Frames of Norway pt3 – Redoing pt2

A few weeks ago, I went out to create a second episode of my new series «Frames of Norway», a series where I explore the landscapes of Norway with my analog cameras. I also dive somewhat into the history of the location and other interesting aspects of landscape and the characteristics of the area.

For this second part, I visited Amlisberget close to Moelv to enjoy the beautiful views over lake Mjøsa from high up. At the time, I was very excited about being out for that trip. It was my first real walk in nature for a while, and I got too trigger-happy and blew through a roll of FP4plus far too quickly. I think parts of my problem this day, was that I had the Canon T70 and shot aperture-priority, This made me not think well enough about my compositions to make proper photographs. I went into what I call the «digital trap» and just rattles off the shots and ended up with something that I am not happy with. At the time, when I looked at the images after development, I was very excited and felt they were nice, but after a while, I am not happy at all. So unhappy actually, that I decided to redo the trip.

For this round, I chose to go with medium format, I rolled up the Hasselblad with a roll of Kodak Ektar 100. I figured that most of my compositions in the last attempt were actually dependent on colour, and the weather was rather nice, and Ektar looks good when there is some light around. Also, the fact that I only have 12 shots and have to set them up manually using a light-meter, helps med focus and things closer about what I am doing.

Parts of the path – Hasselblad 500C w 80mm Planar – F11 1sec – Kodak Ektar 100

One of the greatest things about doing landscape-photography in Norway, is the culture of «friend associations». People sign up as «friends of the area» and spend their time and knowledge preparing and tidying good paths for everyone to use. These people work as volunteers and they are not even always reimbursed for their expenses. This path that I am following this time is marked and maintained by members of two different associations. The local sports-team and Moelvmarkas Venner. I don’t think we can measure the value of their work in money. Access to nature has been very important for the Norwegians during the difficult Pandemic-times.

Parts of the path – Hasselblad 500C w 80mm Planar – F5.6 1/8sec – Kodak Ektar 100

Much of the path towards Amlisberget goes through woodland, parts of it through copse-areas and some through your typical forest area. Most of the trees are spruces, as it is the most commonly grown tree in this area of Norway. One thing I learned very quickly at this path was to watch my steps. Not even a kilometer into my trip, I saw the first adder. Not that this snake possesses any threat to me at all, it is lightly venomous and not in any way aggressive. Most bites happen on hands and fingers when people try to pick them up or on feet when people step on them.But at the same time, I don’t want to upset my «host» when I am visiting their home. In all, I saw two adders (Vipera Berus) on this trip, and I heard the sound of five others creeping away in the grass as I was following the path. Sorry that I am not giving you any images of them here, I did not have the lens to photograph these images this time.

I walked out around noon this day because I wanted to have the mid-day lights and to use the blue sky and white clouds to my advantage. This gave me relatively short exposure times for most of my images that were not taken in the forest.

Lonely spruces in the view – Hasselblad 500C w 80mm Planar – F16 1/125sec – Kodak Ektar 100

As you can see in these coming images, this is one of the most important forestry-areas in Norway, and it is located on the outskirts of the huge Taiga – the boreal forest area that goes across the whole Northern part of the globe. It is said to start for real a few kilometers further east, but you can still see the same kind of landscape as you would see throughout the Taiga, from Løten to Vladivostok.

Much of the industry in this area is also based on forestry and wood-work, and in Norway the name «Moelven» is widely known to mean quality lumber. The lumber-industry in this area is still one of the strongest in Norway.

The View – Hasselblad 500C w 80mm Planar – F16 1/125sec – Kodak Ektar 100

The trip up to Amlisberget is recommended for everyone by me, the last 900 meters are quite steep and you should make sure to have enough water for this part when you are walking. There is also no guess-work where you need to go, as the path is well marked and easy to follow. If you walk in the morning or around noon, you will most likely have the place to yourself. The only person I met on my way up, was a local fireman who was out, putting up warning signs for forest fires. On my way back; however, I met more people. The trip is worth it, the view is magnificent.

The View – Hasselblad 500C w 80mm Planar – F16 1/125sec – Kodak Ektar 100 (The colours are a bit off in this one for some reason)

A Bladventure

For the sake of balance, and because I happen to have some nice images, I am going to deviate slightly from the line of «cheap cameras» in this entry, and show some images taken with my, not by any means cheap, Hasselblad. Or in my case, some times a hassle-blad. The first thing my Hasselblad did to me after I bought it, was jamming up. And not the cute little sweet jam that can easily be mended, but the proper jammedy-jam-jam that has to be sent off for a very expensive repair abroad.

I recently got it back from repair, and I have brought it along for a few outings lately, and I really find myself to love using it. Not that it really makes any big difference to anyone an image is taken with an expensive or a cheap camera, but to me it has to do with inspiration. Some cameras inspire me to go out shooting and some do not. That’s why i often feature the Olympus, the Konica, Ikoflex and the Bronica ETR. For different reasons, these cameras make me «get out there» and «get the shutter finger active».

Reklamer

Here are some shots I did recently with my Hasselblad, that I find to inspire me a lot. The colour ones are taken with Kodak Ektar, and the BW ones are done with Ilford Pan F plus, that I pulled a stop. The Pan F is developed in Adox Atomal 49 stock for six minutes, which is 20% off the time for box speed. After having used Atomal 49 for a while, I have found this to be a developer I am very happy with, and it might replace Xtol as my number one developer.

A persistent winter fighting an inevitable spring at Kremmerodden – Hasselblad 500CM – Planar 80 – Kodak Ektar

Hasselblad 500 CM – Planar 80mm – Ilford Pan F plus @25 – Ados Atomal 49 Stock

Capturing bleak winter colours

As I have previously written on my blog, I like shooting Kodak ProImage 100 in the winter. There is something about the colours and the subtlety of it, that I find to be exactly the right media for my style of winter-shooting. Some days ago, I gave the Konica a roll of ProImage and went for a little outing to some different locations where I could access the lake. The day were one of those days where it was clearing up after some dull and grey days, and there were very bleak, oranges and purples in the landscape.

Lith Print feel – Konica Autoreflex TC – Hexanon 50mm f1,8 – Kodak ProImage 100

I have also found myself to be very fond of the little Konica camera. Yes, it has a bit fewer shutter speeds than the OM-1 that inspired me to buy it, and indeed it hates cold weather. But the camera, and its lens is in mint conditions and takes beautiful images. The lens is very sharp and produces beautiful bokeh. It also feels very sturdy in the hand. From what I gather this is because mine is an early model where the whole body is a metal construction. It does not produce any light leaks at this point and I guess the light meter would work if I gave it a battery.

*Tree root in snow – Konica Autoreflex TC – Hexanon 50mm f1,8 – Kodak ProImage 100*

Based on the fact that this was marketed as an «entry level» SLR camera in its time, I must say that its performance is incredible. If I was to recommend an entry level SLR to anyone at this point, I would be very tempted to say Konica Autoreflex TC and just smile. I am very happy that I purchased this camera and I will probably keep it as one of my regular users over some time, along side with the Olympus OM-1.

Testing a Konica Autoreflex TC (Part 2)

This entry is a sequel of a previous entry where I shot a roll of Ilford FP4 plus trying out my new Konica Autoreflex TC camera, and where I, somewhat irrelevantly compared it to the Olympus OM-1 because I saw a video about it on Youtube. In retrospect, I regret that comparison because I find the cameras to be very different and not too comparable. I therefore cleared my mind, and I rolled the Konica up with a roll of Kodak ProImage 100, which is my preferred colour film for 35mm winter photography, and I went for a little walk.

My car needed to visit the garage that morning, and I had some time to walk around shooting the Konica handheld to get a good feeling about how it performed. Since the morning weather (The lovely thing about Winter-Norway around 10.00) was bright, colourful and vibrant I chose to go with Colour Shooting

A short time-lapse of the beautiful weather conditions this day.

Even though the Konica really dislikes the cold weather and can start to play up in different ways, I learnt from this last time, and this time, I chose to consider where it had issues last time before I started working. Fist of all, when the shutter gets cold, it tends to stick a little bit, therefore I tried to keep the cameras as close to my body, under my jacket, most of the time. This probably looked a bit strange, but it worked. I also avoided the lens fogging up due to this.

Another issue I found last time, was that the rewind button under the camera sticked and would not operate properly outside and the film ripped. I tried this button on multiple occasions indoors later, and it always worked. So this time, I did not rewind the film before I came home, and I did not have any issues with ripped film. That said, though. The take-up spool did in fact cut off the tip of the film leader in some weird way.

Konica Autoreflex TC w 50mm Hexanon f1,8 lens – f11 1/60th Kodak ProImage 100. Tetenal C41

Reklamer

I shot without filters this time, but I would probably have chosen to use a two stop polarizer if I had one for the ø55 filter tread. But when looking at the images, that was not really necessary after all. Working with the Konica camera is very pleasant, and it lies very well in the hand and has easy controls to operate. It also seems to be quite accurate in the normal shutter speeds that I have tried out, but then again, it doesn’t have shutter speeds between 1/8th and B.

What I really like, is that lovely Hexanon-lens. It has a very nice sharpness and it helps me render really vibrant colours and grey tones very well. I am looking forward to trying this one out with some Bokeh-shots with wide apertures at some stage. Stay tuned.

*Konica Autoreflex TC w 50mm Hexanon f1,8 lens Kodak ProImage 100. Tetenal C41*

More Christmas decorations

This entry is a sequel of the FP4 shoot with the Advent decorations. If you haven’t seen that entry, please scroll down and find it. In this entry, I have once again done like a cat, playing with the Christmas decorations. This time, I played with the Christmas tree and a roll of Kodak ProImage 100 and I used the Olympus OM-1 with the same 50mm lens that I often use it with. Originally my plan was to shoot this with the Praktica MTL5 B and the Helios 44-2 lens, but it turned out that the lovely Praktica didn’t really appreciate being hooked up with the shutter release cable, and it therefore decided to jam. Not the kind of jammed that you can easily fix yourself, the properly jammed jam. Therefore, I had to restart the shoot with the Olympus, which handled the cable just fine.

I shot the Zuiko Lens fully open at its maximum aperture of f1,8, but I chose to let the Christmas tree lights be my only light source and ended up using longer shutter speeds, such as 1/2, 1/4 and even one and three seconds.

Christmas tree angel – Olympus OM-1 w 50mm Zuiko f1,8 lens. f1,8 shutter 1/2 seconds. Kodak Proimage 100

I know that there are many opinions on the Kodak ProImage 100 out and about. For my style and preference of photography, I find the ProImage to be brilliant for capturing winter colours where I often find Ektar too vibrant. Also, for indoor photography like this, I find this film to work perfectly, as I would often have to de-saturate Ektar in these situations. But again, this is personal preference. Personally, I like the «level between» Ektar and Portra as I see this film to be.

Reklamer

These images are slightly colour corrected in Photoshop after scanning, there were no colour shifts, but I found that the images got scanned with slightly different white balance. Not a big deal though, as it was easily correctable with Photoshop. The film was developed using the Tetenal Colortec C41 kit, which I find to work very well and be easily controllable. When using this kit, I cannot understand why it took me so long before I dared to try developing colour myself.

*Shooting around the Christmas tree – Olympus OM-1 w 50mm Zuiko f1,8 lens. f1,8 shutter 1/2 seconds.*
*Kodak Proimage 100*

Thank you for reading and following me through 2020. Let us all hope for a better and less troublesome and pandemic 2021.

Capturing the winter colours

Shooting in winter time can sometimes be very uninspiring and difficult. There are no vibrant colours in the nature, and the weather is sometimes really and truly nasty. Therefore, I have made myself a project this winter. To capture the mood of the Norwegian winter with analog photography. I have not limited myself in terms of films, developers or styles. The goal with the project is to convey the Norwegian winter mood through my photography.

This is the second entry in the project, and in this one, I am working with one of the days where the weather is nice and where there are colours to work with.

To capture the colours, I chose to go with a very under-rated film that I find to work very well with the Norwegian winter tones. The Kodak Pro Image 100. I have used some rolls of this film previously, ordered on eBay as it was not sold in Europe. From what I have gathered online, this film was originally introduced in South America and Asia as an entry-level professional colour negative film. Based on the Kodak Gold, it was then altered, tweaked and improved to produce better skin tones, but keep the warm Kodak colour palette that the Kodak Gold is renown for.

Olympus OM-1 Zuiko Olympus 50mm f,18 w 1,6 stop Circular Polarizer. Kodak ProImage 100

When you google this film, you get a lot of «so-called experts in the field» who has written some kind of a review of this film based on their experience after shooting one roll of film. All of these conclude with something like «This film is so cheap, why would Kodak brand such a cheap film professional, Ektar is far better». I find this to be unfair to the Pro Image. KODAK Ektar is a brilliant film, and a film I use a lot myself, but I find it to be too vibrant for my winter shooting. I also mean, that you can never judge a film just by shooting one roll of it, and choice of film is a personal choice and relies heavily on personal preference. after fifteen rolls (three five-packs) of Pro-Image, I have found this film to work brilliantly for my preferences.

Reklamer

One of the lovely things about working in Norway in the winter, is that morning light happens at more comfortable times than in the summer. My «early morning shoot» started at 09.30 with a cup of coffee and ended around 11.00 with me rewinding the film back into the cassette and traveled home for development. Even so, I did not meet as many people as I expected on my little outing into the lovely lights and colours. And I find that I was able to capture the mood of this morning.

A sunny, cold winters day after many grey dull days, with some lovely almost purple colours in the skies and a yellowish tone on the ground near the lake.

I then ended my day with doing a C41 process. I had fresh chemicals which were mixed right before, and the cycle went like a dream. I see a slight cyan-cast in the scans. This could be because I had to pause the development between the Developer and the Blix due to a temperature fall in the Blix. I then left the films in the tank with some 38 degrees clean water for some minutes, while the Blix heated up again.