and the Olympus has an impeccable record of always functioning in cold weather conditions like the ones today.

Because the film expired in 2006, I chose to abide with the rule of thumbs, one stop pr decade, and I metered my shots at ISO 160, and did some slight bracketing just in case. My expectation from this film was slight colour casts and an increase in grain, which I indeed got. The colours were severely off in many of the shots, rendering the misty lake in everything from strong oranges to fiery reds. Instead of making heavy colour corrections in post-processing, I chose to go with the colours the film gave me, and I did not do any grain reduction either.

Boots photographic aquarelle – Olympus OM-1 w Zuiko 50mm f1,8 lens. Boots Universal 400@160

Some of the images got a nearly «Aquarelle like» mood to them, and I find them quite interesting and beautiful in their own way, even though they are clearly not the most spotless, nor grain free images I have taken by any means.

Reklamer

Another interesting thing from this morning, was the the lighting conditions changed so much over the 45-60 minutes I was out shooting. The previous image was taken at the beginning of the session, and the following was image nr 36 on the roll.

Boots photographic aquarelle – Olympus OM-1 w Zuiko 50mm f1,8 lens. Boots Universal 400@160

Shooting films with huge amounts of grain is not normally my thing, but sometimes grain gives you images a little extra punch in the mood and makes them more interesting. In this case, I think that is what the grain did. It gave the images a level of abstraction that I find very pleasing. But I appreciate that this might not be everybody’s cup of tea.

Boots photographic aquarelle – Olympus OM-1 w Zuiko 50mm f1,8 lens. Boots Universal 400@160