Wynwood in January 2013

Wynwood, Leica M2/35mm Scopar/Tri-X @ E.I.400 in TMax developer
Few more photographs out of many I took in Wynwood recently:

Miami Street Photographer: a facebook page

I started the page for my photos at facebook. There will be more photographs than here, some of my older work, all of new. I'll post 2-3 pictures per day. Please "like" it if...if you like it :)

Night in Wynwood II

Again, Tri-X at E.I.1600 in Leica M2 but this time with Cosina's 35mm f/2.5 lens.
All on 1/15 and wide open.

Olympus XA again

I switched few things last week: went to TMax developer from Diafine for Tri-X and stopped pushing the film; I tried again little Olympus XA which had been sitting on the shelf for the last 2 years. So far I like both changes. What killed my interest in XA last time was Ilford HP5+ at E.I.800; it was not very good combo. Tri-X @ E.I.400 is much better.

Two Stories Plus X

I have little archive of five old undeveloped rolls I received from the ebay seller in Rochester, NY; there were 3 separate auctions somewhere in 2010; so I developed the rolls in 3 batches with the last one done just recently. Let's start with the first 2 rolls I developed in the first batch --
..........................................................................................................Here they are, the two 620 Plux-X rolls of intense green:



The condition could be better: the hardest rolls to separate from backing paper so far; I had to tear the paper to pieces and still some of it stayed, glued to the film.
The film itself was alive as quick test revealed; developed it at 40F/4.5C in 12% HC-110.
Here is the piece of developed film caught on camera before scanning:



Frame numbers got themselves happily transferred to the emulsion; there are dead round yellow spots where emulsion touched the hot metal of the spool's rusty cheeks and holes, holes, holes...the roll must had been stored in the attic or garage for ages, where it became really hot in the summers.

Still, there were some recoverable images:

Boy scouts from Brownie Six-20 flash

I found this camera on *bay in 2010. I have the record somewhere. I know I received it from Springfield, Oregon. It had exposed roll of 620 Kodak film in it; I bought it because of this forgotten, never developed film. I thought I developed it long time ago, there in 2010, and that it was empty. It was clear case of a false memory: while recently giving the camera to a friend as a present, I checked what's inside (good habit!) and presto! It was sitting there, red roll of 620 Kodak Verichrome Pan.
Verichrome Pan is relatively new film, it went on sale in 1956. So these are late 50s or 60s:

Wynwood at night

It was...windy, dark, surreal. Miraculous.
I had just few frames left in my M2...have to return there soon.
Leica M2/28mm/Tri-X at E.I.1600 in Diafine.

Miami Street Photography Festival: how it was

Here is the long overdue report on the Miami Street Photography Festival I was busy with in early December and on Alex and Rebecca Norris Webb's master-class I took during the festival. I actually posted a piece on my LiveJournal blog on the subject, but it was all done in Russian. So if you can read and, more importantly, understand Russian, check it out: ***here***

For the rest of you western folks, let's translate it into some Runglish...

Winter

Leica M2/28mm/Kentmere 400 @ E.I.800 in Diafine

Kentmere 400 film vs Tri-X in Diafine

I have not recently reviewed any film/developer combinations in this blog. There is a reason for this: film is well known thing, why bother with the reviews anyway? Well, if it is Tri-X of HP5+ then it's true, they have been around for a while, along with Diafine 2-bath developer I'm using here, but Kentmere 400 is all new animal, at least for me. So I bought 100ft roll for $29.95 from Adorama and tried it, along with Tri-X, in the same Leica M2 with 50mm f/2 Planar lens from Zeiss. It is not very scientific comparison per se; I just needed some feeling of it. I exposed Tri-X at E.I.1200-1600 and Kentmere at E.I.640-800, as recommended for Diafine. I looked at the resulting film strips on the light table and scanned them.
Looking at the negatives: Kentmere is drying flat, which is good. My version of Tri-X (Arista Premium 400 from Freestyle Photo) is not. The Kentmere is a bit "flatter" in terms of tonal gradations, compared to Tri-X. The Tri-X grain is bigger but I also like it more, the dense grain of Kentmere has not impressed me much (see the fragments below). On the night shots, Kentmere has denser blacks with less details in them. Ok, here are the shots, face to face --